PRINCESS & ADVENTURESS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11305, 2 September 1922, Page 10

PRINCESS & ADVENTURESS

(By Sidney Monk.) Few characters in ihiistory are so intriguing as Charles Maurice de Talleyramd-Perigord, aristocrat, before the Revolution mast worldly of bishops (mainly because his lameness prevented him from .being a soldier), revolutionist, exile, French Minister for Foreign Affairs successively under the Directorate, the Consulate, the Empire, and the restored Bourbons; a •wit, the supreme cynic, one of the few men whom Napoleon feared, and the man who could and would have saved him had he listened to his advice before the fatal expedition to Russia in 1812. A PATRIOTIC CROOK. In an age of portends, Talleyrand had few rivals in astuteness or in unsoru'pulousness, but in his own crooked way he was • a patriot, caring more for the good of his country than, most of his contemporaries. Carlyle thus describes him:— A sardonic grimness lies in that irreverent reverence of Autun. He will do and suffer strange things; and will become surely one of the strangest things ever seen, or like to he seen.' A man living in falsehood and on falsehood; yet not what you can call a false man: there is the speciality! It will be an enigma for future ages, one may hope: hitherto isuch a, product of Nature and Art was possible only for this age of ours. Napoleon married a beautiful Creole bom in the West Indies. Talleyrand married a beautiful woman, with ooloured blood in her veins, incorrectly also described as a Creole, though she was bom in the small Danish possession of Tranquebar, in India. Before thedr marriages, the reputations of both ladies were none of the best, but Mme. Talleyrand’s past was Certainly more notorious than that of Josephine ■Bbauhamais. “STATURE OF A NYMPH.”

Noel Catherine Worlee ■ was the daughter of a French official, who was, incidentally, a Chevalier of St. Louis, stationed at the port of Pondicherry. Her mother was an Eurasian. When she was sixteen stye was married to a clerk in the English Indian Civil Service, balled Grand, who had first gone out to India in 1766, sharing a cabin with Thackeray’s grandfather. Catherine’s dowry was a modest one, and her husband’s position was undistinguished. Ho was dim and stupid. Sh© was extremely beautiful, and soon after her arrival in Calcutta she collected a circle of ardent admirers, among them Sir Philip Francis, reputed author of the* “Letters of .Junius,” Who had.' attained an official position in India, thanks to the favour of a Minister whom be had himself denounced .as “the fawning traitor to every party and person.” Years afterwards, Francis said. of Mme. Grand:—-

She was tall, most elegantly formed, the stature of a nymph, a complexion of unequalled delicacy, and auburn hair of the most luxuriant profusion; fine hlue eyes, with black eyelashes snd brows, gave her countenance the most piquant singularity. ■One-night Grand's servants caught Francis as he was leaving Mme. Grand’s room by means of a bamboo ladder. The husband brought an action against him for • criminal oonversatidn in the supremo Court of Calcutta, in 1779, ana wa® awarded damagjes of fifty thousand rupees. After the trial, Mme.' Grand lived for a year under the protection of Francis, .who always protested that their relations were purely platonic. : She*, left India in a Hutch shdt>. in 1780. In 1782 she was living,, the life of a successful 'tures9sin Paris. There is in existence an account of a hall she gave at her house in the Rue Sentier at which’she * a "ki gh t-fitting tunic of • white taffeta, trimmed with pink silk fringe* skii't of white crepe striped witli white satin ribbon spangled wSh silver, and bordered with the same ribbon, the hem bordered similarly with laurel flowers; undersleeves of two rows of blonde batarde, and short sleeves of white crepe with spangles tied up with a bracelet of pink larkspur, a garland °F ■the .same -flowers for the waist, * and a; ruche of tulle round the,,bodice,*’ J -

THE IDLEST WOMAN. At the beginning of the Terror, Mme Grand escaped to London. She returned to Paris after the fall of Robespierre. She first met Talleyrand in 1798, yust after Barras had, thanks to Mmje. de Stael, appointed him Minister for ■ Foreign Affairs. Talleyrand , was at once attracted by her beauty, and became her nVuch-needed protector. It is just possible that before leaving London she had arranged to be,, one of the many of Pitt’s secret correspondents in Paris. Anyhow, she was arrested, and Talleyrand intervened m her favour. Hie following letter ' written to Barras in March, 1798: Madame Grand has just been arrestod as a conspirator. There, is not a soul m Eiirope more unlikely or more incapable ot meddling in. any business, She is a very beautiful and very indolent Indian, the idlest woman j! have ever met. I ask you to uise interest on her behalf; I ana sure that? not a shadow of pretext will be found for not putting m end to this affair, to Which l. shall be sorry to see any publicity given. I love her, and I declare to you as man to man that never in her life has she meddled or been in a position* to meddle in any business whatever.

Talleyrand had many enemies, and thk intervention nearly caused him to lose s*. position. He was attacked in the Republican Press and one paper published a picture of him wearing Mme. Grands portrait on his breast instead ot his • episcopal cross. However, the Jty'y. est-bishop weathered the ’ storm, his mistress was released, her marriage with Grand was annulled, and from i that time she lived oipenly with Talleyrand at the Hotel Gallifot. Under : the Consulate she waa the rival of Mme. d© Stael and Mime. Recomier. Soon after his appointment as First Consul, Napoleon realized that the loose morals of the Directorate were a. political danger. He publicly upbraided Mine. Talliem for going to the opera with nothing on but a tiger skin, and he ordered his Ministers either to marry their mistresses or leave them A STUPID BEAUTY.

Mme. Grand was as stupid as she was beautiful. Talleyrand was already growing weary of her, and there io lithe .doubt that he would' have been glad to use -the Napoleonic decree ns a means fit escape. But the lady was not to 'be -shaken, &he enlisted Josephine on hot side, and Napoleon, who in matter© of no 'great moment Was always ready to 'be influenced by his wife, made his wishes so clear that Talleyrand decided on marriage. The difficulty was that she was a divorced woman and he was an exbishop. As the author of the Concordat he was regarded with favour at the Vatican, but it was obviously impossible for Rome to permit him to marry. After- months of negotiation a brief was issued restoring him “to the lay communion, but without' releasing him from the vow which binds him since his ordination.” Napoleon published the brief without the qualifying clause, and the civil marriage took place in September, 1802. It is said that there was also a religious mar xiage at Epinay, but of this there is no proof. • A FAILURE. The marriage was a failure. Talley- 1

rptyl felt, that he had! made himself, ridiculous.—a. - hard fate for the mau who. all his- life had sneered, at the folly of others. His wife “was beginning to put on ■ flesh -and the elegance of her figure was disappearing.” Her stupidity grew more obvious. Stories of her ignorance were told in every French' salon. Worse than all, the •Tuileries were shut to her; After the return of the Bourbons to Paris, Chateaubriand wrote:— “I saw no lady of the manor, no Joan of' Arc proclaiming the rightful sovereign, .hawk bn wrist,, or lance in hand, but Madame do Talleyrand, whom Bonaparte had tied to her husband like a placard, went through the streets singing hymns to the pious Bourbon family.” But the Bourbons would have none of her. She was now very fat, very heavy, very red, andvery sulky. Talley-* rand made her an ample allowance and refused to see her any more. She lived for some years in a house in the Rue de Lille, where, among other people, she received Thomas Moore, and she died there on December 7th, 1885. When he heard of her -death; her husband, then an old man .of ©ightyono, rierely remarked: “This simplifies my position very much.”—John o’ London’s Weekly.