may afford explanation enough. Talleyrand's name was persistently connected with that of Madame de Flahaut, and at one time with that of the daughter-in-law of Buffon. There was a good deal of joking about the prospect of his consecration. Chamfort and a group of amiable ladies were marked out as ready to accompany him to his seat. It is not impossible that Versailles drew the line-when it felt strong enough.

Another feature of the situation was that he had incurred the hostility of the Queen, and she robbed him of a cardinal's hat in that very year; though the hat might have been very much in the way in 1791. The Countess de Brionne persuaded the King of Sweden to ask the Pope for a hat for the Abbé de Périgord. The Pope, who at that time was friendly with the Protestant prince, agreed, and the matter was nearly arranged when the diamond-necklace affair happened. Mme. de Brionnne sided with de Rohan, and Talleyrand followed. The Queen took a small revenge by getting the Austrian Ambassador to protest against another hat being sent to France, and Talleyrand was disappointed. Later, when the archbishopric of Bourges fell vacant, and he was passed over, Talleyrand complained bitterly to his friend Choiseul. It was not until the end of 1788, that he became Bishop of Autun.

In the meantime Talleyrand had opened his political career on other than ecclesiastical questions. I have already said that, whilst he lived at Bellechasse, he visited not only fashionable ladies, savants and artists,

but also some of the great statesmen of the last generation. He met Maurepas, a typical representative of the decaying order, Malesherbes, the great parlementarian and liberal reformer, and Turgot. As Maurepas and Turgot died in 1781, he must have given serious attention to political matters as soon as, or even before, he left the Sorbonne. With the elder Choiseul in his retirement he would be more closely connected through his intimacy with the nephew. The outbreak of the American war and the departure of a number of young French nobles, had done even more than the prospect of national bankruptcy to arouse political interest. Franklin's house at Passy was beseiged by fair enthusiasts, eager to embrace him; his fur cap was copied by every dandy in Paris, and constitutional problems were discussed by young ladies in the intervals of a dance. "The zeal for America is simply sublime," says Michelet; while Alison has opined that "the American war was the great change which blew into a flame the embers of innovation." The philosophical party certainly tried to give it that character. When Lafayette and his nobles returned with an account of the glorious new constitution and democracy, the concrete instance led to a more general discussion, which was boldly, though in a limited extent (for there were no republicans yet to speak of) applied to France. Talleyrand was not carried away in the flood. He did fit out a privateer with his friend Choiseul, begging a few guns from the Ministry of Marine; but he ridiculed the general enthusiasm. The

next fashion was Anglo-mania, and this in turn raised constitutional questions of interest to France.*

It is clear that, from an early stage of his attention to the questions raised in the salons and circles by these episodes, Talleyrand was prepared for popular representation, and was disposed to favour the English model. His manifesto, issued on the eve of the States-General, will show us that he did not wait for the logic of events to make him embrace democracy, but there are earlier indications. During the Assembly of the Notables in 1787 he complained to Choiseul that "Paris was taking its cue from the Assembly instead of an instructed Paris impressing its opinion on the Assembly;" and in the same letter he observed with satisfaction that "the people were going to count for something," and that "the granting of provincial administration [local self-government] and the abolition of privileges would prove a source of great gain." The tragic incompetency of the King and Queen to master the situation of their country impressed him. Mere "goodness of heart' was fatal. "Too great a familiarity in sovereigns,” he says in his memoirs, "inspires love rather than respect, and at the first mishap affection goes." It was the opinion of a man in whom (to turn his own words. upon himself) "philosophic ideas had replaced sentiments," but it expresses the facts here. The network of noble and ecclesiastical privileges made aristocracy

It is interesting to note that he met Pitt (with Elliot and Wilberforce) at Rheims in 1783.