9 Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord (1754–1838) was the renegade bishop and legendarily agile politician and diplomat who served virtually every government from the Revolution through the July Monarchy. After having been Napoleon's principal adviser and foreign minister in the early years of his reign, Talleyrand turned on the emperor and became an active agent for the Bourbons in the closing months of the Empire, in 1814. As Louis XVIII's foreign minister, he represented France at the Congress of Vienna. Pozzo di Borgo (1764–1842) was a Corsican and royalist who fled France during the Revolution and subsequently joined the government of the Russian Czar, Alexander I. Pozzo's family had been political adversaries of the Bonapartes in Corsica, and he carried the feud to the much larger stage of European politics. As one of Alexander's principal advisers at Vienna, in 1815, and then as Russia's ambassador to France (1814–34), Pozzo worked to support the doctrine of legitimacy and maintain the Bourbons on the throne after the Hundred Days. The inclusion of Father de Pradt (1759–1837), who was mostly an agent of Talleyrand's, is rather surprising and possibly ironic.
The Red and the Black
"Sainclair's come here to lobby himself into the academy," said Norbert. "Croisenois, just see how he's greeting Baron L———." "It would be less vulgar if he went down on his knees," said Monsieur de Luz. "My dear Sorel," said Norbert, "you've got such a good head on your shoulders, but since you've just come from the mountains, make sure you never bow to anyone the way our great poet just has, even if it's God Himself." "Ah," said Mademoiselle de La Mole, vaguely imitating how the servant announced newcomers, "here comes the Great Brain Himself, Baron Bâton." "I think even your servants make fun of him," said Monsieur Caylus. "Baron Bâton! What a name." "'Names don't mean a thing!' he was telling us the other day," said Mathilde. "Just imagine 'Le Duc de Bouillon,'10 the Duke of Hot Beef Broth, announced for the first time. I think people only need to get used to it..." Julien walked away. Still not very receptive to clever irony, charmingly delicate, he assumed that, before you could laugh at such a jest, it had to make some sense. He could not see the chatter of these young people as anything but universal insult, and he was shocked. His provincial (or English?) prudery even thought they were denigrating people out of jealousy, but there he was certainly mistaken. "Count Norbert," he told himself, "whom I have seen write three drafts for a twenty-line letter to his colonel, would certainly be very pleased to have written, in his whole life, a single page as good as Monsieur Sainclair's work." His departure unnoticed, he being of no importance, Julien first went over to another group, and then another still. He tracked Baron Bâton from a distance, and wished he could hear him. A most intelligent man, Baron Bâton seemed restless, only recovering a bit, Julien saw, when he'd managed three or four sharp remarks. "That kind of mind," Julien thought, "needed a good deal of room." The baron could not simply speak words: to be brilliant, he had to have at least four sentences, each of six lines. "That man doesn't talk, he expatiates," said someone behind Julien. Turning around, he blushed with pleasure as he heard Count Chalvet's name. His was the best mind of the century. Julien had often come across his name, both in Memories of Napoleon on Saint-Helena and in the historical fragments dictated by Napoleon. Count Chalvet clearly did not waste words: his observations were clear, balanced, lively, profound. If he spoke of something, then and there the discussion progressed. He brought in facts; he was a delight to hear. But beyond that, in matters political he was a brazen cynic. "I'm a freethinker, I really am," he was saying to a man wearing three decorations; he appeared to be mocking his listener. "Why should anyone expect me, today, to hold the same opinions I had six weeks ago? If I did, my opinions would be tyrannical." Four serious young men, standing around him, frowned: these gentlemen did not care for witty remarks. The count saw he'd gone too far. Luckily, he noticed decent Monsieur Balland—an absolute hypocrite of decency. The count walked over and began talking to him; people drifted over, knowing poor Balland was going to be roasted alive. Wielding moralisms and morality, after having begun his break into society in ways difficult to discuss in print, Balland had managed to marry an exceedingly rich wife (though he was horribly ugly), who died. He then married a second rich woman, who never appeared in society. He enjoyed, most humbly, an income of sixty thousand francs, and had flatterers of his own. Showing him no