Talleyrand does not seem to have cared at all for going through the meaningless ceremony. He knew he was not free to marry from the ecclesiastical point of view, and a civil contract would not in any case alter his relations to the lady of his choice. However, Mme. Grand felt that the form of marriage would improve her position. The etiquette of the Tuileries was developing once more. There was, one observer says, "not exactly a Court, but no longer a camp." She appealed to Napoleon through Josephine, and Talleyrand was forced to go through the ceremony of marriage. The civil function was performed on September 10th, 1803, and the Church graciously blessed the diplomatic marriage on the following day. In the spiteful mood of later years Napoleon spoke of the marriage he had himself brought about as a "a triumph of immorality." seems to have discovered at St. Helena that in Catholic eyes a priest is "a priest for ever"; and he contrives to forget that Mme. Grand was not a "married woman but a divorcée.* The story runs that the first time she appeared at a levee after the marriage the Emperor thought fit to express a hope that "the good conduct of Citoyenne Talleyrand would help them to forget the escapades of Mme. Grand." She replied that, with the example of Citoyenne Bonaparte before her, she would do her best.

He

By this time the heavy diplomatic work that followed the treaties of Lunéville and Amiens was over, and the

* As described in the civil registry of marriage at the time.

German princes had ceased (for the time) to struggle for the debris of the Holy Roman Empire. Talleyrand found himself in a position of great wealth, and with one or two years of comparative leisure. His official residence, a large mansion built under the old regime by a rich colonist, was the Hotel Galiffet in the Rue St. Dominique. He had wandered far since the day when he began his public life in a small house of the same street in 1778, but the tense experiences of those fifteen years had made little change in him. The Revolution and the exile might never have occurred. His principles were unchanged, his wit as keen as ever, his light cynicism not a shade less amiable, his fine taste for books, for food, or for society unimpaired. Lytton describes him at this time reclining, day by day, on a couch near the fire in his salon* and entertaining a brilliant circle of visitors. His chief Parisian friends at this time were Montrond, the Duc de Laval, SainteFoix, General Duroc, Colonel Beauharnais, Louis, Dalberg, and others of the wittier and more cultured men of the time. The dress and manners of the Revolution were now never seen in polite society. The artificial fraternity of the past, with its "thou" and "citizen," was abandoned. Men ceased to be brothers and became friends once more.

The long military coat

The habit is, of course, pointed to as proof of the indolence of the legendary Talleyrand. The more candid observer would be disposed to refer it to his lameness. We know that Talleyrand had to keep a heavy ironwork about his foot and wear a heavy thick-soled boot. One can easily understand his preference for lying in bed or on a couch.

and high boots and the tricolor were kept in the camp. The old life was being silently restored. Supple, graceful figures in Bourbon coats, with light rapiers dangling, and long silk hose and buckled shoes, trod the polished floors with confidence. Nature had been thrust out with a fork. Talleyrand's hotel was the chief centre of the revival. People of taste went to the Tuileries as they went to church or to business. There was little gaiety there. Napoleon, who certainly could talk well, was habitually gloomy and retired; and one had an uneasy consciousness of his temper and his command of language that is not found in the dictionary. His family and the family of his wife were already in bitter antagonism around him as to the succession to the coming empire. Josephine had displayed, possibly even felt, a tardy devotion to him as his genius fully revealed itself, but she had now herself to bemoan an infidelity which she conceived in the most sombre colours; and Napoleon, with proof about him of his own fertility, bitterly dwelt on her barrenness. His brothers did not tend to relieve his depression. He could not fondle the pretty son of Louis but the latter would flash forth an angry suspicion of an incestuous relation to Hortense. Lucien and Jerome would not be content to seduce, but must disgrace the family by marrying, two charming nobodies. It is a well known story how on one occasion, when Napoleon was giving a sedate family party, from which Mme. Tallien and other lively friends of Josephine were excluded, a message was handed to the First Consul, and