First impulses of distrust
French diplomat Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord said: “Be wary of first impulses; they are almost always good.” Good luck discovering this powerful survivor of the 1789 French Revolution and world shaper who was mistrusted but valued by successive French governments in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Many people believe, and I do, that Napoleon Bonaparte studied and practiced de Talleyrand’s skills of forming unlikely but strong political alliances and masking his true intent.
Why would I say not to trust what is good? He probably believed that most people want to do the right thing, and by doing the right thing, one is also doing the predictable thing and can fall into traps set by immoral enemies. Of Talleyrand he also said, “Speech is the faculty by which men hide their thoughts,” and he said, “They learned nothing and forgot nothing.” I don’t know why this master of planning and mystery said such things, but his quotes reveal a lot about his power. He understood that most people, even many powerful people, do not plan anything. Rather, if they come up with an idea, they just do it and suffer the consequences: misfortune or gain. So de Talleyrand planned the overall results for France in his head, then kept those plans to himself as he worked diplomatically with the throngs of international job seekers and players. I think he was the smartest man in the room most of the time.
But what was France? Was de Talleyrand really selflessly working to achieve the best for France and its people? He said: “There are no principles, only events.” Did de Talleyrand mean that morality had no place in his goals or that he would feign morality in order to trap moral diplomats into making a deal he had no intention of keeping? His first advanced education was in theology. He represented the Pope and the Catholic Church before the French King Louis XVI, who was guillotined after the French Revolution, like many others. But, de Talleyrand was not guillotined. His diplomatic services were sought after and used during the aftermath of the revolution, when France was most vulnerable to foreign invasion. I mentioned that Napoleon studied his skills and adopted them, but as Emperor of France, Napoleon did more than that: he placed De Talleyrand at the head of his advancing armies! Because?
De Talleyrand advanced to meet the kings as Napoleon’s armies advanced to crush them. “Why send your soldiers to slaughter and lose everything?” he could have asked a threatened king. “Trust my Emperor Napoleon to keep you on your throne by giving your army and the industry of your people to feed and support that army while the Emperor uses it to subdue the world!” Many kings in the way of Napoleon did that. The army that Napoleon brought to Russia was partly only French. The King of Bavaria was just one king who contributed soldiers (50,000 Bavarian soldiers) to be part of the invasion force.
Who was this guy? Here’s another of de Talleyrand’s quotes: “I fear an army of 100 sheep led by a lion more than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.” Clearly de Talleyrand worked for a lion (Napoleon), and apparently used his diplomatic skill to turn other kings into sheep. #TAG1writer.