Description
Book SynopsisHe took on Napoleon with a set of weapons that seemed unsuited to the task: flattery, courtesy and an alarmingly straight face. And he won. Quite as much as the Duke of Wellington it was the club-footed genius of French diplomacy who defeated the greatest conqueror since Julius Caesar. This is the story of Prince Talleyrand, who attracts as much scorn as Napoleon wins glory. To his critics the arch-aristocrat who delivered France and all Europe from the Emperor's follies is the prince of vice - turncoat, hypocrite, liar, plotter, God-baiter and womanizer, and, to make matters worse, highly successful at them all.
In this life of the master diplomat, David Lawday follows Talleyrand's remarkable career through the most turbulent age Europe has known and explores - for the first time - in intimate detail his extraordinarily perverse relationship with Napoleon. The richly flawed and abundantly gifted character laid bare by David Lawday is the man to whom diplomats continue to look today for the subtlest tricks of the negotiator's art. A good 150 years before a united Europe came into being, Talleyrand's actions laid the ground for it - as they have for a permanent peace now enduring for two centuries between France and her oldest enemy, Britain.
Trade ReviewA fast-moving romp through Talleyrand's life, engagingly admiring of its subject and appreciative of his many qualities -- Adam Zamoyski * Sunday Telegraph *
Marvellous -- Ruth Scurr * Telegraph *
A brisk and enjoyable book...an extraordinary story -- David A. Bell * London Review of Books *
Napoleon's Master dwells particularly on Talleyrand's struggle, as a man of peace, to restrain a genius of war. But it is alive also with the world of the Paris salon and the glittering connections of a most sociable diplomat * The Economist *
A lucid and readable account of Talleyrand's career -- Robin Buss * Independent *
