ABSTRACT
A mountain of speeches, newspapers, letters, memoirs, or works of literature—a veritable discourse system has arisen around one human being, whose complexities have become a heap of contradictions. This chapter shows four segments of the Charles Maurice de Talleyrand- Perigord discourse system, that he had a Romantic vision beyond body, cane, and crosier. Talleyrand's aristocratic parents set in motion events that led toward few key physical-mental challenges. The French satirical cartoons—exploited by Georges Lacour-Gayet's negative biography of Talleyrand—show him with a sign indicating a crippled foot; although the actual affected foot was the right, the limp was so slight that the satirists sometimes attached an appliance to the left foot and at other times to the truly afflicted foot. Talleyrand had a consistent policy of offering his dissenting views to Napoleon. Talleyrand's greatest political moment in 1814 when Paris was awaiting the arrival of the Bourbons backed up by the allies.
