Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Talleyrand and his World by Rosalynd Pflaum

2012; American Association of Teachers of French; Volume: 86; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tfr.2012.0046

2329-7131

Mary Helen Kashuba,

Literature and Culture Studies

1942–43, but came back to Paris sobered by what he had seen: the future of Germany’s destruction. Snidely critical of Hitler and his Nazi cohort, he was petrified of being caught out by the Gestapo; he hid his journal in a safe in his room, and destroyed many of his notes after the attempted assassination of Hitler in July 1944, in which he barely escaped being implicated. What we have then is a reconstruction, from some notes he did keep, but mostly from memory. He constantly fiddled with this retrospective for years after the war; the final version of the Pariser Tägebucher did not appear until the 1990s (Jünger lived a long life, dying in 1998 at the age of 103). Despite the diaries’ coded secrets and their author’s rewriting, they do provide a compelling portrait of what it was like to be the occupier in a proud, defiant , yet often conflicted city. As the war dragged on, Germans felt more and more alienated from the city they admired. Officers questioned whether to go out in uniform, or to carry arms. Parisians became more and more direct in their scorn and displeasure at the sight of their “protectors.” A more robust, more violent resistance began to demand more vigorous reaction. Slowly, the anxious Germans began to feel themselves imprisoned, especially after the D-Day invasion of June 1944. Jünger was able to escape from the city right before its Liberation, and he did not return until 1950, when he revisited some of his old haunts, and some of the French friends he had made during his sojourn. Mitchell’s concise, informative, and clearly written essay is a fine pendant to his Nazi Paris, and provides a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a critical, yet deeply patriotic German writer. Amherst College (MA) Ronald C. Rosbottom PFLAUM, ROSALYND. Talleyrand and his World. Afton, MN: Afton, 2010. ISBN 978-1890434 -81-6. Pp. 446. $30. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), the enigmatic Prince and former Bishop of Autun who dominated much of the European political sphere from the French Revolution to the Restoration comes to life in this lengthy biography. The author traces not only the political world of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, but also the aristocratic circles that dominated it at the time. We witness their intimate as well as public interactions. Aware of contradictory judgments on Talleyrand, Pflaum does not present him impartially. She notes his wily character coupled with political genius, his charm with women and their attraction to him, his loyalty to France invariably overshadowed by his own self-interest. She presents the unwilling abbé, who apparently came to the priesthood because a hereditary clubfoot excluded him from the military . His deeply aristocratic roots dictated one or the other. His consecration as Bishop, a post he sought for prestige rather than piety, followed the same tradition . It provided a stepping-stone to his election in the Estates-General, from which he climbed even higher to become one of the principal agents implementing the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Ever eager to justify his actions, he later attempted to reconcile this schismatic stance with that of a ‘faithful son of the Church.’ When faced with imminent arrest, Talleyrand wisely moved out of the fray to England, then America, returning when the fortunes of the Directory seemed 204 FRENCH REVIEW 86.1 favorable to him. When they in turn fell, he supported Napoléon Bonaparte, an option that his principles or his self-interest could not sustain to the end. He eventually engineered the return of the Bourbons, and later their departure. Meanwhile, his proverbial role at the Congress of Vienna demanded all his talents to restore the balance of power in which he firmly believed. Pflaum does not spare the details on Talleyrand’s personal life, especially the many women who became his mistresses and possibly the mothers of his children. Although only Charles de Flahaut can be documented with any certainty, three others may qualify. Talleyrand’s infatuation with Catherine Grand, his mistress and later his wife, was eclipsed by several other women, including his niece...