“There cannot exist a greater proof of his cleverness and good taste, than his steady avoidance of anything like public condemnation. He has been _accused_ of every crime of which humanity can be guilty, according to the caprice or fury of his enemies, but not even a misdemeanour has ever been _proved_ against him. Even so long ago as when he was as yet, according to his own expression, ‘_un assez mince particulier_,’ long before the revolution, he had tact and sense enough to steer clear of intrigue, and to avoid the society of those who were suspected of dabbling in obscure political manœuvre. Indeed, had he not been wise beyond his years, he could not have escaped intimacy with the Prince-Cardinal, Louis de Rohan, he who has become famous in history for his credulity in the affair of the diamond necklace, and who, fool as he was, has yet been by many historians quoted as the origin, the first great cause, of the Revolution. This prelate, who at the time when M. de Talleyrand was a simple abbé, waiting for preferment, was already at the very acmé of dignity and power, spared no pains to conciliate the young ecclesiastic. But the Abbé de Perigord was already possessed of too much discernment not to be fully aware that these advances were less owing to any merit of his own, than to the circumstance of his mother being at the time _Dame du Palais_ to Marie Antoinette, whose good graces it had become a kind of monomania with the unfortunate cardinal to gain. The prince, to this very day, however, blesses the good fortune which sent him from Paris upon business connected with his office as _Agent du Clergé_, just at the very moment when the poor befooled cardinal, and his wily accomplice, were in the very thickest of their plot; so that his name was never mentioned throughout the whole course of the proceedings, neither as frequenter of the cardinal’s hôtel, nor even as an acquaintance of his.” “Did he ever chance to meet with Madame de la Motte?”