“I have always considered this event as one of the most touching episodes in M. de Talleyrand’s life. I have heard him speak of Madame de Brionne in terms of the highest veneration, as a woman of the most exalted virtue, and one of the grandest souls he had ever met with, well fitted by nature to be that which fortune had made her—the sister and mother of kings and princes—and there is, perhaps, a little remorse mingled with the regret with which he laments the loss of her society during so many years. Her advice had guided and sustained his youth; it might, perhaps, have aided him in his maturer age; and, while he was at the height of his power and influence during the empire, he has often surprised, in his own mind, a slight feeling of uneasiness respecting the sentiment with which Madame de Brionne would peruse the journals wherein his name was mentioned in connexion with that of the emperor. I think that the tie which bound him to Madame de Brionne must have been the only one by which he suffered his soul to be held captive. In other cases, he withstood the influence; in this one alone did he submit to it, perhaps, in fact, scarcely conscious of his slavery. “The next link in these voluntary bonds was that woven by beauty and talent combined. Young as he was, he was already too old to be captivated by wit _alone_. The _liaison_ to which I now refer has made much noise in the world, and were I attempting to represent the prince, not as he really is, but as I should wish to find him, I might gloss over the one spot of this kind which has darkened his career, or endeavour to wipe off the reproach which he has incurred; but I will give you the facts as they really were, leaving you to make your own comments.