On his eighty-third birthday he wrote a few lines that reveal the pain and weariness that were growing on him. He concluded a rather gloomy summary of his long life with the words: “What result from it all but physical and moral exhaustion, a complete discouragement as to the future and disdain for the past.” On that day he had asked Dupanloup to dinner, but the rector of Saint Sulpice pleaded his work in excuse. “He does not know his business,” said Talleyrand with a smile. For some time the Prince had been importuned from many sides to make his peace with the Church. It is said that on one occasion at Valençay he incautiously asked the little Pauline one Sunday where she had been. “I have been to mass,” she said, “to pray the good God to give you better sentiments.” The Duchess of Dino was deeply anxious to see him reconciled. Letters reached him from very old friends with the same aim. Royer-Collard advised it. The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Quelen, who had been coadjutor to his uncle, was pressing as far as discretion allowed. He had obtained instructions from Rome as to the minimum that need be asked of the illustrious apostate. In 1835 he had received the dying Princess Talleyrand into the Church, and made it an occasion for a strong appeal to her husband. Talleyrand politely thanked him for his interest. What was the real state of Talleyrand’s mind in regard to religion as he approached the end? It is quite impossible to discover it with certainty. It seems probable that throughout life Talleyrand maintained an attitude of agnosticism, standing between the dogmatic theism or dogmatic atheism of his friends. It seems clear, too, that his agnosticism had not very deep philosophic roots, and it would not be unnatural for it to yield under the pressure of approaching death. It is true that he often uses theistic expressions in his letters from 1814 onwards, but that may be merely a concession to the new fashions introduced with the new monarchy. Napoleon had openly described him as a man who “did not believe in God.” But there are two facts that strongly dispose us to take a diplomatic view of Talleyrand’s “reconciliation.” The first is that he had a strong incentive to go through the form of submission. There were frequently disorderly scenes at the funerals of his non-Christian friends, and he betrayed a great concern lest his own exit from the stage should be marred by the same disorder. He even spoke towards the end of leaving France, and it was thought that he wanted to die out of the country so as to be buried in peace without submission. And the second fact is the way in which he postponed the act of reconciliation until the very last and inevitable moment, as we shall see.