When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, Citizen Talleyrand had been six months out of office, and he saw that it would be for his interest to put himself in intimate connection with the most powerful man in France.  Besides, as a diplomatist, he saw that only in a monarchical government could he have employment.  Napoleon, who seldom made a mistake in his estimate of character, perceived that Talleyrand was just the man for his purpose,—­talented, dexterous, unscrupulous, and sagacious,—­and made him his minister of foreign affairs, utterly indifferent as to his private character.  Nor could he politically have made a wiser choice; for it was Talleyrand who made the Concordat with the Pope, the Treaty of Luneville, and the Peace of Amiens.  Napoleon wanted a practical man in the diplomatic post,—­neither a pedant nor an idealist; and that was just what Talleyrand was,—­a man to meet emergencies, a man to build up a throne.  But even Napoleon got tired of him at last, and Talleyrand retired with the dignity of vice-grand elector of the empire, grand chamberlain, and Prince of Benevento, together with a fortune, it is said, of thirty million francs.

“How did you acquire your riches?” blandly asked the Emperor one day.  “In the simplest way in the world,” replied the ex-minister.  “I bought stock the day before the 18th Brumaire [when Napoleon overthrew the Directory], and sold it again the day after.”

When Napoleon meditated the conquest of Spain, Talleyrand, like Metternich, saw that it would be a blunder, and frankly told the Emperor his opinion,—­a thing greatly to his credit.  But his advice enraged Napoleon, who could brook no opposition or dissent, and he was turned out of his office as chamberlain.  Talleyrand avenged himself by plotting against his sovereign, foreseeing his fall, and by betraying him to the Bourbons.  He gave his support to Louis XVIII., because he saw that the only government then possible for France was one combining legitimacy with constitutional checks; for Talleyrand, with all his changes and treasons, liked neither an unfettered despotism nor democratic rule.  As one of those who acted with the revolutionists, he was liberal in his ideas; but as the servant of royalty he wished to see a firmly established government, which to his mind was impossible with the reign of demagogues.  When the Congress of Vienna assembled, he was sent to it as the French plenipotentiary.  And he did good work at the Congress for his sovereign, whose representative he was, and for his country by contriving with his adroit manipulations to alienate the northern from the southern States of Germany, making the latter allies of France and the former allies of Russia,—­in other words, practically dividing Germany, which it was the work of Bismarck afterward to unite.  A united Germany Talleyrand regarded as threatening to the interests of France; and he contrived to bring France back again into political importance,—­ to restore her rank among the great Powers.  He did not bargain for spoils, like the other plenipotentiaries; he only strove to preserve the nationality of France, and to secure her ancient limits, which Prussia in her greed and hatred would have destroyed or impaired but for the magnanimity of the Czar Alexander and the firmness of Lord Castlereagh.