CHAPTER III
Priest and Bishop
Talleyrand had already spent two years of this kind of life when he was ordained priest. In a biographical inquiry it is only necessary to point out that the priesthood was required for his purpose. Possibly he thought of his parents, as some biographers suggest. However regrettable his life, he was a noble, and must not remain a minor cleric. In any case, he would see that the only entrance to the higher political world, along the path into which he had been forced, was the episcopate. He could not be expected to foresee the upheaval of 1789, which would make possible the rise of such men as Sieyès. In 1780 the General Assembly of the Clergy would meet again, and he had ground to believe that he would be appointed Agent-General. From this important position one usually passed to the episcopate. After such an experience as his had been he would very well leave it to the Church to settle its own credit in the matter.
In September (1779) he asked his uncle, in a letter which is extant, to receive him into the Rheims clergy. The Archbishop of Paris was a conscientious prelate, where it was still possible to consult conscience. Archbishop Talleyrand (he had succeeded Roche-Aymon in 1777) consented and obtained his transfer from Paris. He, too, was one of the better prelates of the time, but he doubtless thought he could influence his gay nephew. He was transferred on September 17th and ordained deacon. Three months later (December 18th) he was ordained priest in the chapel of the archbishopric.10 Choiseul was with him, and made a strong appeal to him to desist. He said it was impossible. All that we shall learn of Talleyrand in the chapters to come justifies us in thinking—nay, compels us to think—that he took the step, not with a cynical levity, but with great reluctance. The qualities of refinement and humanity he never surrendered.
On May 10th, 1780, he was nominated by the clergy of Tours (where he now had a second chaplaincy) Agent-General for the next five years. This was a position of the first political importance in the French Church. The Agent-General was the connecting link between the two powers, secular and ecclesiastical, and by the end of the eighteenth century he needed some competence in diplomacy, as well as a fair administrative faculty for domestic matters, especially of finance. Two were appointed by the various provinces in rotation before each General Assembly, and they held office and guarded the interests of the Church until the next ordinary Assembly. If Talleyrand had, as promoteur at the last Assembly, left the chief share of the work to his colleague, the case was very different now. His fellow-agent was the Abbé de Boisgelin, cousin of the Archbishop of Aix, and Vicar-General of that diocese, an indolent, incompetent, and disreputable priest. He shared the fruits and prestige of Talleyrand’s labours, but not the work itself. In fact Talleyrand says that a scandal supervened immediately, and made it advisable to keep him in the background.
These General Assemblies did not vary much in their chief features, so that little need be said of that of 1780. Only two deputies (one of each order) were sent from each of the provinces, and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen took the chair. The King now asked thirty millions, and Talleyrand was directed to wait on him at Versailles and say that his faithful clergy, though “exhausted by its gifts,” would find the money; he was to add a hint (with an eye to the increasing attacks on the Church’s property) that the King would doubtless see the wisdom of not killing the goose. Talleyrand would not lose his opportunity at Versailles. There were the usual indignant discussions of the claim of the Crown lawyers to exact feudal service from the clergy, and violent attacks on Voltaire and the “formidable deluge” of improper literature that was poured over the whole country. The Assembly sat from May to October. Talleyrand was now so secure in his position that he even claims that this “lent some prestige to his Agency.”
Two years later he had to summon the clergy to an Extraordinary Assembly at the Grands-Augustins. The King’s letter which he had to submit to his colleagues must have appealed to his diplomatic sense. Louis XVI declared that, though there had been unforeseen losses in connection with the help given to America, he had no actual need to appeal to the country. But the fact was that every class seemed so eager to contribute towards covering these losses, and he could not think of excluding his devoted clergy from a share. He therefore graciously permitted them to assemble in extraordinary session in 1782. Talleyrand was charged to explain to the Assembly why the King had altered his mind, and not kept the solemn promise that he would ask no more money until 1785. The fifteen millions were granted as usual, and the clergy added a million to be applied to the relief of the poor families who had suffered by the war. Talleyrand went further, and pressed one of the prelates to urge the granting permission to re-marry to the Breton women whose husbands had disappeared without any definite proof of death. He says that the prelate saw no advantage to himself in making a motion, and so the matter was not brought before the Assembly. Bad books occupied more attention than ever. A complete edition of Voltaire was being printed at Kehl, and was expected at Paris with the most open rejoicing. The deputies drew the King’s attention to its “monstrous obscenities,” and petitioned him to prevent its circulation. Talleyrand had not to sign this petition, but he saw Loménie de Brienne and many another Voltairean pastor do so.
In this Assembly Talleyrand himself made two proposals of an interesting character. The first was that the clergy should buy up the royal lottery, by making the King a “gratuitous gift” every year to cover the profits missed. His colleagues were not sufficiently moved by his eloquent denunciation of public gambling to make the sacrifice. Some of them, who knew the Abbé de Périgord’s own habits, may have even smiled. But Talleyrand’s aim was good, if not virtuous. He saw that the clergy were rapidly losing ground, and he felt that a sacrifice like this, in such a cause, would do much to redeem their degradation. The memoir to present to the King (and, of course, publish afterwards) “might have been superb,” he observes with a chuckle; he would have been very glad to write it. The other proposal he made was to raise the salaries of the lower clergy. On these fell the real work of maintaining religion in the country, yet the curé had only 700 livres (less than thirty pounds) a year and his vicaire the miserable sum of 350 livres. The episcopate was, like the army commissions, a preserve of the nobles, and a great gulf yawned between the two Orders. I calculate that the 140 bishops of France then drew about 8,000,000 francs a year from ecclesiastical sources alone; and as all were nobles, many of them had in addition huge private incomes and some State emoluments. Dillon had 160,000 a year from the Queen’s private purse for his amiability. They drove about Paris in gilded coaches, contributed to the opera, had opulent hotels and country palaces and hunting seats, and so on. The starving peasantry were beginning to rebel. At the Assembly of Notables the Archbishop of Aix spoke of tithe as “that voluntary offering from the piety of the faithful”; “as to which,” broke in the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, “there are now 40,000 cases on in the Courts.” The lower clergy, too, were forming associations for the betterment of their condition. The prelates heard this with pained surprise, but resisted Talleyrand’s motion. His earliest political efforts, as he said afterwards, failed because his proposals were too bold for his colleagues. But there can be no question as to the wisdom of his counsels. No one could at that time have had even the dimmest prevision of the events of 1789–1790—and so we may at once reject Pozzo di Borgo’s suggestion (afterwards) that Talleyrand from the first took the side of the weak and poor on subtle calculation—but Talleyrand’s view of the situation of the Church was singularly wise and shrewd, and his suggestions were, as we now very clearly see, wholly to its advantage. Nor can we with justice ignore the clear strain of humanity that is seen in the young abbé’s proposals in favour of the Breton widows (whom he had seen in their native home) and the lower clergy. In the latter