TALLEYRAND being asked, if a certain authoress, whom he had long since
known, but who belonged rather to the last age, was not "a little
tiresome?" "Not at all," said he, "she was perfectly tiresome."
A gentleman in company was one day making a somewhat zealous eulogy of
his mother's beauty, dwelling upon the topic at uncalled for length--he
himself having certainly inherited no portion of that kind under the
marriage of his parents. "It was your father, then, apparently, who may
not have been very well favoured," was Talleyrand's remark, which at
once released the circle from the subject.
When Madame de Stael published her celebrated novel of _Delphine_, she
was supposed to have painted herself in the person of the heroine, and
M. Talleyrand in that of an elderly lady, who is one of the principal
characters. "They tell me," said he, the first time he met her, "that we
are both of us in your novel, in the disguise of women."
Rulhieres, the celebrated author of the work on the Polish revolution,
having said, "I never did but one mischievous work in my life." "And
when will it be ended?" was Talleyrand's reply.
"Is not Geneva dull?" asked a friend of Talleyrand. "Especially when
they amuse themselves," was the reply.
"She is insupportable," said Talleyrand, with marked emphasis, of one
well known; but, as if he had gone too far, and to take off something of
what he had said, he added, "it is her only defect."