NEW YORK, NY.- "If his conversation was for sale, I should ruin myself!" said the extraordinarily intellectual and intriguing Madame de Staël.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël was an enemy of Napoleon. She attempted to influence the Emperor’s policies, however, he distrusted her liberal ideas and had her banished.

Nevertheless, her great talent not only served the Prince de Talleyrand to reign in the noble salons and the academies of the Grand Siècle, but also to seduce, negotiate and convince in the chancelleries of all the European powers in times of war and peace.

Between 1820 and 1824, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, (Paris, 1754-1838) was living with absolute tranquility in his Castle of Valençay when Goya depicted him in "The Pilgrimage of San Isidro".

He was a bishop, politician, diplomat and French statesman. The firstborn of an aristocratic and wealthy family, he was directed to an ecclesiastical career because of his physical handicap although he had no vocation for it whatsoever. He lived a life of a self-indulgent sybarite and unscrupulous libertine. He rose through the ranks driven by his noble origins: in 1780, after his theology studies, he became Agent-Général of the Clergy and in 1789, at the age of 35, he was named Bishop of Autun in Burgundy, 300 km from Paris.

In the States General, formed by the nobility, the clergy and the people, convened by Louis XVI in 1789, Talleyrand represented the ecclesiastical state and was one of the few members of the clergy who accepted the principles of the Revolution that occurred on July 14 the same year of the Taking of the Bastille.

Elected president of the National Constituent Assembly, Talleyrand was the driving force of the confiscation of the property of the Catholic Church and of its submission to the new state that emerged from the revolution.

Talleyrand left the bishopric of Autun In 1791 after Pope Pius VI excommunicated him for his actions. By 1802, he was completely secularized from the church.

Maurice de Taylleyrand anticipated the radicalization of the French Revolution under the dictatorship of Robespierre. During his “Regime of Terror”, (September 5th, 1793 until June 26th, 1794), Robespierre had close to 40,000 people guillotined. Talleyrand had already abandoned France, taking shelter first in England and later in the United States where he became very prosperous in real estate. He never forgot however, the Atlantic shores of his native France.

"Never forget to leave a bridgehead on the abandoned shore.” Talleyrand

Once the regime of the Directory was overthrown by Napoleon’s military coup of November 9, 1799, a coup promoted by Talleyrand, Fouché, Siéyès, Luciano and Joseph Bonaparte(José I, future King of Spain), Talleyrand was again named Minister of External Affairs of the new Consulate regime.

Napoleon confirmed Talleyrand’s position, remaining as one of the great officers of the Consulate and later of the Empire, undertaking important roles in France as well as internationally, dramatically influencing the early years of the Napoleonic period.

As time passed however, Talleyrand began distancing himself from the Emperor due to the latter’s expansionist obsessions and his aggressive stance towards Austria and Britain, countries where Talleyrand maintained excellent personal relations.

In 1807, he resigned as Foreign Minister but retained the duties conferred upon him by the Emperor and collaborated with him in high-level diplomatic assignments, such as the Conference of Erfurt (September to October 1808) in which European monarchs agreed on a new order in Europe while recognizing the French hegemony.

By then, Talleyrand was secretly conspiring against the Emperor with Fouché, Minister of Police. He even acted as a double agent by advising the Tsar Alexander I of Russia in the negotiations of Erfurt, to whom he said the following:

"What has your Majesty come to do here, sire? It is Your Majesty’s obligation to save Europe and you will not succeed if you do not deal with Napoleon. The French people are civilized, and its sovereign is not. The sovereign of Russia is civilized and his people are not. It should therefore be the Russian sovereign’s objective to be the ally of the French people".

When the Allied armies defeated Napoleon in 1814, Talleyrand contributed actively to restore the Bourbons to the throne of France serving the government as Prime Minister and then as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also managed to mitigate the French military defeat and avoid too much diplomatic punishment. However, the ultra-royalists, filled with animosity and who could not forgive Talleyrand’s commitment to the Revolution, quickly had him removed from any political influence. He then supported the Revolution of 1830 that brought Louis Philippe of Orleans to the throne and he collaborated with the new constitutional regime as ambassador to London. He retired from politics in 1834 to write his memoirs in his Castle Valençay, a grand gift from his Spanish friend, Godoy.

And, at the top of the pyramid of the San Isidro pilgrims and revelers, Goya places the unquestionable genius of politics and diplomacy of the French Empire: the incombustible Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, the lame devil, the Master of diplomacy who not only survived Napoleon, but all of the avatars of the French monarchy of Louis XVI, the revolutionary and bloody Robespierre as well as the France of the Bourbons who succeeded him ... by the grace and hand of himself, Talleyrand.

"A monarchy should be ruled by Democrats, and a republic, by aristocrats". Talleyrand.

Friend of his friends, allies and non-allies, he was respected by all; only the jealous ones were his enemies.

Talleyrand had carefully planned the occupation and domination of Spain. Although he would deny it in front of his favorite prisoner, Fernando VII, in his Castle Valençay with these words that are transmitted by his Lord Steward, the Marquis of Ayerbe, in his memoirs:

"... and he (Tayllerand) always protested that he had no part in the Emperor’s project to seize power from her (Spain)".

Undoubtedly, the Marquis of Ayerbe, was unaware of the Tallyerand’s daily political thoughts:

"Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.”
Tayllerand

In 1809, January 24, the day after his return from Spain, Napoleon summoned Talleyrand and Fouché to the Council of State. The Emperor then mercilessly attacks Talleyrand:

"You are a thief, a coward, a man without faith; you do not believe in God and you have deceived and betrayed everyone. For you, nothing is sacred. You would sell your own father. I have bestowed upon you properties and yet, there is nothing that you would be capable of doing against me. And after ten years, because you whimsically assume that my affairs have gone awry in Spain, you shamelessly say to whomever wants to listen, that you have always criticized my business in that kingdom, knowing full well that it was you who gave me the first idea and who endlessly pushed me to it. " (It seems that he was told).

Not content with this, Napoleon gives him one last direct jibe at his intimate pride:

"Incidentally, did you not tell me that the (Spanish) Duke of San Carlos was in fact, your wife's lover!".

To which Talleyrand replied with his usual diplomacy:

"Indeed, sire; I did not think that this information would be of any interest to either the glory of Your Majesty nor mine!"

Napoleon knew that his empire threatened to fall apart, so in 1813, the Emperor again offers Tallyerand, the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in an attempt to reconcile with him and to realign his political alliances. It was too late however; the Army of the Empire was being razed in Spain and in Russia, his troops were not making any headway except to stagnate in the mud of the vast Russian steppes. He was already doomed but Napoleon refused to accept it. When Spain was finally lost in 1814, and foreseeing the fall of the Empire, Tallyerand skillfully maneuvered to leave Paris and realign himself with the Allies and Louis XVIII. The result was the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. And with the fall of Napoleon, Talleyrand took full control of France.

Le Diable Boiteux (The Lame Devil), as his enemies called him and for whom Victor Hugo wrote the following obituary:

“He was a strange, redoubtable, and important personage; he was of noble descent, like Machiavelli, a priest like Gondi, unfrocked like Fouché, witty like Voltaire, and lame like the devil. During thirty years, from the interior of his palace, from the interior of his thoughts, he had almost controlled Europe. He had permitted himself to be on terms of familiarity with the Revolution, and had smiled upon it, -- ironically, it is true, but the Revolution had not perceived this. He had come in contact with, known, observed, penetrated, influenced, set in motion, fathomed, bantered, inspired all the men of his time, all the ideas of his time; and there had been moments in his life, when, holding in his hand the four or five great threads which moved the civilized universe, he had for his puppet Napoleon I…”

Goya’s fiendish puzzle, Goya: The Great Pyramid
Back to The Pilgrimage of 1808 painting: Francisco de Goya, knew of the young General Bonaparte’s Campaign, who with only 28 years of age, tried to conquer Egypt. Goya therefore, recreates the Cheops complex in his own way.

Goya, aware of Talleyrand’s political and intellectual stature, does not hesitate to place him at the top of the Napoleonic Pyramid as protector of loyal servants of the Emperor God, Napoleon, and the Spanish vassal rulers. The outline of the half smile and gaze that Talleyrand makes to his stunned companion on top, to his right, says it all. Goya does not stitch without thread!...

Goya enshrines the image of the Emperor’s group in the image of a human triangular pyramid, merging time and space, that is, he invents and recreates the face of an Egyptian pyramid * in which he pastes most of the relevant actors of the history of Spain and France of the late Eighteenth Century and the War of Independence, and masterfully interconnects them, notarizing everything that happened in that period of our history.

On either side of the pyramid, he adds three other human pyramids of lesser size (and political relevance) emulating Khafre and Menkaure. Goya adds additional smaller human pyramids throughout the scene.

The pyramids were temples erected to the glory of a god, a Pharaoh. At the same time, they were sepulchral chambers harboring the god-Pharaoh and his faithful vassal servants. Goya replicates in that triangle, the "King's Chamber" itself, as the tomb of the god-emperor accompanied by his loyal French servants and the various Spanish vassals.

History repeats itself inexorably, although Goya changes the protagonists. At the top of the pyramid, Goya places Talleyrand. And Goya fits all with the utmost perfection: a diabolical pyramid, presided over by the great French "devil".

* "The attention paid to the pyramid by Goya reflects his vocation for elementary volumes and their states of light and shadow."

As Goya said himself, he saw bodies and not lines:
"But where does one find lines in nature? I can make out only luminous bodies and dark bodies; planes that advance and planes that recede, reliefs and depressions."

Chueca Goitia, Francisco.
From Goya’s report to the Academy of San Fernando, (October 1792), and Goya’s conversations with Matheron.

ATTRIBUTIONS
Goya portrays Talleyrand factotum, with Fouché (of the Napoleonic Empire) with the following key characteristics:

1.- His perceptive and intuitive eyes.

2.- His penetrating and cynical look.

3.- His prominent chin.

4.-His distinctive nose, which Goya lengthens with a party or carnival mask.

5.-And wearing a huge black broad brimmed hat (Chambergo) with a narrow railing and a cap that barely rises as is typical of an Aragonese pilgrim’s hat *, since the Castilian hat had twice smaller wings than that which was used in Aragon.

* (1). Its use originated during the time of Carlos III, (1766), and was the subject of the famous Esquilache Riots, during which time, Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marquis of Esquilache, the minister, wanted it replaced with the Three Point hat and the long coat instead of the short one. In Aragón these measures were not effective and the black hats and coats remained in use until the mid-nineteenth century.

6.-Travelers said of the hat that it served both as a "sun visor” on the road, an “umbrella” in rainy weather... and as a "cushion” to kneel in church. Was Goya invoking Talleyrand’s ecclesiastical past as the excommunicated Bishop of Autun? Undoubtedly!

7.-The hat is customarily placed on a head scarf knotted at the nape, leaving the loose ends back. In the painting, Talleyrand has his hair combed back and the head scarf placed three fingers from his eyebrows.

8.-Goya does not miss the opportunity to portray Talleyrand as a real Aragonese pilgrim or rather a “Zaragozano” since the cape that he is wearing is not brown but black, as those used at the time in the capital Zaragoza.

9.-This detail is significant because, with his portrayal, Goya reminds Talleyrand and the entire Group, of the sieges of the city of Zaragoza between 1808-1809, which ended with the loss of 75% of its population, consequent urban ruin and economic collapse for more than a century.

10.-Behind and beside the black cape, a long shadow that runs from the neck of Talleyrand to the neck of the guitar of the singer. We will see the relationship of the singer with Talleyrand in another chapter.

11.-So that there be no doubt as to Talleyrand’s ecclesiastical past nor his present role as a San Isidran pilgrim of 1808, Goya paints him a silver pelerine, from his neck to his right shoulder.

12.-The right hand of Talleyrand blatantly pokes out before the bulging eyes of the character next to him who, in a paralyzed and catatonic state, observes the maneuver.

13.-Talleyrand positions his hand directly to pluck the fragile, dismembered and wobbly Crown of Spain, which sits on the head of another dumbfounded character of the Group. Talleyrand, undaunted, ignores the other character (with a hat) at his side, who looks on with disdain.

14. Only Talleyrand’s and Napoleon’s mouths are shut while the other characters of the Group’s are open, aghast at the magnitude of the maneuver of the Empire; with one exception, Carlos IV. Goya has completely covered his mouth, just as his wife Maria Luisa, Godoy (his favorite ) and his son Fernando did to him during his reign.