The Ruin of Kasch [antikvár]

talleyrand: I speak at the threshold of this book because I was the last man to know anything about ceremonies. And I speak, as always, to deceive. This book is not dedicated to me or to anyone else. This book is dedicated to dedication. "Monsieur de Talleyrand is a difficult man to follow through thfe maze of his political life," says the Duchesse d'Abrantes, opening the doors to the Salon de Monsieur de Talleyrand. Over the entrance are stucco decorations redolent of the ancien régime. Near the exit is a bourgeois dining alcove. In the center, from the arms of every chair, the beasts of the Empire fix us with their hypnotic gaze. And in chambers off to the side, we encounter the guillotine and the forests of America. At the far end of the room, delegates to a congress stumble over ladies' trains as they dance. From every comer, the prince's witty remarks come reverberating toward the guests. A delicate tom-tom, an instrument heard for the first time at Mirabeau's funeral, disseminates them as billets-doux throughout the maze. Many different voices repeat them, though hardly ever that of the prince himself, who was so lazy when it came to writing. He would compress certain terrible truths into a flashing retort and would cast them into the hubbub of conversation, each time taking the chance that people would not understand them. But Talleyrand, revenu de tout even before he set out on a journey, had an abiding and magnanimous faith in at least one thing: in society as an echoing salon where at least one ear is always hiding, ready to receive the word. And thus his mots, enveloped in balm-steeped bandages, would be passed dowm through the years like so many folio volumes. There are some aristocrats who, as they grow old, begin to resemble their valets. In these pages the Grand Chamberlain will gradually become a mere master of ceremonies, the caretaker of a house full of ghosts, a guide for inquiring tourists. The maze of his life and of his salon will serve as the frame for an unholy performance that has been repeated countless times since, though with myriad variations, in place of the myth that society has allowed itself to forget.