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Rh privileged and proprietary corporation ; and by the like impulse he helped to deprive the clergy of the Empire of their political prerogative. And he was still on the same ground at the Congress, when he reduced political right to the hereditary rights of families, and the Prince of Reuss was a weightier personage than a doge of Venice or an Archbishop of Cologne. There was little to boast of in following with a despatch-box where the sword of Napoleon cleared the way ; but Talleyrand claims to have done his best for the victims, and he angered his master by drawing clauses from which he could not escape. He had to submit to be the instrument of violence, to see his State papers transformed ; and, as in the Lauderdale correspondence, to publish as authentic letters he had been too wise to send.

Not much in the description of Napoleon is new. There is a good deal between the lines of the grotesque account of the Spanish princes at Valencay ; and in the complacent details of the interview at Erfurt, the point of the dialogue with Wieland has been lost. But the portrait of the Emperor by the most intelligent man in the Empire will always retain its value. The idea it suggests is that Napoleon failed by excess of talent. The flaw in the reckoning was that he calculated too much, and carried his thinking too far. He set himself to provide against contingencies which he could detect, but which were so remote that they practically did not exist, and weakened himself by defences against dangers not likely to take shape amongst obvious-minded men. He brought on perpetual war because the increase of France having been the work of other generals, he was afraid of their renown. Therefore he annexed Piedmont as a trophy of his own campaigns. In the same way he thought that Spain could never be reduced to a trusty satellite, as the King would some day remember who the Bourbons were, and how they came to reign beyond the Pyrenees.

In 1807, when the Empire was at its best, Talleyrand resigned his office ; but as a great dignitary of State he continued to be consulted and employed. His proper