In the year 1834, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, ci-devant Abbe de Perigord and Eveque d'Autun, later Prince de Benevent, now only Prince de Talleyrand, eighty years old but of sound and disposing mind, long since divested of every illusion, and tickling his fancy with the picture of his dead hand reaching up from the tomb and hurling sundry hand grenades among the complacent descendants of the men of his generation, addressed himself to the dictation of his Memoires, to he released at the expiration of half a century.
