ent that occurred about this time
would seem to have utterly extinguished.

At the close of his third year at college, his father died from the
effects of an old wound received in battle. This event must have
happened when his son had attained to the fifteenth year of his age,
and, consequently, in the year 1769. By the laws of nature and of feudal
succession, that son was now the head of his house, a peer of France,
the inheritor of those peculiar privileges which then belonged to his
order, the owner of large territorial possessions, and the Comte
Talleyrand-Perigord: of all which rights, immunities, titles, and
dignities, he was arbitrarily deprived by the cruel decision of a family
council, of which his mother was the author and promoter, and his
birthrights handed over to his younger brother, who, in his infancy, had
been companion of his exile. Why this act of iniquity was committed, and
how, we shall allow M. Colmache to tell:

"It was at this time that his father died, and Charles Maurice was now
the Comte de Talleyrand, and head of that branch of the family to which
he belonged. Meanwhile the younger son, Archambaut, had likewise
returned from his nursing; but he had the better chance--his limbs were
sound and well developed, as God had made them. No dire accident, the
consequence of foul neglect, had marred his shape, or tarnished his
comeliness. So, one fine day, and as a natural consequence, mark you, of
this fortunate circumstance, when Charles Maurice, the eldest son, had
finished his course of study at Louis le Grand, having passed through
his classes with great _eclat_, there came a tall, sallow, black-robed
priest, and took him away from the midst of his friends to the grim old
_seminaire_ of St. Sulpice, and it was there that he received the
astounding intimation, from the lips of the superior himself, that, by
the decision of a _conseil de famille_, from which there was no appeal,
his birthright had been taken from him, and transferred to his younger
brother.

"'Why so?' faltered the boy, unable to conceal his emotion.

"'He is not cripple,' was the stern and cruel answer.

"It must have been that hour--nay, that very instant--the echo of those
heartless words, which made the Prince de Talleyrand what he is even to
this very day. Who shall tell the bitter throes of that bold,
strong-hearted youth, as he heard the unjust sentence? Was it defiance
and despair, the gift of hell, or resignation, the