Word: talleyrand
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Thanks to Talleyrand's principles, says Ferrero, "in 24 hours a definitive peace was made, a peace for which the Revolution had spent twenty years of fruitless search; and in 24 hours the deadly circle of fear creating abuse of force, which in turn augments the fear, was broken...
...right was Talleyrand, Ferrero believes, that his principles could even be carried out by Alexander I and Louis XVIII - a parricide and a fuddyduddy...
...Thus," says Ferrero, "in a generation which believed only in the physics of force, [Talleyrand] rediscovered its inner significance. Alone in his era, he began to understand the paradoxical drama of the Revolution, with its sterile victories and wars that would never end because they had transgressed the limits beyond which force ceases to be effectual and destroys itself...
...Talleyrand's prescription for the fear disease was almost too simple: the restoration of legitimate governments in Europe, both monarchies and republics, "whose existence, form, and mode of action," he wrote, "have been strengthened and sanctioned over a long period of years, I might even say over a period of centuries." In France this meant the Bourbons. And having come to this conclusion, Talleyrand deserted Napoleon, risked his life to urge Tsar Alexander I to restore the French monarchy...
Most of The Reconstruction of Europe describes how Talleyrand asserted his principles at Vienna, overcoming the intrigues, rivalries, greeds, hates and incurable frivolity of the rescued old regime. He was able to produce a peace which for much of Europe lasted 100 years, so that generations could grow up believing that war was the abnormal, not the normal, state...