Dressed from the neck up, the seated figure then had his legs unwrapped. The “dislocated foot” about which Talleyrand was so sensitive was unashamedly revealed; his long, flat left foot and the stunted, gnarled right one were washed and dried. Pursued by his valets as he then meandered around the room, signing letters, listening to newspaper articles and issuing a stream of his famously understated
Two hours after he had first limped into the room, Talleyrand, clad in a mass of cravats and waistcoats and several pairs of stockings, allowed his valets to add the finishing touch: his breeches. Fully dressed, his paperwork done, gossip exchanged, filled in on the news of the day, Talleyrand was ready to face the world.
Talleyrand lived lavishly, courted bribes (offending the rather more correct American diplomats) and was exuberantly promiscuous, fathering at least four illegitimate children. He married a disreputable courtesan, enjoyed many affairs with an army of beauteous mistresses and his last love was his own niece, the duchess of Dino. When asked if he believed in Platonic friendship with women, he replied “After; but not before.” But his principles were consistent. A co-author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, he was a son of the Enlightenment who had praised its ideals since his seminary youth. His faith in a constitutional monarchy drove him to support the candidate who seemed most likely to secure it. This necessitated chameleon-like changes of alliance in the turbulence of revolutionary France and brought accusations of opportunistic treachery. When Talleyrand called brie the “king of cheeses,” a contemporary remarked that it was the only king that he had never betrayed! But he was hardly unique in his dissimulation. “Treason,” he said, “is just a matter of dates.”
Diplomatic to the last, on his deathbed Talleyrand was reconciled with the Church and received the last sacraments.
MOZART
1756–1791
Richard Strauss
Born in Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the epitome of genius, a child prodigy who went on to become one of the most brilliant composers in the history of Western classical music. Leaping from one musical genre to the next, in his short life Mozart composed some of the greatest and most melodic compositions of all time.
As a child virtuoso on the keyboard Mozart was the musical wonder of his age, touring Europe’s capitals and courts with his sister Nannerl under the direction of their father, Leopold, himself a musician who was quick to recognize his children’s precocious talents. As both a fond parent and an assiduous publicist, Leopold dressed his children in the latest fashions and airily reported that: “We keep company only with aristocrats and other distinguished persons.” Wolfgang began composing at the age of five, was a seasoned performer at seven, and had written his first symphony by eight. Of Mozart’s early compositions, Leopold wrote with satisfaction, “Imagine the noise these sonatas will make in the world when it says on the title page that they are the work of a child of seven.”
Even the skeptics realized that no trickery lay behind the child’s precocity. By the still tender age of thirteen, Wolfgang was an artist of unrivaled musical understanding, of whom Johann Hasse (1699–1783), one of the era’s eminent composers, was said to have remarked that “he has done things which for such an age are really incomprehensible; they would be astonishing in an adult.”
Mozart’s versatility was astounding. He wrote chamber music, operas, symphonies, masses; he virtually invented the solo piano concerto, and his use of counterpoint was as revelatory as his limpid melodies and subtle harmonic shifts. He composed with legendary speed—his magnificent “Jupiter” symphony, No. 41 in C Major, was written in a mere sixteen days, and he reportedly composed the overture to his opera
