1754–1838 · French diplomat & foreign minister under Napoleon
Talleyrand was the supreme survivor of French politics, serving the monarchy, the Revolution, Napoleon, and the restored Bourbons in turn. A famed wit and cynic, he was Napoleon’s foreign minister when Roederer sought his counsel on the Cisalpine constitution — and his sardonic interjection, not any pronouncement by Napoleon, is the true origin of the ‘short and obscure’ line.