Note 26 — Chapter VII

I have referred already to a legend assigning his birth to America. The only foundation for this is that he visited Mount Desert, and, as he limped about, reminded the older inhabitants of a lame boy, born there of a French officer and American girl in 1754, and afterwards taken to France. In spite of the fact that Talleyrand’s father was a distinguished noble of high character attached to Versailles; that the father’s wife, daughter of the Marquis d’Antigny, acknowledged Charles Maurice to her death in 1809, and was supported by him in her later years; that the interest in him of his great-grandmother, his uncle, and every member and friend of the family was known to all France; this legend has been put forward in America (Bookman, September 26th, 1901) as worthy of serious consideration. There is hardly another character in recent history about whom myths have been so blindly entertained.