xt7qjq0stw34_3873 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection Clipping about Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord by George Nox McCain text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. Clipping about Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord by George Nox McCain 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_38/Folder_21/Multipage13250.pdf [1924? March 19] 1924 [1924? March 19] section false xt7qjq0stw34_3873 xt7qjq0stw34 Ii 571;.“

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ODD HISTORICAL FIND;
‘SEARCH FOR LOST OAT |

Dr. Lincoln Discovers That Talleyrand,
Famous Frenchman, Was an Amer-
ican Citizen—His Oath of Al-
legiance Now Last

By GEORGE NOX MCCAIN
R. GEORGE WILLIAM LINCOLN, of
the Bibliophile Club, has made a most
unusual discovery. 0'

In the course of one of his numerous ex-
cursions into the realm of the little known
in literature he has found that Talleyrund,
famous lf‘rench Bishop, statesman and ag—
nostic, associate of Napoleon and Mitabeau,
was a citizen of the United States.

Talleyrand was expelled from Great p
Britain in 1791 and came to the United
States following certain episodes of the
French Revolution.

He remained here for thirty months.
During all that time, except for a few
weeks. he lived in Philadelphia.

His hiographers have accredited the bril-
liant; Frenchman with the statement:

"I have sworn allegiance to thirteen
countries in the course of my political ca—
reer." . .

Twelve ol’ these countries have been iden-
tified by his.biographers. The thirteenth
has always been a mystery.

Dr. Lincoln has discovered it":

.It is the United States of America.

HROUGI—I all, the devious windings of the

documentary evidence of 125 years, Dr.
Lincoln, like the trained librarian that he
is, has followed the trail of Talleyrand in
this country to a definite end.

There is only one missing link.

It is the original copy of the oath of
allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania and
the United States, to which Talleyrand sub-
scribed here in Philadelphia.

It was shortly after he'landed‘a’t the wharf
on the Delaware not more than a few
months at most. »

He took the oath before the then Mayor
of Philadelphia. Matthew Clarkson.

SO carefully has Dr. Lincoln investigated
the life of Talleyrand in Philadelphia that
nothing historically valuable is missing ex-
cept the original oath of allegiance. ‘
TALLEYRAND, brilliant, subtle and un—

scrupulous, was one of the luminaries of
the French Revolution. ‘

He was intended-for the-army, but in
childhood he permanently injured one of his
feet in a fall. and ’that barred him from a
military career,

{reluctantly he turned to the Church. At
thirty»five he was :1 Bishop. At forty he
was an agnostic.

Later he was excommunicated by the
Pope, after he had sided with -the populace
in the Revolution.

Napoleon told him after his return from '
Moscow and when Talleyrand was still a
member of the council :

“You are a coward, a traitor and a thief.
You do not even believe in God. You have
outraged and deceived everybody. You
would sell your own father.”

'While" in England trying to patch up a
,1 peace news came of the execution of Louis
XV ..

As an emissary of France he was expelled.
He then sailed for the United States. afraid
to return to his native land.

HORTLY after his arrival in Philadel—
phia he was elected a member of the
American Philosophical Society.

He was greatly courted by the leading
people of this city. ‘-
W’ashington, however, as President of the

United States, declined to receive him.

The French Minister to the United
States called on President \Vashington and
informed him that Talleyrand was regarded .
as an enemy to France.

If the President recognized, or received
him, it would be considered an affront to
the King and Government of France.

OR many years there existed the im—

pression that Talleyrand had made an
address before the Philosophical Society in
the occasion of his election.

Dr. Lincoln's examination of the ancient
manuscripts and minutes of that body shows
no record of any address made by the bril-
liant Frenchman.

In Samuel Breck's “Recollections of My
Acquaintanre and Association with Deceased
Members of the American Philosophical
Society” he says:

“I saw in Peale’s Museum in March,
1808, the original oath. under gilt frame and
glass, which this distinguished exile (Tal—
leyrand) tool: when he swore fidelity as a
citizen of true allegiance to the State of '
Pennsylvania. signed with his own hand—s
Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Perigorr.”

This is the. elusive document which Dr.
Lincoln seeks.

All trace of it has been lost since the
curios and relics of the museum were sold
under the hammer in 'lSiGn

«R. CHALMERS DA COSTA, dis- 3

tinguished physician and member of
the faculty of Jefferson Medical College, I
recalls that his grandfather, who at the
time resided on Front. street, the leading
residential thoroughfare of Philadelphia, -
told him that Talleyrand’s first abiding
place when he arrived in Philadelphia was
at the Barley Sheat Hotel, on Second street
above Vine.

Later, when he returned from his trip
to the. “'est and as far north as Maine,
he hired a housetin Bread street.

He sailed for France in a Danish ship -
on the 10th of June, 1796. and never re-
turned to this country.

.- _. ‘ 1

HARLES MAURICE TALLEYRAND

DE I’ERIGORD as an American cit-
izen is one of the. novelties of American .
3 history.

There can be no doubt of the fact, how~
ever.

Dr. Lincoln’s researches have located the
copy 01’ the oath of allegiance I have given
above in Bernhard Ln. Combe‘s private life
of Talleyrand.

How it came to Peale’s Museum is one
of the mysteries of the time.

“'here it went is a greater mystery.

It, LINCOLN‘S search for the lost. oath

of allegiance is not an unusual thing.

All over the world today men are hunting
for lost manuscripts, books and documents.

A collector of ancient manuscripts bought
some fish in the old Hunger-ford market in
Yarmouth, England. several years ago. He
noticed that the dealer wrapped the fish in
some stiff paper torn from a book at his
side.

The antiquarian went home and on un-
wrapping the tish discovered the paper bore
the signatures of four Ministers of James II.

He hurried back to the fish market and
by judicious and careful inquiry found that
the dealer had more. than ten tons of these
manuscripts which he had bought from the
Government for use as wrapping paper.

They were state papers of the reigns of
Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward IV and
Queen Elizabeth.

Among them were a treatise on the
Eucharist by Edward IV and another on
the Order of the Garter in the handwriting
of Queen Elizabeth.

“'hen the British Government woke up
to a sense of what it had lost. it was too
late to recover the precious documents.

An inquiry was instituted, but the papers
had been irretrievably scattered.