Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, French politician, Prime Minister of France (born 1754)

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Prince of Benevento, then Prince of Talleyrand, was a French secularized clergyman, statesman, and leading diplomat. After studying theology, he became Agent-General of the Clergy in 1780. In 1789, just before the French Revolution, he became Bishop of Autun. He worked at the highest levels of successive French governments, most commonly as foreign minister or in some other diplomatic capacity. He served as the French Diplomat in the Congress of Vienna. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis Philippe I. Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but found him extremely useful. The name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty and cynical diplomacy.

The prime minister of France, officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and leader of its Council of Ministers, although the officeholder does not chair its meetings, as the president does.

May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 228 days remain until the end of the year.