French government had a lot of fears during the Vienna conference in 1814 which came up as a result of losing the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, French Armies traversed almost the whole of Europe creating destructions, overthrowing Kingdoms that did not cooperate with them and forcibly enrolling armies in their way. The trail of destruction, annoyance and hostility they left behind gave them almost zero chances of charitable results.
Talleyrand had earlier served as a Bishop of the Catholic Church and had served in several administrations of the French government since the revolutions of 1789. She was a political survivor who managed to steer through the French revolutions using his clerical personality without much hustle.
In 1985, he came out very strongly to champion for unity and order in Europe especially in France. Talleyrand was given the responsibility of facing the enemies of France without the use of the army of economic sanctions. The sufferers of French brutalities had the opportunity of disintegrating the country so that it could no longer be a danger to them.
Four great powers of Europe sent delegations to Vienna following the conquer of France including Prince Matternich of Austria who was a very powerful figure in the talks, Viscount from Britain, Prince Hardenberg of Prussia and Alexander Tsar of Russia.
France was represented by Talleyrand, who in the end of the conference managed to save France from its adversaries through his diplomatic approaches. Before the conference had started, delegates of the four powers that who had won the war were planning to exclude France from crucial negotiations. But Talleyrand managed to insert herself in the first month by rallying behind the committee of eight less powerful nations and using it to make himself part of the key negotiators (Frieden, 2010).
Deliberations of the conference led to restoration of French territories and even larger than it was before 1789 because it was in the interest of the powers represented in the conference. Apart from changing politics in France, revolutions that were experienced in France spilt to other countries and threatened the institution of monarchy in states that had not experienced rebellion. It therefore meant that, giving the European monarchies a lot powers would lead to the return of monarchy in France.
The British believed that restoring France would be necessary to balance power among European countries so as to prevent any one country from becoming dominant in terms of power over the other. Interest of Russians would also be addressed by restoring the French government because it would lead to balance of power from its west including Prussia, Austria and France itself. This diplomatic victory was very important to the French despite the fact that it had weak military and little resources to support their negotiation power.
Through the ability of his negotiations and intelligence, Talleyrand managed to achieve this short term objective which was pivotal in bringing back France to Europe as a great power as it had been desired for many centuries even before the fall of the Napoleon Empire.
In the course of negotiations, she managed to convince the participants that restoring France would be of great interest to all the powers involved. The deliberations of the Vienna conference were very important for European stability as it led to lasting peace for almost one hundred years before the start of the 1st world war (Viotti and Kauppi, 2010).
References
Frieden, J. (2010). World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions. New Yolk: W.W. Norton Company.
Viotti, P. and Kauppi, M. (2010). International Relations and World Politics: Security, Economy, and Identity, (4th Edition). Boston: Longman.