De Talleyrand

A French noble surname. A cadet branch of the family of sovereign counts of Périgord, they took their name from the estate of Périgord owned by these counts, and date back to Boso I, count of la Marche. The first to have borne this name was Hélie de Talleyrand, who lived around 1100.

Their motto was "Re que Diou" (an Old French dialectal form for "Nothing But God"): their ancestor was one of the great men of the kingdom of France, and participated in the election of Hugh Capet as King of France. An anecdote reports that Capet asked Boson "Mais qui donc t'as fait comte?" ("But who then made you a count?") to which he replied "Ceux là même qui t'ont fait Roi" ("The same ones who made you King"). The Périgords considered their entitlements to emanate from the same power that entitled the French kings themselves to govern, divine right of civil authority being a cornerstone of most Christian doctrine emanating from the Bible since the earliest days.