In Robert Greene's The 48 laws of Power he makes the claim that Napoleon's escape from Elba island and subsequent events leading to Waterloo were orchastrated by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. He argues that Talleyrand initially wanted Napoleon to be banished much further from Europe but after realizing it he couldnt make that happen he plotted with foreign ministers of Auatria and England to have Napoleon return to a France. Considering France was in a weakened state upon his return Talleyrand expected Napoleon to fight another war which he would then lose.
That seems a bit farfetched to me but after looking into Talleyrand I'm more open to the idea but i cant just take an uncited claim at face value. Is there substantial evidence to support Robert Greene's claim?
Not really. From what I could gather via the googlebooks preview, The 48 Laws of Power derives a bulk of its material on Talleyrand from Jean Orieux's biography Talleyrand: The Art of Survival. This popular biography is not the best source for the slippery Talleyrand. As Elisabeth Israel Perry said in her Historian review of the biography:
[Orieux's] knowledge of the sources is shallow, but more importantly the context for Orieux, is simply colorful background. Consequently there is a dearth of fact and analysis, and a plethora of bon motts and anecdotes.
Robert C. Adams's review in The American Historical Review likewise found the biography to be superficial in its use of sources and "tendentious."
As for the claim that Talleyrand set Elba as a bait for Napoleon, the thesis of this diplomatic mousetrap does not stand up to the facts. The Elba exile was the brainchild not of Talleyrand, but Tsar Alexander I who wanted to express magnanimity to a defeated foe. Elba was a pretty unpopular choice for a number of Allied and Bourbon leaders. Austrian diplomats were leery of this cage being so proximate to Habsburg-dominated northern Italy and feared that if war came with Russia, that Alexander I would use Napoleon to threaten their rear. Wellington and other British officials favored a more distant exile such as India for Napoleon. The Bourbons had not been consulted on the fate of Napoleon but were left holding the bag to pay the Emperor's extensive subsidies for him and the Bonaparte clan. This was something that the Restoration finances had difficulty meeting, and Louis XVIII was ill-inclined to subsidize a family he saw as parvenu usurpers. But Elba seemed in 1814 to cut the Gordian knot of what to do with Napoleon and placating Alexander I and getting rid of Napoleon swiftly trumped any long-term concerns over either Napoleon breaking his exile or France funding the Bonapartes.
It is true that Talleyrand did not like the Elba solution and wrote back from Vienna to Louis XVIII that both Austrian and British diplomats were of like mind. Yet Talleyrand was not unique in his dislike of Elba's cage, as a number of Bourbons also felt uncomfortable in subsidizing Napoleon. Talleyrand's surviving correspondence to Paris though shows he miscalculated Napoleon's intentions. The French minister expected Napoleon to escape not to France, but to Italy, where he would unite with his brother-in-law Murat, who among Napoleon's network of satellite states had kept his Neapolitan crown. Napoleon though escaped to France, which was probably the last thing Talleyrand wanted as Napoleon's control of a great power made a negotiated reconciliation with the Allies more plausible than an insurgent campaign in Italy.
Talleyrand's actions and retrospective account of the events leading up to Napoleon's return and the Hundred Days are reflective of the slippery nature of the man himself. Talleyrand's service under Napoleon was quite checkered and he often got the European diplomatic situation quite wrong. But the important thing for Talleyrand was to survive and somehow twist his actions as part of a deeper strategy. This is a common pattern of many self-described Realpolitikers when they justify their actions. Both Kissinger and Bismarck's diplomatic moves were often ad hoc and had unforeseen and unintended consequences, but they staked much of their public reputation on being diplomatic chessmasters. Narrative thus got twisted to suit these image, and Talleyrand was no different in this regard.