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Oh, my unfortunate master! you have proved that there is no sacrifice which your people may not expect from your paternal heart!" Fouche was resolved to have his restoration as well as M. de Talleyrand, who had had his the year before; he therefore contrived to retard the King's entry into Paris for four days.

Talleyrand avenged himself by plotting against his sovereign, foreseeing his fall, and by betraying him to the Bourbons. He gave his support to Louis XVIII., because he saw that the only government then possible for France was one combining legitimacy with constitutional checks; for Talleyrand, with all his changes and treasons, liked neither an unfettered despotism nor democratic rule.

There was no truth whatever in this statement, for there was, as may be believed, the greatest care taken of the furniture, even in the store-rooms of the different imperial palaces; and the reason assigned by M. de Talleyrand being given at random, he could just as well have given any other; but, nevertheless, the remark struck the Emperor's attention, and that evening on entering his bedroom he complained that his bed had an unpleasant odor.

I have been informed that, in a conversation with the Emperor, M. de Talleyrand gave him the extraordinary advice of working upon the ambition of the English family of Wellesley, and to excite in the mind of Wellington, the lustre of whose reputation was now dawning, ambitious projects which would have embarrassed the coalition.

During the Napoleonic era the great Talleyrand married one of his nephews to a Princess of Courland who, with her sister, was joint heiress of the principality of Sagan in Germany.

Before his brother had reached Naples he warned him to prepare for the expulsion of the Bourbons from that island. For that purpose the French pushed on into Calabria and began to make extensive preparations at the very time when Talleyrand stated to Lord Yarmouth that the French did not want Sicily.

But where Fouché and Talleyrand are concerned, truth lurks at the bottom of an unfathomable well. The Grand Chamberlain stood as if unmoved until the storm swept by, and then coldly remarked to the astonished circle: "What a pity that so great a man has been so badly brought up."

When we consider the anarchy that prevails, both in the Government and among the subjects, as well in the capital as in the provinces of the Ottoman Porte; when we reflect on the mutiny and cowardice of its armies and navy, the ignorance and incapacity of its officers and military and naval commanders, it is surprising, indeed, as I have heard Talleyrand often declare, that more foreign political intrigues should be carried on at Constantinople alone than in all other capitals of Europe taken together.

"Oh, I don't care about your old book," said Hedrick, with an amused nonchalance Talleyrand might have admired. "There's callers, and you have to come down." "Who sent you?" "A man I've often noticed around the house," he replied blightingly. "You may have seen him I think his name's Madison. His wife and he both sent for you."

I arrived at Paris five or six days after the Emperor, just after his Majesty had appointed the Count Montesquiou grand chamberlain in place of Prince Talleyrand, whom I met that very day, and who seemed in no wise affected by this disgrace, perhaps he was consoled by the dignity of vice-grand elector which was bestowed on him in exchange.