ore capable of ruining kings than of governing states.

A personal witness to these conflicting doubts of the foreign Powers as
to the future they were tracing themselves, M. de Talleyrand, at Vienna,
had also his own misgivings. Amidst all the varied transformations of
his life and politics, and although the last change had made him the
representative of the ancient royalty, he did not desire, and never had
desired, to separate himself entirely from the Revolution; he was linked
to it by too many decided acts, and had acknowledged and served it
under too many different forms, not to feel himself defeated when the
Revolution was subdued. Without being revolutionary either by nature or
inclination, it was in that camp that he had grown up and prospered, and
he could not desert it with safety. There are certain defections which
skilful egotism takes care to avoid; but the existing state of public
affairs, and his own particular position, pressed conjointly and
weightily upon him at this juncture. What would become of the
revolutionary cause and its partisans under the second Restoration, now
imminently approaching? What would even be the fate of this second
Restoration if it could not govern and uphold itself better than its
predecessor? Under the second, as under the first, M. de Talleyrand
played a distinguished part, and rendered important services to the
Royal cause. What would be the fruit of this as regarded himself? Would
his advice be taken, and his co-operation be accepted? Would the
Abbe de Montesquiou and M. de Blacas still be his rivals? I do not
believe he would have hesitated, at this epoch, as to which cause he
should espouse; but feeling his own power, and knowing that the Bourbons
could scarcely dispense with him, he allowed his predilections for the
past and his doubts for the future to betray themselves.

Well informed of all these facts, and of the dispositions of the
principal actors, the Constitutional Royalists who were then gathered
round M. Royer-Collard, considered it their duty to lay before Louis
XVIII., without reserve, their opinions of the state of affairs, and of
the line of conduct it behoved him to adopt. It was not only desirable
to impress on him the necessity of perseverance in a system of
constitutional government, and in the frank acknowledgment of the state
of social feeling in France, such as the new times had made it; but it
was also essential to enter into the question of persons