last day of March,
1814. His Majesty occupied the first floor; M. de Talleyrand, the _rez
de chaussee_. He was then no more than ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs;
neither empowered by the Bourbons to treat for the Restoration, nor by
the nation for the conditions of a government--he was merely "one among
the conquered;" and yet to this man all eyes were turned instinctively,
as to one who possessed the secret of the future. That _rez de chaussee_
was besieged with visitors from morning till night; and even when,
according to the custom of the French, he made his lengthened toilette,
his dressing-room was filled by all the foreign ministers of the
conquering monarchs, and Nesselrode and Metternich waited at these daily
levees. In all these discussions M. de Talleyrand took the lead, with
the same ease and the same "_aplomb_" discussing kings to make and
kingdoms to dismember, as though the clank of the muskets, which now
and then interrupted their colloquy, came from the Imperial Guard of
Napoleon, and not the Cossacks of the Don and the Uhlans of the Danube,
who crowded the stairs and the avenues, and bivouacked in the court.

Here the Restoration was decided upon, and Talleyrand himself it was who
decided it. The Emperor Alexander opposed it strongly at first, alleging
that the old spirit and the old antipathies would all return with the
elder Bourbons, and suggesting the Duc d'Orleans as king. Talleyrand,
however, overruled the objection, asserting that no new agent must
be had recourse to for governing at such a juncture, and that one
usurpation could not be succeeded by another. It is said that when the
news reached Vienna, in 1815, that Napoleon had landed from Elba, the
Emperor Alexander came hurriedly over to where Talleyrand was sitting,
and informing him what had occurred, said, "I told you before your
plan would be a failure!" "_Mais que faire?_" coolly retorted the calm
_diplomate_; "of two evil courses it was the better--I never said
more of it. Had you proclaimed the King of Rome, you had been merely
maintaining the power of Napoleon under another name. You cannot
establish the government of a great nation upon a half-measure. Besides
that, Legitimacy, whatever its faults, was the only Principle that could
prove to Europe at large that France and Napoleon were parted for ever;
and, after so many barterings of crowns and trucklings of kingdoms,
it was a fine opportunity of shewing that there was still
someth