for France, and the very probable effect a restoration of the King at that period would have had, we feel that Talleyrand must have clung to him with real anxiety.

On the other hand, Napoleon would take care to attach to his person and cause a minister of the ability of Talleyrand. To the end of his career he acknowledged that Talleyrand had no equal in his work, and their letters show that "foreign ministry" was taken in a wide sense. Talleyrand could entertain returned nobles who despised the thin polish of the Tuileries, as well as play with a St. Julien, or conciliate Swiss and Italian patriots. To one letter Talleyrand appends a list of the ladies at his last soriée who did not dance. When the Spanish

princes came to Paris, it was Talleyrand's fête at Neuilly that remained in their memories; it was at Neuilly they met the old nobility and culture of France, and enjoyed the most brilliant display of Parisian decorative art. When Napoleon wanted to have himself appointed President of the Italian Republic it was Talleyrand he sent to meet the 450 stern Italian patriots at Lyons, who would not venture nearer into the mesmeric circle of the Tuileries. Talleyrand describes the state of the roads, the price of bread and the feeling of the provincials, as he travels; selects his friend Melzi among the deputies to "open his heart to "; puts before them in his grave, sententious sententious way "not what Napoleon desired, but what it was expedient for the Cisalpine

Republic to ask.”* When Napoleon and Josephine arrived, it was almost superfluous to awe the Italians with reviews and parades. The Constitution was accepted, and the Italian branch of Napoleon's empire created. When, in the summer of 1801, Spain made its " orangewar" on Portugal, instead of subjugating it as Napoleon had demanded, the First Consul sent the whole of the papers to Talleyrand who was at the baths of Bourbon l'Archambault. "I fear my advice has a smack of the douche and cold bath about it," says Talleyrand in reply; but his moderate and judicious scheme saved the angry Napoleon from a serious blunder. The news of Spain's interested failure to close Portugal against England had come to Napoleon in the midst of his negotiation for peace with London, and he talked of making war on Spain. Talleyrand urged the more refined punishment of disposing of Trinidad to England, sending Lucien (the Madrid ambassador) on a long visit to Cadiz, and of generally "wasting time at Madrid and pushing things on at London."

Peace with England was, in fact, the next measure that the interest of France demanded. In March, 1801,

*Lady Blennerhassett misses the subtlety of the distinction when she suggests that Talleyrand attempted to play a double game with Napoleon on this occasion. Compare Mr. Holland Rose's version: "Talleyrand took the most unscrupulous care that the affair of the Presidency should be judiciously settled." Standing between the two I should say he took most "scrupulous care" to have Napoleon's wish realised. The full passage in the memoirs runs: “Je m'ouvris à Melzi, non pas sur ce que le Premier Consul désirait, mais sur ce qu'il fallait que la République Cisalpine demandat. En peu de jours je parvins à mon but. Au moment que Bonaparte arriva â Lyons, tout était préparé, &c."

overtures were made from England. Pitt had fallen over the Catholic Emancipation proposals, and the new ministry under Addington desired to close the war. Now that Napoleon had crushed Austria, cajoled Spain, and conciliated Russia, he would prefer to attempt a blow at his great enemy, but the news from abroad moderated his ambition. From St. Petersburg came the Tsar had "died of

the announcement that the apoplexy." He had been murdered in a palace-conspiracy on March 23rd. Napoleon vented his feelings in the customary rhetoric. Talleyrand lifted his eyebrows and said, "Apoplexy again? It is time they invented a new disease in Russia." Immediately afterwards came the report of the English victory at Copenhagen, and the detachment of Denmark; and about the same time bad news reached Paris from Egypt. Shortly afterwards Bonaparte is described by Stapfer as saying to the British Ambassador at Paris: "There are only two nations in the world, England and France. Civilisation would perish without them. They must be united.”

One cannot claim that Talleyrand did much more than clerical work in the negotiations that led to the Peace of Amiens, though he entered into it with more than usual ardour. Napoleon's temporary and insincere cry for a peaceful co-operation of the Mistress of the Sea and the Mistress of the Land expressed Talleyrand's habitual feeling*. He did desire to see a naval

* Yet M. Olivier, in his attack on Talleyrand (Revue des Deux Mondes, September, 1894), complains of him deserting the English Alliance under Napoleon.