"He will not dare!"
I returned to the King's, where I found M. de Blacas. I told His Majesty, to excuse his minister, that he was ill, but that he would most certainly have the honour of paying his court to the King the next day.
"As he pleases," replied Louis XVIII.: "I leave at three o'clock;" and then he added these words, in an affectionate tone: "I am going to part with M. de Blacas; the place will be vacant, Monsieur de Chateaubriand."
The great man snubbed.
It was the Royal Household laid at my feet A wary politician would have ceased to trouble his head about M. de Talleyrand and would have had the horses put to his carriage to follow or precede the King: I remained stupidly at my inn.
M. de Talleyrand, unable to persuade himself that the King would go, had gone to bed: at three o'clock they woke him to tell him that the King was starting; he could not believe his ears:
"Tricked! Betrayed!" he cried.
They got him out of bed, and there he was, for the first time in his life, in the street at three o'clock in the morning, leaning on M. de Ricé's arm. He reached the King's house; the two leaders of the team had already half their bodies through the gate-way. The people motioned to the postillion to pull up; the King asked what was the matter; they cried:
"Sire, it is M. de Talleyrand."
"He's asleep," said Louis XVIII.