M. de Lévis flung himself into a hired cariole which was conveying the Chancellor of France: the two grandees of the Capetian Monarchy were going, side by side, to catch it up, sharing expenses, in a Merovingian benna.
I had asked M. de Duras to endeavour to effect a reconciliation, and to send me the first news of it:
"What!" said M. de Duras. "You are remaining behind, after what the King said to you?"
M. de Blacas, when leaving Mons in his turn, thanked me for the interest I had shown him.
I went back and found M. de Talleyrand embarrassed; he was now regretting that he had not followed my advice and that, like a wrong-headed subaltern, he had refused to go to the King in the evening; he feared that arrangements would be made without him, that he would not be able to participate in the political power and to profit by the financial jobbing which was preparing. I told him that, although I differed from his opinion, I remained none the less attached to him, as an ambassador to his minister; that, besides, I had friends with the King, and that I hoped soon to hear something good. M. de Talleyrand was all tenderness; he leant upon my shoulder: certainly, at that moment, he thought me a very great man.
It was not long before I received a note from M. de Duras; he wrote to me from Cambrai that the affair was arranged and that M. de Talleyrand would receive orders to start: this time the prince did not fail to obey.
What devil was prompting me? I had not followed the King, who had, so to speak, offered or rather given me the ministry of his Household and who was offended at my obstinacy in remaining at Mons: I was breaking my neck on behalf of M. de Talleyrand whom I hardly knew, whom I did not esteem, whom I did not admire; for M. de Talleyrand who was about to enter into combinations quite different from mine, who lived in an atmosphere of corruption in which I could not breathe!
I neglect fortune.
It was from Mons itself, amid all his worries, that the Prince de Bénévent sent M. de Perray to Naples to receive the millions of one of his Viennese bargains. M. de Blacas was at the same time travelling with the Naples Embassy in his pocket, and some other millions which the generous exile of Ghent had given him at Mons. I had kept on good terms with M. de Blacas, precisely because everybody detested him; I had incurred M. de Talleyrand's friendship for my fidelity to a whim of his mood; Louis XVIII. had positively called me about his person, and I preferred the baseness of a faithless man to the King's favour: it was only too just that I should receive the reward of my stupidity, that I should be abandoned by all for having tried to serve all. I returned to France without the wherewithal to pay my journey, while treasures poured down upon those in disgrace: I deserved that correction. It is very well to fence one's way as a poor knight when the whole world is cased in gold; but still one must not make enormous mistakes: had I remained with the King, the combination of the Talleyrand and Fouché Ministry would have become almost impossible; had the Restoration commenced with a moral and honourable ministry, all the combinations of the future might have been different. My carelessness of my own person deceived me as to the importance of facts: the majority of men have the fault of reckoning themselves too high; I have the fault of not reckoning myself high enough: I wrapped myself in my habitual disdain of my fortune; I ought to have seen that the fortune of France was at that moment linked with that of my small destinies: such entanglements are very common in history.
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