and to be universally feared, and hated,
and admired, as the most sagacious politician in the world.

Talleyrand came to Marly at dead of night, and begged a secret
audience of the king. He was not a favourite at court. He had obtained
the see of Autun only at the request of the assembled clergy of
France, and when the pope selected him for a cardinal's hat, Lewis
prevented his nomination. He now refused to see him, and sent him to
his brother. The Count d'Artois was in bed, but the bishop was his
friend, and was admitted. He said it was necessary that the Government
should act with vigour. The conduct of the Assembly was illegal and
foolish, and would ruin the monarchy unless the States-General were
dissolved. Talleyrand would undertake, with his friends, some of whom
came with him and were waiting below, to form a new administration.
The Assembly, compromised and discredited by the recent outbreak,
would be dismissed, a new one would be elected on an altered
franchise, and a sufficient display of force would prevent resistance.
Talleyrand proposed to reverse the policy of Necker, which he thought
feeble and vacillating, and which had thrown France into the hands of
Sieyes. With a stronger grasp he meant to restore the royal
initiative, in order to carry out the constitutional changes which the
nation expected.

The count put on his clothes, and carried the matter to the king. He
detested Necker with his concessions, and welcomed the prospect of
getting rid of him for a minister of his own making taken from his own
circle. He came back with a positive refusal. Then Talleyrand,
convinced that it was henceforth vain to serve the king, gave notice
that every man must be allowed to shift for himself; and the count
admitted that he was right. They remembered that interview after
twenty-five years of separation, when one of the two held in his hands
the crown of France, which the other, in the name of Lewis XVIII.,
came to receive from him.

The king repulsed Talleyrand because he had just taken a momentous
resolution. The time had arrived which Necker had waited for, the time
to interpose with a Constitution so largely conceived, so exactly
defined, so faithfully adapted to the deliberate wishes of the people,
as to supersede and overshadow the Assembly, with its perilous tumult
and its prolonged sterility. He had proposed some such measure early
in May, when it was rejected, and he did not insist. But now the
policy u