Maubreuil, having taken refuge in England, returned on purpose to deal M. de Talleyrand the terrible blow which struck him down, on the steps of the church of Saint-Denis, during the funeral procession of Louis XVIII. "Oh! what a cuff!" exclaimed the prince, as he picked himself up. How can people deny M. de Talleyrand's presence of mind after that! M. Dupin could not have done better. This obscure, strange, mysterious Maubreuil affair did the Bourbons of the Restoration the greatest possible harm. To the Count d'Artois and M. de Talleyrand it was what the affair of the necklace was to Marie-Antoinette and the Cardinal de Rohan--that is to say, one of those hidden springs from which revolutions derive power for the future; one of those weapons the more dangerous and terrible and deadly for being dipped so long in the poison of calumny. [1] We see by this that, according to Maubreuil, it was M. de Talleyrand himself with whom he had had to deal. We have not wished to endorse the accusation blindly and, in our account, we have accepted the intermediate agency of Roux-Laborie. BOOK II CHAPTER I The last shot of Waterloo--Temper of the provinces in 1817, 1818 and 1819--The _Messéniennes_--The _Vêpres siciliennes--Louis IX._--Appreciation of these two tragedies--A phrase of Terence--My claim to a similar sentiment--Three o'clock in the morning--The course of love-making--_Valeat res ludrica_ I am not sure who said--perhaps I said it myself--that the Revolution of 1830 was the last shot of Waterloo. It is very true. Setting aside those whose family interest, position or fortune attached them to the Bourbon dynasty, it is impossible to conceive any idea of the ever growing feeling of opposition which spread throughout the provinces; it got to such a pitch that, without knowing why, in spite of every reason that my mother and I had to curse Napoleon, we hated the Bourbons far more, though they had never done anything to us, or had even done us good rather than harm.