Thus when we bring the charge against Talleyrand down to its real proportions, it means that he did not protest against the execution in advance, and did not resign when it was accomplished. It seems clear that he did not regard the event with any horror at the time, and that he really did to some undefined extent regard it as, if not a political necessity, at least an effective political measure. Resignation on account of it was out of the question. He said to someone who suggested it: “If Bonaparte has committed a crime, that is no reason I should make a mistake.” We who judge these things dissect them out of their living texture, and set them under our ethical glasses in placid studies. It would be well, perhaps, to put ourselves in the place of a statesman who was a daily witness of the frightful condition into which plotters had thrown Napoleon, and who felt how much the peace of the country was overclouded by Bourbon and English conspirators.[39] It would be ingenuous to trace any feeling or lack of feeling in Talleyrand’s conduct after the execution. It was his diplomatic duty to kill the feeling of disgust in others, whatever he felt himself. He had not a difficult task. The ball he gave immediately afterwards was well attended; amongst others the envoy of the Neapolitan Bourbons was there. The Spanish Bourbons shrugged their shoulders, and said it was a pity the Duke had drawn it on himself. Prussia and Austria were without difficulty persuaded to take no notice of the affair. The King of Sweden was disposed to interfere, but Talleyrand sent word to him that “as France did not meddle with Swedish affairs, perhaps Sweden would leave French matters to France.” When the Czar sent his Court into mourning, and raised difficulties, Talleyrand met him with the enquiry whether “at the time when England was compassing the death of Paul I every effort would not have been made to have the plotters seized if they were known to be only a league beyond the frontiers.” As the murderers of Paul I were the intimate friends of his son and were retained in honour by him, the inquiry sufficiently spoiled the dignity of the Russian protest.