When they returned from Paris Napoleon set out for Spain, and Talleyrand settled down to a life of comparative quiet. After leaving the Hotel Galiffet he had occupied a small house at the corner of the rue d’Anjou, but he now bought the large Hotel de Monaco in the rue de Varennes. His old friends, Narbonne and Choiseul, had returned to Paris and helped to restore in his magnificent salon the gaiety and wit of the earlier days. Other groups of the old nobility were forming, and no figure was more welcome amongst them than that of the ex-bishop. At the Duchess de Laval’s he met once more the Duchess de Luynes, the Duchess de Fitzjames, the Countess Jaucourt, Mme. de Bauffremont, and many another great lady of the past and great admirer of himself. The Countess Tyszkiewicz, who had “caught the complaint of falling in love with Talleyrand” at Warsaw, brought a strong accession of fervour to the cult. The old society of Paris was forming the nucleus of the new, and, with a dim consciousness of their work, preparing the scene for the next act in the history of France. From these brilliant and envied centres daring witticisms crept abroad and began to circulate in Paris. The Napoleonic Court, the new Foreign Minister, the campaign in Spain, the succession to the throne, were fruitful in enlivening topics of conversation over the tea or whist tables. Possibly the story of Erfurt was discreetly told; certainly the story of the Archduchess Anna would prove irrepressible. There were more serious matters. It was observed that Talleyrand was reconciled with Fouché, and it was known that they were daring to speculate on the contingency of a Spanish ball finding its way to the Emperor’s heart; though the kinder of the myth-makers declare that the object of the new conspiracy was merely the heart of a certain pretty lady.