In the long and adventurous negotiations with the Pope in 1809 and 1810 Talleyrand had no part. He saw Napoleon as “successor of Charlemagne,” confiscate the last of the temporal power, and the Ecclesiastical Council at Paris (November 16th, 1809, to January 11th, 1810) trim and writhe before Napoleon’s theological queries.[47] He was present when several of the bishops were summoned to Saint Cloud, after Napoleon had read an unsatisfactory account of the opening of their second Council. Napoleon sat in the midst of his Court, drinking coffee poured out by the Empress, and singled out his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, for one of his characteristic attacks. But “the Corsair (Fesch had fitted out more than one privateer in 1793-5) re-appeared at times under the cassock of the Archbishop.” The reply was as Corsican as the attack. Napoleon rushed on from blunder to blunder in the historical and theological matters he was daring to discuss. “You take me for Louis le Debonnaire,” he roared, “I’m not. I’m Charlemagne.” The negotiations came to nothing, and the bishops were informed “by the minister of police” that they might return to their dioceses. Talleyrand was an idle but disgusted witness of the subsequent abduction of the Pope, and the final defeat of Napoleon’s aims. In January, 1810, he was present with all the other great dignitaries and ministers at the conference on the divorce of Josephine and re-marriage of the Emperor. Few knew, as Talleyrand did, that there was really no question of a Russian marriage, when Napoleon put it to them as an open question. When it came to his turn to speak, he advocated an alliance with Austria. Napoleon thanked and dismissed them; and a courier was dispatched to Vienna the same evening. Talleyrand was present at the marriage in April. He heard the bells of Notre Dame ring out the ecclesiastical share in the general joy at a time when the Pope was Napoleon’s prisoner, and listened to Austrian congratulations at a moment when the fortifications of Vienna were being blown up at the order of its conqueror. A month or two afterwards he again gave offence to the Emperor. Fouché had been detected in negotiation with England, and Napoleon consulted his Council as to the advisability of punishing him. Most of the members thought Fouché should be deposed, but could suggest no substitute for that astute chief detective. Talleyrand said to his neighbour in a stage-whisper: “Fouché has certainly done very wrong, and I would find a substitute for him—but it would be Fouché himself.” This led to Napoleon’s last extant letter to him. “Prince of Benevento, I have received your letter, the contents of which pained me. During your term of office I voluntarily shut my eyes to many things. I regret that you should have thought fit to take a step that revives the memory of what I have endeavoured, and will still endeavour, to forget.” The air of righteous forbearance is imposing.