Towards the close of March news came that the allied forces were marching on Paris—were already between Napoleon and his capital. Country folk began to pour in, flying before the advancing Prussians and Russians. On the evening of the 28th Joseph assembled the Council at the Tuileries for the last time. Talleyrand advised that the Empress should remain in Paris. He spoke on a perfectly loyal and judicious estimate of the circumstances, and nearly every member of the Council agreed with him. Then Joseph read a letter from his brother, directing the retreat of the Empress and her son to Blois. The members of the Council were to follow. As Talleyrand left the room he halted for a moment at the top of the staircase, and said to Savary: “So this is the end of it all! Don’t you think so? The Emperor is to be pitied, but he will get no sympathy, because his obstinacy in retaining such incompetent people about him has no reasonable motive. What a fool! To give his name to an adventure, when he might have given it to his age. We must see what is to be done. It is not everybody who cares to bury himself in these ruins.” The following day he sent two envoys to the head-quarters of the Allies at Dijon. He gave them a letter of introduction to Stein, who was in favour of a restoration of the Bourbons, and who was urged “to prevent the frightful consequences of a wrong choice.” Faster ran the pace when, on the morning of the 30th, the allied armies reached the outskirts of Paris. All that day the roar of artillery and the rattle of musketry kept people in suspense. At night Marshals Marmont and Mortier came in, black with dust and smoke, and it was agreed to capitulate. Talleyrand had been ordered to follow the Empress to Blois, as a member of her Council. He asked Savary to authorise him to stay, but the Minister refused, and instructed the police to see that he went. Pasquier, however, mentioned to him the barrier at which Rémusat commanded, and Talleyrand, sending a message to his friend Mme. de Rémusat, set out with great ceremony in his state carriage. He was, of course, forbidden to pass the barrier, and returned to the Hotel St. Florentin. In his judgment Napoleon was not yet certified to be dead. Michaud, the devoted leader of the “true royalists” in Paris, who were contemptuously ignored by Talleyrand, says the crowd wanted to pitch him in the Seine. Michaud was to write Talleyrand’s biography as soon as he was dead, and it was to be taken as authoritative by judicious people like Sainte Beuve.