When someone had expressed to him a fear that the King might prove unreasonable, Talleyrand replied optimistically that Nature had put a man’s eyes in front, not at the back, of his head. It was, however, with grave misgiving that he went to meet Louis XVIII at Compiègne on April 29th. Cold, cynical and selfish in person, surrounded by evil and incompetent councillors, folded complacently in the outworn mantle of Capetian divinity, Louis XVIII came rather with an idea of forgiveness than of conciliation. He had enough perception of the situation to admit in the letter some scheme of constitutional monarchy, but he had not surrendered a particle of the medieval doctrine of divine right. Nothing was more remote from his mind than the idea of receiving sovereignty from the people and holding it on their conditions. With such a man co-operation was only possible as long as Talleyrand could prove himself to be indispensable. He was steeped in the convenient fiction that ministers serve the crown, so that its wearer escapes the burden of ingratitude. For such men Talleyrand would soon say, bitterly enough, “By the grace of God” is a protocol of ingratitude. As to the King’s surroundings he had no illusion. When someone asked him whether he thought them capable of saving France, he replied: “Why not? The geese saved the Capitol.” King and king-maker met at the royal chateau of Compiègne. Talleyrand declares that the King received him with compliments; an eye-witness, Beugnot, describes him as ironically polite and very kingly.[53] When Talleyrand broached the subject of the constitution, the King brushed aside his plea for tact and consideration with a courtly sneer. “You wish me to accept a constitution from you, and you don’t wish to accept a constitution from me. That is very natural; but in that case, my dear M. Talleyrand, I should be standing and you seated.” Talleyrand saw that his worst fears as to the conduct of the returned emigrants—whom he would soon call “the foreigners of the interior”—were likely to be realised. In the end the King asked him, with some suspicion of irony, how he had been able to upset in succession the Directory and Bonaparte. Talleyrand saw his opportunity. “I did nothing at all, Sire,” he replied. “There seems to be an inexplicable something in me that brings bad luck to governments that neglect me.” This, at all events, is the current version of the interview. The mythopæic faculty has evidently been at work. It is safe to assume that the King was cold, cynical, polite and tactless. [Illustration: _From an engraving, after the picture by Huet Villiers._ LOUIS XVIII.]