Two days later the Tsar reached Compiègne, and endeavoured in vain to induce the King to surrender his illusions. The Senate was also brought from Paris, and was introduced by Talleyrand. “You succeed to twenty years of ruin and misery. Such a heritage might frighten an ordinary virtue,” he said gravely to the pompous mediocrity before him. His sense of humour seems to have failed him when, after pleading for a “constitutional charter,” he went on: “_You_ know even better than we do, Sire, that such institutions, so well approved among a neighbouring people, lend support to, and do not put restraint on, monarchs who love the laws and are the fathers of their people.” It was all of very little avail. An English caricature of the time represents the banquet at Compiègne that night, with the Tsar, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, Prince Schwartzenberg, Blücher, Bernadotte, and the leading figures amongst the Allies and in France around the tables. Talleyrand sits in silence at one end of the room, but a thread passes from his hand to each of the other diners, as if they were puppets under his control. The truth is that Talleyrand had now encountered one of the most serious difficulties of his career. All his diplomacy fell before the royal system of filling the ante-chamber with sleek, cunning, incompetent favourites and flatterers. The King refused to take the oath to the new constitution, or to adopt the moderate proclamation prepared by Talleyrand. His satellites prepared one more in accord with his inflated pretensions—the Declaration of St. Ouen—and posted it throughout Paris. It gave a constitution to the nation instead of receiving one from the people’s representatives. Providence had restored the throne, and to Providence, rather than statesmanship, it was to be confided. In ten months the king would be flying ignobly for the frontier.