However, Louis XVIII had accepted the substance of Talleyrand’s constitution, and he gave the guarantees which were to dispel the expectation of vindictiveness. Talleyrand returned to Paris to prepare for his reception, which was at least orderly. A few days afterwards he was appointed Foreign Minister and Grand Almoner to the King’s household. There is a story that after he had taken the oath of loyalty to the King he observed to him: “That is my thirteenth oath of loyalty, Sire, and I trust it will be the last.” History had another in reserve for him—the oath to Louis Philippe. Although he afterwards spoke strongly of the peers who had “violated the religion of the oath” during the Hundred Days, he had not a great awe of that ceremony. He is said to have described it once as “the ticket you take at the door of the theatre.” Speaking once of cheeses, he declared that the Brie was the king of cheeses; he had thought so in his youth and thought so still. Eugène Sue observed that he had “taken no oath to that royalty.” On another occasion, when he had to administer the oath to a pretty lady, he said, with a glance at her ankles: “That is a very short skirt to take an oath of fidelity in.” Not only was Talleyrand omitted from the committee appointed to frame the new constitution, but its members were strictly forbidden to confer with him on the subject. He was jealously excluded from influence on home affairs, and he saw with increasing bitterness the gradual emergence of the worst faults of the old regime. One of the restored nobles went about complaining that he did not feel free as long as the press was free. Another was advocating that the King’s ministers must be “people of quality,” with the real workers as drudges under their control. But the task of completing the settlement with the Allies still engrossed his attention for some time. Barante describes how Nesselrode or Metternich or other ministers would drop in as Talleyrand was dressing in the morning, and discuss the situation. It was no light work to effect a generous settlement, with the King forcing on him exorbitant pretensions and the Prussians thirsting to avenge Jena. Talleyrand succeeded by his personal influence in attaching England and Austria, and so defeating the righteous demands of Prussia. In the end he was able to hand over to the King a considerably larger France than Louis XVI had ruled, an army of 300,000 men, all the works of art that the Directory and Napoleon had “imported,” and a complete acquittance of all claims for indemnity. While foreign ministers were being severely censured for admitting such terms, Talleyrand had to listen to vapid complaints of their insufficiency amongst the Court party. The King’s young nephew, the Duc de Berry, was especially talkative. “You seem to have been in a great hurry to sign that unhappy treaty,” he said one day. “Yes, Monseigneur,” said Talleyrand. “I was in a great hurry.