Talleyrand fully informed himself of the views of the Powers, and formed the plan he afterwards followed with brilliant success. He would pose as the dignified and disinterested representative of principle in this game of grab. Partly under directions from the King, partly from reasons of personal regard or interest, he determined to frustrate Prussia’s design on Saxony and to secure the restoration of Naples to Sicily. Here the opportunist and democratic Talleyrand would plead the principle of legitimacy. As England was the least interested of the Powers he would win her first to his new fervour for principles, and Austria, with her interests mainly southern and a natural concern at any undue growth of Prussia and Russia, might be drawn with them against the northern Powers. But the first difficulty was to get a hearing. By one of the earlier treaties (Chaumont) the four Powers had agreed to exclude France from the deliberations respecting the division of the territory won from her. Prussia was bent on having this condition carried out, and Russia and Austria had no reason as yet to depart from it. Talleyrand prepared the way for his attack on this formidable obstacle to his plans by a close and assiduous cultivation of England. He impressed effusively on the English Ambassador, first Sir Charles Stuart and then Lord Wellington, the identity of the interests, or the disinterestedness, of France and England, and brought about a feeling of cordiality. Castlereagh himself stopped at Paris for a few days on the way to Vienna, and was much interviewed. The next step was to prepare the personnel of the French party and the indirect machinery of diplomacy. He chose Dalberg, partly as a small reward to his friend and partly “to let out secrets” at Vienna, and La Besnardière to do the substantial work of the legation. Of the two royalists who accompanied him, the Count de Noailles (a moderate) and M. de Latour du Pin, he says that as he knew he would have to take some of the Court party to watch him, he preferred to have them of his own choosing. The latter would be able “to sign passports.” He also took his nephew’s charming and tactful wife, the Countess Edmond de Périgord, to entertain for him. She proved “very useful” in breaking down the social boycott with which hostile ministers tried to support their resolve to exclude Talleyrand from the settlement. They rented the Hotel Kaunitz at Vienna, and some of the most brilliant fêtes and most attractive dinners of the ensuing winter were given there.