Lytton, who has done so much to clear the character of Talleyrand from calumny, is here betrayed into an unfortunate error. He says that Talleyrand recollected that the first duty of a diplomatist after a congress is to see to his liver, and departed for Carlsbad. Sainte Beuve and others have eagerly reproduced this picture of the wily politician retiring into inactivity on Napoleon’s reappearance, and waiting to see which side would win in the struggle. The picture is totally false. The Congress was not completed—its act was not signed—until June 9th. Talleyrand left Vienna the very next day for Belgium, and was in Brussels on June 21st. Further, we have the correspondence he wrote to Louis from Vienna, and from this it is clear, not only that he remained at Vienna, but that he rendered most important and loyal service to Louis throughout the Hundred Days. There is never more than an interval of a few days between his letters, and they are all dated from Vienna. It is true that Von Gagern speaks of him as asking an asylum in Wiesbaden, but there is no room whatever to admit an absence from duty at any time of more than a day or two. Finally, we know that he formally rejected the advances made by Napoleon. In the first few days he clearly felt no serious concern about the movements of Napoleon. The event might be turned to good account, he observed. He went at once with Metternich and Wellington to see the King of Saxony at Pressburg on behalf of the Congress. It was left to Talleyrand chiefly to persuade the king that he must submit, and the mission was quickly discharged. He found an old friend of his, the Countess de Brionne, dying at Pressburg, and interrupts his account of the Congress to describe his touching farewell. He could weep like a woman on such occasions. He was back in Vienna on March 13th, and signed on behalf of France the manifesto of the Powers against Napoleon. It is impossible that he should have had any serious doubt about the final issue of Napoleon’s raid. He heard Alexander offer the whole resources of his country, and saw the absolute unanimity and resolution of Europe. The Treaty of Chaumont was revived, and every State in Europe was invited to join the grand coalition. Talleyrand secured that the French king should now be included in the allied forces against Napoleon.