On the other hand there was an increasing disinclination among the Allies to pledge themselves to support Louis, and other alternatives were freely discussed. We may very well admit that Talleyrand kept an open mind on these, and would much rather be in Austria than Belgium. But he acted loyally on behalf of the King. It was he who induced the reluctant Allies to send representatives to the Court at Ghent. The most serious alternative to Louis was the Duke of Orléans, who was at London, and in regard to whom Talleyrand seems to have been entirely passive. It is not unlikely that, apart from his real concern to see the Act of the Congress signed, he wanted to see the ultra faction entirely discredited at Ghent, and a more definite leaning to his own liberal policy before proceeding there. He knew how things were going on at Ghent. The distracted King was wavering between the courtiers, who threw the whole blame of the revolution on the Radicals, and the Liberal statesmen who returned it to the shoulders of the returned emigrants. The Allies were throwing their weight in the latter side of the scale, and were discussing the advisability of superseding Louis. The Tsar openly favoured the Duke of Orléans. Louis was forced to press for the return of Talleyrand, and the signing of the act of the Congress on June 9th left him no reason for delay in Vienna. He departed on the following day, and arrived at Brussels on the 21st. Waterloo had been fought and won. Napoleon was now a dead force, but Louis continued to be a very equivocal one. Acting on the unfortunate advice of Wellington, the King was re-entering France in the train of the allied armies. Talleyrand had urged the more politic course of entering France independently, and setting up the government quite apart from their influence. He concluded that the King was again swayed by his incompetent followers, and declined to see him. He had proceeded to Mons, where the King had halted, but angrily rejected the advice of the more moderate ministers to have an interview. In the night, however, he was awakened with the intelligence that Louis was on the point of leaving Mons, and he hurried across. Witnesses who scanned Talleyrand’s countenance after the interview read contradictory expressions into it. Chateaubriand says he was “mad with rage”; Beugnot, a less sentimental observer, says that he was in one of his best moods. Talleyrand probably played the Sphinx, but we know from him that he “made no impression” on the King, although he spoke very plainly to him of the divine right of kings and the human rights of peoples.