On the other hand Talleyrand neglected no opportunity of cultivating English society. When we find him in 1802 instructing the French representative at London to accept all invitations and make frequent attendance at the Exchange (“there is nearly always a Minister about”) we can see his own conduct of 1792. He became very friendly with Lord Lansdowne, and was, naturally, warmly welcomed by Fox, Sheridan, and their party. His chief first impression of England was its slowness; it is more curious to find that this was the chief impression he himself made on his hosts. This was owing to the reputation of his gay life in the eighties, which had preceded him, and partly to the ineradicable English idea of the French character. No doubt there was some excuse for it in those days. England had listened with open mouth to the news of the grand pyrotechnic displays of French emotion in 1790 and 1791. The reports had not lost colour in crossing the Channel. Journalism and caricature and Burke-oratory had effectively conveyed them to the British imagination. Emigrant conduct during the same period would doubtless confirm the idea that the Frenchman was a bundle of doubly-charged nerves. To these stolid fathers of ours with such an expectation the person of Talleyrand was a mystery. One of the gayest figures of pre-Revolutionary days, with a reputation for keenest wit and brilliant _mots_, and now hot from the crater of the volcano, he was expected to dance and gesticulate and emit electric phrases. Instead they were introduced to a pale, sedate, stolid-looking man, who hardly opened his mouth after the first quiet and brief courtesies were over. With closer friends Talleyrand enjoyed himself in the old way. But he wore a diplomatic sedateness on ordinary occasions; and his puffy, rounded face and full figure, his perfect ease and quietness of bearing, and his deep, slow, sententious speech, disconcerted people.