Prussia desired to have Saxony, which will sooner or later be her prey; France ought to have countenanced this wish, for, Saxony obtaining an indemnification within the sphere of the Rhine, Landau would have remained to us with our surrounding territories; Coblentz and other fortresses would have passed to a small friendly State, which, placed between ourselves and Prussia, prevented any point of contact; the keys of France would not have been handed over to the shade of Frederic. For three millions which Saxony paid him, M. de Talleyrand opposed the combinations of the Cabinet of Berlin; but, in order to obtain the assent of Alexander to the existence of Old Saxony, our Ambassador was obliged to abandon Poland to the Tsar, notwithstanding that the other Powers desired that a Poland of some kind should restrict the freedom of the Muscovite's movements in the North. The Bourbons of Naples redeemed themselves, like the sovereign of Dresden, with money[307]. M. de Talleyrand claimed that he was entitled to a subvention, in exchange for his Duchy of Benevento: he was selling his livery on leaving his master. When France was losing so much, could not M. de. Talleyrand also have lost something? Benevento, moreover, did not belong to the High Chamberlain: by virtue of the revival of the ancient treaties, that principality was a dependency of the States of the Church. [Illustration: Talleyrand.] [Sidenote: A letter from Talleyrand.] Such were the diplomatic transactions which were being completed in Vienna while we were stopping at Ghent. In this latter residence, I received the following letter from M. de Talleyrand: "VIENNA, 4 _April._ "I learnt, monsieur, with much pleasure that you were at Ghent, for circumstances require that the King should be surrounded with strong and independent men. "You will certainly have thought that it was useful to refute, by means of strenuously-reasoned publications, the whole of the new doctrine which they are trying to establish in the official documents now appearing in France. "It would be useful if something could appear of which the object would be to establish that the Declaration of the 31st of March, made in Paris by the Allies, that the Act of Deposition, that the Act of Abdication, that the Treaty of the 11th of April, which resulted from them, are so many preliminary, indispensable and absolute conditions of the Treaty of the 30th of May; that is to say that, without those previous conditions, the treaty would not have been made. This admitted, the man who violates the said conditions or seconds their violation breaks the peace which that treaty established. It is, therefore, he and his accomplices who are declaring war against Europe. "An argument taken in this sense would do good abroad as well as at home; only it must be well done, so make it your business.