Fouché had seen the incompatibility of his ministerial existence with the game of the Representative Monarchy: as he could not amalgamate with the elements of a legal government, he endeavoured to make the political elements homogeneous to his own nature. He had created a factitious terror: inventing imaginary dangers, he made pretensions to oblige the Crown to recognise Bonaparte's two Chambers and to receive the Declaration of Rights which had been hurriedly completed; a few words even were murmured as to the necessity of exiling Monsieur and his sons: to isolate the King would have been the masterpiece. [Sidenote: State of Paris.] People continued to be gulled: in vain the National Guard climbed over the walls of Paris and came to protest its devotion; it was asserted that this guard was ill-disposed. The faction had had the gates closed in order to prevent the population, which had remained Royalist during the Hundred Days, from hurrying up, and it was said that this population was threatening to butcher Louis XVIII. on his way. The blindness was marvellous, for the French Army was falling back upon the Loire, one hundred and fifty thousand allies occupied the outposts of the capital, and they continued to pretend that the King was not strong enough to penetrate into a city where not a soldier remained, where none was left but civilians, quite capable of restraining a handful of federates, if these had taken it into their heads to stir. Unfortunately, the King, through a series of fatal coincidences, seemed to be the leader of the English and Prussians; he thought himself surrounded with liberators, and he was accompanied by enemies; he appeared environed by an escort of honour, and this escort was in reality only the gendarmes taking him out of his kingdom: he was merely crossing Paris in the company of the foreigners whose memory would one day serve as a pretext for the banishment of his House. The Provisional Government formed after the abdication of Bonaparte was dissolved by means of a kind of indictment of the Crown: a stepping-stone upon which it was hoped one day to build a new revolution. At the First Restoration, I was of opinion that the tricolour cockade should be kept: it was resplendent in all its glory; the white cockade was forgotten; by retaining colours warranted by so many triumphs, men were not preparing a rallying-token for a coming revolution. Not to adopt the white cockade would have been wise; to abandon it after it had been worn by Bonaparte's own Grenadiers was an act of cowardice: one cannot pass with impunity under the Caudine Forks; that which dishonours is fatal: a slap in the face does you no harm physically, and yet it kills you. Before leaving Saint-Denis, I was received by the King and had the following conversation with him: "Well?" said Louis XVIII., opening the dialogue with this exclamation. "Well, Sire, you are taking the Duc d'Otrante?"