"The Council of Regency has provided for the safety of the Empress and the King of Rome: I remain with you. Let us arm ourselves to defend this town, its monuments, its riches, our wives, our children, all that is dear to us. Let this vast city become a camp for a short while, and let the enemy meet with his disgrace under its walls, which he hopes to surmount in triumph." Rostopschin[122] did not pretend to defend Moscow; he burnt it down. Joseph announced that he would never leave the Parisians, and privately decamped, leaving his courage placarded at the street-corners. [Sidenote: M. de Talleyrand.] M. de Talleyrand made one of the Regency appointed by Napoleon. Since the day on which the Bishop of Autun, under the Empire, ceased to be Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had dreamt of but one thing, the disappearance of Bonaparte followed by the regency of Marie-Louise, a regency of which he, the Prince de Bénévent, would have been the head. Bonaparte, in appointing him a member of a provisional regency in 1814, seemed to have favoured his secret wishes. The Napoleonic death had not occurred; there remained for M. de Talleyrand but to hobble at the feet of the colossus whom he was unable to overthrow, and to turn the moment to account on his own behalf: the genius of that man of bargains and compromises lay in contriving. The position presented difficulties: to remain in the capital was the obvious course; but, if Bonaparte returned, the prince, separated from the fugitive Regency, the prince, lagging behind, ran the risk of being shot: on the other hand, how to abandon Paris at the moment when the Allies might be entering it? Would it not be to forego the profits of success, to betray that morrow of events for which M. de Talleyrand was made? So far from leaning towards the Bourbons, he feared them by reason of his various apostacies. However, since there was some sort of chance for them, M. de Vitrolles[123], with the assent of the married prelate, had stealthily repaired to the Congress of Châtillon, as the unavowed whisperer of the Legitimacy. Having taken this precaution, the prince, in order to get clear of his difficulties in Paris, had recourse to one of those tricks of which he was a past master. M. de Laborie, who, soon after, became confidential secretary to the Provisional Government under M. Dupont de Nemours[124], went to M. de Laborde, who was attached to the National Guard, and revealed the fact of M. de Talleyrand's departure: "He is preparing," said he, "to follow the Regency; it will perhaps appear necessary to you to arrest him, in order to be in a position to negociate with the Allies if need be."