I know for a fact that Louis XVIII. wished to have nothing to do with
Fouche, and indignantly refused to appoint him when he was first
proposed. But he had so nobly served Bonaparte during the Hundred Days
that it was necessary he should be rewarded. Fouche, besides, had gained
the support of a powerful party among the emigrants of the Faubourg St.
Germain, and he possessed the art of rendering himself indispensable.
I have heard many honest men say very seriously that to him was due the
tranquillity of Paris. Moreover, Wellington was the person by whose
influence in particular Fouche was made one of the counsellors of the
King. After all the benefits which foreigners had conferred upon us
Fouche was indeed an acceptable present to France and to the King.

I was not ignorant of the Duke of Wellington's influence upon the affairs
of the second Restoration, but for a long time I refused to believe that
his influence should have outweighed all the serious considerations
opposed to such a perfect anomaly as appointing Fouche the Minister of a
Bourbon. But I was deceived. France and the King owed to him Fouche's
introduction into the Council, and I had to thank him for the
impossibility of resuming a situation which I had relinquished for the
purpose of following the King into Belgium. Could I be Prefect of Police
under a Minister whom a short time before I had received orders to
arrest, but who eluded my agents? That was impossible. The King could
not offer me the place of Prefect under Fouche, and if he had I could not
have accepted it. I was therefore right in not relying on the assurances
which had been given me; but I confess that if I had been told to guess
the cause why they could not be realised I never should have thought that
cause would have been the appointment of Fouche as a Minister of the King
of France. At first, therefore, I was of course quite forgotten, as is
the custom of courts when a faithful subject refrains from taking part in