But among these ladies now silenced, among these opportunists whose feet ached in their new shoes, there was one person who moved easily, nonchalantly, and alongside the heavy and dignified steps of the others he let that light, sardonic sound of his lame leg be heard. Talleyrand was the only person who could strike Napoleon with the weapon against which the great strategist was defenseless: the weapon of persiflage. He was the only one who could address him tongue-in-cheek. Right to the end, when Talleyrand was in disgrace and many felt entitled to insult him without fear, Napoleon knew that the Prince was still the man who had once invited him, during the days of the Consulate, to go hunting at Auteuil. Stendhal, the most sympathetic of Napoleon’s chroniclers, tells the story: “Talleyrand had a country house at Auteuil, a small village between the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne. ‘I’ll come and eat with you one of these days,’ said Napoleon. ‘I’d be most delighted, mon général,’ replied Talleyrand, ‘and since my house is just by the Bois de Boulogne, you could enjoy a little shooting in the afternoon.’ ‘I don’t like shooting,’ answered Bonaparte, ‘but I do love hunting. Are there any wild boar in the Bois de Boulogne?’ Bonaparte was still a young man and, having lived in Paris for only a short time, he didn’t know that the Bois de Boulogne, like your Hyde Park, is just a place for walking and horse riding. It was obviously quite impossible to find wild boar there. But a Frenchman can never resist the idea of a joke, even at the expense of those to whom he pays the most servile court. Talleyrand, who prided himself on his nobility, could hardly avoid a certain feeling of displeasure at the sight of a humble artillery lieutenant rising to popularity and power, not through the influence of noble birth but by the vulgar means of intelligence and merit. His scurrilous nature therefore prompted him to play a mean trick on Napoleon; and when he asked if there were wild boar in the Bois de Boulogne, Talleyrand answered: ‘Very few, mon général, but I dare say you’ll manage to find one.’ The meal and the hunting expedition were fixed for the next day and it was arranged that Bonaparte would arrive at Auteuil at seven in the morning. Talleyrand, fighting back his tears of laughter, had two large black pigs brought from the Paris markets. They were transported straight to the Bois de Boulogne by two servants who had orders to set them free and let them run about. Bonaparte reached Auteuil at the appointed time, accompanied by an aide-de-camp who was already most amused, since the general kept using hunting terms in the oddest way. After they had eaten, the company set off toward the Bois de Boulogne, with various hunting dogs borrowed from neighboring peasants. One of the pigs was at last set free and Bonaparte exclaimed in great delight: ‘I see the wild boar!’ Talleyrand, well aware that the animal wouldn’t run immediately away from its pursuers, ordered a servant mounted on a small Spanish horse and armed with a long whip to follow it. But Bonaparte was too intent on the hunt to notice this detail. And so he set off at a furious gallop in pursuit of the so-called wild boar, which, after a half-hour chase, ended up being taken by the hunters. The aide-de-camp, who by this point was beginning to work it all out and feared the story would be exposed to public ridicule, decided to undeceive the general and, stopping him, he said: ‘Of course, sir, you do realize this is not a wild boar but a pig.’