The Bourbons represented legitimacy against usurpation, legality against illegality. Only a return of the dynasty could guarantee future peace and stability, by making France a respectable but not a threatening power. He had begun to prepare the ground accordingly, making contact with people who were in touch with the exiled royals. He kept himself ready and his hands free (declining Napoleon’s request that he take over the Foreign Ministry once more at the beginning of 1814).
