The interests of Britain and France converged at almost every point in Italy, yet Castlereagh and Liverpool so mistrusted Talleyrand that they conducted their own talks on the subject of Italy with Louis XVIII and his First Minister, the comte de Blacas. They encouraged the latter’s jealousy of Talleyrand and achieved nothing but a confusion of the issues, which Castlereagh aggravated by also cutting Talleyrand out of his discussions with Metternich on the subject.
