FACING TALLEYRAND
Society is divided into two classes; the shearers and the shorn. We should always be with the former against the latter. (Talleyrand.)
To lend money to a belligerent power is to relinquish our neutrality. (Marshall.)
Diplomatically Marshall and his associates found themselves marooned. Many and long were their discussions of the situation. "We have had several conversations on the extraordinary silence of the Government concerning our reception," writes Marshall in his Journal. "The plunder of our commerce sustains no abatements, the condemnations of our vessels are press'd with ardor ... our reception is postponed in a manner most unusual & contemptuous.
"I urge repeatedly that we ought, in a respectful communication to the Minister [Talleyrand] ... to pray for a suspension of all further proceedings against American vessels until the further order of the Directory....
"We have already permitted much time to pass away, we could not be charged with precipitation, & I am willing to wait two or three days longer but not more.... The existing state of things is to France the most beneficial & the most desirable, but to America it is ruinous. I therefore urge that in a few days we shall lay this interesting subject before the Minister."[611]
Marshall tells us that Gerry again opposed action, holding that for the envoys to act would "irritate the [French] Government." The Directory "might take umbrage."[612] Besides, declared Gerry, France was in a quandary what to do and "any movement on our part" would relieve her and put the blame on the envoys. "But," records Marshall, "in the address I propose I would say nothing which could give umbrage, & if, as is to be feared, France is determined to be offended, she may quarrel with our answer to any proposition she may make or even with our silence." Pinckney agreed with Marshall; but they yielded to Gerry in order to "preserve unanimity."[613]
Tidings soon arrived of the crushing defeat of the Dutch fleet by the British; and on the heels of this came reports that the Directory were ready to negotiate with the Americans.[614] Next morning, and four days after the mysterious intimations to the American envoys from Talleyrand through his confidential secretary, a Parisian business man called on Pinckney and told him that a Mr. Hottenguer,[615] "a native of Switzerland who had been in America,"[616] and "a gentleman of considerable credit and reputation," would call on Pinckney. Pinckney had met Hottenguer on a former occasion, probably at The Hague. That evening this cosmopolitan agent of financiers and foreign offices paid the expected visit. After a while Hottenguer "whispered ... that he had a message from Talleyrand." Into the next room went Pinckney and his caller. There Hottenguer told Pinckney that the Directory were "exceedingly irritated" at President Adams's speech and that "they should be softened."
Indeed, the envoys would not be received, said Hottenguer, unless the mellowing process were applied to the wounded and angry Directory. He was perfectly plain as to the method of soothing that sore and sensitive body—"money" for the pockets of its members and the Foreign Minister which would be "at the disposal of M. Talleyrand." Also a loan must be made to France. Becoming still more explicit, Hottenguer stated the exact amount of financial salve which must be applied in the first step of the healing treatment required from our envoys—a small bribe of one million two hundred thousand livres [about fifty thousand pounds sterling, or two hundred and fifty thousand dollars].
"It was absolutely required," reports Marshall, "that we should ... pay the debts due by contract from France to our citizens ... pay for the spoliations committed on our commerce ... & make a considerable loan.... Besides this, added Mr. Hottenguer, there must be something for the pocket ... for the private use of the Directoire & Minister under the form of satisfying claims which," says Marshall, "did not in fact exist."[617]