Gerry was sure that the French diplomat was alarmed by this stern threat. "M. Talleyrand appeared to be uneasy at this declaration," he told his colleagues. Still, Talleyrand avoided "saying a word on it"; but he did say that Bellamy's representations "might always be relied on." Talleyrand declared that he would go further; he would himself write out his propositions. This he proceeded to do, held the writing before Gerry's eyes and then burned it; after this performance Talleyrand said he would dine with Gerry "the decade [ten days] after the present."[665]
Meanwhile, however, Gerry dined with the Foreign Minister. It was not a merry function. Aside from his guest of honor, the French Minister also had at his board Hottenguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval. Gerry could not speak French and Hauteval acted as translator. It must have been a pallid feast; the brilliant, witty, accomplished Talleyrand, man of the world, bon vivant, and lover of gayety; the solemn, dull, and rigid Gerry; the three trained French agents, one of them, as interpreter, the only means of general communication.[666] On rising from the table, Hottenguer at once brought up the question of the bribe. Would the envoys now give it? Had they the money ready? Gerry answered no![667]
Talleyrand, by now the mouthpiece of the rising Bonaparte, had proposed terms of peace to Great Britain; "the price was a Bribe of a Million Sterling to be divided among Directors, Ministers, and others. Talleyrand's Department was to share one hundred thousand Pounds Sterling." The British Government declined.[668]
King in London hastens to inform his American diplomatic associates in Paris of this offer, and cautions the envoys to act in concert. To Pinckney, King writes in cipher his anxiety about Gerry, whose integrity King had hoped would "overcome a miserable vanity and a few little defects of character ... which I now fear have been discovered by those who will be assiduous to turn them to mischief."
From the same source Pinckney is warned: "You must not appear to suspect what you may really know; ... you must ... save him [Gerry] and, in doing so, prevent the Division that would grow out of a Schism in your Commission." Gerry will be all right, thinks King, "unless Pride shall be put in opposition to Duty, or Jealousy shall mislead a mind neither ingenuous nor well organized, but habitually suspicious, and, when assailed by personal vanity, inflexible."[669]
Pinckney informs King of the situation in Paris on December 27, declaring "that we ought to request our Passports and no longer exhibit to the World the unprecedented Spectacle of three Envoys Extraordinary from a free and independent nation, in vain soliciting to be heard."[670]
Marshall now insists that the American case be formally stated to the French Government. Gerry at last agrees.[671] Marshall, of course, prepares this vastly important state paper. For two weeks he works over the first half of this historic document. "At my request Genl. Pinckney & Mr. Gerry met in my room & I read to them the first part of a letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations which consisted of a justification of the American Government,"[672] he relates in his Journal.
Over the last half of the American case, Marshall spends seven days. "The Second part of the letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations, comprehending the claims of the United States upon France, being also prepared, I read it to Genl Pinckney & Mr. Gerry." Both sections of Marshall's letter to Talleyrand were submitted to his colleagues for suggestions.[673]
It was hard work to get Gerry to examine and sign the memorial. "I had so repeatedly pressed Mr. Gerry," notes Marshall, "on the subject of our letter prepared for the Minister of Exterior Relations & manifested such solicitude for its being so completed as to enable us to send it, that I had obviously offended. Today I have urged that subject and for the last time."[674] Two days later Marshall chronicles that "Mr. Gerry finished the examination of our letter to the Minister of Exterior Relations."[675] A week later the letter, translated and signed, is delivered to Talleyrand.[676]
Upon this memorial were based future and successful American negotiations,[677] and the statement by Marshall remains to this day one of the ablest state papers ever produced by American diplomacy.