“But I am a Constitutionalist of 1791 (a title I glory in), and, consequently, I offer no guarantee to the Republic.
“If it were not true that a patriot of 1789, who has not hesitated to take his oath to the Republic, and frequently repeated it, has no favour to expect from a French government that is not republican;—it is certain either that the Republic will establish itself, or that it will perish in a general confusion, or that it will be again submitted to a royalty furious and revengeful. From the Confusionists and the Royalists it appears to me that I have little to expect. Is this no guarantee?
“But—I am an émigré! an émigré! When the first republican authority—the National Convention—declared with unanimity, at the period of its greatest independence and its greatest force, that my name should be effaced from the list of émigrés, I was sent to London on the 7th of September, 1792, by the executive government. My passport, delivered to me by the provisional council, is signed by its six members, Lebrun, Servan, Danton, Clavière, Roland, Monge. It was in these terms:
“‘Laissez passer Ch. Maurice Talleyrand, allant à Londres par nos ordres.’
[M. de Talleyrand here repeats what was said by Chénier.]
“Thus I was authorised to quit France, and to remain out of it until the orders I received were revoked, which they never were. But not wishing to prolong my absence, I asked, the instant that the Convention recovered the liberty which had been for a time suppressed, to return to my native land, or to be judged if I had committed any offence that merited exile. My request was granted. I left France then by orders which I received from the confidence of the French government. I re-entered it directly it was possible for me to do so with the consent of the French government. What trace is there here of emigration?
…
“Well, then, it was I ‘who made Malmesbury, who had been sent about his business by Charles Delacroix, return—not, it is true, to Paris, but—to Lille, the centre of our military Boulevards.’
“What is the truth? On the 13th Prairial, year V., Lord Grenville proposed to enter into negotiation; on the 16th the proposal was accepted; on the 25th Charles Delacroix sent passports to England, and fixed on Lille as the place of negotiation.
“On the 29th Lord Grenville accepts Lille as the place of negotiation, and announces the choice of Lord Malmesbury as the English negotiator. On the 2nd Messidor, the Directory sanctions this arrangement. On the 28th the conferences commence at Lille, and it was not till the 28th I was named minister.