Barras, "Méms.," vol. ii., ch, xxxi.; Madame de Staël, "Directoire," ch. viii.
"Mémoires de Gohier"; Roederer, "Oeuvres," tome iii., p. 294.
Brougham, "Sketches of Statesmen"; Ste. Beuve, "Talleyrand"; Lady Blennerhasset, "Talleyrand."
Instructions of Talleyrand to the French envoys (September 11th); also Ernouf's "Maret, Duc de Bassano," chs. xxvii. and xxviii., for the bona fides of Pitt in these negotiations.
It seems strange that Baron du Casse, in his generally fair treatment of the English case, in his "Négociations relatives aux Traités de Lunéville et d'Amiens," should have prejudiced his readers at the outset by referring to a letter which he attributes to Lord Malmesbury. It bears no date, no name, and purports to be "Une Lettre de Lord Malmesbury, oubliée à Lille." How could the following sentences have been penned by Malmesbury, and written to Lord Grenville?—"Mais enfin, outre les regrets sincères de Méot et des danseuses de l'Opéra, j'eus la consolation de voir en quittant Paris, que des Français et une multitude de nouveaux convertés à la réligion catholique m'accompagnaient de leurs voeux, de leurs prières, et presque de leurs larmes.... L'évènement de Fructidor porta la désolation dans le coeur de tous les bons ennemis de la France. Pour ma part, j'en fut consterné: je ne l'avais point prévu." It is obviously the clumsy fabrication of a Fructidorian, designed for Parisian consumption: it was translated by a Whig pamphleteer under the title "The Voice of Truth!"—a fit sample of that partisan malevolence which distorted a great part of our political literature in that age.