mobile qui a touché, changé et altéré toutes les relations sociales."[1]
Amongst others who thought it advisable to be absent from France till the tyranny was overpast, was Talleyrand. Escaping from Paris after the 10th of August by the help of a passport obtained from Danton, he arrived in England, and is described by Lord Holland as a constant visitor at the little lodgings in Half-Moon Street, where Mme. de Flahault, who by the assistance of Lord Wycombe and "Bobus" Smith had escaped through the populace with the MS. of her novel Adèle de Senanges and her infant son in her arms, entertained nearly the same society she had formerly received in her house in Paris. M. de Flahault had been captured at Arras and guillotined.[2] From England, Talleyrand went to America, the bearer of the following letter to Washington from Lord Lansdowne:—
Letter from the Marquis of Lansdowne to President Washington.
"London, March 2nd, 1794.
"Sir,—M. Talleyrand-Périgord, late Bishop of Autun in France, does me a great deal of honour in supposing that a letter from me may be of use to him with you. I am too much flattered by the supposition to decline taking that liberty; but I have a more powerful motive, which is, to do justice to a most respectable individual, suffering under a great deal of combined persecution. M. Talleyrand is the eldest of one of the first families of France. He was bred to the Church on account of an accidental lameness at his birth, and must have succeeded to the highest honours and emoluments if he had not sacrificed his ambition to public principle, in which however he preserves so much moderation as never to pass the line of a constitutionalist, which exposes him to the hatred of the violent party now predominating.
"He has resided in England near three years, during
