Under the Ministry of Vergennes, of Montmorin, and of Delessart, Mehee had been employed as a spy in Russia, Sweden, and Poland, and acquitted himself perfectly to the satisfaction of his masters.  By some accident or other, Delessart discovered, however, in December, 1791, that he had, while pocketing the money of the Cabinet of Versailles, sold its secrets to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.  He, of course, was no longer trusted as a spy, and therefore turned a Jacobin, and announced himself to Brissot as a persecuted patriot.  All the calumnies against this Minister in Brissot’s daily paper, Le Patriote Francois, during January, February, and March, 1792, were the productions of Mehee’s malicious heart and able pen.  Even after they had sent Delessart a State prisoner to Orleans, his inveteracy continued, and in September the same year he went to Versailles to enjoy the sight of the murder of his former master.  Some go so far as to say that the assassins were headed by this monster, who aggravated cruelty by insult, and informed the dying Minister of the hands that stabbed him, and to whom he was indebted for a premature death.

To these and other infamous and barbarous deeds, Talleyrand was not a stranger when he made Mehee his secret agent, and entrusted him with the mission to England.  He took, therefore, such steps that neither his confidence could be betrayed, nor his money squandered.  Mehee had instructions how to proceed in Great Britain, but he was ignorant of the object Government had in view by his mission; and though large sums were promised if successful, and if he gave satisfaction by his zeal and discretion, the money advanced him was a mere trifle, and barely sufficient to keep him from want.  He was, therefore, really distressed, when he fixed upon some necessitous and greedy emigrants for his instruments to play on the credulity of the English Ministers in some of their unguarded moments.  Their generosity in forbearing to avenge upon the deluded French exiles the slur attempted to be thrown upon their official capacity, and the ridicule intended to be cast on their private characters, has been much approved and admired here by all liberal-minded persons; but it has also much disappointed Bonaparte and Talleyrand, who expected to see these emigrants driven from the only asylum which hospitality has not refused to their misfortunes and misery.

Mehee had been promised by Talleyrand double the amount of the sums which he could swindle from your Government; but though he did more mischief to your country than was expected in this, and though he proved that he had pocketed upwards of ten thousand English guineas, the wages of his infamy, when he hinted about the recompense he expected here, Durant, Talleyrand’s chef du bureau, advised him, as a friend, not to remind the Minister of his presence in France, as Bonaparte never pardoned a Septembrizer, and the English guineas he possessed might be claimed and seized as national