Talleyrand was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he treated the envoys with a mixture of menace and cajolery.

It was a part of his tactics to sever the Republican member, Gerry, from his Federalist colleagues.

Gerry was weak enough to be caught by Talleyrand's snare, and he was foolish enough to attribute the remonstrances of his colleagues to vanity.

"They were wounded," he wrote, "by the manner in which they had been treated by the Government of France, and the difference which had been used in respect to me." Gerry's conduct served to weaken and delay the negotiations, but he eventually united with his colleagues in a detailed report to the State Department, which was transmitted to Congress by the President on April 3, 1798.

In the original the names of the French officials concerned were written at full length in the Department cipher.