The order was inexcusable, but no influence that Talleyrand could command had any effect on it. A law had been passed twelve months before empowering the Government to expel undesirable aliens, and it had been applied to Noel and Chauvelin. Talleyrand may have feared its extension to him at first, when he applied for residence in Tuscany, but he was not prepared for this cruel application after twelve months of peaceful life in London. He pressed his most influential friends to obtain some explanation, at least, of the order, but none was given. In the end, he attributed it to intrigues of his emigrant enemies, and one can see no other reason for it. He was the only distinguished Frenchman of moderate views to incur the order. Sainte-Beuve says it “proves he was not in the odour of virtue.” It, at all events, proved, if this needed proof, that he had enemies. He protested to Pitt and to the King, but it was no use, and he took ship for America on February 3rd. His letters to Lord Lansdowne and Mme. de Staël show a very natural bitterness of feeling, but even at this time he hardly blamed England. But when the ship was detained at Greenwich he refused an invitation from Dundas to spend the time at his house, saying that he could not set foot on English soil again after receiving such an order. The romantic biographers have enlivened his voyage with adventures. They tell how the Dutch vessel in which he sailed was stopped and searched by an English frigate, and Talleyrand dressed himself in the cook’s clothes to pass the scrutiny. M. Michaud, as usual, does not deign to mention his authority. Talleyrand only says that the ship was beaten back by heavy storms, and seemed at one time in danger of being driven on the French coast. It did put in at Falmouth for repairs, and Talleyrand landed there, so that his objection to English soil was relaxing. He was told that an American general was staying at an inn in the town, and he found that it was General Arnold, who would hardly give him an attractive picture of his future home. Whether it was from this conversation, or from a real weariness of spirit (or, in fine, a freak of memory in later years), he says that he did not want to leave ship when they reached Philadelphia. Another ship was sailing out as they reached the mouth of the Delaware, and he sent a boat to learn its destination. It was going to Calcutta, and he wanted, he says, to take a berth in it, but could not get one. He landed at Philadelphia with his companions, M. de Beaumetz and des Renaudes, towards the end of March.