[7] Médéric Louis Elie Moreau de St. Méry, a Frenchman of good family. He had passed a somewhat distinguished career as a legislator, in his native country, until the period of the Revolution; when he had to flee from Robespierre. Having safely reached the United States with his family, he became a merchant’s clerk for a short time, and eventually opened a bookseller’s shop, to which was afterwards added a printing office. He wrote and published several works in Philadelphia, and returned to France in 1799. Died 1819, ætat. sixty-nine. [8] The residence of Talleyrand in America is an obscure period in his history. We may learn more of it when the long-expected memoirs are published. The first part of his exile was spent in the neighbourhood of New York, and time hung heavily on his hands, for his pecuniary resources were scanty; and, indeed, this period was afterwards one of the most painful memories of his life. There does not appear any foundation for the suspicion that Talleyrand was a spy in the pay of the French Government, although it is probable enough that he kept his eyes open on his own account. At last he determined (as he wrote to Madame Genlis) to try and retrieve his fortunes with mercantile speculations; and in this he was successful. Towards the close of 1795, he sent a petition for the revocation of his banishment, which was ultimately granted, and he returned to France in the course of the following year. (_Vide_ “Biographie Universelle;” also Touchard-Lafosse: “Hist. Polit. de Talleyrand.”)