Statesmanlike though the aims of Dumouriez were, they suffered not a little in their exposition. Talleyrand, the brain of the policy, was not its mouthpiece. In the French embassy at Portman Square he figured merely as adviser to the French ambassador, the _ci-devant_ Marquis de Chauvelin, a vain and showy young man, devoid of the qualities of insight, tact, and patience in which the ex-bishop of Autun excelled his contemporaries. Had this sage counsellor remained in London to the end of the year, things might have gone very differently. The instructions issued to Chauvelin contain ideas similar to those outlined above; but they lay stress on the utility of a French alliance for England, in order to thwart the aims of a greedy Coalition and to ensure her own internal tranquillity, which, it is hinted, France can easily ruffle. Talleyrand is also charged to offer to cede the small but valuable island, Tobago, which we lost in 1783, provided that the British Government guaranteed a French loan of L3,000,000 or L4,000,000, to be raised in London; and he is to suggest that, if the two Powers acted together, they could revolutionize Spanish America and control the world.[69] Our curiosity is aroused as to the reception which Pitt and Grenville gave to these schemes. It is not certain, however, that Chauvelin and Talleyrand showed their hand completely; for events told against them from the outset. Chauvelin bore with him an autograph letter from Louis XVI to George III, couched in the friendliest terms, and expressing the hope of closer relations between the two peoples.[70] But before he could present it to the King at St. James's, it appeared in the Paris papers. This breach of etiquette created a bad impression; for it seemed that the letter was merely a bid for an alliance between the two peoples. It is quite possible that Dumouriez, with his natural impulsiveness, allowed it to gain currency in order to identify Louis XVI with French democracy, and that in its turn with public opinion in England. Further, we now know that Marie Antoinette, in her resolve to paralyse the policy and the defensive power of France, wrote at once to Fersen at Brussels that her consort's letter was very far from speaking his real sentiments.[71] This news, when passed on to London, must have made it clear that the two envoys represented the Girondin Ministry, but not the King of France. Then again tidings soon arrived of the disgraceful flight of the French troops on the Belgian frontier, the new levies, at sight of the Austrian horse, rushing back to Lille in wild disorder and there murdering their General, Theobald Dillon. George III and Grenville wrote of this event in terms of disgust and contempt.[72] It is therefore not surprising that the reception of Chauvelin was far from promising; and Talleyrand doubtless felt that the time was not ripe for discussing an Anglo-French _entente_ for the control of the world.