Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

In Paris Talleyrand waited five months to meet with the three American commissioners and, when he did, complained about anti-French innuendos that, he claimed, had pervaded Washington’s farewell address. For a long time the American public was kept ignorant about the fate of this diplomatic mission. “Are our commissioners guillotined,” Washington wondered aloud to James McHenry, “or what else is the occasion of their silence?”39 In early March 1798 one of the commissioners, John Marshall, alerted Washington to the scandalous news that the French had tried to extort money from the American diplomats, in what would be billed as the XYZ Affair, named for the three nameless agents employed by Talleyrand to extract the payments.