A commission was sent to France in 1797 to discuss the disputes that had arisen out of the U.S.'s refusal to honor the Franco-American Treaty of 1778. President Adams had also criticized the French Revolution, so France began to break off relations with the United States. Adams sent delegates to France to meet with French Foreign Minister Talleyrand in the hopes of working things out. Talleyrand's three agents told the American delegates that they could meet with Talleyrand only in exchange for a very large bribe. The Americans did not pay the bribe, and in 1798 Adams made the incident public, substituting the letters "X, Y and Z" for the names of the three French agents in his report to Congress.
