This slight fanfare (!), suggests that it is Louis Sebastien Mercier, French playwright and author of Le Tableau de Paris (2 vol., 1781; 12 vol., 1782–89), and a moderate member of the French Convention, who is visiting London, rather than his brother Charles André, who visited earlier (in 1788) and who would later become resident in London. Thomas Holcroft married Charles André Mercier's daughter Louisa in 1799.