Adams Family Correspondence, volume 6
1785-05-10
I cannot let my son return to America without a few lines to you, nor will I doubt their being acceptable altho it is nine months since I left Home during all which time neither Mr. Adams or I have had the honour of receiving a line either from the General or your Ladyship, altho we have repeatedly written to you.1 Your Son who is resident in Lisbon and mine who has inhabited France have regularly corresponded2 by which means I have had the pleasure of knowing that there was one Branch of the Family yet on this side the land of forgetfullness. I left America not a little anxious for the Health of my two young Friends Mr. Charles and Henery, and tho I have heard from them by way of my Braintree Friends, it would have been more agreeable to me to have received the account from the Hand of their Mama. My son has made a wise choice I think in prefering to return to his own country and compleat his education at Harvered that he may become acquainted with the Youth of his own Standing and form connextions in early life amongst those with whom he is to pass his days. An acquaintance and intimacy in your family will be an object with him, and as you and I Love to praise our children and why when deserving should we not? I think you will find him as intelligent as most young Men of his age, and as little tincturd with the vices and follies of Europe. He loves his Studies too well to be much addicted to any thing else. Having spent ten years abroad uncorrupted, I hope he will not be less cautious in his own country where there is little less danger than in Europe. But as he is yet young the advice and Friendship of the ancient Friends of his Parents will ever be usefull to him.
You will hear before this reaches you of the completion of an ancient prophecy of yours, but I do not recollect whether you auguerd good or evil from it.3 At present there are so many Clouds to peirce, some of them armd with thunder and lightning that I query whether the Electrical Phylosopher himself could devise means to secure a person from the burning flashes. I think too it has been said that when clouds meet from opposite directions the severest tempest ensues. What then can a person expect who stands unshelterd beneath so inclemnant a hemisphere?
But to quit Allegory we are destined to England. An embassy I dare say in which your penetration discovers many difficulties, some aris-139ing from one side of the Atlantick and Some on the other. I never could find either sufficient honour or profit to balance the anxiety which I have both seen and felt in the various employments to which my friend has been call'd. His Success and the benifit derived to our Country from that, has given me great pleasure. Whether his usual good fortune in negotiation will follow him in this embassy time must unfold, but it has brought a weight of care and a load of anxiety upon him. I shall feel some Regreets at quitting so agreeable a climate and the delightfull Garden which is just unfolding all its Beauties. My acquaintance with French Ladies is rather small and none that I value much save Madam da la Fayette, who is a Lady with whom you would be much pleased. Her high Rank and family have not made her like most others forget eitheir the Maternal or Domestick Character. She said to me in conversation one day that she dissapr
We are told here that Governour Hancok has resignd the Chair!!!— and are much at a loss for his Successor out of the many candidates which will no doubt be upon the list. I hope our state will not get so divided as to fall into unhappy parties. I hear Mrs. Macauly says that she does not find so much Republicanism as she expected. She went there ten years too late. Yet let her serch whatever part of the Globe she pleases, it is not probable that she will find a larger Proportion of it else where. Pray make my Respectfull compliments to her,6 and remember me to all my Friends of your family. Be assured Dear Madam that frequent communication with you will give real pleasure to your Friend and Humble Servant
The Warrens' only letters to the Adamses for this period known to the editors are: James Warren to JA, 29 June 1784 (Adams Papers), which AA is perhaps not counting because it followed so closely on her departure for Europe; James Warren to JA, 28–29 Jan. (Adams Papers), which was evidently slow in reaching France; and Mercy Warren's letters of 27 April to JA (Adams Papers), and 30 April to AA, above. AA's only known letter to Mercy Warren for this period was that of 5 Sept. Warren-Adams Letters
, vol. 2.
The Adams Papers contains letters from Winslow Warren to JQA, dated 13 July, and 1 Sept. 1784, and 4 Jan., 1 March, and 29 June; all except the first are from Lisbon. JQA's letters to Winslow Warren have not been found.
In Jan. 1776, JA had proposed to Mercy Warren that they exchange characterizations of notable people whom they met (JA, Papers
, 3:397). Mercy Warren responded with enthusiasm, but predicted that she would gain more than he from the bargain, because she believed that he would soon make the acquaintance “not only of the Most Distinguished Characters in America, but of the Nobility of Britain. And perhaps before the Conflict is Ended, with some of those Dignifyed personages who have held the Regalia of Crowns And Scepters” (10 March 1776, same, 4:51). JA replied, on 16 April, that Mercy Warren would be disappointed in this expectation: “Your Correspondent, has neither Principles, nor Address, nor Abilities, for such Scenes” (same, 4:125). When JA was appointed a commissioner to France, Mercy Warren wrote to AA and asked her to remind JA of her prediction, for she expected that he would keep his part of their original bargain (2 Jan. 1778, vol. 2:377).
The editors have found no evidence that Lafayette sought an appointment as French minister to the United States in the 1780s, but had he been appointed to that post, it seems hardly likely that the two American cities—New York and Hartford, Conn.—and the two 141states—Maryland and Massachusetts—that had made him a citizen between September 1784 and February 1785 would have considered his appointment grounds for terminating that honor.
From his return to France in 1782, however, Lafayette had in effect acted as an extra American minister to France, and to Spain, and in February 1783 he sought an appointment as American minister to Great Britain in order to present the peace treaty, once Congress had ratified it, to the Court of St. James's. In letters to America's secretary for foreign affairs, R. R. Livingston, and to George Washington, Lafayette explained that he only wanted to carry out a brief ceremonial mission, and he declared that he had no interest in being America's “Sedentary” minister, a position for which he recommended Alexander Hamilton (Lafayette to Livingston, 5 Feb. 1783 [2d letter],
Lafayette in the Age of the Amer. Rev.
, 5:88–90; Lafayette to Washington, same date, 5:90–93). Both Livingston and Washington concluded that it would be better not to have a foreigner, even the Marquis de Lafayette, make such a presentation to Great Britain.
Meanwhile, both in France, where he consulted frequently with Benjamin Franklin and with the Comte de Vergennes and the French comptroller general Calonne, and on his 1784 tour of America, Lafayette worked tirelessly to promote Franco-American commerce as a counterweight to Britain's growing commercial power in America following the conclusion of peace. In addition to providing strong informal competition to JA as an American diplomat, Lafayette worked in greater harmony with Franklin and his diplomatic objectives than he did with either JA or John Jay, with whom he occasionally had some friction. This fact alone, quite aside from Lafayette's association with the Society of the Cincinnati (see note 5), seems adequate to explain AA's criticism here. The fullest account of Lafayette's activities in this period is in Louis Gottschalk, Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution, Chicago, 1942, chaps. 15–16; Gottschalk, Lafayette Between the American and the French Revolution, 1783–1789, Chicago, 1950, chaps. 3–15; and
Lafayette in the Age of the Amer. Rev.
, vol. 5.
Here AA probably intends a further criticism of Lafayette, the head of the French chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati. The new military order had earned the immediate disapproval of the Adamses, of John Jay and Thomas Jefferson, and even of Lafayette's ally Franklin, as well as that of many other Americans in France. Lafayette, sensitive to their anti-aristocratic criticism, labored to explain the Society to its critics, while urging George Washington to seek the alteration of the Society's rules to eliminate the provision for hereditary membership. Washington supported this change, and hostility to the order, strongest in New England and among civilian servants of America in Europe, soon subsided. But AA's remarks here and her concern, immediately below, that Col. Humphreys and Col. Smith were “Knights of Cincinnatus,” demonstrate that republican hostility to the order did not die out quickly. AA probably learned of Col. Smith's membership in the Cincinnati in late April. See JA to Elbridge Gerry, 28 April (LbC, Adams Papers); AA to JA, 11 Feb. 1784, and note 9, above; and Louis Gottschalk, Lafayette Between the American and the French Revolution, 1783–1789, chap. 5.
Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay had traveled to America with her second husband, William Graham, in 1784, and visited George Washington at Mt. Vernon in 1785 (
DNB
).
1785-05-12
Did you ever my dear Betsy see a person in real Life such as your imagination form'd of Sir Charles Grandison? The Baron de Stael the Sweedish Ambassador comes nearest to that Character in his Manners and personal appearence of any Gentleman I ever saw. The first time I saw him I was prejudic'd in his favour, for his countanance 142Commands your good opinion, it is animated intelligent sensible affable, and without being perfectly Beautifull, is most perfectly agreeable. Add to this a fine figure, and who can fail from being Charmed with the Baron de Stael?
He lives in a Grand Hotel, and his suite of apartments his furniture and his table are the most Elegant of any thing I have seen. Altho you dine upon plate in every noble House in France, I cannot say that you may see your face in it, but here the whole furniture of the table was burnished and shone with Royal Splendor. Seventy thousand Livres in plate will make no small figure, and that is what his Majesty gave him. The desert was servd in the richest China with knives, forks, and spoons of Gold. As you enter his apartments you pass through files of servants into his antichamber, in which is a Throne coverd with green velvet upon which is a Chair of State over which hangs the picture of his Royal Master. These thrones are common to all Ambassadors of the first order as they are the immediate representatives of the king. Through his antichamber you pass into the grand Saloon which is elegantly adornd with architecture, a Beautifull Lusture hanging from the middle. Settees Chairs and hangings of the richest Silk embroiderd with Gold, Marble Slabs upon fluted pillars round which wreaths of artificial flowers in Gold entwine. It is usual to find in all houses of fashion, as in this, several dozen of Chairs, all of which has stuft backs and cushings standing in double rows round the rooms. The dinning room was equally beautifull, being hung with Gobelin tapestry the coulours and figures of which resembled the most elegant painting. In this room were hair bottom mahogony back chairs and the first I have seen since I came to France, two small statues of a venus de Medicis and a venus de bel—(ask Miss Paine for the other Name,) were upon the Mantle peice, the latter however was the modestest of the kind, having something like a lose robe thrown partly over her.
From the Sweedish Ambassadors we went to visit the Dutchess of D'Anville, who is Mother to the Duke de Rouchfoucault.1 We found the old Lady sitting in an Easy chair, around her set a circle of Academicians and by her side a young Lady. Your uncle presented us, and the old Lady rose and as usual gave us a Salute. As she had no paint, I could put up with it, but when she approachd your cousin I could think of nothing but death taking hold of Hebe.2 The dutchess is near 80, very tall and lean. She was drest in a silk chimise with very large sleaves comeing half way down her arm, a large cape, no stays a black velvet Girdle round her waist. Some very rich lace in 143her chimise round her neck and in her sleaves, but the lace was not sufficient to cover the upper part of her neck which old time had harrow'd. She had no cap on, but a little black gauze Bonet which did not reach her Ears and tied under her chin, her venerable white hair in full view. The dress of old women and young girls in this Country is detestable to speak in the French stile. The latter at the age of Seven being cloathed exactly like a woman of 20 and the former have such a fantastical appearance3 that I cannot endure it. The old Lady has all the vivacity of a Young one. She is the most learned woman in France. Her house is the resort of all Men of literature with whom she converses upon the most abstruse subjects. She is
Thus you have my yesterdays entertainment. The only pleasure which I shall feel to day, is that which I have taken in writing you this morning. I forgot to mention to you that several persons of high rank dined with us yesterday, but not one of them can claim a stroke of my pen after the Baron de Stael.
Adieu my dear Betsy your cousin leaves us in a few hours. I will gratify myself in thinking that he is going to his Friends. May heaven Bless him and prosper his Voyage. Yours affectionately
JA had met the Duchess d'Anville and her son upon his first arrival in Paris, in April 1778. The late Duc d'Anville, to whose military career AA refers at the end of this paragraph, had led the unsuccessful French expedition to recapture the fortress at Louisbourg in 1746, and had died, perhaps by his own hand, near the site of Halifax, Nova Scotia. From early reports, New Englanders had feared that d'Anville's expedition would be “a kind of Armada” (JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:42, note philosophe and friend of America with a keen interest in American state constitutions. He was killed by a Revolutionary mob in 1792 (Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale
).
The daughter of Hera and Zeus, and a cup-bearer to the gods, Hebe was a symbol of youthful beauty.
The words “woman of 20 and the former have such a fantastical appearance” have been made nearly illegible by a badly worn fold. This reading has been confirmed by AA, Letters, ed. CFA, 1848, p. 251.
“A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house” (Mark 6:4; see also Matthew 13:57, and John 4:44).