Adams Family Correspondence, volume 10
Vive la Baggatelle! Dulce est desipere.1 I have no other Resource in my solitude, amidst all my gloomy forebodings of the future Miseries of my beloved Species. Our Allies, Our only Alies as the Demi-Crazies pathetically call them, have compleated their System by turning all their Churches into, Je ne seais quoi and if they should have any Government erected among them either by Themselves or others, they may substitute Chorus’s of Boys and Girls to chant Prayers like the Romans
What think the Clergy of New England? What says Mr Wibird? Do they still Admire the French Republicans? Do they think them virtuous? Do they wish to see them imitated by all Nations? Do they wish to resign all their salaries? and to have their Churches all
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turned into Riding Houses, the Sabbath abolished, and one day in ten substituted to sing songs to the Manes of Marat. Oh my Soul! come not thou into the Secrets of such Republicans.4
The Guillotine itself would not make me a sincere Republican upon such Conditions.
The Spirit, Principals and system of rational Liberty to All Nations is my Toast: but I see no tendency to any Thing but Anarchy, Licentiousness and Despotism. Mankind will not learn Wisdom from Experience.
yours affectionately
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 9th 1794.”
That is, Dulce est desipere in loco, “’Tis sweet at the fitting time to cast serious thoughts aside” (Horace, Odes and Epodes, transl. C. E. Bennett, Cambridge, 1952, Book IV, Ode 12, line 28).
“Moved by your prayer he shall ward off tearful war, wretched plague and famine from the folk and from our sovereign Caesar, and send these woes against the Parthian and the Briton” (same, Book I, Ode 21, lines 13–16).
Isaiah, 23:1–14, describes the prophesied destruction of the Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon (or Zidon).
Veneration of the French revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat began immediately following his assassination by Charlotte Corday in July 1793. His funeral was orchestrated to emphasize his martyrdom, with one writer even comparing him to Jesus: “O heart of Jesus, O heart of Marat … you have the same right to our homage. O heart of Marat, sacré coeur … can the works and benevolence of the son of Mary be compared with those of the Friend of the People and his apostles to the Jacobins of our holy Mountain?” (Schama, Citizens,
p. 741–746).
New England clergy were generally quite supportive of the French Revolution, viewing it as an important event for the promotion of liberty and, at the same time, a useful check on Roman Catholicism. Even after many Federalists turned against the Revolution in 1792–1793, citing the growing violence of the Terror and attacks on all forms of organized religion, clergy tended to remain proponents, arguing that these events were merely stages to pass through before a peaceful, republican society could be established that would naturally embrace Protestantism. These attitudes would shift in late 1794 and early 1795 because of political and social changes in the United States, but JA was premature in his expectation that events in France at this time would sway the thinking of New England’s ministers (Gary B. Nash, “The American Clergy and the French Revolution,”
WMQ,
3d ser., 22:392–412 [July 1965]).
I have recd yours of Jan. 31.— And it has relieved me from a Melancholly which has hung upon me and been taken notice of by every body, since you wrote me of my Mothers illness— Present her my dutiful Affection and tell her that I hope to enjoy the Pleasure of her Company yet for many Years— That I am of her Opinion that she has the best Daughter and that the best Mother ought to have such a Daughter.
It is Day about with the Newsmongers. France is in not so good a Way. Even Mr Butler told me this day that “he turned away his Face and thoughts from France with Disgust and Horror.”— A shambles is called a Republic—And if they would but have read the Discourses on Davila they would have seen all this foretold in plain Language. St. Bartholomews Days are there said to be the natural and necessary Consequence of such a form of Government. And St. Bartholomews Days will endure as long As the form of Government— Aussi longtems qu’il plaira a Dieu.
I am weary of this eternal Indecision. I wish for the Times when Old sam. and Old John conducted with more Wisdom and more success. This is Egotism enough to deserve the Guillotine to be sure but I cannot but recollect old scænes, and old Results.—
The Rascals are now abusing the President as much as ever they abused me— And We shall see that A life of disinterested Devotion to the Publick is no more sacred in him than in another. In this Days Paper he is compared to Cosmo De Medicis to sylla to Cæsar: and charged with arbitrary illegal Conduct in many particulars particularly in the Proclamation respecting Duplaine.1
He cannot get out, any more than the Stirling, but I believe he desires it as fevently. I am determin’d to be saucy and I say that a Parcell of ignorant Boys who know not a rope in the ship, have the Vanity to think themselves able seamen.
We ought to authorize the President in perfect Secrecy to go as far as two hundred Thousand Pounds to obtain a perpetual Peace with the Algerines— Build a few Frigates if you will but expect they will be useless because unmanned.— But there is not a Member of either House who is not more master of the Subject than I am— so I should be modest
yours as ever
RC (Adams Papers); endorsed: “Febry 10 1794.”
A letter appearing in the Philadelphia General Advertiser, 10 Feb., signed Gracchus opens with the statement, “No station, no character in a republican government ought to shield a man’s conduct from investigation.” Gracchus further accuses George Washington of denying citizens the right to trial by jury and of behaving disrespectfully toward Edmond Genet. He concludes, “The freedom of these strictures may lead some to suppose that I am unfriendly to the President, … but although I respect his virtues I cannot admire his faults, neither can I tacitly submit to offer up my birthright on the altar of his power or aggrandizement. The language which I have held is that of a freeman, and none but a slave or a tyrant can be offended at it.”
Lucius Cornelius Sylla (or Sulla, ca. 138–79 B.C.), a Roman military leader, waged a civil war and became a dictator but eventually also restored constitutional government and retired to private life. Plutarch described his character as “rapacious in a high degree,
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but still more liberal; … submissive to those who might be of service to him, and severe to those who wanted services from him” (Oxford Classical Dicy.; Plutarch, Lives, transl. John Langhorne and William Langhorne, rev. edn., N.Y., 1859, p. 322).