SOCIETY AND TRAVEL
The Ceres reached Portsmouth nineteen days after leaving Boston, a remarkably swift passage, without incident, except for three days spent in fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, while the ship was becalmed. Jefferson and his companions were delayed a week in Portsmouth by Martha's slight illness, and then went directly to Paris, where he arrived on August 6, 1784. Jefferson was to remain in France till the fall of 1789—five years crowded with pleasures, social duties, political duties, and hard work. His activities were so varied and his interests so diversified that it is no longer possible to follow any chronological order; we must establish arbitrary divisions, though Jefferson passed at all times from one subject to another and was incessantly busy with undertakings and plans truly encyclopedic.
First of all, he had to find quarters. He had put up at the Hôtel d'Orléans, Rue des Petits Augustins, then he had rented "Hôtel Tête-Bout, cul-de-sac Tête-Bout", and a year later moved to a house belonging to M. le Comte de L'Avongeac "at the corner of the Grande Route des Champs Elysées and Rue Neuve de Berry", where he continued to live as long as he remained in Paris. His secretary Short and Colonel Humphreys, secretary to the legation, lived with him. It was "a very elegant house, even for Paris, with an extensive garden, court and outbuildings, in the handsomest style."
Of Jefferson's first impressions after landing in France we unfortunately know nothing. Not until a full year had elapsed did he express his personal views in writing. Although he deplored the wretched condition of the larger mass of the people, he had already come to the conclusion, probably correct, that life in Paris was more pleasant than anywhere else on earth: "The roughnesses of the human mind are so thoroughly rubbed off with them, that it seems as if one might glide through a whole life without a jostle."[103] It was some time, however, before he felt entirely at home in Parisian society. He was somewhat handicapped and humiliated at first because of lack of means at the disposal of the Minister of the United States for maintaining his rank. In his report on the reduction of the civil list (March 5, 1784), Jefferson, animated with a fine republican zeal, had fixed the compensation of American representatives abroad at ten thousand dollars. Now that he was in Paris he found the allowance very inadequate. A proud Virginian, accustomed to entertain generously, he considered hospitality an imperious duty as well as a pleasure, and his letters to Congress are filled with complaints on the niggardliness of his resources. However, he procured a good French cook in the person of the worthy Petit, who became quite attached to him, and wrote for him recipes for "poulet en casserole" and "café à la française." He informed himself concerning the best French wines, some of which he already knew, and made a thorough and scientific study of the different vintages, recording the result of his observations in unpublished notes. Nor was he so selfish as to keep all his knowledge to himself. Adams and Washington used his good offices to keep their cellars well stocked in champagne and sauternes. For them and for Madison he subscribed to "L'Encyclopédie Méthodique", he bought new French books, engravings, plaster casts, and medals, and his willingness to oblige his friends and to go shopping for them was so well known that Mrs. Adams asked him to buy for her daughter "two pairs of corsets", much to his distress, since she had omitted to send him the measure. For Mrs. Bingham he filled boxes with "caps and bonnets"; for Madison he bought a pocket telescope, a walking stick, a chemical box, for poor little Polly who had remained with her aunt at Eppington "sashes" and Parisian dolls.
Through Franklin, Jefferson was introduced to Madame d'Houdetot, who had unlimited admiration for a man who not only was an American and a philosopher, but who also knew the names of American plants and trees much more thoroughly than her dear Doctor. He obtained for her seeds, bulbs, and trees to be planted in the park of Sannois.[104] Through Franklin also he met Madame Helvétius and her two abbés, who always wrote jointly to Jefferson.[105] At her house, he saw Cabanis, then a very young man, Destutt de Tracy and abbé Morellet. He attended concerts at Madame d'Houdetot's brother's house, but above all he was attracted by Lafayette's family and friends. It was large enough for a man of more leisure and more worldly tendencies. There was the Marquis himself and his charming wife, who befriended Martha and wrote Jefferson several notes filled with that delightful eighteenth-century "sensibilité" and amiability of which we have lost the secret. There was also Madame de Tessé, Lafayette's cousin, who was, however, considerably older than the Marquis and whom he called "aunt." Jefferson saw her in Paris and visited her often at Chaville, where Short stayed for weeks at a time, perfecting himself in the French language and the ways of French society. She loved trees, good paintings, fine buildings, statues, and music, and did much to educate Jefferson's taste in these matters. Not mentioned by his biographers, Madame de Corny played a not inconsiderable part in Jefferson's sentimental life. Young, pretty, witty, and married to a husband much older than herself, she enjoyed Jefferson's company, took with him many walks in the Bois de Boulogne and perhaps, secretly, found him too scrupulously polite and too respectful.[106] There were also several other women, Madame de Tott, a distinguished painter, the vivacious and charming Lucy Paradise, Comtesse Barziza, a real "enfant terrible", irresponsible, outspoken, who in her letters to Jefferson listed all the scandals of the days.[107] And one must not forget among Jefferson's feminine acquaintances the old Comtesse de la Rochefoucauld, dignified, sarcastic, a terrible bore at times, whom on many occasions he vainly tried to avoid.
But when all is told, it does not appear that the circle of Jefferson's friends was ever very large. During his first year in Paris he did his best to keep in the background. To Franklin he owed deference, because of his age and the position of the Doctor as the only accredited representative to the Court of Versailles. Adams, the other plenipotentiary, was older than Jefferson, who on every occasion insisted that his colleagues should have precedence over him. A good listener, he was much more reserved than Franklin and always remained somewhat self-conscious when he spoke or wrote French. If the Doctor spoke French as badly as he wrote it, his conversation must have been an extraordinary jargon; but Jefferson was too sensitive and had too much amour-propre to venture upon long discussions and conversations with people he did not know intimately. Most of his French letters were written by Short, who became rapidly a master of the language, and we may presume that Jefferson never really felt at home in a purely French circle.
This was true at least of his first year in Paris. He had many fits of despondency and wondered at times whether he was not too old to accustom himself to strange people and to strange manners. He often experienced the usual longing of the traveler for his native land: "I am now of an age which does not easily accommodate itself to new modes of living and new manners," he wrote to Baron Geismer, the former prisoner of Charlottesville; "and I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds and independence of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. I shall therefore, rejoin myself to my native country with new attachments and exaggerated esteem for its advantages."[108] It was probably on these occasions that he took refuge in the most silent of all places, a Carthusian monastery, a very strange abode for one who has been accused of being a fierce anti-clerical:
He also had rooms in the Carthusian Monastery on Mount Calvary; the boarders, of whom I think there were forty, carried their own servants, and took their breakfasts in their own rooms. They assembled to dinner only. They had the privilege of walking in the gardens, but as it was a hermitage, it was against the rules of the house for any voices to be heard outside of their own rooms, hence the most profound silence. The author of "Anarcharsis" was a boarder at the time, and many others who had reasons for a temporary retirement from the world. Whenever he had a press of business, he was in the habit of taking his papers and going to the hermitage, where he spent sometimes a week or more till he had finished his work. The hermits visited him occasionally in Paris, and the Superior made him a present of an ivory broom that was turned by one of the brothers.[109]
From time to time this same mood recurred:
I am burning the candle of life without present pleasure or future object—he wrote to Mrs. Trist in 1786.—A dozen or twenty years ago this scene would have amused me; but I am past the age for changing habits. I take all the fault on myself, as it is impossible to be among a people who wish more to make one happy—a people of the very best character it is possible for one to have. We have no idea in America of the real French character.[110]