Accordingly, when the President invited the two ministers to dine at the White House without their wives, they replied that they could not accept the invitation until after receiving instructions from their Governments. Jefferson regarded this concerted answer as an insult.[273] He too lost his temper so far as to indulge in sharp comments, and thought the matter important enough to call for explanation. In a private letter to Monroe, dated Jan. 8, 1804, he wrote:[274]—
“Mr. Merry is with us, and we believe him to be personally as desirable a character as could have been sent us; but he is unluckily associated with one of an opposite character in every point. She has already disturbed our harmony extremely. He began by claiming the first visit from the national ministers. He corrected himself in this; but a pretension to take precedence at dinner, etc., over all others is persevered in. We have told him that the principle of society as well as of government with us is the equality of the individuals composing it; that no man here would come to a dinner where he was to be marked with inferiority to any other; that we might as well attempt to force our principle of equality at St. James’s as he his principle of precedence here. I had been in the habit when I invited female company (having no lady in my family) to ask one of the ladies of the four Secretaries to come and take care of my company, and as she was to do the honors of the table I handed her to dinner myself. That Mr. Merry might not construe this as giving them a precedence over Mrs. Merry I have discontinued it, and here as in private houses the pêle-mêle practice is adhered to. They have got Yrujo to take a zealous part in the claim of precedence. It has excited generally emotions of great contempt and indignation (in which the members of the Legislature participate sensibly) that the agents of foreign nations should assume to dictate to us what shall be the laws of our society. The consequence will be that Mr. and Mrs. Merry will put themselves into Coventry, and that he will lose the best half of his usefulness to his nation,—that derived from a perfectly familiar and private intercourse with the Secretaries and myself. The latter, be assured, is a virago, and in the short course of a few weeks has established a degree of dislike among all classes which one would have thought impossible in so short a time.... With respect to Merry, he appears so reasonable and good a man that I should be sorry to lose him as long as there remains a possibility of reclaiming him to the exercise of his own dispositions. If his wife perseveres she must eat her soup at home, and we shall endeavor to draw him into society as if she did not exist.”
Of all American hospitality none was so justly famous as that of Virginia. In this State there was probably not a white man, or even a negro slave, but would have resented the charge that he was capable of asking a stranger, a foreigner, a woman, under his roof, with the knowledge that he was about to inflict what the guest would feel as a humiliation. Still less would he have selected his guest’s only enemy, and urged him to be present for the purpose of witnessing the slight. Reasons of state sometimes gave occasion for such practices, but under the most favorable conditions the tactics were unsafe. Napoleon in the height of his power insulted queens, browbeat ambassadors, trampled on his ministers, and made his wife and servants tremble; but although these manners could at his slightest hint be imitated by a million soldiers, until Europe, from Cadiz to Moscow, cowered under his multiplied brutality, the insults and outrages recoiled upon him in the end. Jefferson could not afford to adopt Napoleonic habits. His soldiers were three thousand in number, and his own training had not been that of a successful general; he had seven frigates, and was eager to lay them up in a single dry-dock. Peace was his passion.
To complicate this civil war in the little society of Washington, Jerome Bonaparte appeared there, and brought with him his young wife, Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore. Jerome married this beautiful girl against the remonstrances of Pichon; but after the marriage took place, not only Pichon, but also Yrujo and Jefferson, showed proper attention to the First Consul’s brother, who had selected for his wife a niece of the Secretary of the Navy, and of so influential a senator as General Smith. Yet nothing irritated Napoleon more than Jerome’s marriage. In some respects it was even more objectionable to him than that of Lucien, which gave rise to a family feud. Pichon suspected what would be the First Consul’s feelings, and wrote letter after letter to clear himself of blame. In doing so he could not but excite Napoleon’s anger against American society, and especially against the family of his new sister-in-law.
“It appears, Citizen Minister,” wrote Pichon to Talleyrand,[275] “that General Smith, who in spite of the contrary assurances he has given me, has always had this alliance much at heart, has thrown his eyes on the mission to Paris as a means of appeasing (ramener) the First Consul. He has long since aimed at the diplomatic career, for which he is little qualified; this motive and the near return of Mr. Livingston have decided his taste. For some time there has been much question of this nomination among the friends of General Smith. There is also question of promoting, on the part of the First Consul, for minister to this country, a selection which should be connected with the other. It is thought that the appointment of M. Jerome Bonaparte would be an honorable mode of leaving the First Consul’s brother time to have his fault forgotten, and of preparing his return to favor.”
Such readiness among Jefferson’s advisers to court the favors of the young First Consul was sure not to escape the eyes of the embittered Federalists. Pichon’s account, although sharp in allusions to General Smith’s “vanity,” was mild compared with the scorn of the New Englanders. Apparently the new matrimonial alliance was taken seriously by prominent Republican leaders. One of the Massachusetts senators mentioned in his diary[276] a “curious conversation between S. Smith, Breckenridge, Armstrong, and Baldwin, about ‘Smith’s nephew, the First Consul’s brother.’ Smith swells upon it to very extraordinary dimensions.” Pichon openly spoke of the whole family connection, including both Robert and Samuel Smith, and even Wilson Cary Nicholas, as possessed with “an inconceivable infatuation” for the match; “it was really the young man who was seduced.” Nothing that Pichon could say affected them. Senator J. Q. Adams remarked: “the Smiths are so elated with their supposed elevation by this adventure, that one step more would fit them for the discipline of Dr. Willis,”—the famous English expert in mental diseases.[277]
The President and his friends might not know enough of Napoleon’s character to foresee the irritation which such reports would create in his mind, but they were aware of the contrast between their treatment of Jerome Bonaparte and their slights to Anthony Merry. Had they felt any doubt upon the subject, the free comments of the British minister and his wife would have opened their eyes. In truth, no doubt existed. Washington society was in a manner ordered to proscribe the Merrys and Yrujo, and pay court to Jerome and the Smiths.
Had this been all, the matter would have ended in a personal quarrel between the two envoys and the two Virginians, with which the public would have had no concern. Jefferson’s “canons of etiquette” would in such a case have had no further importance than as an anecdote of his social habits. The seriousness of Jefferson’s experiments in etiquette consisted in the belief that they were part of a political system which involved a sudden change of policy toward two great Powers. The “canons” were but the social expression of an altered feeling which found its political expression in acts marked by equal disregard of usage. The Spanish minister had already reason to know what he might expect; for six weeks before Merry’s dinners John Randolph proclaimed in the House that West Florida belonged to the United States, and within the week that preceded Merry’s reception, he brought in the Bill which authorized the President to annex Mobile. After such a proceeding, no diplomatist would have doubted what meaning to put upon the new code of Republican society. Merry’s arrival, at the instant of this aggression upon Spain, was the signal for taking toward England a higher tone.
Merry could not fail to see what lay before him. From the President, notwithstanding heelless slippers and “canons of etiquette,” the British minister heard none but friendly words. After the formal ceremony of delivering the letter of credence was over,—
“He desired me to sit down,” wrote Merry,[278] “when we conversed for some time on general affairs. The sentiments which he expressed respecting those of Europe appeared very properly to be by no means favorable to the spirit of ambition and aggrandizement of the present ruler in France, or to the personal character in any respect of the First Consul, and still less so to his conduct toward all nations.”