My zeal still prompts, ambitious to pursue
The foe, ye fair, of liberty and you:
Grateful for praise, spontaneous and unbought,
A generous people's love not meanly sought;
To merit this, and bend the knee to beauty,
Shall be my earliest and latest duty."
Many of Jones's flowery letters to distinguished women are preserved. On one occasion he wrote to a certain countess, informing her that he was composing a secret cipher for a key to their correspondence, and added: "I beseech you to accept the within lock (of hair). I am sorry that it is now eighteen inches shorter than it was three months ago."
The only case in which Jones's affections seem to have reached beyond good nature, common kindness, or gallantry, to the point of love, was that of Aimée de Thelison. She was the natural daughter of Louis XV., and this fact no doubt greatly heightened her interest in the eyes of the aristocratic Jones. She was a person of beauty and charm, and felt deep love for Jones. His love for her was of a cool character, which did not interfere with any of the enterprises taking him so frequently away from Paris. His letters to her are with one exception hardly love letters. The warmest words in that exception are:—
"The last French packet brought no letter to me from the person whose happiness is dearer to me than anything else.... Your silence makes even honors insipid."
It was while Jones was waiting thus gayly to sail for America, that the king of France bestowed upon him, in recognition of his services to the common cause, the Royal Order of Military Merit and a gold-mounted sword of honor, and made him Chevalier of France. It was, as Jones himself frequently wrote, a singular honor, he being the first alien to be made a French chevalier; and Jones prized this favor from a king more than he would the gift of a million dollars. The gold sword also pleased him deeply, and he asked the countess to whom he had sent the lock of hair to keep it for him, lest he lose it. He wrote of this gift:—