Mrs. Adams found, as she neared Paris, the dangers to which she was exposed, and dismissing her servants, who were afraid to go farther, hired others and continued her approach to her husband. But every crossroad and forest path was filled with soldiers wild with enthusiasm, rushing forward to join their great chief, and at one time she found herself surrounded by them. This was a very awkward position, as the troops seemed disposed to require from all around them the most unequivocal declaration of political faith. Mrs. Adams appealed to the commander of the detachment, and by his advice she was enabled to fall back, although not without the exercise of considerable prudence, until the last of the men had passed, when she diverged into another road, and by making a considerable circuit, avoided any further meeting.
Having proved, in this manner, that calmness and presence of mind render many things perfectly practicable which imagination at first invests with insuperable difficulties, she arrived in Paris safe and well, there to be greeted by her husband, on the evening of the 21st of March, 1815, immediately after that of the memorable arrival of Napoleon and the flight of the Bourbons.
The advantages thus thrown in the way of an American woman were justly appreciated by Mrs. Adams, and she, free from prejudice, studied the strange perversities of fortune. The events of the hundred days were enough to crowd the memory for a lifetime. They fill us at this day, as we ponder over them, with awe and amazement. All was activity and eagerness, all bustle and confusion. The armies were reviewing in the square of the Place Carousel, and the inspiriting notes of martial music added enthusiasm to the grandness of the time and place.
But the arrival of her children in England, from whom she had been separated since the autumn of 1809, nearly six years, was of more interest to her than the events happening around her. On the 25th of May, 1815, Mr. Adams went to London with his family, and soon afterward learned that he was appointed Minister to the Court of St. James. The impression made upon the most eminent circles during his residence in London has been retained up to the present time. It has been said of him that “his simple habits, his plain appearance, his untiring industry, his richly stored mind, his unbending integrity, his general intercourse and correspondence with foreign courts and diplomatists of the greatest distinction, all tended to elevate, in a high degree, the American character in the estimation of European nations.”
Mrs. Adams had advantages in London which scarcely any American woman has ever had since; true, she had not wealth to make a great display, but her home was one of pleasant comfort, and enjoying as she did the society of one of the most intelligent of men, and of the best informed circle in the great capital, she had signal opportunities for cultivation. Charles King, in his eulogy on John Quincy Adams, speaks thus: “It was while Mr. Adams was Minister of the United States in London, that it was my personal good fortune to be admitted to his intimacy and friendship. Being then in London on private business, and having some previous acquaintance with Mr. Adams, I found in his house an ever kind welcome, and in his intercourse and conversation unfailing attraction and improvement. Under an exterior of, at times, almost repulsive coldness, dwelt a heart as warm, sympathies as quick, and affections as overflowing, as ever animated any bosom. His tastes, too, were all refined. Literature and art were familiar and dear to him, and hence it was that his society was at once so agreeable and so improving. At his hospitable board, I have listened to disquisitions from his lips on poetry, especially the dramas of Shakespeare, music, painting, sculpture—of rare excellence and untiring interest. The extent of his knowledge, indeed, and its accuracy, in all branches, were not less remarkable than the complete command which he appeared to possess over all his varied stores of learning and information.”
Mr. Monroe succeeded Mr. Madison in the Presidential chair in 1817, and immediately appointed Mr. Adams his Secretary of State. On receiving notice of his appointment to this responsible office, Mr. Adams with his family embarked for the United States, on board the packet-ship “Washington,” and landed in New York on the 6th of August, 1817. A few days after his arrival, a public dinner was given him in Tammany Hall, New York. The room was elegantly decorated. In the centre was a handsome circle of oak leaves, roses, and flags—the whole representing, with much effect, our happy union—and from the centre of which, as from her native woods, appeared our eagle, bearing in her beak this impressive scroll:
“Columbia, great Republic, thou art blest,
While Empires droop, and monarchs sink to rest.”
Soon afterward, Mr. Adams and family went to Boston to visit his father’s family, where he was the recipient of another public dinner: the last meeting with his mother on earth, it was one which he never forgot. It was gratifying to her sensitive nature to see him thus rising from one elevated position to another, and it soothed her aged heart beyond any power of expression. Many years of his life had been spent far away from her, and his absences were long and unbroken. She had always written regularly to him, and by example and precept endeavored to instil into his nature some portion of her own aspirations. When his talents had won for him this last position, she bowed her head and thanked God. Perhaps her spirit recognized his still higher promotion, and the natural conclusion, arrived at from former precedents, that by gradual ascent he would reach the place his father occupied, occurred to her. When she died at her home in Quincy, he was in Washington, busy with the manifold duties of his place, whither he had gone to reside permanently, in September, 1817.
The performance of the duties of the State Department necessarily required a residence at Washington, and the manner in which Mr. Adams thought proper to devote himself to them, devolved upon his lady the entire task of making his house an agreeable resort to the multitudes of visitors who crowd to the capital on errands of business, or curiosity, or pleasure, from the various sections of the United States during the winter season. A large diplomatic corps from foreign countries, who feel themselves in more immediate relations with the Secretary of State, and a distinguished set of public men, not then divided by party lines in the manner which usually prevails, rendered the society of that time, and Mrs. Adams’ house where it most often congregated, among the most agreeable recorded in the social history of the capital.