“The picture does represent her younger—but failed to restore the expression of health and cheerful, ever-joyous vivacity which her countenance then habitually wore. My mother’s face owed its greatest charm to its expressiveness, beaming, as it ever was, with kindness, good humor, gayety and wit. She was tall and very graceful; her complexion naturally fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very long and very abundant. Her manners were uncommonly attractive from their vivacity, amiability and high breeding, and her conversation was charming.”
CHAPTER XXI.
WIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS—LIFE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
A Social Queen—“The Most Popular Person in the United States”—“Dolly Madison’s” Reign—The Slow Days of Old—A Young Lady Rides Five Hundred Miles on Horseback—Travelling Under Difficulties—Political Pugnacity—A Peaceful Policy—Formality versus Hospitality—Big Dishes Laughed at—A Foreign Minister Criticises—Advantages of a Good Memory—Funny Adventure of a Rustic Youth—A Strange Pocketful—Putting Him at his Ease—Doleful Visage of a New President—Getting Rid of a Burden—A Brave Lady—She Writes to Her Sister—Waiting in Suspense—Taking Care of Cabinet Papers—“Disaffection Stalks Around Us”—“Col. C.” very Prudently “Skedaddles”—One Hundred “Braves” Skedaddle with Him—“French John” Makes a Proposition—He Desires to “Blow up the British”—John “Doesn’t See It”—Watching and Waiting—Flight—Unscrewing the Picture—After the War—Brilliant Receptions—Mrs. Madison’s Snuff Box—Clay Takes a Pinch—“This is My Polisher!”—“Tempora Mutantur”—Two Plain Old Ladies from the West—“If I Jest Kissed you”—They Depart in Peace—Days of Trouble and Care—Manuscripts Purchased by Congress—The “Franking Privilege” Conferred upon Mrs. Madison—Honored by Congress—Last Days of a Good Woman—Mrs. Monroe—A Serene and Aristocratic Woman—“La Belle Americaine”—Madame Lafayette in Prison—Fennimore Cooper Expresses an Opinion—Grotesque Anomalies at a Reception—The Crown and the Eagle.
President Jefferson showed his personal appreciation as well as his official recognition of Mrs. Madison, both in his letters to his daughters and in the fact that Mrs. Madison, when the wife of the Secretary of State, presided at Jefferson’s table during the absence of his own family. But it was as the wife of the fourth President of the United States that she inaugurated the golden reign of the President’s house.
She was the only woman of absolute social genius, who ever presided in this house. Thus the beneficence and brilliancy of her reign was never approached before her time, and has never been equalled since.
It is a rare combination of gifts and graces which produces the pre-eminent social queen, in any era or in any sphere. Mrs. Madison seemed to possess them all. During the administration of her husband she was openly declared to be “the most popular person in the United States;” and now, after the lapse of generations, after hosts of women, bright, beautiful and admired, have lived, reigned, died, and are forgotten, “Dolly Madison” seems to abide to-day in Washington, a living and beloved presence. The house in which her old age was spent, and from which she passed to heaven, is every day pointed out to the stranger as her abode. Her face abides with us as the face of a friend, while her words and deeds are constantly recalled as authority, unquestioned and benign.
When she began her reign in Washington, steamboats were the wonder of the world; railroads undreamed of; turnpike roads scarcely begun; the stagecoach slow, inconvenient, and cumbersome. The daughter of one senator, who wished to enjoy the delights of the new capital, came five hundred miles on horseback by her father’s side. The wife of a member rode fifteen hundred miles on horseback, passed through several Indian settlements, and spent nights without seeing a house in which she could lodge. Under such difficulties did lovely women come to Washington, and out of such material were blended the society of that conspicuous era.
When Mrs. Madison entered the President’s house, the strife between the democratic and republican parties was at its highest. Washington, above all party, had yet declared himself the advocate of the unity and force of the central power. Jefferson had been the President of the opposition, who wished the supremacy of the masses to overrule that of the higher classes. On these contending factions Mrs. Madison shed equally the balm of her benign nature. Not because she was without opinions, but because she was without malignity or rancor of spirit. Born and reared a “Friend,” she brought the troubled elements of political society together in the bonds of peace. She possessed, in pre-eminent degree, the power of intuitive adaptation to individuals, however diversified in character, and the exquisite tact in dealing with them, which always characterizes the true social queen. She loved human beings and delighted in their fellowship. She never forgot an old friend, and never neglected the opportunity of making a new one. She banished from her drawing-room the stately forms and ceremonials which had made the receptions of Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Adams very elegant and rather dreadful affairs. She was very hospitable, and a table bountifully loaded was her delight and pride. The abundance and size of her dishes were objects of ridicule to a Foreign Minister, even when she entertained as the wife of the Secretary of State, he declaring that her entertainments were more like “a harvest home supper than the entertainment of a Cabinet Minister.”
Mrs. Madison never forgot the name of any person to whom she had been introduced, nor any incident connected with any person whom she knew. Able to summon these at an instant’s notice, she instinctively made each individual, who entered her presence, feel that he or she was an object of especial interest. Nor was this mere society-manners. Genial and warm-hearted, it was her happiness to make everybody feel as much at ease as possible. This gentle kindness, the unknown and lowly shared equally with the highest in worldly station. At one of her receptions her attention was called to a rustic youth whose back was set against the wall. Here he stood as if nailed to it, till he ventured to stretch forth his hand and take a proffered cup of coffee. Mrs. Madison, according to her wont, wishing to relieve his embarrassment, and put him at his ease, walked up and spoke to him. The youth, astonished and overpowered, dropped the saucer, and unconsciously thrust the cup into his breeches pocket. “The crowd is so great, no one can avoid being jostled,” said the gentle woman. “The servant will bring you another cup of coffee. Pray, how did you leave your excellent mother? I had once the honor of knowing her, but I have not seen her for some years.” Thus she talked, till she made him feel that she was his friend, as well as his mother’s. In time, he found it possible to dislodge the coffee cup from his pocket, and to converse with the Juno-like lady in a crimson turban, as if she were an old acquaintance.
Like Amelia Opie, and other beautiful “Friends,” who have shone amid “the world’s people,” Mrs. Madison delighted in deep warm colors, the very opposite of the silver grays of a demure Quakeress. At the inauguration ball, when Jefferson, the outgoing President, came to receive Madison, his successor, Mrs. Madison wore a robe of buff-colored velvet, a Paris turban with a bird of paradise plume, with pearls on her neck and arms. A chronicler of the event says that she “looked and moved a queen.” Jefferson was all life and animation, while the new President looked care-worn and pale. “Can you wonder at it?” said Jefferson. “My shoulders have just been freed from a heavy burden—his just laden with it.”