In "The Diary and Letters" there are many bits of gossip about certain great persons, notably about Talleyrand, who got rid of his mitre as soon as he could, and Madame de Flahaut. It seems to me that Talleyrand and Philippe Égalité were the most fascinating characters of the French Revolution, for the same reason perhaps that moved a small boy who was listening to a particularly dull history of the New Testament to exclaim suddenly, "Oh, skip about the other apostles; read to me about Judas!"
To persons who might censure Gouverneur Morris's frankness one may quote a short passage from Boswell's "Johnson." "To discover such weakness," said Mrs. Thrale to Doctor Johnson,
speaking of the autobiography of Sir Robert Sibbald, "exposes a man when he is gone." "Nay," said the pious and great lexicographer, "it is an honest picture of human nature."
This, then, excuses the clever and wise Gouverneur Morris for enlightening us as to the paternity of a son of Madame de Flahaut. Morris, for a time that condoned the amourettes of Benjamin Franklin, was virtuous. Madame de Flahaut, afterward Madame de Souza, gave Morris a hint that he might easily supplant Talleyrand in her affection. "I may, if I please, wean her from all regard toward him, but he is the father of her child, and it would be unjust." In this noble moment Mr. Morris chivalrously forgets the existence of the Count de Flahaut!
In 1789, Mr. Morris continues to write platonic verses to Madame de Flahaut; the Queen's circle at Versailles is worried about the fidelity of the troops; the Count d'Artois holds high revelry in the Orangery; De Launey's head is carried on a pipe in the streets of Paris, and murdered men lie in the gutters. But the fashionable life of Paris is not disturbed. Mr. Morris goes to dinner. He is invited for three o'clock, to the house of Madame
la Comtesse de Beauharnais. Toward five o'clock the Countess herself came to announce dinner. Morris is happy in the belief that his hunger will be equal to the delayed feast. For this day, he thinks he will be free from his enemy, indigestion. He is corroborated in his opinion that Madame de Beauharnais is a poetess by
a very narrow escape from some rancid butter of which the cook had been very liberal.
But this is froth, and yet indicative of the depth beneath. It seems to me that there is no more interesting and useful book on the French Revolution than this autobiography. It ought to be placed near De Tocqueville's "Ancient Régime" and "Democracy in America."
On December 2, 1800, he believed it to be the general opinion that Mr. Jefferson was considered a demagogue, and that Aaron Burr would be chosen President by the House of Representatives. The gentlemen of the House of Representatives believed that Burr was vigorous, energetic, just, and generous, and that Mr. Jefferson was "afflicted with all the cold-blooded vices, and particularly dangerous from false principles of government
which he had imbibed." Virginia would be, of course, against Burr, because, Morris writes,