It is said that she was well received abroad: "In London she stood up for her country and fought its battles in all companies." She was once accompanied by John Randolph of Roanoke and other distinguished personages on a visit to the London art galleries. In one of these the portraits of Washington and Napoleon hung side by side, and Randolph (who was always dramatic), pointing to the pictures, said, "Before us we have Napoleon and Washington, one the founder of a mighty Empire, the other of a great Republic." Then turning to Catherine with extended hand, "Behold!" he exclaimed, "in the Princess Murat the niece of both—a distinction which she alone can claim."
As the century neared its highest noon Fredericksburg became the home of one and another of the men destined to earn immortal fame in the Revolution. James Monroe lived there, whose hand, long since mingled with the dust, has yet the power to stay the advance of nations. Men of wealth secured the pleasant society all around by a residence in the town. As many as ten coaches were wont to drive out in company when the summer exodus to the springs set in.
There was a famous tailor in Fredericksburg who made the lace-trimmed garments for these gentry,—William Paul, a Scotchman. Hanging in his shop, was a handsome portrait of "my sailor brother John" as he explained to his customers. Anon the tailor died, and John came over to administer upon his estate. He found friends—Colonel Willy Jones and Doctor Brooke—who aided him materially in the first years of his life in Fredericksburg. In gratitude to the former he assumed the name of "Jones," and the latter he made surgeon of the Bon Homme Richard—for this was John Paul Jones the great, the brilliant naval officer of our Revolution. Congress gave him a commission and a ship, The Alfred, and on board that ship he hoisted before uelphia, with his own hands, the flag of freedom—the first time it was displayed. He claimed and received the first salute the flag of the infant Republic received from a foreign power. He served through the war, and at his death was the senior officer of the United States navy.
CHAPTER XIX
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
The essential principles in the drama of human life are ever the same although its outward aspect changes with changing circumstances. But in some ages events develop more rapidly than in others under the urgency of peculiar conditions.
In colonial Virginia the story was told over and over again before the final fall of the curtain. Scenes shifted with wonderful rapidity. The curtain, in mimic drama, is usually rung down at the church door after the early or late wooing and marriage; but in Virginia in the eighteenth century this was only the first in a drama of five or more acts. The early death of the first bride left a vacancy speedily filled by new and successive unions with new associations and combinations. Five times was not an unusual number for men to remarry.
This meant five wooings, five weddings, five "infairs," many births (varying in number from one to twenty-six), five funerals,—all to be included in thirty adult years more or less. Then, too, there were five tombstones to be erected and as many epitaphs to be composed—no two of which to be alike. One wife (usually the first) almost exhausts the vocabulary of adoring affection, another's piety is emphasized, another "lived peacably with her neighbors"; each one was "as a wife dutiful." "Obedient" was a word dear to the colonial husband.