To James Madison.
Paris, January 30th, 1787.
As you have now returned to Congress, it will become of importance that you should form a just estimate of certain public characters, on which, therefore, I will give you such notes as my knowledge of them has furnished me with. You will compare them with the materials you are otherwise possessed of, and decide on a view of the whole.
You know the opinion I formerly entertained of my friend Mr. Adams.... A seven months' intimacy with him here, and as many weeks in London, have given me opportunities of studying him closely. He is vain, irritable, and a bad calculator of the force and probable effect of the motives which govern men. This is all the ill which can possibly be said of him. He is as disinterested as the Being who made him; he is profound in his views and accurate in his judgment, except where knowledge of the world is necessary to form a judgment. He is so amiable, that I pronounce you will love him if ever you become acquainted with him. He would be, as he was, a great man in Congress....
The Marquis de Lafayette is a most valuable auxiliary to me. His zeal is unbounded, and his weight with those in power great. His education having been merely military, commerce was an unknown field to him. But, his good sense enabling him to comprehend perfectly whatever is explained to him, his agency has been very efficacious. He has a great deal of sound genius, is well remarked by the king, and is rising in popularity. He has nothing against him but a suspicion of republican principles. I think he will one day be of the ministry. His foible is a canine appetite for popularity and fame; but he will get over this. The Count de Vergennes is ill. The possibility of his recovery renders it dangerous for us to express a doubt of it; but he is in danger. He is a great minister in European affairs, but has very imperfect ideas of our institutions, and no confidence in them. His devotion to the principles of pure despotism renders him unaffectionate to our governments. But his fear of England makes him value us as a make-weight. He is cool, reserved in political conversations, but free and familiar on other subjects, and a very attentive, agreeable person to do business with. It is impossible to have a clearer, better organized head; but age has chilled his heart.
Nothing should be spared on our part to attach this country to us. It is the only one on which we can rely for support under every event. Its inhabitants love us more, I think, than they do any other nation on earth. This is very much the effect of the good dispositions with which the French officers returned. In a former letter I mentioned to you the dislocation of my wrist. I can make not the least use of it except for the single article of writing, though it is going on five months since the accident happened. I have great anxieties lest I should never recover any considerable use of it. I shall, by the advice of my surgeons, set out in a fortnight for the waters of Aix, in Provence. I chose these out of several they proposed to me, because if they fail to be effectual, my journey will not be useless altogether. It will give me an opportunity of examining the canal of Languedoc, and of acquiring knowledge of that species of navigation, which may be useful hereafter.... I shall be absent between two and three months, unless any thing happens to recall me here sooner; which may always be effected in ten days, in whatever part of my route I may be.
In speaking of characters, I omitted those of Rayneval and Hennin, the two eyes of the Count de Vergennes. The former is the most important character, because possessing the most of the confidence of the Count. He is rather cunning than wise, his views of things being neither great nor liberal. He governs himself by principles which he has learned by rote, and is fit only for the details of execution. His heart is susceptible of little passions, but not of good ones. He is brother-in-law to M. Gerard, from whom he received disadvantageous impressions of us which can not be effaced. He has much duplicity. Hennin is a philosopher, sincere, friendly, liberal, learned, beloved by every body; the other by nobody. I think it a great misfortune that the United States are in the department of the former. As particulars of this kind may be useful to you in your present situation, I may hereafter continue the chapter. I know it will be safely lodged in your discretion. I send you by Colonel Franks your pocket-telescope, walking-stick, and chemical-box. The two former could not be combined together. The latter could not be had in the form you referred to. Having a great desire to have a portable copying-machine, and being satisfied, from some experiments, that the principle of the large machine might be applied in a small one, I planned one when in England, and had it made. It answers perfectly. I have since set a workman to making them here, and they are in such demand that he has his hands full. Being assured that you will be pleased to have one, when you shall have tried its convenience, I send you one by Colonel Franks. The machine costs ninety-six livres, the appendages twenty-four livres, and I send you paper and ink for twelve livres; in all one hundred and thirty-two livres. There is a printed paper of directions; but you must expect to make many essays before you succeed perfectly. A soft brush like a shaving-brush is more convenient than the sponge. You can get as much paper and ink as you please from London. The paper costs a guinea a ream. I am, dear sir, with sincere esteem and affection, your most humble and obedient servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
The following charmingly written letter to one of his lady friends gives a spirited picture of the life of a Parisian belle:
To Mrs. Bingham.
Paris, February 7th, 1787.
I know, Madam, that the twelvemonth is not yet expired; but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honor of being put into your hands. You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not find the tranquil pleasures of America preferable to the empty bustle of Paris. For to what does the bustle tend? At eleven o'clock it is day, chez madame. The curtains are drawn. Propped on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are read, and the billets of the well. She writes to some of her acquaintances, and receives the visits of others. If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble around the cage of the Palais Royal; but she must hobble quickly, for the coiffeur's turn is come; and a tremendous turn it is! Happy if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over! The torpitude of digestion a little passed, she flutters for half an hour through the streets, by way of paying visits, and then to the spectacles. These finished, another half-hour is devoted to dodging in and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper. After supper, cards; and after cards, bed—to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill-horse, the same trodden circle over again. Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning. In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment with a useful and healthy activity. Every exertion is encouraging, because to present amusement it joins the promise of some future good. The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cobweb, by being spread over a thousand objects. This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind; now let me have it in yours. If we do not concur this year, we shall the next; or if not then, in a year or two more. You see I am determined not to suppose myself mistaken.
To let you see that Paris is not changed in its pursuits since it was honored with your presence, I send you its monthly history. But this relating only to the embellishments of their persons, I must add, that those of the city go on well also. A new bridge, for example, is begun at the Place Louis Quinze; the old ones are clearing of the rubbish which encumbered them in the form of houses; new hospitals erecting; magnificent walls of inclosure, and custom-houses at their entrances, etc., etc. I know of no interesting change among those whom you have honored with your acquaintance, unless Monsieur de Saint James was of that number. His bankruptcy, and taking asylum in the Bastile, have furnished matter of astonishment. His garden at the Pont de Neuilly, where, on seventeen acres of ground, he had laid out fifty thousand louis, will probably sell for somewhat less money. The workmen of Paris are making rapid strides towards English perfection. Would you believe that, in the course of the last two years, they have learned even to surpass their London rivals in some articles? Commission me to have you a phaeton made, and if it is not as much handsomer than a London one as that is than a fiacre, send it back to me. Shall I fill the box with caps, bonnets, etc.?—not of my own choosing, but—I was going to say—of Mademoiselle Bertin's, forgetting for the moment that she too is bankrupt. They shall be chosen, then, by whom you please; or, if you are altogether nonplused by her eclipse, we will call an Assemblée des Notables, to help you out of the difficulty, as is now the fashion. In short, honor me with your commands of any kind, and they shall be faithfully executed. The packets now established from Havre to New York furnish good opportunities of sending whatever you wish.
I shall end where I began, like a Paris day, reminding you of your engagement to write me a letter of respectable length, an engagement the more precious to me, as it has furnished me the occasion, after presenting my respects to Mr. Bingham, of assuring you of the sincerity of those sentiments of esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be, dear Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,
TH. JEFFERSON.
Mrs. Bingham to Thomas Jefferson.
June 1st, 1787.
I am too much flattered by the honor of your letter from Paris not to acknowledge it by the earliest opportunity, and to assure you that I am very sensible of your attentions. The candor with which you express your sentiments merits a sincere declaration of mine. I agree with you that many of the fashionable pursuits of the Parisian ladies are rather frivolous, and become uninteresting to a reflective mind; but the picture you have exhibited is rather overcharged; you have thrown a strong light upon all that is ridiculous in their characters, and you have buried their good qualities in the shade. It shall be my task to bring them forward, or at least to attempt it. The state of society in different countries requires corresponding manners and qualifications. Those of the French women are by no means calculated for the meridian of America, neither are they adapted to render the sex so amiable or agreeable in the English acceptation of those words. But you must confess that they are more accomplished, and understand the intercourse of society better, than in any other country. We are irresistibly pleased with them, because they possess the happy art of making us pleased with ourselves. Their education is of a higher cast, and by great cultivation they procure a happy variety of genius, which forms their conversation to please either the fop or the philosopher.
In what other country can be found a Marquise de Coigny, who, young and handsome, takes a lead in all the fashionable dissipations of life, and at more serious moments collects at her house an assembly of the literati, whom she charms with her knowledge and her bel esprit. The women of France interfere with the politics of the country, and often give a decided turn to the fate of empires. Either by the gentle arts of persuasion, or the commanding force of superior attractions and address, they have obtained that rank and consideration in society which the sex are entitled to, and which they in vain contend for in other countries. We are therefore bound in gratitude to admire and revere them for asserting our privileges, as much as the friends of the liberties of mankind reverence the successful struggles of the American patriots.
The agreeable resources of Paris must certainly please and instruct every class of characters. The arts of elegance are there considered as essential, and are carried to a state of perfection, and there the friend of art is continually gratified by the admiration for works of taste. I have the pleasure of knowing you too well to doubt of your subscribing to this opinion. With respect to my native country, I assure you that I am fervently attached to it, as well as to my friends and connections in it; there, perhaps, there is more sincerity in professions, and a stronger desire of rendering real services, and when the mouth expresses the heart speaks.
I am sensible that I shall tire you to death with the length of this letter, and had almost forgotten that you are in Paris, and that every instant of your time is valuable, and might be much better employed than I can possibly do it. However, I shall reserve a further examination of this subject to the period when I can have the happiness of meeting you, when we will again resume it. I feel myself under many obligations for your kind present of les modes de Paris. They have furnished our ladies with many hints for the decoration of their persons, and I have informed them to whom they are indebted. I shall benefit by your obliging offer of service, whenever I shall have occasion for a fresh importation of fashions; at present I am well stocked, having lately received a variety of articles from Paris.
Be so kind as to remember me with affection to Miss Jefferson. Tell her she is the envy of all the young ladies in America, and that I should wish nothing so much as to place my little girl under her inspection and protection, should she not leave Paris before I revisit it. I shall hope for the pleasure of hearing from you, and if you accompany another book of fashions with any new operas or comedies you will infinitely oblige me. It is quite time I bade you adieu; but remember this first of June I am constant to my former opinion, nor can I believe that any length of time will change it. I am determined to have some merit in your eyes, if not for taste and judgment, at least for consistency. Allow me to say, my dear sir, that I am sincerely and respectfully yours,
A. BINGHAM.