After speaking of the precious occasion that was here lost, of sparing to France the crimes and cruelties through which she afterwards passed, and of the good disposition of the young King, he says:
But he had a queen of absolute sway over his weak mind and timid virtue, and of a character the reverse of his in all points. This angel, so gaudily painted in the rhapsodies of Burke, with some smartness of fancy but no sound sense, was proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will, eager in the pursuit of pleasure, and firm enough to hold to her desires, or perish in their wreck. Her inordinate gambling and dissipations, with those of the Count d'Artois and others of her clique, had been a sensible item in the exhaustion of the treasury, which called into action the reforming hand of the nation; and her opposition to it, her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine, drew the King on with her, and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history. I have ever believed that, had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution. No force would have been provoked nor exercised. The King would have gone hand in hand with the wisdom of his sounder counsellors, who, guided by the increased lights of the age, wished only with the same pace to advance the principles of their social constitution. The deed which closed the mortal course of these sovereigns I shall neither approve nor condemn. I am not prepared to say that the first magistrate of a nation can not commit treason against his country, or is unamenable to its punishment; nor yet that, where there is no written law, no regulated tribunal, there is not a law in our hearts and a power in our hands, given for righteous employment in maintaining right and redressing wrong....
I should have shut up the Queen in a convent, putting harm out of her power, and placed the King in his station, investing him with limited powers, which, I verily believe, he would have honestly exercised, according to the measure of his understanding.
After giving further details, he goes on to say:
In this uneasy state of things, I received one day a note from the Marquis de Lafayette, informing me that he should bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of me the next day. I assured him of their welcome. When they arrived they were Lafayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander la Meth, Blacon, Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading patriots of honest but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of effecting a coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid, therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material principle in the selection. With this view the Marquis had invited the conference, and had fixed the time and place inadvertently, as to the embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed, and wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis introduced the objects of the conference.... The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued till ten o'clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent witness to a coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political opinion—to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato, and Cicero....
But duties of exculpation were now incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next morning, and explained to him, with truth and candor, how it had happened that my house had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me he already knew every thing which had passed; that, so far from taking umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion, he earnestly wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a wholesome and practicable reformation.
Nothing of further interest as regards the French Revolution appears in Jefferson's Memoir.
[CHAPTER X.]
Washington nominates Jefferson as Secretary of State.—Jefferson's Regret.—Devotion of Southern Statesmen to Country Life.—Letter to Washington.—Jefferson accepts the Appointment.—Marriage of his Daughter.—He leaves for New York.—Last Interview with Franklin.—Letters to Son-in-law.—Letters of Adieu to Friends in Paris.—Family Letters.