Dear Madam,
I had the honor of writing to you on the 15th of February; soon after which, I had that of receiving your favor of December the 29th. I have a thousand questions to ask you about your journey to the Indian treaty, how you like their persons, their manners, their costumes, cuisine, &c. But this I must defer till I can do it personally in New York, where I hope to see you for a moment in the summer, and to take your commands for France. I have little to communicate to you from this place. It is deserted: every body being gone into the country to choose or be chosen deputies to the States General. I hope to see that great meeting before my departure. It is to be on the 27th of next month. A great political revolution will take place in your country, and that without bloodshed. A King with two hundred thousand men at his orders, is disarmed by the force of the public opinion and the want of money. Among the economies becoming necessary, perhaps one may be the opera. They say, it has cost the public treasury an hundred thousand crowns the last year. A new theatre is established since your departure; that of the Opera Buffone, where Italian operas are given, and good music. It is in the Château des Tuileries. Paris is every day enlarging and beautifying. I do not count among its beauties, however, the wall with which they have enclosed us. They have made some amends for this, by making fine boulevards within and without the walls. These are in considerable forwardness, and will afford beautiful rides round the city, of between fifteen and twenty miles in circuit. We have had such a winter, Madam, as makes me shiver yet, whenever I think of it. All communications, almost, were cut off. Dinners and suppers were suppressed, and the money laid out in feeding and warming the poor, whose labors were suspended by the rigor of the season. Loaded carriages passed the Seine on the ice, and it was covered with thousands of people from morning till night, skating and sliding. Such sights were never seen before, and they continued two months. We have nothing new and excellent in your charming art of painting. In fact, I do not feel an interest in any pencil but that of David. But I must not hazard details on a subject wherein I am so ignorant, and you such a connoisseur. Adieu, my dear Madam; permit me always the honor of esteeming and being esteemed by you, and of tendering you the homage of that respectful attachment with which I am, and shall ever be, Dear Madam, your most obedient, humble servant,
Th: Jefferson.
LETTER CXCI.—TO JAMES MADISON, March 15, 1789
TO JAMES MADISON.
Paris, March 15, 1789.
Dear Sir,
I wrote you last on the 12th of January; since which I have received yours of October the 17th, December the 8th and 12th. That of October the 17th came to hand only February the 23rd.
How it happened to be four months on the way, I cannot tell, as I never knew by what hand it came. Looking over my letter of January the 12th, I remark an error of the word ‘probable’ instead of’ improbable,’ which, doubtless, however, you had been able to correct.