The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  He characterized Ledyard as “a man of genius, of some science, and of fearless courage, and enterprise,” who had “distinguished himself on several occasions by an unrivaled intrepidity.” Already Ledyard had sailed the South Pacific with Captain Cook. When his plans to establish a fur-trading company failed, Ledyard, being “of a roaming, restless character,” decided to explore the American West and thought he might get there the hard way—by entering Russia, crossing Siberia to Kamschatka, and taking passage in a Russian vessel bound for Alaska.18

  Jefferson did more for Ledyard than merely loan him money. He supported this American explorer’s ambitious plan for crossing Russia and sought help from another of his close friends in Paris, Baron de Grimm. Though ugly and deformed, Grimm was “the pleasantest, and most conversible member of the diplomatic corps … a man of good fancy, acuteness, irony, cunning, and egoism: no heart, not much of any science, yet enough of every one to speak its language. His fort[é] was Belles-lettres, painting and sculpture. In these he was the oracle of the society, and as such was the empress Catharine’s private correspondent and factor in all things not diplomatic.”19 Despite Grimm’s intimate relationship with Russian Court, he could not obtain permission for Ledyard to cross Russia. Undaunted, Ledyard decided to go anyway.

  Unofficially, Jefferson supported Ledyard’s decision to cross Russia without the proper credentials. The two men spent much time discussing ways Ledyard could gather and record scientific information that would survive even if he should be caught and his baggage seized. Jefferson was concerned that any scientific instruments he carried with him would be stolen. He might even be murdered for the sake of them. On the other hand, if he did not bring with him the means to determine latitude, then he would not be able to describe accurately the rivers, mountains, or fertile tracts of land he encountered. Jefferson devised an ingenious solution.

  Before Ledyard left Europe, Jefferson recommended that he have the measure of the English foot tattooed onto his arm. Furthermore, he instructed Ledyard how he could determine latitude with nothing more than this measurement, two sticks, and a circle drawn in the dirt. Jefferson also described to him a detailed method of measuring the breadth of a river. Once he took these or any other measurements, Ledyard could then tattoo the results onto his skin using an indelible ink made from the juices of certain herbs. Jefferson also devised a set of secret characters Ledyard could use to tattoo the measurements onto his skin.20

  Jefferson’s concept of the human body as a writing surface is intriguing. In his day, tattoos were associated with primitive culture or, in the Western tradition, with sailors, whose characteristic tattoos expressed their personal and group identity or functioned as talismans.21 Though the tattoos Jefferson recommended were practical ones, they also identified the person they adorned. The man who went about with a true-to-scale ruler tattooed on his body identified himself as a member of the Enlightenment, someone so committed to scientific discovery that he was willing to disfigure his body for the sake of science.

  Ledyard took Jefferson’s advice and entered Russia with his forearm adorned with a ruler, complete with one-inch increments. And he apparently tattooed the measurements he took onto his hands. Writing to Jefferson from Barnaul, Ledyard explained, “I am a curiosity myself in this country. Those who have heard of America flock round me to see me. Unfortunately the marks on my hands procures me and my Countrymen the appelation of wild-men.”22 Traveling across Russia, Ledyard walked thousands of miles, making it deep into Siberia—as far as Irkutsk—before the authorities arrested him, escorted him under guard thousands of miles back to European Russia, deported him to Poland, and warned him never to set foot in Russia again. Ledyard returned to Paris to inform Jefferson of his adventures and discuss his latest plans to go to Africa and trace the Nile to its source.

  Franklin had established the tradition of hosting a Fourth of July celebration at his home in Passy, and Jefferson perpetuated the tradition. He hosted his first Independence Day party as ambassador in 1785, when friends and fellow Americans gathered at his home in the Cul de Sac Taitbout. Serving good food accompanied by fine wine and lively music, Jefferson gave his guests much to remember. He would continue the tradition throughout his time in France.

  Philip Mazzei reached Paris late this July. Practically the first thing he did upon his arrival was to seek out his good friend and Virginia neighbor. “Our meeting,” Mazzei wrote, “was very touching to both of us.” Though Mazzei had already written letters of introduction for Jefferson to everyone in Paris he could think of, he had inadvertently neglected to write Jean-François Marmontel. Seeing Jefferson in Paris, Mazzei was anxious to remedy this neglect.

  ‘Mr. de Marmontel is one of our great Friends, and admirers of our Cause,” Mazzei told Jefferson. “He is goodness itself. He is about 66. years of age, and his good and young wife thinks herself quite happy with an old man so good and so great.”23

  The two agreed to call on him the morning after Mazzei arrived. Reaching Marmontel’s home, they found him on his way out. Marmontel insisted on turning back to welcome them properly. A friendship between Jefferson and Marmontel quickly developed. “That morning Jefferson had to go to various other places,” Mazzei recalled. “Nonetheless, our chat lasted about two hours. They had much to tell and more to ask each other.” Mazzei even recorded a snippet of their conversation. A question Jefferson asked shows that he was starting to plumb the mysteries of international diplomacy.24

  Why do the ministers of foreign powers make such a mystery out of entirely trivial matters, Jefferson wondered.

  “That’s true,” Marmontel agreed. “They always padlock their lips, but if you take the padlock off you’ll see the trunk is empty.”

  Jefferson cherished this new friendship. He had been reading Marmontel for years, not just the well-known Moral Tales, but other works, too. Furthermore, he had been recommending Marmontel’s writings to friends at least since the early 1770s. Before long, the two started dining together regularly each week. An accomplished storyteller, Marmontel made a delightful dinner companion. Jefferson described their friendship to Webster: “Marmontel was a very amusing man. He dined with me, every Thursday, for a long time, and I think told some of the most agreable stories, I ever heard in my life. After his death I found almost all of them in his Memoirs, and I dare say, he told them so well, because he had written them before in this book.”25

  These comments about Marmontel contrast sharply with Jefferson’s remarks about Saint-Lambert. Though associating the conversation of both men with their writings, Jefferson has the two acting in opposite ways. Saint-Lambert used what he heard in the salon to create his writings; Marmontel wrote up his personal anecdotes and told them in conversation after committing them to paper. For Saint-Lambert, conversation was a rehearsal for writing; for Marmontel, writing served as a rehearsal for conversation. Regardless how either Saint-Lambert or Marmontel actually wrote their works, Jefferson’s words show that he recognized a symbiotic relationship between the spoken word and the written. Good talk makes good books; and good books make good talk.

  The day Jefferson met Marmontel turned out to be quite busy. As Mazzei and Jefferson prepared to leave, who should show up at Marmontel’s door but Madame de Marmontel’s uncle, the Abbé Morellet, whom Mazzei called “one of the most sensible men in France.”26 The two visitors turned around to speak with him, lingering for another hour or so. Having set the tone with these social activities, Mazzei and Jefferson continued in the same vein. Before the day was out they went to see Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, whose experiments in chemistry Jefferson was familiar with; the Marquis de Condorcet, whose genius Jefferson appreciated and whose company he would continue to enjoy; and the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who was becoming a close friend. The pleasures of Rochefoucauld’s company, Jefferson told a friend, contributed “much to render my residence in Paris agreeable.”27

  Before the summer was out, Jefferson decided to find a new home, one more su
itable to his position as American minister to France. He finally located one after much searching, and made arrangements to rent it. He wrote Abigail Adams: “I have at length procured a house in a situation much more pleasing to me than my present. It is at the grille des champs Elysees, but within the city. It suits me in every circumstance but the price, being dearer than the one I am now in. It has a clever garden to it.”28 The Hôtel de Langeac, as Jefferson’s new home was known, provided a stateliness befitting the American ambassador. Its location on the Champs-Elysées at the corner of the Rue de Berri adjoining the Grille de Chaillot at the edge of town near the Bois de Boulogne was more befitting Jefferson’s personality. He took possession of the Hôtel de Langeac the third week of October 1785, and from then on had the opportunity to walk regularly through the large wooded area that formed the Bois de Boulogne, an activity that kept his body fit and, given the close connection between walking and thinking, sharpened his mind, too.

  The Marquis de Chastellux had been a frequent visitor at his home in the Cul de Sac Taitbout. After Jefferson moved to the outskirts of Paris, Chastellux became a frequent visitor to the Hôtel de Langeac. Perhaps none of his contacts among the Parisian literati were more helpful to Jefferson—or more enjoyable—than the Marquis.

  After having his private edition of Notes on the State of Virginia printed, Jefferson asked Chastellux to present a copy to the Comte de Buffon. Though Jefferson was quite critical of Buffon in his book, this presentation copy initiated their personal acquaintance. Soon after making this present, Jefferson sent Buffon the panther-skin he had purchased in Philadelphia: physical proof refuting Buffon’s primary argument that creatures deteriorated in the New World. Buffon acknowledged the gift of the panther skin in a letter to Jefferson and expressed hope that he and Chastellux would visit soon. Buffon was then living at the Indendant’s House in the Jardin du Roi. In early 1786, Chastellux escorted Jefferson there so the two could meet. Jefferson long remembered their meeting.

  “When I was in France,” he told Webster, “the Marquis de Chastellux carried me to Buffon’s residence in the country, and introduced me to him. It was Buffon’s practice to remain in his study till dinner time, and receive no visitors under any pretence, but his house was open, and his grounds; and a servant showed them very civilly, and invited all strangers and friends to remain and dine. We saw Buffon in the garden, but carefully avoided him, but we dined with him and he proved himself then as he always did, a man of extraordinary power in conversation. He did not declaim—he was singularly agreable.”29

  Chastellux introduced Jefferson as the author of Notes on the State of Virginia and politely reminded Buffon that Jefferson was the man who had disputed his conclusions regarding the natural history of the New World.

  Nonplussed, Buffon removed a copy of his latest book from the shelf, presented it to Jefferson, and, apparently addressing his guest in the third person, stated, “When Mr. Jefferson shall have read this, he will be perfectly satisfied that I am right.”30

  Jefferson knew Buffon’s theory about nature in the New World was wrong, and others were starting to recognize Buffon’s error, too. As a British reader observed, “The ingenious Mr. Jefferson … in his Notes on the State of Virginia, etc. has taken occasion to combat the opinions of Buffon; and seems to have fully refuted them both by argument and facts.”31 Jefferson refused to let their differences of opinion get in the way of their friendship—he frequently returned to the Jardin du Roi to visit Buffon. “I often dined with the Count de Buffon, who talked without ceasing, but with great eloquence, on subjects connected with natural history,” Jefferson told another acquaintance.32

  He spoke with Buffon about many scientific subjects. Jefferson was puzzled by Buffon’s belligerence toward other fields of study. After a conversation with him in 1788, Jefferson wrote another scientifically inclined friend, the Reverend James Madison:

  Speaking one day with Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical enquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on a footing with those of the kitchen. I think it on the contrary among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race. It is yet indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested. Experiments seem contradictory: their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and their result too fallacious to satisfy the mind.33

  Never did Jefferson stop trying to convince Buffon of the superiority of American fauna. He even commissioned a New England hunter to kill a moose and have it stuffed so that he could present it to Buffon as unequivocal proof. It was an ambitious idea, but the effort took much more time and expense that Jefferson anticipated. When the moose finally reached Paris, it had a bit of the mange about it. Still, there could be no denying the fact that the beast was big.

  Besides facilitating Jefferson’s entrance into the scientific world of Paris, Chastellux also stimulated his literary interests by prompting him to think more about poetry and ultimately to write a lengthy essay on the subject. Though not generally known for literary criticism, Jefferson found it useful for practicing his critical and analytical skills. He also encouraged students to write literary criticism. To one he advised:

  Criticise the style of any book whatever, committing your criticisms to writing. Translate into the different styles, to wit, the elevated, the middling and the familiar. Orators and poets will furnish subjects of the first, historians of the second, and epistolary and Comic writers of the third—Undertake, at first, short compositions, as themes, letters, etc., paying great attention to correctness and elegance of your language.34

  “Thoughts on English Prosody,” the fullest piece of literary criticism Jefferson wrote, is usually dated 1786, but he must have been contemplating it as early as October 1785, when he purchased a 109-volume small-format edition of the British poets published by John Bell in Edinburgh for his daughter. The first Friday of that month Jefferson recorded in his account books, “Pd. Goldsmith for 87. vols. of Bell’s poets for Patsy 156f,” and the following Thursday, he further recorded, “Pd. Goldsmith for residue of Bell’s poets 22 vols. 39f12.”35 These small volumes, each about six inches tall, were just the kind of little books Jefferson enjoyed most. Though his accounts indicate that he was buying them for his daughter, they remained with his books at the Hôtel de Langeac.

  Among the literary treasures at the University of Virginia is one volume of the Comtesse de Genlis’s four-volume collection of plays written for schoolchildren, Théatre à l’Usage de Jeunes Personnes, with evidence of Martha Jefferson’s ownership. The volume contains the following inscription in her hand: “Marthe Jefferson Panthmont Juliet 1785.” The inscription clearly shows that this volume was in her possession in July 1785. Her frenchification of her Christian name recalls her father’s latinization of his Christian name in the books he acquired when he was her age. All but one of the 109 volumes of Bell’s English poets survive at the University of Virginia. Though her father acquired this extensive collection for her just three months after Martha inscribed her copy of Genlis, none are similarly inscribed.

  Take Bell’s edition of The Poetical Works of Abraham Cowley, for example. One volume is inscribed “M. Randolph, Monticello,” an indication that Martha did not put her ownership inscription into these volumes until after her marriage. The I and T signatures of this surviving Cowley volume do contain her father’s unique marks of ownership, indicators that the book was in his possession, not hers, from the time he acquired it until they returned to Virginia.

  This lengthy explanation is meant to explain her father’s behavior, not to critique it. To be sure, Jefferson was not the last figure in American literary history to purchase books for family members that he wanted to read himself. His talks with Chastellux had stimulated his curiosity about English prosody, and his acquisition of Bell’s collection of English poets let him deepen his study of English verse considerably. Jefferson wrote “Thoughts on Englis
h Prosody” specifically for Chastellux. Though there is no evidence that he ever fully completed the work or actually sent it to his friend, he did go so far as to write a cover letter explaining the impetus behind it.

  “Among the topics of conversation which stole off like so many minutes the few hours I had the happiness of possessing you at Monticello, the measures of English verse was one,” Jefferson wrote. “We have again discussed on this side the Atlantic a subject which had occupied us during some pleasing moments on the other,” he continued. “A daily habit of walking in the Bois de Boulogne gave me an opportunity of turning this subject in my mind and I determined to present you my thoughts on it in the form of a letter. I for some time parried the difficulties which assailed me, but at length I found they were not to be opposed, and their triumph was complete.”36

  In other words, Jefferson’s conversations with Chastellux brought their differing opinions to the surface. Unable to convince Chastellux in person, Jefferson decided to write out his ideas in the form of an essay on English verse. To prepare his written composition, he rehearsed his ideas during his daily walks through the Bois de Boulogne. After many miles and much thought, he realized that Chastellux was right, and he was wrong.

  Read in light of his contemporary literary activities, the cover letter’s emphasis on the importance of literary conversation shows clearly. Jefferson’s experience within the Comtesse d’Houdetot’s salon and in other social and intellectual circles in Paris let him know the value of conversation for encouraging literary discourse. “Thoughts on English Prosody” itself reveals the value of conversation for developing ideas, preventing error, and inspiring thought.