Though Jefferson’s strenuous efforts on Ramsay’s behalf largely went for naught, they do reveal his sense of personal and professional responsibility. His friendship with Ramsay partly motivated his efforts, but his sense of professional responsibility motivated him more. As American minister to the Court of France, he understood that he was responsible for carrying out the business in France his countrymen requested of him. When that business involved publishing books about the United States unprejudiced by British accounts, then it became a matter of utmost importance.
Beyond his personal and national responsibilities, another factor motivated Jefferson to do his best to publish Ramsay’s History. Un questionably dedicated to the United States, Jefferson did owe allegiance to another republic, one that transcended national and political boundaries: the Republic of Letters. His efforts to make Ramsay’s History available to European readers exemplify his belief in books without boundaries. Works written in other languages and published in other nations should be made available and affordable to any and all who wish to read them.
The difficulty and expense Jefferson was currently experiencing as he tried to obtain several Spanish volumes reinforced the importance of making books more easily available between different nations. Having honed his knowledge of Spanish during his passage from Boston to Europe, Jefferson was now cultivating his interest in Spanish literature, which took him in two different directions. His curiosity about early American history prompted him to read the accounts of Spanish exploration, but he was also broadening his knowledge of the Spanish belletristic tradition.
The Spanish works he acquired during his time in Europe include Don Vicente García de la Huerta’s Obras Poéticas, a collection of drama and verse; Parnaso EspañHol, a nine-volume collection of poetry edited by Juan José López de Sedano; Romances de Germanía, Juan Hidalgo’s collection of gypsy romances by various authors, including the great Spanish satirist Francisco de Quevedo; and La Eroticas, a collection of verse by Esteban Manuel de Villegas. Villegas’s provocative title makes the work seem more salacious than it is. Villegas included translations of verse from Horace and Anacreon and even appended a Spanish translation of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy—hardly the kind of thing that would seem to belong in a book entitled La Eroticas.
In the summer of 1786 Jefferson finally received the books he had ordered some months earlier through William Carmichael, U.S. chargé d’affaires in Spain. “Having been very desirous of collecting the original Spanish writers on American history,” he explained to James Madison, “I commissioned Mr. Carmichael to purchase some for me. They came very dear, and moreover he was obliged to take duplicates in two instances.”6 The Spanish books he received that summer included two by “El Inca,” the Peruvian mestizo chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega: La Florida and Commentarios Reale. He also received Jose d’Acosta’s Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias and Juan de Torquemada’s massive La Monarchia Indiana.
These books reached the Hôtel de Langeac from Spain around the same time John Trumbull arrived from England. Jefferson shelved them in his library and welcomed Trumbull to stay as long as he wished. Trumbull became not only a part of Jefferson’s circle, but also a part of his household. Jefferson announced his arrival to Francis Hopkinson: “Our countryman Trumbull is here, a young painter of the most promising talents. He brought with him his Battle of Bunker’s hill and Death of Montgomery to have them engraved here, and we may add, to have them sold; for like Dr. Ramsay’s history, they are too true to suit the English palate.”7
Jefferson’s comparison between Trumbull’s paintings of the American Revolution and Ramsay’s History of the Revolution in South Carolina reflects his prejudice against the English, which his encounter with its king and counselors earlier that year had done nothing to dispel. The English still could not face the truth of the American Revolution, he implied. Identifying a similarity between the works of Ramsay and Trumbull, Jefferson also paralleled literature and painting. Both forms of expression allow their creators to articulate truth and exalt the principles for which their countrymen fought and died. Much as Jefferson devoted an extraordinary amount of effort to help Ramsay, he would also exert himself on Trumbull’s behalf, introducing him to people he knew in the local artistic community.
Once Jefferson introduced Trumbull to his contacts in Paris, Trumbull immersed himself in the Parisian art world. The two paintings he brought along quickly earned him much respect. As Jefferson told Ezra Stiles, Trumbull’s paintings “are the admiration of the Connoisseurs. His natural talents of this art seem almost unparalleled.”8 Trumbull made many friends among the leading artists in Paris and, in turn, introduced Jefferson to them.
Jacques-Louis David was one of Trumbull’s new friends whom Jefferson came to know. After Trumbull introduced them, Jefferson returned to David’s studio at the Louvre on his own, where he saw The Oath of the Horatii. Once Trumbull had left Paris, Jefferson continued to follow David’s work. At the Exposition au Salon du Louvre in 1787, he saw David’s moving Death of Socrates. Jefferson wrote Trumbull and urged him to return to Paris before the exposition was over in order to see this magnificent work, the best item in the entire show. To his eye, David’s work was far superior to other contemporary painters. During his time in Paris, Jefferson reached a point where he cared little for any other artists besides David.9
Jefferson did appreciate another artist Trumbull introduced him to—for sentimental reasons. Maria Cosway, a beautiful Anglo-Italian painter, captured his heart and turned the summer of 1786 into a whirl of pleasure, the likes of which Jefferson had not known since he had courted his wife a decade and a half earlier. The fullest information about the relationship between Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Cosway occurs in the long letter he wrote her that autumn, which has become known as “Dialogue between My Head and My Heart.” Though this letter is worth analyzing as literature, it also contains much factual detail. The challenge is separating fact from fancy.
The Oath of the Horatii (1786), by Jacques-Louis David. (Toledo Museum of Art, purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1950.308)
Jefferson’s letter personifies both his mind and his sentiment. Head and Heart engage in a lively debate regarding which one should control his personal behavior. Few contemporary dialogues surpass Jefferson’s in terms of their literary quality. With the possible exception of Benjamin Franklin’s “Dialogue between the Gout and Mr. Franklin,” Jefferson’s letter constitutes the finest dialogue in the history of early American literature. Like Franklin’s, Jefferson’s dialogue anticipates later developments of the form in American popular culture, in which different parts of the body or aspects of the personality—the devil and the angel—debate possible courses of action.
Discussing how Trumbull introduced Jefferson to Maria and her husband, Richard Cosway, himself a talented and fashionable miniaturist, Head reminds Heart, “You will be pleased to remember that when our friend Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits and talents of these good people, I never ceased whispering to you that we had no occasion for new acquaintance.”10 The comment rings true: the circumference of Jefferson’s Parisian circle was continually expanding—to the detriment of his studies. The hours he spent with Trumbull and other artist friends took time away from his books, whose companionship he dearly cherished. While he lingered at the Louvre, all those newly arrived Spanish folios back at the Hôtel de Langeac remained unread.
Jefferson first met the Cosways at the municipal grain market, which may seem an odd place for a meeting, but the Halle aux Bleds, as it was called, was known less for what was sold inside than for what was placed on top: a vast rotunda. Jefferson was thoroughly impressed with this great dome—the largest in France—and hoped to model the U.S. Capitol on it. Constructed of wood and based on new principles of carpentry, the rotunda looked, in the words of one contemporary traveler, “as light as if suspended by the fairies.”11 It was made all the more magnificent by g
lass panels that let light enter and fill the interior.
The cross-hatched streams of light created a dramatic setting for what occurred the day Trumbull, Jefferson, and the Cosways showed up simultaneously. Imagine it: Entering the Hall aux Bleds with Jefferson, Trumbull spies the Cosways in this distance. They notice him and his lanky companion and begin walking toward them. As the Cosways approach, they pass through beams of light and patches of shadow. The four meet, and Trumbull introduces Jefferson to Mr. and Mrs. Cosway. Maria stands in the light, which enhances her natural beauty, showing off her large, blue eyes and the massive curls piled high atop her head. Next to his beautiful wife, her diminutive husband disappears in the shadows. Jefferson left no derogatory comments regarding Richard Cosway, but more than one contemporary said that Maria’s husband had a face like a monkey’s.12
Jefferson was smitten. Though he had other plans for this evening, he canceled them to be with her, even if it meant being with her chimplike husband, too. Jefferson had planned to dine with the Duchesse de la Rochefoucauld d’Anville, but he sent word to her via a “lying messenger” and canceled their plans. Something had suddenly come up: dispatches requiring his immediate attention had unexpectedly arrived. He dined with the Cosways at St. Cloud and then went to Ruggieri’s, a fashionable outdoor resort among the haut monde, where they witnessed an extraordinary display of fireworks. From Ruggieri’s they went to see a performance of Johann Baptiste Krumpholtz, the renowned Austrian harpist.
After that first meeting in early August, Jefferson met Maria Cosway often during the next two months. Sometimes she came with Chimp-Like, but frequently she came alone. Their meetings typically took the form of sightseeing. Together they saw the Pont de Neuilly, a “perfectly horizontal” bridge “remarkable for its elegant simplicity,” according to one contemporary traveler.13 Jefferson agreed. He called it the handsomest bridge in the world. He and Maria also visited Marly, where the impressive machinery cast a great mist into the air and produced a nearly perpetual series of rainbows. Primarily designed to channel water to the king’s pleasure gardens, Marly made a beautiful sight—provided a person did not think too much about the amount of money and manpower that went into this unnecessary extravagance.
Together they also saw the chateau at St. Germain en Laye, which was situated amidst a beautiful wooded park; the Pavilion de Musique at Louecinnes, the villa built by Louis XV the previous decade; the Chateau de Madrid, built by Francis I and modeled on the palace in which he was confined in Spain; and the Desert de Retz, which contained what may have been the most unusual sight of all, a house disguised as a ruined Roman column. Recalling their visit, Jefferson exclaimed, “How grand the idea excited by the remains of such a column! The spiral staircase was too beautiful!”
They attended the theater together on at least one occasion: the second week of September they visited the Théâtre Italien. In addition to Richard Coeur de Lion—libretto by Michel-Jean Sedaine, music by André Grétry—they also saw a performance of Les Deux Billets by the popular contemporary novelist and playwright Jean-Pierre-Claris de Florian. (Jefferson’s daughter Martha was also familiar with the works of Florian: a Paris friend had presented her with a copy of Galatée, Florian’s pastoral romance.)14 One of several theatrical works Florian collectively called his Arlequinades, Les Deux Billets tells the story of a harlequin and an unscrupulous rival who has purloined a love letter from him. Jefferson enjoyed the comedy well enough to add a copy of it to his library.
The following week Jefferson suffered a bad fall and fractured his right wrist. The circumstances surrounding this unfortunate fall are a little fuzzy. Friends and family members remembered its details differently. One day in mid-September Jefferson was out with a companion, who might have been Maria Cosway but could have been a male ac quaintance. They were out walking together, or they might have been on horseback. While trying to jump a fence—possibly—Jefferson tumbled to the ground, breaking his fall with his arm, breaking his wrist in the process.
Jefferson summoned Dr. Antoine Louis, who was considered the finest surgeon in Paris. Dr. Louis was not at his best the day he treated Jefferson. He set the wrist improperly, and Jefferson remained in great pain through October. The injury crimped his social activities, preventing him from seeing Maria as much as he wished. On Wednesday, October 4, the day before she and Richard Visage de Chimpanzé planned to leave Paris, Jefferson felt well enough to take a carriage ride with her. His wrist had not healed as well as he had hoped. Driving Maria’s carriage down the cobblestones, he “rattled a little too freely over the pavement” and reinjured the wrist.15
That evening, the pain was so excruciating he could not sleep at all. Making his pain more acute, Jefferson was saddened because he would not be able to say goodbye to Maria before she left Paris. With his left hand, he wrote an apologetic note to her, explaining, “I have passed the night in so much pain that I have not closed my eyes. It is with infinite regret therefore that I must relinquish your charming company for that of the Surgeon whom I have sent for to examine into the cause of this change.”16 Jefferson was apparently hoping she would linger in Paris for his sake, and he ended his letter asking her to notify him if she would delay her departure. He quickly dispatched the note.
Maria was touched by the left-handed message. She dashed off an affectionate note and sent it to him. Once he received it, Jefferson decided that the pain in his wrist was not so great to prevent him from saying goodbye to her in person. He sent away the surgeon he had summoned, hurried off in his carriage to the Cosways’ home, and accompanied them as far as the Pavilion de St. Denis, where he treated them to refreshments before saying his final goodbyes.
After taking their refreshments, Jefferson walked the Cosways to their carriage, helped Maria into it, and watched as its wheels began to turn. Sadly, he realized, the wonderful times they had spent together during the preceding weeks had come to a close.
Pierre d’Hancarville, an antiquarian and ancient art specialist, had also accompanied them to the Pavilion de St. Denis. He had been smitten by Maria Cosway’s charms, too, and was also saddened to see her go. As Jefferson tells the story, both men were dumbstruck and almost paralyzed by her departure. In the introductory paragraph to his “Dialogue between My Head and My Heart,” he explains that the coachman crammed them into the carriage “like recruits for the Bastille.” They scarcely had “soul enough to give orders to the coachman,” who assumed that Paris was their destination and headed back into the city.
Inside the carriage both men remained quiet for a time, but one of them eventually broke the silence to express his sadness at Maria’s departure. With the silence broken, they talked the rest of the way into the city. The coachman let d’Hancarville off first and then brought Jefferson back to the Hôtel de Langeac, where he took a seat by the fire, the pain in his heart supplanting the pain in his wrist.
It was at this time that he began thinking about what he would write to Maria to express how he felt and devised the idea to present his thoughts and feelings as a dialogue between the Head and the Heart. The dialogue was a prominent literary genre in the eighteenth century, and there are numerous examples of it in English and American literature.17 But Jefferson had a much older model he could turn to, Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius structured his work as a dialogue between himself and Philosophy, who descends upon him in his despair and urges him to find solace in philosophy. In Jefferson’s dialogue, Head performs much the same function as Philosophy in Boethius—at least at first.
A week later, with the letter carefully planned, Jefferson wrote the whole thing out in his left hand, all twelve pages. The letter situates the dialogue within a narrative frame. It begins in Jefferson’s voice and tells her about the carriage ride with d’Hancarville from the Pavilion de St. Denis back into Paris. As his opening frame ends, Jefferson, having returned home, is seated by his fire, “solitary and sad” listening to Head and Heart discuss his melancholy predicament.
/> “Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim,” Head says as he makes an ironic observation regarding Heart’s forlorn appearance.
“I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings,” Heart responds. “Overwhelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe should leave me no more to feel or to fear.”
The words Heart speaks are reminiscent of the letters Jefferson sent John Page two decades earlier. In those, he often assumed the persona of a distraught lover and conveyed his feelings through the use of hyperbole.
Responding to Heart’s expression of emotional distraught and overwhelming grief, Head observes, “These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever leading us. You confess your follies indeed; but still you hug and cherish them, and no reformation can be hoped, where there is no repentance.” Castigating Heart for becoming mired in emotion, Head sounds much like Philosophy, who castigates Boethius for turning his back on philosophy: “You are the man, are you not, who was brought up on the milk of my learning and fed on my food until you reached maturity? I gave you arms to protect you and keep your strength unimpaired, but you threw them away.”18
The Road to Monticello Page 44