The Road to Monticello

by Hayes, Kevin J. ;

  Jefferson was interested in the book not only as a bibliographical curiosity, but also for what it could contribute to his knowledge of Native American languages. Around this same time, he acquired another linguistic work. Jonathan Edwards, not the great preacher but his son, presented Jefferson with a copy of his Observations on the Language of the Muhhekaneew Indians, which Edwards had read at a meeting of the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences in 1787. Much as Jefferson was keeping his American correspondents aware of recent scientific and literary developments in Europe, they were keeping him informed of the latest intellectual developments in the United States.

  Many of the books at the Pinelli sale fetched prices higher than Jefferson had stipulated in his instructions, as Lucy Paradise informed him. Her letters reveal the sincere disappointment she felt. Overall, she had been able to acquire only four of the books he requested. The others had sold at prices well above the upper limits he had stipulated in his instructions. Pinelli’s copy of John Eliot’s Indian Bible, for example, fetched a great deal more than Jefferson had expected. A few years earlier, he had missed the opportunity to purchase William Byrd’s copy of the work, which had sold for the ridiculously low price of three pounds. Now, he had missed another opportunity to purchase one. He never did add a copy of Eliot’s Indian Bible to his personal library.

  “I am Sorry you Could not have had them all,” Lucy Paradise wrote to him, referring to the books he had asked her to purchase.

  “I am much indebted to you for your attention to my commission about the books, and am well pleased that those which went above the prices I noted, were not purchased,” he reassured her. “Sensible that I labour grievously under the malady of Bibliomanie, I submit to the rule of buying only at reasonable prices, as to a regimen necessary in that disease.”9

  Bibliomanie, the French term Jefferson used in his response to Lucy Paradise, was current through much of the eighteenth century. Its English equivalent, bibliomania, entered the language late in the century. In either French or English, the term often had pejorative connotations. The British bibliographer Myles Davies defined bibliomanie as “having too many Books” and said that those who suffer from this malady collect books without reading them or without sharing them with others. Isaac Disraeli defined bibliomania as “collecting an enormous heap of books.” In his Letters to His Son, Lord Chesterfield associated this bibliographic affliction with excessive pedantry and cautioned against it: “Beware of the Bibliomanie,” he admonished his son. Abel Boyer’s Royal Dictionary may offer the most charming definition of bibliomanie: “bookishness, an itch after books.”10

  Jefferson’s self-diagnosis—”I labour grievously under the malady of Bibliomanie”—presents another example of the humorous exaggeration characteristic of his personal correspondence. Based on Myles Davies’s definition, he did not really suffer from bibliomanie because he read his books and shared them with others. Based on Boyer’s definition, perhaps he did suffer from bibliomanie. Jefferson never stopped scratching his itch for books.

  In April he took his daughters from school and brought them to the Hôtel de Langeac to live with him. His eagerness to leave Paris for Virginia partly explains his actions: he wanted the girls nearby so they could leave Paris with as little as a week’s notice. There may also have been another reason why he pulled his daughters from school when he did: according to family legend, he feared that Martha would convert to Catholicism and take the veil. Though he had been assured by a knowing friend of his that the nuns at Panthemont did not attempt to convert the Protestant girls in their charge, they obviously influenced those who spent their nights and days within the walls of the convent.11

  As summer approached, Jefferson had yet to learn whether Congress had approved his leave of absence. He became less anxious to leave Paris as the events precipitating the French Revolution unfolded. From the time he read law in Williamsburg, he retained fond memories of standing at the door to the Virginia legislature to watch the House of Burgesses. Now, he had the opportunity to observe another legislative body in action. He recorded his observations in his Autobiography, which constitutes one of the finest accounts of what transpired in France in 1789 by one who was there to witness the beginning of the end of monarchical rule in Europe and the start of representative European democracy.

  The fact that the French Revolution began during his last year in Paris meant that he was present to bear witness to momentous events. The French Revolution gave him something besides himself to discuss in his autobiography. Assuming the narrative pose of a humble observer, he was being overmodest. The presence of the author of the Declaration of Independence in Paris inspired the French revolutionaries. Furthermore, Jefferson did participate in the Revolution as a close personal adviser to the Marquis de Lafayette, who was emerging as an instrumental force in the early days of the Revolutionary movement.

  The discussion of the French Revolution in Jefferson’s autobiography begins with a slight personal reference: “On my return from Holland, I had found Paris still in high fermentation as I had left it.” He then disappears from the autobiography for the next four pages or so as he summarizes the events leading to the Revolution. In places his prose attains a high level of artistry. For example, after delineating the numerous atrocities and injustices committed by the French government on its people, he concluded with an extended metaphor: “Surely under such a mass of misrule and oppressions, a people might justly press for a thoro’ reformation, and might even dismount their rough-shod riders, and leave them to walk on their own legs.” His characterization of Louis XVI incisively identifies his flaws: “His mind was weakness itself, his constitution timid, his judgment null, and without sufficient firmness even to stand by the faith of his word.”12

  Jefferson does not reenter the story until May 5, 1789, the day the Estates-General convened at Versailles. He explained what compelled him to attend the Estates-General: “The objects for which this body was convened being of the first order of importance, I felt it very interesting to understand the views of the parties of which it was composed, and especially the ideas prevalent as to the organization contemplated for their government.” The Estates-General, consisting of the Nobles, the Clergy, and the Commoners, had not been assembled since 1614. The Commoners, collectively known as the Third Estate, represented ninety percent of the French population but shared an equal vote with the Nobles and the Clergy. In Jefferson’s account, the Nobles seem “impassioned and tempestuous,” whereas the Commoners are “temperate, rational and inflexibly firm.”13

  Once the Estates-General convened, Jefferson went to Versailles nearly every day to follow the proceedings. In June, the Third Estate proclaimed itself the National Assembly and invited the Nobles to join in this new legislative body. Some noblemen accepted the invitation. Before the week was out the king closed the hall where it was meeting. Still calling itself the National Assembly, the Third Estate relocated to the Tennis Court of Versailles, where its members swore not to disband until a constitution was approved. Before the end of June, the king capitulated, ordering the Nobles and the Clergy to join the National Assembly.

  As he had in the past, Jefferson hosted a Fourth of July celebration that year. Besides being the last Independence Day he would celebrate in Paris, this occasion takes on further importance due to the heartfelt tribute his friends gave him. But Jefferson makes no mention of the event in his autobiography. His neglect of it stems from both his reluctance to write about himself and his extraordinary focus: once the autobiography takes up the subject of the French Revolution, it scarcely deviates from it.

  But this Fourth of July celebration deserves a place in the story of Jefferson’s life. Many of his closest friends in Paris attended, including the Lafayettes, John Paradise, Philip Mazzei, and Joel Barlow. Another member of the group of poets known as the Connecticut Wits, Barlow had established his literary reputation two years earlier with The Vision of Columbus, an epic poem celebrating the greatness of Amer
ica. Upon its publication, Barlow had presented Jefferson with a copy. The same year this poem appeared, Barlow was selected by a group of investors to travel to Europe and represent them in a scheme to sell land in the Scioto River Valley to Europeans. In Paris, he and Jefferson became friends, and Barlow became a frequent visitor to the Hôtel de Langeac.

  During the festivities, several of those in attendance presented a tribute to Jefferson. Composed by Barlow, this tribute honored Jefferson’s efforts as American minister to France: “During your residence in this kingdom your particular kindness and attention to every American who has fallen in your way have endeared you to their hearts.” They also commemorated Jefferson’s past efforts in helping to secure American independence: “As this is the anniversary of our Independence our sensations of pleasure are much increased from the idea that we are addressing ourselves to a man who sustained so conspicuous a part in the immortal transactions of that day—whose dignity energy and elegance of thought and expression added a peculiar lustre to that declaratory act which announced to the world the existence of an empire.”14 Barlow’s tribute verifies Jefferson’s growing reputation as the author of the Declaration of Independence.

  Ten days after this celebration of American freedom came the day that has come to symbolize French independence from monarchical tyranny. Jefferson’s autobiography poignantly captures the events leading to the storming of the Bastille. On July 12, he witnessed a group of people confront troops guarding the king. His depiction of the event is stunning:

  As their numbers increased, their indignation rose. They retired a few steps, and posted themselves on and behind large piles of stones, large and small, collected in that Place for a bridge which was to be built adjacent to it. In this position, happening to be in my carriage on a visit, I passed thro’ the lane they had formed, without interruption. But the moment after I had passed, the people attacked the cavalry with stones. They charged, but the advantageous position of the people, and the showers of stones obliged the horse to retire, and quit the field altogether, leaving one of their number on the ground, and the Swiss in their rear not moving to their aid. This was the signal for universal insurrection, and this body of cavalry, to avoid being massacred, retired towards Versailles.15

  Jefferson’s storytelling ability and his pictorial sense are impressive. As he describes the swelling crowd before the armed soldiers, he builds the tension, which he heightens by having the people slowly retreat to the large piles of stone. Once they are stationed there, he freezes the action. The people and the soldiers have reached a pause, each group wondering what the other will do. Then, with the scene set, he personally passes through the opening created between the two groups. Only after freezing the people and the soldiers in their place does he bring his carriage through the scene. Against the still, yet tension-filled background, the carriage seems to pass in slow motion. The soldiers, brandishing their weapons, stand to one side. The people stand to the other, the bravest and most brazen of them poised atop the piles of stone, ready to shower the soldiers with flagstones and brickbats. Once Jefferson’s carriage has passed, the scene explodes into action. The people pummel the soldiers with stones, forcing them to retreat.

  The rest of his story of the French Revolution consists of similarly poignant vignettes, loosely held together within a framework of facts. The extent of his personal contact with the ensuing events shapes the way he constructed each vignette. He was not present at the Bastille on July 14, for example, so he could not narrate firsthand the story of what happened there. His friend Monsieur de Corny did witness what happened and told Jefferson about it later that same day. Meticulously, Jefferson prefaced his account with details regarding how he heard what had happened. His account of the story of the Bastille lacks the visual complexity of the stone fight but graphically depicts the ensuing bloodshed.

  Beyond giving the Marquis de Lafayette much helpful advice that summer, Jefferson tried to maintain his role as a neutral observer. Without Jefferson’s knowledge, Lafayette arranged for several leading French patriots to meet at the Hôtel de Langeac the last week in August to discuss the important issues they faced. Though Jefferson was a little disturbed by the fact that his home, the home of the American minister to France, would be used as a meeting place for French patriots, Lafayette gave him no choice in the matter. The author of the Declaration of Independence played reluctant host to a group of men seeking to free France from monarchical tyranny.

  Presumably, Jefferson served a fine meal that afternoon, but he makes no mention of it in the autobiography. Typically omitting any unnecessary detail from his narrative, he began the episode as the discussions began. As was the custom at his table, he served no wine until after the meal, when the tablecloth was removed and wine set on the table. The removal of the tablecloth at this moment in the autobiography provides a brief dramatic flourish akin to the opening of the curtain in the theater.

  Lafayette is the star of this drama. Jefferson deliberately refrained from active participation. He wrote, “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.”16 His reference to these major figures in ancient history, philosophy, and rhetoric emphasizes the significance he placed on the scene he was witnessing. He would continue to follow events closely throughout his time in France.

  Jefferson finally received Congressional approval for his leave in September, so he began to prepare for what he thought would be a temporary return to Virginia. In the autobiography, he ends the story of the French Revolution where his personal association with it ended. In so doing, he eloquently takes leave of France. Abigail Adams had observed that no one can leave Paris without a feeling of tristesse.17 Jefferson’s parting words reflect a similar tone. His goodbye message remains the finest paean to France ever written by an American. Recalling an anecdote from Cornelius Nepos, he offered a fitting way to close the story of his last days in Paris:

  And here I cannot leave this great and good country without expressing my sense of its preeminence of character among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent people, I have never known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to strangers is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris is beyond anything I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their eminence too in science, the communicative dispositions of their scientific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society to be found nowhere else. In a comparison of this with other countries we have the proof of primacy, which was given to Themistocles after the battle of Salamis. Every general voted to himself the first reward of valor, and the second to Themistocles. So ask the travelled inhabitant of any nation, In what country on earth would you rather live?—Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations, and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life. Which would be your second choice? France.18

  PART IV

  SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE

  CHAPTER 27

  The Young Idea

  Left Paris”: So reads Jefferson’s memorandum book for Saturday, September 26, 1789. Two days later his party, which included his two daughters, James Hemings, and James’s sister Sally, reached Le Havre, where Jefferson befriended a seafaring man from Massachusetts named Nathaniel Cutting. Better known to posterity as a diarist than a sailor, Captain Cutting tirelessly recorded the incidents of everyday life to create a lasting record of his seafaring adventures. Cutting’s diary chronicles his friendship with the Jeffersons in great detail and thus supplements the laconic memorandum book. Few surviving documents better capture Je
fferson’s personal interactions with his daughters. Since it took several days to find passage from Le Havre to the Isle of Wight, Cutting spent much time in their company, postponing his own journey to be with them.

  The night the Jeffersons arrived in Le Havre, they dined with Cutting at their hotel, L’Aigle d’Or. After dinner, he invited them to tea at the Wheatcrofts, a prominent local family. That evening the tea service accidentally broke, spilling hot tea and crockery everywhere, but the accident scarcely spoiled the pleasantries. Their remaining nights in Le Havre followed a similar pattern, without the broken crockery but with musical accompaniment from Miss Wheatcroft on pianoforte.

  When the Jeffersons’ luggage arrived a few days later, Captain Wright, who ran the service between Le Havre and the Isle of Wight, had already sailed, so they were delayed further. Given the ferocious weather, perhaps they were better off staying at Le Havre for the time being. Cutting could “not recollect to have heard the Wind blow so very violently before, since I have known this Country”—strong words from this seasoned sailor.1 The storms continued through much of Thursday, October 1. Once the rain lessened that afternoon, Cutting returned to L’Aigle d’Or, where he found the Jeffersons seated comfortably by the fire.

  Taking a seat and ordering more tea, he joined the conversation, which settled on the subject of John Ledyard. Cutting knew Ledyard personally—an eccentric genius, he called him—but had lost track of him in recent years. Having encouraged Ledyard’s journey to Siberia and having spoken with him at length upon his return, Jefferson knew more about his exploits than anyone save Ledyard himself. Jefferson described Ledyard’s adventures to Cutting, whose record of their conversation supplies important details about Ledyard’s Russian adventures unavailable elsewhere.