VII

ENVOY AT PARIS

Two years after his wife's death, namely, in 1784, Jefferson was chosen by Congress to serve as envoy at Paris, with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. The appointment came at an opportune moment, when his mind was beginning to recover its tone, and he gladly accepted it. It was deemed necessary that the new Confederacy should make treaties with the various governments of Europe, and as soon as the envoys reached Paris, they drew up a treaty such as they hoped might be negotiated. It has been described as "the first serious attempt ever made to conduct the intercourse of nations on Christian principles ;" and, on that account, it failed. To this failure there was, however, one exception. "Old Frederick of Prussia," as Jefferson styled him, “met us

cordially;" and with him a treaty was soon concluded.

In May, 1785, Franklin returned to the United States, and Jefferson was appointed minister. "You replace Dr. Franklin,” said the Count of Vergennes when Jefferson announced his appointment. "I succeed, no one can replace him," was the reply. Jefferson's residence in Paris at this critical period was a fortunate occurrence. would be a mistake to suppose that he derived his political principles from France:

It

he carried them there; but he was confirmed in them by witnessing the injustice and misery which resulted to the common people from the monarchical governments of Europe. To James Monroe he wrote in June, 1785: "The pleasure of the trip [to Europe] will be less than you expect, but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, -its soil, its climate, its equality, laws, people, and manners. My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of and which no other people on earth

enjoy! I confess I had no idea of it my

self."

To George Wythe he wrote in August, 1786: "Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils; and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles, who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." To Madison, he wrote in January, 1787: "This is a goverment of wolves over sheep." Jefferson took the greatest pains to ascertain the condition of the laboring classes. In the course of a journey in the south of France, he wrote to Lafayette, begging him to survey the condition of the people for himself. "To do it most effectually," he said, "you must be absolutely incognito; you must ferret the people out of their hovels, as I have done; look into their kettles; eat their bread; loll on their beds on pretense of resting your

self, but in fact to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of the investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables."

These excursions among the French peasantry, who, as Jefferson well knew, were ruinously taxed in order to support an extravagant court and an idle and insolent nobility, made him a fierce Republican. "There is not a crowned head in Europe," he wrote to General Washington, in 1788, "whose talents or merits would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of America."

But for the French race Jefferson had an affinity. He was glad to live with people among whom, as he said, "a man might pass a life without encountering a single rudeness." He liked their polished manners and gay disposition, their aptitude for science, for philosophy, and for art; even their wines and cookery suited his taste, and his preference in this respect was so well known that

Patrick Henry once humorously stigmatized him as "a man who had abjured his native victuals."

Jefferson's stay in Paris corresponded exactly with the "glorious" period of the French Revolution. He was present at the Assembly of the Notables in 1787, and he witnessed the destruction of the Bastille in 1789.

"The change in this country," he wrote in March, 1789, "is such as you can form no idea of. The frivolities of conversation have given way entirely to politics. Men, women, and children talk nothing else. . . and mode has acted a wonderful part in the present instance. All the handsome young women, for example, are for the tiers étât, and this is an army more powerful in France than the 200,000 men of the king."

The truth is that an intellectual and moral revolution preceded in France the outbreak of the populace. There was an interior conviction that the government of the country was excessively unjust and oppressive. A love of liberty, a feeling of