The country was free; war was over now, people felt; for ever, many
fondly hoped. Settled in New York, where appeals to his talents as an
architect and engineer made him prosperous for a time, L'Enfant believed
such hopes to be vain, and that the country should at once make
preparations so exhaustive that its wealth and defenselessness should
not tempt any greedy enemy. He placed the problem before Congress, in a
memoir still unprinted, which offers particular interest in our days,
when the same problem is being again discussed.
"Sensible," wrote L'Enfant, in the creditable if not faultless English
he then spoke,[91] "of the situation of affairs, and well impregnated
with the spirit of republican government, I am far from intimating the
idea of following other nations in their way of securing themselves
against insult or invasions, surrounded as they are with powerful
neighbors, who, being the objects of reciprocal jealousy, are forced to
secure not only their frontier, but even their inland towns with
fortifications, the much happier situation of the United States
rendering those measures of little or no necessity."
The States must act differently; but not to act at all would be folly.
"How and upon what foundations could it be supposed that America will
have nothing to fear from a rupture between any of the European
Powers?... A neutral Power, it will be said, receives the benefit of a
universal trade, has his possessions respected, as well as his colors,
by all the Powers at war. This may be said of a powerful nation, but
this America is not to expect; a neutral Power must be ready for war,
and his trade depends on the means of protecting and making his colors
respected. America, neutral without [a] navy, without troops or
fortified harbors could have nothing but calamity to expect." She cannot
live free and develop in safety without "power to resent, ability to
protect."
A noteworthy statement, to be sure, and which deserves to be remembered.
L'Enfant draws, thereupon, a plan of defense, especially insisting, of
course, on the importance of his own particular branch, namely
engineering.[92]
Houdon's brief visit, shortly after, in order to make Washington's
statue for the State of Virginia,[93] must have been particularly
pleasant to the major, to whom the great sculptor could bring news of
his co-Academician, the old painter of the Gobelins Manufacture, father
of the officer.
An unprinted letter of L'Enfant to the secretary of Congress, sitting
then in New York, gives a number of details on Houdon's stay in America.
The Federal Congress had thought of ordering, in its turn, a statue of
Washington, which would have been an equestrian one; but what would the
cost be? A most important question in those days. On behalf of Houdon,
who knew no English, L'Enfant wrote to Charles Thomson that Mr. Houdon
could not "properly hazard to give him any answer relating [to] the cost
of the general's equestrian statue"; there are a great many ways of
making such work, and Congress must say which it prefers. A book
belonging to Mr. Houdon will shortly reach these shores, where
particulars as to the "performance of the several statues which have
been created in Europe are mentioned, together with their cost." The
book is on a vessel, soon expected, and which brings back Doctor
Franklin's "bagage."
Congress had thought also of a marble bust for the hall where it sat.
Houdon was taking home with him a finished model of the head of the
great man, and had exhibited it, for every one to say his say, in the
"room of Congress."
Such busts, L'Enfant wrote, are "generally paid in Europe five thousand
French livres"; but as many duplicates will probably be ordered from
him, Houdon will lower the price to one hundred guineas. "He begs leave,
however, to observe that a bust of the size of nature only may be fit
for a private and small room, but not for such a large one as that
devoted for the assembly of a Congress, where it should be necessary to
have a bust of a larger size to have it appear to advantage."
The price had been asked, too, of duplicates in plaster of Paris, for
private citizens. The answer was: four guineas, also in the thought that
a goodly number would be wanted, "provided that there be a subscription
for a large number, and that the gentlemen who will have any of these
busts in their possession consider themselves as engaged to prevent any
copy from being taken; this last condition he humbly insists upon."
As for the original, Houdon is anxious to know what the compatriots of
the general think of it; any criticism would be welcome: "Mr. Houdon
hopes that Congress is satisfied with the bust he has had the honor to
submit to their examination, begs the gentlemen who may have some
objections to communicate them to him, and he flatters himself that
Congress will favor him with their opinion in writing, which he will
consider as a proof of their satisfaction and keep as a testimony of
their goodness."
He is just about to sail, and the bust has to be removed at once: "Mr.
Houdon, being to embark to-morrow morning, begs leave to take out the
general's bust from the room of Congress this afternoon."[94]
L'Enfant's chief work in New York consisted in the remodelling of the
old, or rather older (but not oldest), City Hall, the one which preceded
that now known, in its turn, as the old one. The undertaking was of
importance, the question being of better accommodating Congress, which
had left Philadelphia with a grudge toward that city, and was now
sitting in New York. A large sum, for those days, had been advanced by
patriotic citizens, which sum, however, L'Enfant's habit to see things
"en grand" caused to be insufficient by more than half. The city hoped
that the devising of such a structure would be for it one more title to
be selected as the federal capital, and it therefore did not protest,
but on the contrary caused a "testimonial" to be officially presented
to L'Enfant, highly praising his work: "While the hall exists it will
exhibit a most respectable monument of your eminent talents, as well as
of the munificence of the citizens."[95] L'Enfant received "the freedom
of the city" by "special honorifick patent," as he wrote later, and he
was, moreover, offered ten acres of land near Provost Lane, "which
latter he politely declined."[96]
The building won general admiration for its noble appearance, the
tasteful brilliancy of its ornamentation, and its commodious internal
arrangements. The only objections came from the Anti-Federalists, who
called it the "Fools' Trap," in which appellation politics had,
obviously, more to do than architecture.
L'Enfant, a man of ideas, had tried to make of the renovated hall
something characteristically American, if not in the general style,
which was classical, at least in many details. National resources had
been turned into use; in the Senate chamber the chimneys were of
American marble, which, "for beauties of shade and polish, is equal to
any of its kind in Europe."[97] The capitals of the pilasters were "of a
fanciful kind, the invention of Major L'Enfant, the architect.... Amidst
their foliage appears a star and rays, and a piece of drapery below
suspends a small medallion with U.S. in a cipher. The idea is new and
the effect pleasing; and although they cannot be said to be of any
ancient order, we must allow that they have an appearance of
magnificence."[98] The frieze outside was so divided as to give room for
thirteen stars in so many metopes. A much-talked-of eagle, with thirteen
arrows in its talons, which, unluckily, could not be ready for March 4,
1789, when Congress met in the hail for the first time under the newly
voted Constitution, was the chief ornament on the pediment. On the 22d
of April the news could be sent to the _Salem Mercury_: "The eagle in
front of the Federal State-House is displayed. The general appearance of
this front is truly august."[99] The emblem was thus at its proper place
when the chief event that Federal Hall, as it was then called, was to
witness occurred, on the 30th of the same month, the day of the first
inauguration of the first President of the United States.
Crowds came to visit what was then the most beautiful building in the
country; but better than crowds came, and one visit was for the major
more touching and flattering than all the others put together--the wife
of his general, now the President, Mrs. Washington, caused Colonel
Humphreys and Mr. Lear to make arrangements with L'Enfant for her to
inspect the hall, in June of the inauguration year.[100]
The expensive and greatly admired monument was to experience the strange
fate of being survived by its author. Becoming again City Hall when
Congress, soon after, left New York to go back, reconciled, to
Philadelphia, it was pulled down in 1812, the building itself being sold
at auction for four hundred and twenty-five dollars: and thus
disappeared, to the regret of all lovers of ancient souvenirs, the
beautiful chimneys in American marble, the "truly august" eagle with its
thirteen arrows, and the first really American capitals ever devised,
and which, though in a new style, were yet "magnificent."
One solitary souvenir of the building remains, however, that is, the
middle part of the railing on which Washington must have leaned when
taking the oath; a piece of wrought iron of a fine ornamental style, now
preserved with so many other interesting relics of old New York on the
ground floor of the New York Historical Society's Museum. In the same
room can be seen several contemporary views of Federal Hall, one in
water-color, by Robertson, 1798; another, an engraving, showing every
detail of the façade, represents, as the inscription runs, "Federal
Hall, the Seat of Congress.--Printed and sold by A. Doolittle, New
Haven, 1790.--A. Doolittle Sc. Pet. Lacour del."
Shortly before the inauguration of the first President, L'Enfant had had
to lend his help for the devising of a grand, artistic, historical, and
especially political procession, a Federalist one, arranged in the hope
of influencing public opinion and securing the vote of the Constitution
by the State of New York. This now revered text was then the subject of
ardent criticism; famous patriots like Patrick Henry had detected in it
something royalistic, which has long ceased to be apparent, and were
violent in their denunciation of this instrument of tyranny. New York
was in doubt; its convention had met at Poughkeepsie in June, 1788, and
it seemed as if an adverse vote were possible. The procession was then
thought of.
It took place on Monday, the 23d of July, and was a grand affair, with
artillery salute, trumpeters, foresters, Christopher Columbus on
horseback, farmers, gardeners, the Society of the Cincinnati "in full
military uniform," brewers showing in their ranks, "mounted on a tun of
ale, a beautiful boy of eight years, in close-fitting, flesh-colored
silk, representing Bacchus, with a silver goblet in his hand," butchers,
tanners, cordwainers "surrounding the car of the Sons of Saint Crispin,"
furriers exhibiting "an Indian in native costume, loaded with furs,
notwithstanding it was one of the hottest days in July."[101]
The chief object of wonder was the good ship _Hamilton_, presented by
the ship-carpenters, mounted on wheels, a perfect frigate of thirty-two
guns, with its crew, complete, firing salutes on its way. The
confectioners surrounded an immense "Federal cake." The judges and
lawyers were followed by "John Lawrence, John Cozine, and Robert Troup,
bearing the new Constitution elegantly engrossed on vellum, and ten
students of law followed, bearing in order the ratification of the ten
States."[102] The tin-plate workers exhibited "the Federal tin
warehouse, raised on ten pillars, with the motto:
When three more pillars rise,
Our Union will the world surprise."
--tin-plate poetry, for the tin warehouse. Then came learned men,
physicians, clergymen, the regent and students of Columbia University,
scholars, and among them Noah Webster, famous since as a lexicographer,
and then as a professor and journalist, now admired by everybody, but,
in those days of strife, only by Federalists--"a mere pedagogue,"
disdainfully wrote Jefferson later, "of very limited understanding and
very strong prejudices," in saying which he himself, maybe, showed some
prejudice, too.[103]
A grand banquet, at which, according to the _New York Journal and Weekly
Register_,[104] bullocks were roasted whole for the "regale" of the
guests, was held at the extreme point reached by the procession, called
by the same paper the "parade des fêtes champêtres." The President and
members of Congress sat under a dome devised by L'Enfant. It was
"surmounted by a figure of Fame, with a trumpet proclaiming a new era,
and holding a scroll emblematic of the three great epochs of the war:
_Independence_--_Alliance with France_--_Peace_."[105]
This was greatly admired. "The committee," we read in a note printed by
their order in the _Imperial Gazetteer_, "would be insensible of the
zeal and merit of Major L'Enfant were they to omit expressing the
obligation which they are under to him for the elegance of the design
and the excellence of the execution of the pavilion and tables."[106]
The whole was a considerable success. "As it redounds much to the credit
of the citizens, ..." another paper observes, "it ought to be remarked
that there was not the least outrage, or even indecency, notwithstanding
6,000 or 7,000 people (as supposed, spectators included) had collected,
and that the whole company was dismissed at half after five
o'clock."[107]
Three days after the procession the vote was taken at Poughkeepsie, and
if _any_ influence at all could be attributed to the effect on public
opinion of the quasi-mediæval pageant, its organizers must have felt
proud, for in an assembly of fifty-seven the Constitution was actually
voted by a majority of two.