--with invocations to abstract virtues:
Fille aimable des Dieux, divine Tolérance.
Preceding by several years Joel Barlow's own, this epic, due to the pen
of L. de Chavannes de La Grandière, appeared with ample annotations by
the author himself, and dedicated to John Adams, under the title of
_L'Amérique Délivrée_.[184]
The new Tasso, who justly foresaw the immense influence that the change
in America would have on Europe, addressed, in tones of the most ardent
admiration, Washington and Congress:
Illustre Washington, héros dont la mémoire
Des deux mondes vengés embellira l'histoire;
Toi que la main des Dieux, en nos siècles pervers,
Envoya consoler, étonner l'univers
Par le rare assemblage et l'union constante
D'un coeur pur et sans fard, d'une âme bienfaisante,
Aux talents de Turenne, aux vertus des Catons,
Et qui te vois plus grand que les deux Scipions,
Jouis de ton triomphe, admire ton ouvrage.
Congress is a Greek Areopagus, whose members have Themis and Minerva for
their advisers:
Auguste Aréopage, où Minerve elle-même
Prononce avec Thémis par l'organe suprême
De tant de Sénateurs, ornements des Etats,
Une foule d'arrêts où tous les potentats
Du droit des nations devraient venir apprendre
Les principes sacrés, et jusqu'où peut s'étendre
Le sceptre qu'en leurs mains les peuples ont commis,
--you have cast on us "a torrent of light and shown us how to break the
detestable bonds of tyrants." A prophetical foot-note, commenting on
this passage, announces that "this will perhaps, be seen sooner than one
thinks. Happy the sovereigns who will know how to be nothing but just,
pacific, and benevolent." Six years later the French Revolution began.
Using humble prose, but reaching a much wider public, Lacretelle, of the
same group of thinkers as d'Alembert, Condorcet, and Turgot, himself
later a member of the French Academy, was also writing in a strain of
exultant admiration: "Since Columbus's discovery, nothing more important
has happened among mankind than American independence"; and addressing
the new-born United States, he told them of the world's expectation and
of their own responsibilities, so much depending on their success or
failure: "New-born Republics of America, I salute you as the hope of
mankind, to which you open a refuge, and promise great and happy
examples. Grow in force and numbers, amid our benedictions....
"In adopting a democratic régime, you pledge yourself to steadfast and
pure morality.... But you do not give up those comforts in life, that
splendor of society brought with them by riches, sciences, and arts....
The vicinity of corruption will not alter your morals; you will allow
the vicinity, not the invasion. While permitting wealth to have its free
play, you will see that exorbitant fortunes be dispersed, and you will
correct the great inequality in enjoyments by the strictest equality in
rights....
"Lawmaking peoples, never lose sight of the majesty of your function and
of the importance of your task. Be nobly proud and holily enthusiastic
at the prospect of your destinies' vast influence. By you the universe
is held in expectation; fifty years from now it will have learned from
you whether modern peoples can preserve republican constitutions,
whether morals are compatible with the great progress of civilization,
and whether America is meant to improve or to aggravate the fate of
humanity."[185]
This sense of the responsibility of the new republic toward mankind of
the future, and of the importance for all nations of its success or
failure caused French thinkers to concern themselves with the problem,
to express faith and admiration, but to submit also such recommendations
as their studies of humanity's past made them consider of use. The
_Observations on the Government and the Laws of the United States_, of
modest, liberal, and noble-minded Abbé de Mably, are, for example, the
outcome of such reflections.[186]
The visitor most representative of the views thus prevalent in the
French nation, knocked at the gate of Mount Vernon, provided with that
infallible _open sesame_,[187] a letter of introduction from Lafayette.
"This gentleman," the letter read, "intends to write a history of
America, and you would, therefore, make him very happy if you allowed
him to glance at your papers. He seems to deserve this favor, since he
loves America very much, writes well, and will represent things under
their true light."[188]
The bearer, a sincere admirer and friend of the new republic, and who
had the advantage of speaking English fluently, was Brissot, so famous
shortly after for the part he played in the French Revolution, then
already penetrated with its principles, and having written, young as he
was, on the reform of criminal laws, declared in favor of the
emancipation of the Jews, founded a "Society of the Friends of the
Blacks" and, what is more to the point, a _Société Gallo-Américaine_,
first of its kind, for the members thereof to "exchange views on the
common interests of France and the United States." To become a member
one had to prove "able and willing to bring to the notice of the others
universal ideas on the happiness of man and societies, because, though
its special and titular object be the interest of France and the United
States, nevertheless, it fully embraces in its considerations the
happiness of mankind."[189] In which appears the vastness of
humanitarian plans so fondly cherished among us--six years before the
Reign of Terror.
The "particular object" of the association was, however, to "help the
two countries to better know each other, which can only be realized by
bringing nearer together the French individual and the American
individual." Books were to be published by the society, the first one to
be dedicated "to the Congress of the United States and the friends of
America in the two worlds." Newspapers, books, the texts of laws, the
journals of Congress were to be imported from "free America." The
society would "welcome Americans whom their business should call to
France, and whose knowledge would enable them to impart useful
information there"; nothing more natural, since the aim of the society
was "the welfare of the two nations." Lafayette and Jefferson had been
asked to join. One of the founders was Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur, already
known by his _Letters from an American Farmer_, who when he left France
to return to the United States was intrusted with the care of "making
the society known to the Americans, availing himself of newspapers, or
of other means; his expenses, if any, to be repaid."[190] But the
farmer-consul, very active in other matters, proved in this one very
remiss.
Brissot reached Boston in July, 1788, and found that America was exactly
what he had expected it to be: "Sanctuary of liberty," he wrote on
landing, "I salute thee!... Would to heaven thou wert nearer Europe;
fewer friends of liberty would vainly bewail its absence there." The
inhabitants, he wrote, "have an air of simplicity and kindness, but they
are full of human dignity, conscious of their liberty, and seeing in all
men their brothers and equals.... I thought I was in that Salente, so
attractively depicted by Fénelon."
Equality is what strikes him most, as it does the mass of his
compatriots; this was the particularly American trait which, as
mentioned before, was imported from the United States into France on the
eve of our Revolution.
Luxury, the visitor admits, is, of course, a danger; but they know it
and arm against it: "The most respectable inhabitants of the State of
Massachusetts have formed a society to prevent the increase of
luxury"--an attempt which, however, never succeeded, but at Salente.
After having seen the chief cities and paid a visit to Franklin, found
very ill but with his great mind unimpaired, Brissot reached Mount
Vernon in November, and remained there three days. Different from
Houdon, he luckily took notes on the place and on the inhabitants
thereof: "The general arrived only in the evening; he returned very
tired from a tour over part of his domains where he was having a road
traced. You have often heard him compared to Cincinnatus; the comparison
is a just one. This celebrated general is now but a good farmer, ever
busy with his farm, as he calls it, improving cultivation and building
barns. He showed me one of enormous dimensions, just being erected from
a plan sent him by the famous English agriculturist Arthur Young, but
greatly improved by him....
"All is simple in the house of the general. His table is good, without
luxury; regularity is everywhere apparent in his domestic economy. Mrs.
Washington has her eye on everything, and joins to the qualities of an
excellent housekeeper the simple dignity which befits a woman whose
husband has played a great rôle. She adds to it that amenity, those
attentions toward strangers which lend so much sweetness to hospitality.
The same virtues shine in her niece, so interesting, but who, unluckily,
seems to be in a very delicate state of health."
As for the general himself, "kindness appears in his looks. His eyes
have no longer that lustre which his officers noticed when he was at the
head of his army, but they get enlivened in conversation.... Good sense
is the dominant trait in all his answers, great discretion and
diffidence of himself goes with it, and at the same time a firm and
unshakable disposition when he has once made up his mind."
His modesty is great: "He talks of the American war as if he had not
been the leader thereof, and of his victories with an indifference which
strangers could not equal.... The divisions in his country break his
heart; he feels the necessity of calling together all the friends of
liberty around one central point, the need of imparting energy to the
government. He is still ready to give up that quiet which causes his
happiness.... He spoke to me of Mr. de Lafayette with emotion; he
considers him as his child."
Not only on agriculture and government, but also on manners the future
President gave his visitor much information: "The general told me that a
great reform was going on among his compatriots; people drank much less;
they no longer forced their guests to drink; it had ceased to be good
form to send them home inebriated; those noisy parties at taverns so
frequent in former times were not to be the fashion any more; dress was
becoming simpler."
On receiving news of the convocation of the French States General,
Brissot, who felt that this was the beginning of immense changes,
hastened back to France and published an account of his journey. He
stated in his preface, written in 1790, why he had undertaken it, and
what lessons we might learn from our neighbors of over the sea:
"The object of this journey has not been to study antique statues, or to
find unknown plants, but to observe men who had just conquered their
liberty: to Frenchmen free men can no longer be strangers.
"We, too, have conquered our liberty. We have not to learn from
Americans how to conquer it, but how to preserve it. This secret
consists especially in morality.... What is liberty? It is the most
perfect state of society, a state in which man depends only upon the
laws made by himself;[191] and to make good ones, he must improve his
reason; and to apply them he must again have recourse to his reason....
Morals are but reason applied to all the acts of life.... They are among
free men what irons, whipping-posts, and gibbets are among peoples in
slavery.... This journey will show you the wondrous effects of liberty
on morals, on industry, and on the amelioration of men.... My desire has
been to depict to my compatriots a people with whom it behooves, from
every point of view, that they become intimately united."[192]