After the business of the treaty was arranged, Mr. Monroe was sent as
Minister to London, to succeed Mr. King, who wished to return home. From
there he was ordered to Spain, which country he visited by way of Paris.
Mrs. Monroe accompanied him in all his wanderings, and returned with him
to England soon after the death of Mr. Pitt.
Mr. Monroe was minister to England when the attack on the frigate
“Chesapeake” placed the two countries, already irritated, in a hostile
attitude, and finding his position at the St. James anything but
pleasant, he returned to this country. Thus did Mrs. Monroe spend almost
ten years in Europe, returning only when the country was plunging again
into a second war with the mother land. She gladly sought retirement at
Oak Hill, her husband’s Virginia home, and the following years passed in
the enjoyment of the serene pleasures of country life—Mr. Monroe engaged
during the day in reading and taking the general supervision of his
plantation, while she supervised the education of their two daughters
and the household duties, which, in a Virginia, home were always
arduous.
But this quiet home-life was not destined to last, and the husband and
father resumed the duties of a politician, and was elected to the
Legislature. In a few months he was again chosen Governor of the old
commonwealth, and continued to discharge the duties of that office until
chosen Secretary of State by President Madison.
When the war of 1812 was declared, Mrs. Monroe was living in Washington
City, dispensing the duties of a minister’s wife, and enjoying the
society of her two daughters.
As the strife came nearer home and the capital was threatened, she
returned to Oak Hill, and there remained until peace was finally
proclaimed. Anxious and uneasy about her husband, who was ever beside
the President, she yet felt that her place was at her own home, that he
might feel assured of the safety of herself and children.
In 1817, Mr. Monroe became President of the United States, and removed
his family to the White House, where they continued to reside during
both terms of his administration. Mrs. Monroe was spoken of at this time
by the leading paper of the day as follows:
“Mrs. Monroe is an elegant, accomplished woman. She possesses a charming
mind and dignity of manners, which peculiarly fit her for her elevated
station. Her retired domestic habits will be much annoyed by what is
here called society, if she does not change the etiquette (if it may be
called so), established by Mrs. Washington, Adams and Madison, a routine
which her feeble constitution will not permit her to encounter. To go
through it, she must become a perfect slave to the sacrifice of her
health. The secretaries, senators, foreign ministers, consuls, auditors,
accountants, officers of the navy and army of every grade, farmers,
merchants, parsons, priests, lawyers, judges, auctioneers and
nothingarians—all with their wives and some with their gawky offspring,
crowd to the President’s house every Wednesday evening; some in shoes,
most in boots, and many in spurs; some snuffing, others chewing, and
many longing for their cigars and whiskey-punch left at home. Some with
powdered heads, others frizzled and oiled, with some whose heads a comb
has never touched, half-hid by dirty collars, reaching far above their
ears, as stiff as pasteboard.”
And an English writer comments in a similar strain:
“Mrs. Monroe is a lady of retired and domestic habits, not ungraceful
and apparently very amiable.
“Having resided in Europe with her husband, she has acquired some of its
manners and a good deal of its polish. She receives company, but returns
no visits; she seems more attached to the silence and peace of
obscurity, than the bustle, confusion and glare of public assemblies.
But to preserve a custom established by her predecessor, a lady it is
said of great elegance of manners and much dignity of deportment, she
gives what are termed ‘drawing-rooms’ for the purpose of gratifying the
wishes and curiosity of such strangers as may please to visit her and
the President.
“These drawing-rooms are conducted on principles of republican
simplicity, and are widely different from the magnificence and splendor
of the English levees. They appeared to me, however, very unpleasant;
the rooms are so crowded, the hum of voices so loud, and the motion of
the company so incessant, that the possibility of continuing a
conversation on any subject is wholly precluded, and you are jostled
every instant without the power of enjoying the ‘feast of reason’ or
even the pleasure of the senses.”
The White House had been partly rebuilt when Mr. Monroe became
President, but it possessed but few comforts and no elegance. The
furniture was not of the kind nor quality befitting the house of the
Chief Magistrate, and the débris of the former ill-fated building lay in
heaps about the mansion. The country being once more at peace, Congress
ordered Consul Lee, then residing at Paris, to purchase a silver service
of plate, which was forwarded at once, and which has continued in use
until replaced by a more modern and expensive set in March, ’69.
About the same time was bought for the East Room the furniture which now
adorns that famous apartment. When the purchase was made in Paris, each
article was surmounted by the royal crown of Louis XVIII. This ornament
of gilt was removed, and the American Eagle substituted before it was
sent from France. To the thoughtful mind this furniture is of interest
in so far as it recalls the dead who have long since crumbled back to
dust, yet, whose memory is associated with the chairs and ottomans still
remaining where they were placed years ago. True, they have been often
repaired, but the original eagles are as bright as when they left the
shores of the Empire, to grace the house of the Republic.
Mrs. Monroe mingled but little in the society of Washington, and always
secluded herself from the observation of the throng. Her health was
frail during the latter years of her life in the White House, and she
became more than ever a recluse. One of the many guests of the President
and Mrs. Monroe during the last winter of their stay in the White House
was Lafayette, who afterward visited them at their residence in Loudon
county, Virginia.
In a recent publication there is a copy of an old letter written by Mr.
Cooper, in which he thus mentions a dinner and a reception at the White
House during Mr. Monroe’s time.
“On this occasion we were honored with the presence of Mrs. Monroe and
two or three of her female relatives. Crossing the hall we were admitted
to a drawing-room,in which most of the company were already assembled.
The hour was six. By far the greater part of the guests were men, and
perhaps two-thirds were members of Congress.
“There was great gravity of mien in most of the company, and neither any
very marked exhibition, nor any positively striking want of grace of
manner. The conversation was commonplace and a little sombre, though two
or three men of the world got around the ladies, where the battle of
words was maintained with sufficient spirit. To me the entertainment had
rather a cold than a formal air. When dinner was announced, the oldest
Senator present (there were two, and seniority of service is meant) took
Mrs. Monroe and led her to the table. The rest of the party followed
without much order. The President took a lady, as usual, and preceded
the rest of the guests. The dining-room was in better taste than is
common here, being quite simple and but little furnished. The table was
large and rather handsome. The service was in china, as is uniformly the
case, plate being exceedingly rare, if at all used. There was, however,
a rich plateau, and a great abundance of the smaller articles of
table-plate. The cloth, napkins, etc., etc., were fine and beautiful.
The dinner was served in the French style, a little Americanized. The
dishes were handed around, though some of the guests, appearing to
prefer their own customs, coolly helped themselves to what they found at
hand.
“Of attendants there were a good many. They were neatly dressed, out of
livery, and sufficient. To conclude, the whole entertainment might have
passed for a better sort of European dinner party, at which the guests
were too numerous for general or very agreeable discourse, and some of
them too new to be entirely at their ease. Mrs. Monroe arose, at the end
of the dessert, and withdrew, attended by two or three of the most
gallant of the company. No sooner was his wife’s back turned than the
President reseated himself, inviting his guests to imitate the action.
After allowing his guests sufficient time to renew, in a few glasses,
the recollections of similar enjoyments of their own, he arose himself,
giving the hint to his company that it was time to rejoin the ladies. In
the drawing-room coffee was served, and every one left the house before
nine.”
“On the succeeding Wednesday, Mrs. Monroe opened her doors to all the
world. No invitation was necessary, it being the usage for the wife of
the President to receive company once a fortnight during the session,
without distinction of persons. We reached the White House at nine. The
court (or rather the grounds) was filled with carriages, and the company
was arriving in great numbers. On this occasion, two or three additional
drawing-rooms were opened, though the frugality of Congress has
prevented them from finishing the principal reception-room of the
building. I will acknowledge the same sort of surprise I felt at the
Castle Garden fête, at finding the assemblage so respectable in air,
dress and deportment. The evening at the White House, or drawing-room,
as it is sometimes pleasantly called, is, in fact, a collection of all
classes of people who choose to go to the trouble and expense of
appearing in dresses suited to an ordinary evening party. I am not sure
that even dress is much regarded, for I certainly saw a good many there
in boots. The females were all neatly and properly attired, though few
were ornamented with jewelry. Of course, the poor and laboring classes
of the community would find little or no pleasure in such a scene. The
infamous, if known, would not be admitted, for it is a peculiar
consequence of the high tone of morals in this country, that grave and
notorious offenders rarely presume to violate the public feeling by
invading society.
“Squeezing through the crowd, we achieved a passage to a part of the
room where Mrs. Monroe was standing, surrounded by a bevy of female
friends. After making our bow here, we sought the President. The latter
had posted himself at the top of the room, where he remained most of the
evening, shaking hands with all who approached. Near him stood all the
secretaries, and a great number of the most distinguished men of the
nation. Individuals of importance from all parts of the Union were also
here, and were employed in the manner usual to such scenes. Besides
these, one meets here a great variety of people in other conditions of
life. I have known a cartman to leave his horse in the street, and go
into the reception-room to shake hands with the President. He offended
the good taste of all present, because it was not thought decent that a
laborer should come in a dirty dress on such an occasion; but while he
made a trifling mistake in this particular, he proved how well he
understood the difference between government and society. He knew the
levee was a sort of homage paid to political equality in the person of
the First Magistrate, but he would not have presumed to enter the house
of the same person as a private individual without being invited, or
without a reasonable excuse in the way of business.”
Maria Monroe, the youngest daughter of the President, was married March,
1820, in the East Room, to her cousin, Samuel L. Gouverneur, of New
York, after what a letter writer of that day describes as “the New York
style.” This was a wedding where only the attendants, the relations, and
a few old friends of the bride and groom witnessed the ceremony. Then
the bridesmaids were dismissed until a week from that day, when the
bride received visitors. A reception was given then at which Mrs.
Gouverneur presided in the place of her mother, and was formally
introduced to all the guests present. The President and Mrs. Monroe
mingled with the crowd, and left the bridal couple to do the duties of
host and hostess. The bridal festivities were to include general
receptions, and Commodore and Mrs. Decatur gave the young couple a
largely attended ball shortly after the White House reception. Cards had
been issued by Commodore Porter for an entertainment in their honor,
when the news of the death of Commodore Decatur put an end to all gayety
in Washington. The couple soon after took up their residence in New
York. The eldest daughter was living at this time in Richmond, Virginia.
After Mr. Monroe retired from office, he returned to his home in Loudon
county, and engaged with Messrs. Jefferson and Madison in establishing
the University of Virginia. This occupation formed a pleasant pastime to
him, and was of lasting benefit to his beloved State. Afterward he was
chosen President of the Virginia Convention to amend the Constitution of
his native State. Meanwhile Mrs. Monroe found womanly employment for
hands and heart in caring for those dependent upon her bounty, and
entertaining the various throngs who delighted to do honor to the three
ex-Presidents of the United States, and sons of the old commonwealth.
Mrs. Monroe was now alone and becoming aged, and was pleasing herself
with the delusion that after so many years of public life, her husband
would spend the evening of his days with her, around the fireside. But
he felt as if he could never cease to serve Virginia. Long after his
duty to his country had been performed and she had dismissed him with
plaudits and laurel wreaths, he struggled under accumulated infirmities
and trials, and to the last hearkened to the voice of his State. The
last public position he held was a magistracy in the county of Loudon,
where he resided, and was as attentive and devoted to the performance of
every duty as when holding the highest office in the gift of the people.
Mrs. Monroe died suddenly in 1830, and thus was ended the old home-life.
Oak Hill was closed, and the crushed husband sought refuge from
loneliness in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Gouverneur, in New York,
whose devoted affection soothed his pathway to the grave.
The venerable Dr. Francis tells us that he often met Mr. Monroe walking
out when the weather was fine, and that on these occasions he was the
object of the most affectionate attentions. He has often met him making
purchases for the family, at the Centre Market, where all the stallmen
knew and honored him.
He was tall and spare, very modest in his bearing, dignified and
gentlemanly. In his address, he was hesitating and diffident, and polite
to the poorest and humblest as to any. He was one of the most
industrious of men, a hard student, and his cares left their marks on
his face. The wound he received at Trenton was felt for many years
afterward—indeed, throughout his life he occasionally suffered from it.
Less than a year after Mrs. Monroe’s death her husband was preparing to
join her. On the 4th of July, 1831, the anniversary of American
Independence, just five years after his predecessors had quitted this
scene of their labor and their triumph, he, too, joined them.
His funeral was a very imposing one—the largest that at that time had
ever been seen in New York. The military under Gen. Jacob Morton, Grand
Marshal, filled Broadway from Prince to Broad Street, through which it
passed to the cemetery. The day was fine, and the signs of mourning were
generally adopted by the citizens of New York.
There is an old cemetery on the north side of Second street, in this
city (New York), between First and Second Avenues, separated from the
sidewalk by a tall iron fence, placed upon a granite foundation.
The shrubbery is always clean and vigorous; the grass is always the
greenest, and the walks are scrupulously neat. There are many tasteful
and appropriate monuments to the dead that sleep within this hallowed
inclosure; but to the memory of the most famous of its dumb inhabitants
there was no marble shaft, no obelisk, not even a head-stone erected.
But upon a simple slab of marble that lies flat, some two feet square,
upon the earth, and is almost covered by grass, is the following
inscription:
JAMES MONROE,
ROBERT TILLOTSON,
Vault No. 147.
There is nothing to indicate that the James Monroe mentioned is the
Monroe who was in the battle of White Plains, and received a ball in the
shoulder at the attack on Trenton, who fought by the side of Lafayette
at Brandywine, who was Minister to France in 1794, and afterward to
England; who was Secretary of State in 1811, and for two full terms
President of these United States. Yet such is the fact, and that
weather-stained slab of marble, two feet square, covered for many years
the grave of Ex-President Monroe.
Many years afterward, by order of the Virginia Legislature, the remains
of Ex-President Monroe were removed to Richmond, and a monument
befitting his fame was erected over his grave.
The property of Oak Hill is now owned by Mr. Fairfax, and with it one
thousand acres of land. Three hundred acres are comprised in the McGowan
estate.
The second daughter of President Monroe, Mrs. Maria Gouverneur, died in
1850 at Oak Hill, where she was buried by the side of her mother. The
eldest daughter died in Paris, and was buried in Pere la Chaise. There
are now living but few descendants of Mrs. Monroe.
At this short remove from her day, not many incidents relating to her
career are extant. She lived as public a life as did Mrs. John Adams,
and was far better acquainted with society in this country and Europe
than several of the ladies who preceded her in the semi-official
position she filled, but her ill-health and her temperament unfitted her
for familiarity with the people, and kept her from being popular in the
sense that Mrs. Madison was. The difference between these two women was
that the latter was fond of company, enjoyed life and had a healthy,
hearty interest in the events transpiring about her. The other lived in
retirement as far as possible, and the record of so quiet an existence
is not as familiar to the people of this country as is that of those of
her contemporaries who occupied the high place she filled.
Society was differently organized in her time than it is now. It is
difficult to realize that newspaper correspondents were the exception
and not the rule, and that public attention was rarely directed to
ladies; whereas now it is impossible for women in semi-official life to
keep themselves out of the multitudinous prints of the day, object as
they may.
VI.
LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS.
Mrs. Adams was the sixth in the succession of occupants of the Executive
Mansion, and with her closed the list of the ladies of the Revolution. A
new generation had sprung up in the forty-nine years of Independence,
and after her retirement, younger aspirants claimed the honors. Born in
the city of London on the 12th of February, 1775, she received
advantages superior to those enjoyed by most of the ladies of America.
Her father, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, although living at the outbreak of
the war, in England, was ever a patriotic American, and soon after
hostilities commenced, removed with his family to Nantes, in France.
“There he received from the Federal Congress an appointment as
Commissioner to examine the accounts of all the American functionaries
then entrusted with the public money of the United States, in Europe; in
the exercise of the duties of which he continued until the peace of
1782. Our National Independence having then been recognized, he returned
to London, where he continued to reside, and where he acted as consular
agent for the United States, until his final return in 1797, to his
native soil.”
[Illustration: Painted by C. R. Leslie. Engraved by G. F. Storm.]
It was fortunate for Mrs. Adams that her husband was a strong,
intellectual nature; he both satisfied and sustained her, and rendered
her sojourn on earth contented and agreeable. In her father’s house in
London he first saw her, in 1794, and on the 26th of July, 1797, they
were married at the Church of All-Hallows. Soon afterward his father
became President, and he was transferred to Berlin, where he repaired
with his wife as a bride, to play her part in the higher circles of
social and political life. It need scarcely be added that she proved
perfectly competent to this; and that during four years, which comprised
the period of her stay at that court, notwithstanding almost continual
ill-health, she succeeded in making friends and conciliating a degree of
good-will, the recollection of which is, even at this distance of time,
believed to be among the most agreeable of the associations with her
varied life. In 1801, after the birth of her eldest child, she embarked
with Mr. Adams on his return to the United States. Not to Maryland, the
home of her childhood, but, a stranger to their habits and manners, she
went among the New England people, and settled with her husband in
Boston. Here she determined to be satisfied and live with a people whom
in feeling she was not unlike, but scarcely was she beginning to feel at
home when Mr. Adams was elected Senator, and she removed with him to
Washington. A sister was already established there, and she met once
more the members of her own family, where to her the winter months
passed pleasantly away. Each summer she returned to Boston, and thus
alternating between there and Washington in winter, she passed the eight
years of Jefferson’s term. To many, the capital was an out of the way
place, and not always pleasant to Congressmen’s wives, some of whom left
the gayeties of larger cities to be detained six or eight months; but
Mrs. Adams was peculiarly fortunate in her position, having around her
near and dear relations from whom she had been separated many years. It
became home to her, and to a Southerner, the climate was more congenial
than the region of her husband’s birth-place.
Mr. Adams, called by President Madison, to embark for Russia as its
first accredited minister, Mrs. Adams determined to go, even at the cost
of leaving her two eldest children with their grandparents, and taking
with her a third, not yet two years old. They sailed from Boston early
in August, and after a long and somewhat hazardous passage arrived in
St. Petersburg toward the close of October.
What voyages those must have been, when nearly three months was consumed
in getting from one country to another; when weary weeks of summer
merged into winter before the barrier between the old and the new world
could be passed. Yet how often had members of that family braved dangers
unknown to perform some duty in the other world. Far back into the past,
their Puritan ancestors had found a refuge on “wild New England’s
shore,” and in that interval, the waters of the sea had wafted the
children of the third and fourth generations over its crested waves, to
ask for the heritage their forefathers claimed—liberty of conscience,
and freedom to worship God.
Years before, a brave, strong woman had, with streaming eyes, seen the
form of her eldest boy start over the same track he was now treading,
and she had gone back to her lonely home to suffer. Now, through its
well-known and treacherous path, that son, grown to man’s estate, with
children of his own left behind, wends his tedious way, to bear to the
halls of remotest nations the wishes and intentions of his young
country.
His wife, preferring an uncertain exile in a foreign country to a
separation from her husband, suffered extremest anguish as she thought
of her weeping children, for the first time separated from her. She felt
the great distance and doubtful prospects of hearing from them, not less
keenly than she did the length of time which might elapse before she
again would tread the shores of her native land. And the bleak climate
to which she was hastening in nowise tended to make her cheerful; nor
did the fact that Mr. Adams was the first Minister, allay her anxious
sadness. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, were such scenes
being enacted as now. Europe was literally a battle-field, and Napoleon,
the scourge of the continent, was ruling, by the mighty force of his
great skill, the destinies of the Old World. Shut up in St. Petersburg,
Mrs. Adams gathered rumors of the progress of that “man of destiny,” and
listened for his knock even at the gates of the imperial capital.
During the six years of her stay in Russia, what wondrous things
transpired! What intense interest marked the era, we, of comparative
quiet, can scarcely conceive. Death took from her an infant, born whilst
there, and the twofold affliction of public and private trouble weighed
upon her.
“Mr. Adams,” said his son, “lived there poor, studious, ambitious and
secluded, on the narrow basis of the parchment of his commission,
respected for learning and talents, but little given to the costly
entertainments of an opulent and ostentatious court circle. But the
extraordinary mission could afford and was entitled to more expensive
circulation in the splendid palaces of a magnificent city, inhabited by
the owners of thousands of serfs, and some of them of Ural Mountains
containing mines of gold. Living frugally, withdrawn from all but
indispensable parade, Mr. Adams laid the basis of a modest competency
for his return to America, whose official acquisition American,
republican parsimony induces, if not justifies.”
The war between England and America broke out in the meantime, and
communication was almost entirely cut off. British ships cruised about
our ports to capture peaceful vessels, and thundered their cannon at the
capital of the country. While Mrs. Adams grew tired and weary of her
cheerless abode in that far, northern climate, British troops were busy
devastating the country round about her old home, and burning the
mansion which later in life she was to occupy. Completely cut off from
all that made life dear, Mr. Adams hoped for some opportunity to be
recalled, and restore his divided family to each other. Emperor
Alexander unconsciously prepared the way for their return by proposing
to be mediator for England and the United States. In consequence of this
offer, the commissioners repaired to St. Petersburg, accompanied by Mr.
Payne Todd, the stepson of President Madison, whose simple position in
America was exaggerated by European mistake to princely position. Their
coming was a source of pleasure to Mrs. Adams, whose time had been spent
so quietly, and it was her hope to return with them; but while the
commissioners enjoyed themselves with the sights of the Russian capital,
great changes were taking place on the continent, and they were unaware
how radical they were. The return ship to the United States brought the
news to Boston that Napoleon was banished to Elba, Louis the XVIII.
propped on the throne of his ancestors by foreign armies, and England
was at the zenith of her power and greatness. Never were the prospects
of republican America so low since its independence, and the hearts of
those patriots trembled when they thought of the future. The Russian
mediation failed, but the commissioners afterward met at Ghent, where
delays succeeded each other until on Christmas eve, Saturday, 24th
December, 1814, the treaty was signed. It was the desire of Mr. and Mrs.
Adams to have returned home this winter, but the failure of the
commissioners at St. Petersburg necessitated the presence of Mr. Adams
at Ghent, and it was thought best she should remain in Russia. The state
of Europe, restless and revolutionary, was considered another argument
in favor of her remaining, and consequently Mr. Adams set out without
her. Alone in that place where she had lived five years, where she had
buried one child, and where she hoped her husband would soon rejoin her,
she passed the sixth winter, and wished only for the spring to come to
release herself and son from their exile. How her heart must have
yearned, in days short only because the darkness was so long, for her
little ones over the wide Atlantic, and with what zeal must she have
prepared for that homeward-bound trip, so near in anticipation, yet in
reality so far off. But her trial was in proportion to her strength, and
if she did not go home, her children came to her afterward.[10] Spring
at last came, on the almanac at least, if not in the gorgeous beauty it
was wont to appear in her far-off southern home, and she was advised to
travel by land to rejoin her husband at Paris, whither he had gone from
Ghent. The difficulties and dangers of a land route through the late
theatre of a furious war, had no influence to bear upon her determined
idea to go, and braving solitary journeys, rogues, and dangers of every
conceivable kind, set out with her child to travel to France. Hers must
have been an indomitable spirit, else the lonely days of constant travel
through villages and wild, uncultivated countries, where every inanimate
thing bore traces of grim-visaged war, would have convinced her of the
risk she was running. With the passports of the Russian government, and
the strong recommendation of being the American minister’s wife, she
bade adieu to all apprehensions, and risked all to only get nearer to
home and children.
Footnote 10:
Mrs. Adams had four children, three sons and a daughter. 1. George
Washington Adams, born in Berlin, 12th April, 1801. 2. John Adams,
born in Boston, 4th July, 1803. 3. Charles Francis Adams, born in
Boston, August 18th, 1807. 4. Louisa Catherine Adams, born in St.
Petersburg, August 12th, 1811, and died there the next year.
Her son, in speaking of this time, said: “In such circumstances, to be
fastened in a snow-drift with night coming on, and to be forced to rouse
the peasants of the surrounding country to dig them out, which happened
in Courland, was no slight matter. But it was of little significance
compared to the complicated anxieties incident to the listening, at
every stopping-place, to the tales of robbery and murder just committed
on the proposed route, so perpetually repeated at that time to the
traveller; and to the warnings given by apparently friendly persons of
the character of her own servants, corroborated by the loss of several
articles of value, and, most of all, to the observation of the restless
contention between jarring political passions under which the whole
continent of Europe was heaving until it burst forth at the return of
Napoleon from Elba. Hardly a day passed that did not require of Mrs.
Adams some presence of mind to avoid becoming implicated in the
consequences of party fury. For even the slight symbol of a Polish cap
on the head of her servant came near making food for popular quarrel.”
On the way she heard of Napoleon’s return from Elba, and knew that his
coming would be disputed not only by the Bourbons in power, but that it
would be the signal for a general uprising throughout Europe. As she
journeyed along from place to place, she witnessed the excitement that
followed the news, and saw, with much concern, the preparations for
hostile demonstrations. As she neared the border the activity of the
military was observable on all sides. Napoleon was making by forced
marches the seven hundred miles that lay between the seaport at which he
landed and Paris, and at every point he was receiving the accessions to
his numbers that increased until he reached Paris at the head of an
army. The immense influence which his past successes had over the French
people was thus exhibited, and he took possession of the capital amid
the huzzas of the populace and to their great delight. It was at such a
time that Mrs. Adams was approaching the city, and it may well be
imagined that her every thought was in the direction of her own and her
children’s safety. Later, when the events were over, and she was at
liberty to recall them, she dwelt with interest upon the dangers
confronted and the anxieties she had endured, nor did she express regret
that her experiences had been what they were. The scenes she witnessed
were commanding the consideration of the world, and romance in her
wildest dreams had not conceived of anything more thrilling than the
enterprise in which Napoleon had embarked. It was a matter that
concerned all Europe, and the moment he set foot upon French soil, the
crown-heads of the old world began to prepare for a conflict that was to
end his career, or change the fate of nations.
Mrs. Adams found, as she neared Paris, the dangers to which she was
exposed, and dismissing her servants, who were afraid to go farther,
hired others and continued her approach to her husband. But every
crossroad and forest path was filled with soldiers wild with enthusiasm,
rushing forward to join their great chief, and at one time she found
herself surrounded by them. This was a very awkward position, as the
troops seemed disposed to require from all around them the most
unequivocal declaration of political faith. Mrs. Adams appealed to the
commander of the detachment, and by his advice she was enabled to fall
back, although not without the exercise of considerable prudence, until
the last of the men had passed, when she diverged into another road, and
by making a considerable circuit, avoided any further meeting.
Having proved, in this manner, that calmness and presence of mind render
many things perfectly practicable which imagination at first invests
with insuperable difficulties, she arrived in Paris safe and well, there
to be greeted by her husband, on the evening of the 21st of March, 1815,
immediately after that of the memorable arrival of Napoleon and the
flight of the Bourbons.
The advantages thus thrown in the way of an American woman were justly
appreciated by Mrs. Adams, and she, free from prejudice, studied the
strange perversities of fortune. The events of the hundred days were
enough to crowd the memory for a lifetime. They fill us at this day, as
we ponder over them, with awe and amazement. All was activity and
eagerness, all bustle and confusion. The armies were reviewing in the
square of the Place Carousel, and the inspiriting notes of martial music
added enthusiasm to the grandness of the time and place.
But the arrival of her children in England, from whom she had been
separated since the autumn of 1809, nearly six years, was of more
interest to her than the events happening around her. On the 25th of
May, 1815, Mr. Adams went to London with his family, and soon afterward
learned that he was appointed Minister to the Court of St. James. The
impression made upon the most eminent circles during his residence in
London has been retained up to the present time. It has been said of him
that “his simple habits, his plain appearance, his untiring industry,
his richly stored mind, his unbending integrity, his general intercourse
and correspondence with foreign courts and diplomatists of the greatest
distinction, all tended to elevate, in a high degree, the American
character in the estimation of European nations.”
Mrs. Adams had advantages in London which scarcely any American woman
has ever had since; true, she had not wealth to make a great display,
but her home was one of pleasant comfort, and enjoying as she did the
society of one of the most intelligent of men, and of the best informed
circle in the great capital, she had signal opportunities for
cultivation. Charles King, in his eulogy on John Quincy Adams, speaks
thus: “It was while Mr. Adams was Minister of the United States in
London, that it was my personal good fortune to be admitted to his
intimacy and friendship. Being then in London on private business, and
having some previous acquaintance with Mr. Adams, I found in his house
an ever kind welcome, and in his intercourse and conversation unfailing
attraction and improvement. Under an exterior of, at times, almost
repulsive coldness, dwelt a heart as warm, sympathies as quick, and
affections as overflowing, as ever animated any bosom. His tastes, too,
were all refined. Literature and art were familiar and dear to him, and
hence it was that his society was at once so agreeable and so improving.
At his hospitable board, I have listened to disquisitions from his lips
on poetry, especially the dramas of Shakespeare, music, painting,
sculpture—of rare excellence and untiring interest. The extent of his
knowledge, indeed, and its accuracy, in all branches, were not less
remarkable than the complete command which he appeared to possess over
all his varied stores of learning and information.”
Mr. Monroe succeeded Mr. Madison in the Presidential chair in 1817, and
immediately appointed Mr. Adams his Secretary of State. On receiving
notice of his appointment to this responsible office, Mr. Adams with his
family embarked for the United States, on board the packet-ship
“Washington,” and landed in New York on the 6th of August, 1817. A few
days after his arrival, a public dinner was given him in Tammany Hall,
New York. The room was elegantly decorated. In the centre was a handsome
circle of oak leaves, roses, and flags—the whole representing, with much
effect, our happy union—and from the centre of which, as from her native
woods, appeared our eagle, bearing in her beak this impressive scroll:
“Columbia, great Republic, thou art blest,
While Empires droop, and monarchs sink to rest.”
Soon afterward, Mr. Adams and family went to Boston to visit his
father’s family, where he was the recipient of another public dinner:
the last meeting with his mother on earth, it was one which he never
forgot. It was gratifying to her sensitive nature to see him thus rising
from one elevated position to another, and it soothed her aged heart
beyond any power of expression. Many years of his life had been spent
far away from her, and his absences were long and unbroken. She had
always written regularly to him, and by example and precept endeavored
to instil into his nature some portion of her own aspirations. When his
talents had won for him this last position, she bowed her head and
thanked God. Perhaps her spirit recognized his still higher promotion,
and the natural conclusion, arrived at from former precedents, that by
gradual ascent he would reach the place his father occupied, occurred to
her. When she died at her home in Quincy, he was in Washington, busy
with the manifold duties of his place, whither he had gone to reside
permanently, in September, 1817.
The performance of the duties of the State Department necessarily
required a residence at Washington, and the manner in which Mr. Adams
thought proper to devote himself to them, devolved upon his lady the
entire task of making his house an agreeable resort to the multitudes of
visitors who crowd to the capital on errands of business, or curiosity,
or pleasure, from the various sections of the United States during the
winter season. A large diplomatic corps from foreign countries, who feel
themselves in more immediate relations with the Secretary of State, and
a distinguished set of public men, not then divided by party lines in
the manner which usually prevails, rendered the society of that time,
and Mrs. Adams’ house where it most often congregated, among the most
agreeable recorded in the social history of the capital.
Much as it has been ridiculed since, the “era of good feeling” had some
characteristics peculiar to itself. For an instant, sectional
animosities relented, the tone of personal denunciation and angry
crimination, too generally prevailing in extremes, yielded; and even
where the jealous rivalry for political honors still predominated in the
hearts of men, the easy polish of general society removed from casual
spectators any sense of its roughness, or inconvenience from its
impetuosity. Washington may have presented more brilliant spectacles
since, but the rancor of party spirit has ever mingled its baleful force
too strongly not to be perceptible in the personal relations which have
existed between the most distinguished of our political men.
The following letter, not before published, from Mrs. Adams to her
father-in-law will be read with interest. She corresponded regularly
during her life in Washington, with him, until his death, in 1826: