the United States, and was so addicted to entertaining that he was wont
to say that he was “but a tavern-keeper;” adding, facetiously, that
“the Americans had the complaisance not to demand his recall.”[14] Of
the new ambassador Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Jefferson, in Paris, “It is
with much pleasure I inform you that Moustier begins to make himself
acceptable; and with still more that Madame Bréhan begins to be viewed
in the light which I hope she merits.” This lady was Anne-Flore Millet,
Marquise de Bréhan, a sister of the Comte de Moustier, who assisted
him in doing the honors of his house. She is described as a singular,
whimsical old woman, who delighted in playing with a negro child and
caressing a monkey. With all her eccentricities, she seems to have been
possessed of some talent and considerable skill as an artist, as she
not only executed several portraits of Washington, but achieved a feat
known to few portrait-painters, that of pleasing the sitter himself.
About a week before the Comte de Moustier’s entertainment, the
inauguration ball was held, and, if we are to credit contemporaneous
gossip, was a very grand and imposing function. Although those were
days of stage-coaching and slow travel, a number of visitors from other
cities were in New York, as appears from a letter written by Miss
Bertha Ingersoll, from the scene of the festivities, to Miss Sallie
McKean in Philadelphia.
“We shall remain here,” she writes, “even if we have to sleep in
tents, as so many will have to do. Mr. Williamson had promised to
engage us rooms at Frauncis’s, but that was jammed long ago, as was
every other decent public house, and now while we are waiting at Mrs.
Vandervoort’s, in Maiden Lane, till after dinner, two of our beaux
are running about town determined to obtain the best places for us to
stay at which can be opened for love or money or the most persuasive
speeches.”
Mrs. Washington was still at Mount Vernon on the 7th of May, the date
of the inauguration ball,[15] consequently the story of a sofa raised
some steps above the floor of the ball-room for the accommodation
of the President and his wife during the dancing is quite without
foundation, as is the equally absurd story of portly Mrs. Knox pushing
her way up to this circle and having to descend suddenly from her
elevated position because there was no room for her on the platform.
Even if there was no dais for the President and his wife, there was no
lack of form and ceremony at this Republican entertainment, where the
men all wore the small-clothes of the day, which so well became their
stately proportions, and where, says Huntingdon, many powdered heads
were still to be seen, among men as well as women. The President’s
costume on such occasions was a full suit of black velvet, with long
black silk stockings, white vest, silver knee- and shoe-buckles, the
hair being powdered and gathered together at the back in a black silk
bag tied with a bow of black ribbon. He wore a light dress sword,
with a richly-ornamented hilt, and often carried in his hand a cocked
hat, decorated with the American cockade. The Vice-President, John
Adams, wore a full suit of drab, with bag-wig and wrist-ruffles. The
gentlemen’s laces seem to have rivalled those of the ladies, although
in their costumes rich silks, satins, and brocades had begun to give
place to cloth of various colors, as if to forecast the less ornate
masculine costume of later date.
“The collection of ladies” at this ball, writes a contemporary, “was
numerous and brilliant, and they were dressed with consummate taste
and elegance. The number of persons present was upwards of three
hundred, and satisfaction, vivacity, and delight beamed from every
countenance.” Colonel William Leet Stone, of New York, thus describes
one of the costumes: “It was a plain celestial blue satin gown, with
a white satin petticoat. On the neck was worn a very large Italian
gauze handkerchief, with border stripes of satin. The head-dress was a
_pouf_ of satin in the form of a globe, the _créneaux_ or head-piece of
which was composed of white satin, having a double wing in large pleats
and trimmed with a wreath of artificial roses. The hair was dressed
all over in detached curls, four of which in two ranks fell on each
side of the neck and were relieved behind by a floating chignon.” We
have Colonel Stone’s word for it that this was an attractive costume,
although the description does not sound so to modern ears, especially
with the heavy head decorations. It appears, however, that the ladies
of the first administration had made one important departure, for
which thanksgivings should have been devoutly uttered. They had by this
time renounced the ungainly head-dress that had reared its pyramid
skyward for some years, and which, accompanied as it was with scant
drapery about the shoulders and bust, had led some wit of the day to
accuse the fair ones of robbing their breasts of gauze, cambric, and
muslin for the use of their heads, while another satirist wrote,--
“Give Chloe a bushel of horse-hair and wool,
Of paste and pomatum a pound;
Ten yards of gay ribbon to deck her sweet skull,
And gauze to encompass it round.”
Perhaps some such witticisms as these had led to the change of fashion;
or, more likely, a little bird from France had whispered in the ladies’
ears that the mighty pyramid had fallen there. From whatever cause, the
structure of hair, flowers, feathers, and jewels no longer reared its
imposing pinnacle above the brow of beauty, and many of the Stuart,
Malbone, Trumbull, and Copley paintings of women of this period
represent the hair dressed low, with curls and bandeaux _à la Grecque_
or rolled moderately high _à la Pompadour_.
In one of the journals of the day we read that
“On Thursday evening, the subscribers of the Dancing Assembly, gave
an elegant Ball and Entertainment. The President of the United
States, was pleased to honor the company with his presence--His
Excellency the Vice President--most of the members of both Houses of
Congress--His Excellency the Governor [Clinton] and a great many other
dignified public characters: His Excellency Count de Moustier--His
Most Christian Majesty’s Ambassador--The Baron Steuben, and other
foreigners of distinction were present, as well as the most beautiful
ladies of New York.”[16]
Among these were the Misses Livingston, one of whom married Mr. Ridley,
of Baltimore, the Misses Van Horne, “avowed Whigs,” says Graydon,
“notwithstanding their civility to the British officers,” and the
Misses White, who lived on Wall Street near Broadway, to one of whom
was addressed the following epigram by a beau of the period named Brown:
“My lovely maid, I’ve often thought
Whether thy name be just or not;
Thy bosom is as cold as snow,
Which we for matchless _white_ may show;
But when thy beauteous face is seen,
Thou’rt of _brunettes_ the charming queen.
Resolve our doubts: let it be known
Thou rather art inclined to _Brown_.”
It is evident that this fair White did not permanently incline to
Brown, as one sister became Lady Hayes, and the other married one of
the Monroes. Here also, in goodly array, were Osgoods, Philipses,
Rutherfurds, Van Cortlandts, Van Zandts, Clintons, Montgomerys, De
Lanceys, De Peysters, Kissams, Bleeckers, Clarksons, Verplancks,
Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, and Macombs. How the old names repeat
themselves in the social life of to-day! Prominent in these inaugural
festivities were the Livingstons of Clermont, Chief Justice Yates, of
New York, the handsome soldierly figure of Morgan Lewis, Grand Marshal
of the Inauguration ceremonies, Mrs. Dominick Lynch, Mrs. Edgar,
Mrs. Provoost, Lady Stirling, and her two daughters, Lady Mary Watts
and Lady Kitty Duer. We learn that their aunt, Mrs. Peter Van Brugh
Livingston, had the honor of dancing a cotillon with the President,
who opened the ball with the wife of the Mayor of New York, Mrs. James
Duane. He also danced in the minuet with Mrs. James Homer Maxwell, with
whom as Miss Catharine Van Zandt he had repeatedly danced while the
army was quartered at Morristown. When Washington entered the lists,
dancing seemed to be elevated to the dignity of a function of the
state, and in proof of the grace with which his Excellency could tread
a measure it is related that a French gentleman, after observing him
in the dance, paid him the high compliment of saying that a Parisian
education could not have rendered his execution more admirable.
Mrs. James Beekman,[17] born Jane Keteletas, was the belle of the de
Moustier ball, a week later, and gazing upon her serene face, framed
in by a little cap of gauze and ribbon, that would have been trying to
features less perfect, we can readily believe that she also occupied
a prominent place in the inaugural festivities. Mrs. William Smith,
who had returned from London, where her husband was Secretary of the
American legation, was present, as was also Lady Temple, the American
wife of Sir John Temple, British Consul-General, whom the Marquis de
Chastellux found so distinguished that it was unnecessary to pronounce
her beautiful. Her husband, Sir John, took upon himself “singular
airs,” says Mrs. William Smith, and this spirited little woman declined
to visit my lady because she did not consider that Sir John treated her
spouse with proper deference. Lady Christiana Griffin, the Scotch wife
of Cyrus Griffin, President of Congress, was also one of the guests of
the evening.
Among New York women whose husbands held high positions were Mrs.
Alexander Hamilton; Mrs. Ralph Izard, wife of the Senator from South
Carolina, whose surname furnished Mrs. Bache a peg on which to hang
her _bon-mot_ about knowing everything South Carolinian from B[18] to
Z (izzard); Mrs. Robert R. Livingston, the daughter of Colonel Henry
Beekman, whose husband had a week earlier administered the oath of
office to the President; Mrs. King, born Mary Alsop, of whose marriage
to Rufus King John Adams speaks as “additional bonds to cement the
love between New York and old Massachusetts;” and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry,
wife of the Senator from Massachusetts. The Rev. Manasseh Cutler
visited the Gerrys when they were living in Philadelphia, and speaks
of the beauty and accomplishments of the New York lady. He expressed
to her his surprise that Philadelphia ladies rose so early, saying
that he saw them at breakfast at half-past five, when in Boston they
could hardly see a breakfast-table before nine without falling into
hysterics. To which Mrs. Gerry replied that she had become inured to
early rising and found it conducive to her health.
Stately courtesy and dignity, combined with a certain simplicity
begotten of pioneer living in a new country, seem to have been the
distinguishing characteristics of this old-time society, and of the
couple who presided over it and knew so well how to balance the
functions of public office with the sacred demands of home life.
In days of retirement at Mount Vernon, when engaged in instructing her
maidens, or in household pursuits, Mrs. Washington was always simply
attired, and in cloth of home manufacture. She could, however, on
occasions of state appear in rich costumes of satin, velvet, and lace,
while the President, although appearing at the inaugural ceremonies in
a suit of cloth of American manufacture, on festal occasions donned
the velvet and satin that so well became him. With his republicanism
in national affairs, it is evident that Washington inclined more
to the state and ceremony of Old-World courts than to the extreme,
almost bald, simplicity that came in with a later administration. The
statement of that unknown “Virginia colonel” who said that General
Washington’s “bows were more distant and stiff than anything he had
seen at St. James’s” savors of probability, although disputed by some
of his contemporaries, and Mr. Breck tells us that the President “had
a stud of twelve or fourteen horses, and occasionally rode out to take
the air with six horses to his coach, and always two footmen behind his
carriage;” adding, “He knew how to maintain the dignity of his station.
None of his successors, except the elder Adams, has placed a proper
value on a certain degree of display that seems suitable for the chief
magistrate of a great nation. I do not mean pageantry, but the decent
exterior of a well-bred gentleman.” A President who thus realized all
the dignity that his office implied naturally introduced a certain
amount of form and ceremony into the social life of the capital, and
when Mrs. Washington came from Mount Vernon, on the 27th of May,
receptions were held at the old Franklin house on Cherry Street, whose
like, for a certain state and fine aroma of old-time courtesy, we shall
never see again. Those who, “with the earliest attention and respect,
paid their devoirs to the amiable consort of our beloved President
were,” says one of the newspapers of the time, “the Ladies of the
Most Hon. Mr. Langdon [State Senator from New Hampshire] and the Most
Hon. Mr. Dalton, the Mayoress [Mrs. James Duane], Mrs. Livingston of
Clermont, Mrs. Chancellor Livingston, Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. McComb,
Mrs. Lynch, the Misses Bayard, and a great number of other respectable
characters. Mrs. Washington from Philadelphia was accompanied by the
Lady of Mr. Robert Morris.” We also learn that the President met his
wife at Trenton, and that with a gayly-decorated and well-manned barge
she made her journey to the seat of government.
Although we are not disposed to agree with the Chevalier de Crèvecœur,
that “if there is a town on the American continent where English luxury
displayed its follies, it was in New York,” Philadelphia, with Mrs.
William Bingham as its social leader, having continued to assert its
supremacy in this line, we are willing to believe that there was a
fair amount of both folly and luxury in the national capital. This
gentleman, Saint-John de Crèvecœur, sometime Consul-General at New
York, was probably surprised to find anything approaching civilization
in this city and country, as he exclaims, “You will find here the
English fashions. In the dress of the women you will see the most
brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair.” It is amusing, in
this connection, to note the French gentleman’s ideal of what a woman
should be. He happened to be looking for a wife himself just then, and,
like Solomon’s perfect woman, she was expected to look well to the ways
of her household, to be skilled in the spinning of flax and the making
of cheese and butter, and withal she was to have her mind cultivated a
little, just enough to enable her to enjoy reading with her husband.
Mrs. William Smith, a less prejudiced observer than M. de Crèvecœur,
in writing to her mother of a dinner at Chief Justice Jay’s which was
served _à la mode française_, says that there was more fashion and
state in New York than she would fancy. Brissot de Warville speaks
of another dinner, this one at the house of Cyrus Griffin, at which
seven or eight women appeared dressed in great hats and plumes. If the
hats were as graceful and becoming as that worn by Mrs. John Jay in
her portrait by Pine, we have no word of censure for those old-time
beauties, although a plumed hat does seem a rather peculiar finish to
a dinner costume, almost as odd as Mrs. William Smith’s elbow-sleeves,
bare arms, and muff.
At her formal receptions, which Mr. Daniel Huntingdon has represented
in his famous picture, Mrs. Washington stood with the Cabinet ladies
around her, stately Mrs. Robert Morris by her side, herself the
stateliest figure in the group. The President passed from guest to
guest, exchanging a word with one and another, and pleasing all by
the fine courtesy of his manner. The lovely ladies and the dignified
gentlemen, many of the latter with powdered heads and bag-wigs, like
his Excellency, trooped up by twos and threes to pay their respects
to the first lady in the land. If around the Chief Magistrate were
gathered the great men of the nation, those who, like John Adams,
Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, had already impressed
themselves deeply upon the past, and in connection with such younger
minds as those of James Madison, Rufus King, Elbridge Gerry, and Oliver
Ellsworth, the Cerberus of the Treasury, were destined to outline
the serener history of the future, Mrs. Washington numbered in her
Republican Court the noblest and most beautiful women in the land.
Among these were many who, like her, had shared with their husbands the
anxieties of the Revolutionary period,--notably, Mrs. General Knox,
Mrs. Robert Morris, and Mrs. Adams,--while in a younger group were Mrs.
Rufus King, who is described as singularly handsome, Mrs. Gerry, Mrs.
George Clinton, Mrs. William Smith, John Adams’s daughter, Mrs. Walter
Livingston, whom General Washington had once entertained, in rustic
style, when encamped near New York, and, not the least attractive among
these lovely dames, Mrs. John Jay, a daughter of Governor Livingston,
who shared with Mrs. William Bingham, of Philadelphia, the distinction
of being called the most beautiful and charming woman in America.
Honors seem to have been easy between these two high-born dames,
as both were beloved, admired, and _fêted_ at home and abroad. The
Marquise de Lafayette, who entertained a warm friendship for Mrs. Jay,
said, with charming simplicity, that “Mrs. Jay and she thought alike,
that pleasure might be found abroad, but happiness only at home.” All
of Mrs. Jay’s portraits represent a face of such exquisite beauty that
it is not difficult to imagine the furore she created at foreign and
Republican courts.
Does there not seem to have been an indefinable charm of exquisiteness
and dignity about these old-time dames, like the fragrance that
surrounds some fine and stately exotic? They had abundant leisure to
make their daily sacrifice to the graces, and they always appear before
us in full _toilette_,--hair rolled or curled, slippers high of heel,
and gown of stiff brocade or satin. We never catch these fair ladies
_en déshabille_, nor do we desire to do so; their charm would as surely
vanish before the inglorious ease of a loose morning gown and roomy
slippers as does that of an American Indian when he divests himself
of his war-paint and feathers. We read with equanimity of some of the
belles of the period sitting all night with their pyramidal heads
propped up against pillows, because the hair-dresser could not make his
round without attending to some heads the night before the ball. This
was “_souffrir pour être belle_” with a vengeance; yet, deeming it all
in keeping with their stately elegance, for which they had to pay a
price, we never stop to think of how their poor necks must have ached,
choosing rather to dwell upon their triumphs when they entered the
ball-room. We can hear Mr. Swanwick, or some other poet of the day, pay
them the most extravagant compliments, while lamenting the void left by
the absence of another fair one:
“Say why, amid the splendid rows
Of graceful belles and polish’d beaux,
Does not Markoe appear?
Has some intrusive pain dismay’d
From festive scenes the lov’ly maid,
Or does she illness fear?”
Is it possible that Markoe could not get her head dressed in time,
and thus missed the ball? We wonder, and, wondering, lavish so much
sympathy upon her for the pleasure she has lost that we forget to
moralize upon the impropriety of Mr. Swanwick’s paying such exaggerated
compliments, which would turn the head of any girl of to-day. We of
this generation reverse the order of nature; like doting grandparents
we enjoy the picturesque beauty of these stately ancestors, and, with
never a thought of their higher good, retail their triumphs with
enthusiasm, wishing that for one brief moment we could turn back and
feel what they felt when their world was at their feet. It was a very
small world, according to our ideas, but it was the largest that they
knew, and it was all their own.
What a gay pageant that old social life seems as it passes before
us! We almost forget that the picture is limned against the stern
background of war, for it is one in which the shadows have all faded
out, leaving only the bright colors upon the canvas. Let it remain
so. Why should we weep over sorrows so long past? The sting has all
gone from them, and surely there can no harm come to this generation
from dwelling upon the beauty and grace of those fair ladies, who
ruled society in New York a hundred years ago, or upon the bravery and
strength of the noble men who gathered around them. _Sic transit gloria
mundi!_ cries the moralist; but the glory has not all passed away, as
is proved by our lingering over it now, nor need it be quite effaced
from the gay life of to-day, if hearts still beat as true under silk
and broadcloth as did those of the fathers and mothers of the Republic
beneath brocaded bodices and satin waistcoats.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] This house was the residence of Aaron Burr at the time of his duel
with Alexander Hamilton.
[11] Mrs. Robinson’s statement that a carpet was spread from the wharf
for the President to walk upon was authenticated, more than sixty
years later, by an eyewitness of the scene. Dr. Atlee, in 1850, while
substitute-resident at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, met
a man of eighty-two who, when he learned that the young physician was
named Walter Franklin Atlee, exclaimed at the coincidence, saying that
he remembered having seen General Washington come up the river in a
boat, and walk on a carpet to Walter Franklin’s house, where he and
Mrs. Washington were to reside.
[12] “Lady Cathcart was Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte.
Peter Pindar celebrates her at Weymouth in connection with the king’s
insensate manners:
‘Cæsar spies Lady Cathcart with a book;
He flies to know what ’tis--he longs to look.
“What’s in your hand, my lady? let me know?”--
“A book, an’t please your majesty?”--“Oho!
Book’s a good thing--good thing,--I like a book.
Very good thing, my lady,--let me look.
War of America! my lady, hae?
Bad thing, my lady! fling, fling _that_ away.”’”
_Life of Major John André_, by Winthrop Sargent, p. 147.
[13] See Army List, 1778.
[14] This pleasantry on the part of the French minister seems to
have been taken _au sérieux_ by certain writers as pointing to some
obscurity of origin, while the fact is substantiated by various
authorities that Eléonore-François-Elie, Comte de Moustier, entered the
diplomatic service at eighteen, and after representing his country at
several foreign courts was twice offered the position of Minister of
Foreign Affairs by Louis XVI.
[15] United States Gazette, May 9, 1789.
[16] It is interesting to turn from these Republican festivities to
read in the journal of a Moravian minister, written in New York during
the occupation of the British, of King’s and Queen’s “Birthnight
Balls,” “Coronation Day” celebrations, and rejoicings over the arrival
of “His Royal Highness, Prince William Henry, the third son of our dear
King, an amiable young Prince, who gave satisfaction to all who saw
him.”--_Diary of Ewald Gustav Schaukirk._
[17] “The old Beekman house, built by James Beekman, and standing
three miles from the City Hall in New York, was the scene of a number
of interesting events. During the British possession of the city it
was occupied by the commander-in-chief of their army, and one room at
the head of a flight of stairs was occupied by Major André the night
before proceeding up the river on his ill-fated expedition to West
Point, while (strange providence) but a few yards distant still stands
[1848] the green house where Captain Nathan Hale, of the American army,
received his trial and condemnation as a spy.”--JEROME B. HOLGATE.
[18] Evidently referring to the Bee family of S. C.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY]