In June, 1777, the Emperor Joseph II. visited his sister, the Queen of
France, and passed a day at Nantes. The Count de Menou, commandant of
the place, pointed out in the harbor, among the flags raised in his
honor, one bearing thirteen stars. The Emperor turned away his eyes,
saying: "I cannot look on that; my own profession is to be royalist"
Weber, foster-brother of Marie Antoinette, who reports the Emperor's
remark, recognized the fate of France in those thirteen stars. That
republic, he says, was formed by the subjects of a King, aided by
another King. These French armies, mingling their flags with those of
America, learned a new language. Those warriors, the flower of their
age, went out Frenchmen and returned Americans. They returned to a
court, but decorated with republican emblems and showing the scars
of Liberty. Lafayette, it is said, had in his study a large carton,
splendidly framed, in two columns: on one was inscribed the American
Declaration of Independence; the other was blank, awaiting the like
Declaration of France.*
* "Memoires concernant Marie-Antoinette," pp. 34-79. 268
The year 1789 found France afflicted with a sort of famine, its finances
in disorder; while the people, their eyes directed to the new world
by the French comrades of Washington, beheld that great chieftain
inaugurated as president of a prosperous republic. The first pamphlet
of Thomas Paine, expurgated in translation of anti-monarchism, had
been widely circulated, and John Adams (1779) found himself welcomed in
France as the supposed author of "Common Sense." The lion's skin dropped
from Paine's disgusted enemy, and when, ten years later, the lion
himself became known in Paris, he was hailed with enthusiasm. This was
in the autumn of 1789, when Paine witnessed the scenes that ushered
in the "crowned republic," from which he hoped so much. Jefferson had
sailed in September, and Paine was recognized by Lafayette and other
leaders as the representative of the United States. To him Lafayette
gave for presentation to Washington the Key of the destroyed Bastille,
ever since visible at Mount Vernon,--symbol of the fact that, in Paine's
words, "the principles of America opened the Bastille."
But now an American enemy of Paine's principles more inveterate than
Adams found himself similarly eclipsed in Paris by the famous author.
Early in 1789 Gouverneur Morris came upon the stage of events in Europe.
He was entrusted by the President with a financial mission which, being
secret, swelled him to importance in the imagination of courtiers. At
Jefferson's request Gouverneur Morris posed to Houdon for the bust
of Washington; and when, to Morris' joy, Jefferson departed, he posed
politically as Washington to the eyes of Europe. He was scandalized that
Jefferson should retain recollections of the Declaration of Independence
strong enough to desire for France "a downright republican form of
government"; and how it happened that under Jefferson's secretaryship of
state this man, whom even Hamilton pronounced "an exotic" in a republic,
was presently appointed Minister to France, is a mystery remaining to be
solved.
Morris had a "high old time" in Europe. Intimacy with Washington secured
him influence with Lafayette, and the fine ladies of Paris, seeking
official favors for relatives and lovers, welcomed him to the boudoirs,
baths, and bedrooms to which his diary now introduces the public.
{1790}
It was but natural that such a man, just as he had been relieved of the
overlaying Jefferson, should try to brush Paine aside. On January 26,
1790, he enters in his diary:
"To-day, at half-past three, I go to M. de Lafayette's. He tells me
that he wishes to have a meeting of Mr. Short, Mr. Paine, and myself, to
consider their judiciary, because his place imposes on him the necessity
of being right. I tell him that Paine can do him no good, for that,
although he has an excellent pen to write, he has but an indifferent
head to think."
Eight years before, Gouverneur Morris had joined Robert Morris in
appealing to the author to enlighten the nation on the subject of
finance and the direction of the war. He had also confessed to Paine
that he had been duped by Silas Deane, who, by the way, was now
justifying all that Paine had said of him by hawking his secret
letter-books in London. Now, in Paris, Morris discovers that Paine has
but an indifferent head to think.*
Gouverneur Morris was a fascinating man. His diary and letters,
always entertaining, reveal the secret of his success in twisting the
Constitution and Jefferson and Washington around his fingers in several
important junctures. To Paine also he was irresistible. His cordial
manners disarm suspicion, and we presently find the author pouring into
the ear of his secret detractor what state secrets he learns in London.
On March 17, 1790, Paine left Paris to see after his Bridge in
Yorkshire, now near completion. On the day before, he writes to a friend
in Philadelphia how prosperously everything is going on in France,
where Lafayette is acting the part of a Washington; how the political
reformation is sure to influence England; and how he longs for America.
"I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America. It is the country
from whence all reformation must originally spring. I despair of seeing
an abolition of the infernal traffic in negroes. We must push
that matter further on your side of the water. I wish that a few
well-instructed could be sent among their brethren in bondage; for until
they are able to take their own part nothing will be done."**
* "Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris." Edited by Anne
Cary Morris. i., p. 286.
** One cannot help wondering how, in this matter, Paine got
along with his friend Jefferson, who, at the very time of
his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, had a slave in his
house at Challiot. Paine was not of the philanthropic type
portrayed in the "Biglow Papers":
"I du believe in Freedom's cause
Ez fur away ez Payris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Phayrisees.
It's well enough agin a king
To dror resolves and triggers,
But libbaty 's a kind 'o thing
That don't agree with niggers."
On his arrival in London he has the happiness of meeting his old friend
General Morris of Morrisania, and his wife. Gouverneur is presently
over there, to see his brother; and in the intervals of dancing
attendance at the opera on titled ladies--among them Lady Dunmore, whose
husband desolated the Virginia coast,--he gets Paine's confidences.*
Poor Paine was an easy victim of any show of personal kindness,
especially when it seemed like the magnanimity of a political opponent.
The historic sense may recognize a picturesque incident in the selection
by Lafayette of Thomas Paine to convey the Key of the Bastille to
Washington. In the series of intellectual and moral movements which
culminated in the French Revolution, the Bastille was especially the
prison of Paine's forerunners, the writers, and the place where their
books were burned. "The gates of the Bastille," says Rocquain, "were
opened wide for Abbes, savants, brilliant intellects, professors of
the University and doctors of the Sorbonne, all accused of writing or
reciting verses against the King, casting reflections on the Government,
or publishing books in favor of Deism, and contrary to good morals.
Diderot was one of the first arrested, and it was during his detention
that he conceived the plan of his 'Encyclopedia.'" **
* "Diary," etc., i., pp. 339, 341.
** "L'Esprit revolutionaire avant la Revolution." A good
service has just been done by Miss Hunting in translating
and condensing the admirable historical treatise of M. Felix
Rocquain on "The Revolutionary Spirit Preceding the
Revolution," for which Professor Huxley has written a
preface.
The coming Key was announced to Washington with the following letters:
"London, May 1, 1790.--Sir,--Our very good friend the Marquis de la
Fayette has entrusted to my care the Key of the Bastille, and a drawing,
handsomely framed, representing the demolition of that detestable
prison, as a present to your Excellency, of which his letter will more
particularly inform. I feel myself happy in being the person thro' whom
the Marquis has conveyed this early trophy of the Spoils of despotism,
and the first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted into
Europe, to his great master and patron. When he mentioned to me the
present he intended you, my heart leaped with joy. It is something
so truly in character that no remarks can illustrate it, and is more
happily expressive of his remembrance of his American friends than any
letters can convey. That the principles of America opened the Bastille
is not to be doubted, and therefore the Key comes to the right place.
"I beg leave to suggest to your Excellency the propriety of
congratulating the King and Queen of France (for they have been our
friends,) and the National Assembly, on the happy example they are
giving to Europe. You will see by the King's speech, which I enclose,
that he prides himself on being at the head of the Revolution; and I am
certain that such a congratulation will be well received and have a good
effect.
"I should rejoice to be the direct bearer of the Marquis's present to
your Excellency, but I doubt I shall not be able to see my much loved
America till next Spring. I shall therefore send it by some _American_
vessel to New York. I have permitted no drawing to be taken here, tho'
it has been often requested, as I think there is a propriety that it
should first be presented. B[ut] Mr. West wishes Mr. Trumbull to make a
painting of the presentation of the Key to you.
"I returned from France to London about five weeks ago, and I am engaged
to return to Paris when the Constitution shall be proclaimed, and to
carry the American flag in the procession. I have not the least doubt of
the final and compleat success of the French Revolution. Little Ebbings
and Flow-ings, for and against, the natural companions of revolutions,
sometimes appear; but the full current of it, is, in my opinion, as
fixed as the Gulph Stream.
"I have manufactured a Bridge (a single arch) of one hundred and ten
feet span, and five feet high from the cord of the arch. It is now
on board a vessel coming from Yorkshire to London, where it is to
be erected. I see nothing yet to disappoint my hopes of its being
advantageous to me. It is this only which keeps me [in] Europe, and
happy shall I be when I shall have it in my power to return to America.
I have not heard of Mr. Jefferson since he sailed, except of his
arrival. As I have always indulged the belief of having many friends
in America, or rather no enemies, I have [mutilated] to mention but my
affectionate [mutilated'] and am Sir with the greatest respect, &c.
"If any of my friends are disposed to favor me with a letter it will
come to hand by addressing it to the care of Benjamin Vaughn Esq.,
Jeffries Square, London."
"London, May 31, 1790.--Sir,--By Mr. James Morris, who sailed in the May
Packet, I transmitted you a letter from the Marquis de la Fayette, at
the same time informing you that the Marquis had entrusted to my charge
the Key of the Bastille, and a drawing of that prison, as a present to
your Excellency. Mr. J. Rutledge, jun'r, had intended coming in the
ship 'Marquis de la Fayette,' and I had chosen that opportunity for the
purpose of transmitting the present; but, the ship not sailing at the
time appointed, Mr. Rutledge takes his passage on the Packet, and I have
committed to his care that trophie of Liberty which I know it will give
you pleasure to receive. The french Revolution is not only compleat but
triumphant, and the envious despotism of this nation is compelled to own
the magnanimity with which it has been conducted.
"The political hemisphere is again clouded by a dispute between England
and Spain, the circumstances of which you will hear before this letter
can arrive. A Messenger was sent from hence the 6th inst. to Madrid with
very peremptory demands, and to wait there only forty-eight hours. His
return has been expected for two or three days past. I was this morning
at the Marquis del Campo's but nothing is yet arrived. Mr. Rutledge sets
off at four o'clock this afternoon, but should any news arrive before
the making up the mail on Wednesday June 2, I will forward it to you
under cover.
"The views of this Court as well as of the Nation, so far as they extend
to South America, are not for the purpose of freedom, but conquest. They
already talk of sending some of the young branches to reign over them,
and to pay off their national debt with the produce of their Mines. The
Bondage of those countries will, as far as I can perceive, be prolonged
by what this Court has in contemplation.
"My Bridge is arrived and I have engaged a place to erect it in. A
little time will determine its fate, but I yet see no cause to doubt of
its success, tho' it is very probable that a War, should it break
out, will as in all new things prevent its progress so far as regards
profits.
"In the partition in the Box, which contains the Key of the Bastille,
I have put up half a dozen Razors, manufactured from Cast-steel made
at the Works where the Bridge was constructed, which I request you to
accept as a little token from a very grateful heart.
"I received about a week ago a letter from Mr. G. Clymer. It is dated
the 4th February, but has been travelling ever since. I request you
to acknowledge it for me and that I will answer it when my Bridge is
erected. With much affection to all my friends, and many wishes to see
them again, I am, etc."
Washington received the Key at New York, along with this last letter,
and on August 10, 1790, acknowledges Paine's "agreeable letters."
"It must, I dare say, give you great pleasure to learn by repeated
opportunities, that our new government answers its purposes as well as
could have been reasonably expected, that we are gradually overcoming
the difficulties which presented in its first organization, and that our
prospects in general are growing more favorable."
Paine is said by several biographers to have gone to Paris in the May
of this year. No doubt he was missed from London, but it was probably
because he had gone to Thetford, where his mother died about the middle
of May. Gouverneur Morris reports interviews with him August 8th and
15th, in London. The beautiful iron bridge, 110 feet long, had been
erected in June at Leasing-Green (now Paddington-Green) at the joint
expense of Paine and Peter Whiteside, an American merchant in London.
It was attracting a fair number of visitors, at a shilling each, also
favorable press notices, and all promised well.
So Paine was free to run over to Paris, where Carlyle mentions him,
this year, as among the English "missionaries."* It was a brief visit,
however, for October finds him again in London, drawn probably by
intimations of disaster to the interests of his Bridge. Whiteside had
failed, and his assignees, finding on his books L620 debited to Paine's
Bridge, came upon the inventor for the money; no doubt unfairly, for
it seems to have been Whiteside's investment, but Paine, the American
merchants Cleggett and Murdoch becoming his bail, scraped together the
money and paid it Probably he lost through Whiteside's bankruptcy other
moneys, among them the sum he had deposited to supply his mother with
her weekly nine shillings. Paine was too much accustomed to straitened
means to allow this affair to trouble him much. The Bridge exhibition
went on smoothly enough. Country gentlemen, deputations from riverside
towns, visited it, and suggested negotiations for utilizing the
invention. The snug copyright fortune which the author had sacrificed to
the American cause seemed about to be recovered by the inventor.
* "Her Paine; rebellious Staymaker; unkempt; who feels that
he, a single needleman, did, by his 'Common Sense' pamphlet,
free America;--that he can and will free all this World;
perhaps even the other."--French Revolution.
But again the Cause arose before him; he must part from all--patent
interests, literary leisure, fine society--and take the hand of Liberty,
undowered, but as yet unstained. He must beat his bridge-iron into a
Key that shall unlock the British Bastille, whose walls he sees steadily
closing around the people.