From Thomas Jefferson to John Jay
The revolution of this country has advanced thus far without encountering anything which deserves to be called a difficulty. There’ve been riots in which there may have been a dozen or twenty lives lost. A few days ago a much more serious riot took place in this city, in which it became necessary for troops to engage with the mob. Neither this nor any other of the riots have had a professed connection with the great national reformation going on. They are such as have happened every year since I’ve been here.
HOW SANGUINE THIS LETTER READS NOW, with the benefit of hindsight, but we were so hopeful, never anticipating the whirlwind. While men like Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, and my father shaped the great events unfolding, the storm I faced took smaller shape within the Hotel de Langeac. There was, after all, no time for kisses and declarations of love—especially not with Papa and William gone almost daily to Versailles and Lafayette visiting so often for advice, now that he’d been elected to represent the nobles as a representative to the Estates-General.
I took it upon myself to carry the tea service on the day that Lafayette arrived unexpectedly, in a state of great agitation, rambling half in English, half in French, as he was prone to do.
“They will not hear reason!” Lafayette shouted as I poured tea into his cup. “My fellow nobles have only themselves to blame. They want only a sham of democracy, no true national assembly at all.” His anger stemmed from his noble constituents instructing him to vote against the common people. “My conscience will not allow me to support the disenfranchisement of ninety-six percent of the nation. Yet, how can I violate the instructions of those who sent me to represent them and still call myself a champion of democracy? I see no choice but to resign.”
“Forgive me, my dear friend, if my anxiety for you makes me talk of things I know nothing about,” Papa began, using the clever but unassuming manner he often employed to soften the giving of difficult advice. “But if you resign, there will be one less voice of reason in the Estates-General.”
“There are other voices of reason at Versailles?” asked Mr. Short, sardonically. “I’m told the nobles are quite out of their senses and the commons have amongst them some mad, radical hotheads—”
“My cause is liberty,” Lafayette snapped, with all the zeal of his ancestry, which boasted a companion of Joan of Arc. It was on Lafayette’s suggestion that the king had called the Estates-General in the first place. Few men were as invested in its outcome. “No matter how mad the agitators in the commons may be, I will die with them rather than betray them.”
Mr. Short frowned. “I think it better to compromise and live with them rather than die with them. Why not use your voice in your chamber of nobles to bring about a peaceful resolution to this crisis?”
Electrified by the conversation, I poured the next cup slower, not wishing to be dismissed and wondering how serious the threat of violence truly was.
Mr. Short’s advice seemed good and sensible.
But perhaps more than any man who ever lived, my father was acutely aware of the interplay between public reputation and political power and the risks that must be taken to acquire both. “This is your moment of opportunity, Lafayette,” Papa said. “Your opportunity to defy the instructions of your noble constituents, go over to the people now, and win their hearts forever.” Papa’s voice rang out with increasing fervor, reminding me of bygone days when I saw my father engaged in our own revolution and inspiring other men to fight for their independence. “If you wait too long, currying favor with both sides, you will lose both. The nobles will only love you so long as you do their dirty work for them. If you do not now declare yourself a man of the people, some other prominent nobleman will do so before you, and he will then have the unprecedented power and influence that ought to be yours. Take at once the honest and manly stand your own principles dictate.”
This was Papa at his finest, mixing pragmatism and principle in a way only a handful of men could.
Madison. Adams. Hamilton. And my father.
Lafayette studied Papa and nodded, thoughtfully. “Tell me. How did you feel on that glorious day you took your own honest and manly stand and signed your name to the Declaration of Independence?”
Papa’s expression turned wry. “I felt a noose tightening around my neck.”
The men barked with dark but well-needed laughter. Then, at length, the conversation turned to brokering a bargain in which taxes would be levied in exchange for a charter of citizens’ rights to be signed by the king.
A charter that my father said he would be happy to draft.
He was no unaffected bystander in this struggle. None of us were.