ing country before your eyes, you may yet get on, step by step, towards a good constitution. Though that model is not perfect, as it would unite more suffrages than any new one which could be proposed, it is better to make that the object. If every advance is to be purchased by filling the royal coffers with gold, it will be gold well employed."

This was the plan of Lafayette and his coadjutors to establish popular rights in France under a monarchy framed on the model of the British Constitution. Jefferson agreed with these men in their wish to maintain the monarchical form of government, as the best for them. But he would surround it with republican institutions. He had great influence with all the patriot leaders, and was frequently consulted by them in their most important measures. While engaged in these matters of national interest, he wrote to his daughters, and watched over them with truly feminine tenderness. He was a mother as well as a father to them. His letters were filled with affection, and entered into the most minute details of the practical rules of life. To his daughter, who wished to incur some slight debt, he wrote,

"This is a departure from that rule which I wish to see you governed by through your whole life,—of never buying any thing which you have not money in your pocket to pay for. Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want."

It is the concurrent testimony of his children and grandchildren, that, in all his domestic relations, he was one of the most amiable of men; never speaking a harsh word, never manifesting sullenness or anger or irritation. His daughter Martha, one of the most accomplished of ladies, writes, "Never, never did I witness a particle of injustice in my father. Never have I heard him say a word, or seen him do an act, which I, at the time or afterwards, regretted. We venerated him as something wiser and better than other men. He seemed to know every thing,-even the thoughts of our minds, and all our untold wishes. We wondered that we did not fear him; and yet we did not, any more than we did companions of our own age." In all their joys, in all their griefs, these motherless girls ran to their father. Never was there a more beautiful exhibition of the parental tie.

All the honors which Mr. Jefferson received seemed to produce no change in the simplicity of his republican tastes. To one of the friends of his early years he wrote at this time, —

"There are minds which can be pleased by honors and preferments; but I see nothing in them but envy and enmity. It is only necessary to possess them to know how little they contribute to happiness, or rather how hostile they are to it. I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give."

And now the king's troops, with clattering cavalry and lumbering artillery, came pouring into the streets of Paris to crush the patriots. No reform was to be permitted, no constitution to be allowed. The cry of perishing millions, ragged, starving, was to be answered with the sword, the musket, and the cannon. Mr. Jefferson, in his carriage, chanced to witness the first collision between the royal troops and the people in the Place of Louis XV. It is difficult to turn away from the sublime and tremendous scenes which now ensued; but this brief sketch compels us to omit them all. The demolition of the Bastille; the rush of Paris upon Versailles; the capture of the king and queen, and their transportation to the Tuileries; the attempted flight, arrest, trial, imprisonment, execution, where is there to be found another such drama in the annals of time? Jefferson thought, that, could the weak but kind-hearted king have been left to himself, he would in good faith have accepted and carried out the contemplated reforms.

Amidst these stormy scenes, the National Assembly conferred the unprecedented compliment upon Mr. Jefferson of inviting him to attend and assist in their deliberations; but he felt constrained to decline the honor, as his sense of delicacy would not allow him to take such a part in the internal transactions of a country to whose court he was a recognized ambassador. One day he received a note from Lafayette, informing him that he should bring a party of six or eight friends to ask a dinner of him the next day. They came, — Lafayette, and seven of the leading patriots, the representatives of different parties in the Assembly. The cloth being removed, after dinner, Lafayette introduced the object of the meeting, remarking that it was necessary to combine their energies, or all was lost. The conference continued for six hours, -from four in the afternoon until ten at night: "During which time," writes Jefferson, "I was a silent witness to a coolness and

candor of argument unusual in the conflicts of political opinion; to a logical reasoning and chaste eloquence, disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of antiquity as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato and Cicero." They agreed upon a single legislature, giving the king a veto.

Mr. Jefferson, considering his relation to the court, was placed in a very embarrassing situation in having such a conference thus held at his house. With his characteristic frankness, he promptly decided what to do. The next morning, he waited on Count Montmorin, the minister of the king, and explained to him just how it had happened. The minister very courteously replied, that he already knew every thing that had passed; and that, instead of taking umbrage at the use thus made of his house, he would be glad to have Mr. Jefferson assist at all such conferences, being sure that his influence would tend to moderate the warmer spirits, and to promote only salutary reform.

Soon after this, Mr. Jefferson returned to America. As we have mentioned, his departed wife had been a member of the Episcopal Church. Her eldest daughter, Martha, had all her moral and religious feelings educated in that direction. Her father never uttered a word to lead his children to suppose that he had any doubts respecting Christianity. He attended the Episcopal Church with them, and devoutly took part in the responses. In France, Mr. Jefferson had placed his daughters at school in a convent. Martha, a serious, thoughtful, reverential girl, of fine mind and heart, became very deeply impressed with the seclusion, the devotion, the serene life, of Panthemont. Having one of those sensitive natures peculiarly susceptible to such influences, and dreaming of finding freedom in the cell of the nun from the frivolities, turmoil, and temptations of life, she wrote to her father for permission to remain in the convent, and to dedicate herself to the duties of a religious life.

Then her fa-
Martha, trem-

A few days passed, and there was no answer. ther's carriage rolled up to the door of the convent. bling, and with palpitating heart, advanced to meet him. He greeted her with almost more than his wonted cordiality and affection, held a short private interview with the abbess, and informed his daughters that he had come to take them away. The carriage rolled from the door, and their days in the convent were

ended. Martha, tall, graceful, beautiful, accomplished, was introduced to society, and became the ornament of her father's saloons; and never was there the slightest allusion made, by word or letter, to her desire to enter the convent. In after-years, she spoke, with a heart full of gratitude, of her father's judicious course on the occasion. Her wish was not a deep religious conviction: it was merely the transient emotion of a romantic girl.

This was in April, 1789. Jefferson had not expected to remain so long in Europe. He was now anxious to return with his daughters to his own country. We have spoken of the two parties then rising in the United States, one of which would rather favor England in commercial and legislative policy: the other would favor France. John Adams was a distinguished representative of the English party. He scouted the idea that we owed any gratitude to France for her intervention in our behalf. Jef ferson was prominently of the French party. In the following terms he expresses his views upon this subject, in a letter to Mr. James Madison. Speaking of the National Assembly in France, he says,

"It is impossible to desire better dispositions toward us than prevail in this Assembly. Our proceedings have been viewed as a model for them on every occasion. I am sorry, that, in the moment of such a disposition, any thing should come from us to check it. The placing them on a mere footing with the English will have this effect. When, of two nations, the one has engaged herself in a ruinous war for us; has spent her blood and money to save us; has opened her bosom to us in peace, and received us. almost on the footing of her own citizens; while the other has moved heaven, earth, and hell, to exterminate us in war; has insulted us in all her councils in peace; shut her doors to us in every port where her interests would permit it; libelled us in foreign nations; endeavored to poison them against the reception of our most precious commodities, to place these two nations on a footing is to give a great deal more to one than to the other, if the maxim be true, that, to make unequal quantities equal, you must add more to one than to the other."

Having obtained leave of absence, Jefferson left Paris, to return to America, on the 23d of September, 1789. His numerous friends gathered around him on his departure, with the warmest demonstrations of admiration and love. It was supposed that he

was leaving but for a short visit home. Had it been known that his departure was to be final, his unbounded popularity would have conferred upon him no less imposing demonstrations than those which had been lavished upon Benjamin Franklin."

After the usual vicissitudes of a sea-voyage, Mr. Jefferson and his daughters landed at Norfolk in December. There were no stages there in those days. They set out in a private carriage, borrowing horses of their friends, for Monticello; which they reached on the 23d of December. They loitered on the way, making several friendly visits. Two or three days before reaching home, Mr. Jefferson sent an express to his overseer to have his house made ready for his reception. The news spread like wildfire through the negro-huts, clustered at several points over the immense plantation. The slaves begged for a holiday to receive their master. The whole number, men, women, and children, at an early hour, dressed in their best, were straggling along towards the foot of the mountain to meet the carriage about two miles from the mansion.