During those years of comparative rest—only comparative, for he had to receive innumerable visitors, to answer an unbelievable quantity of letters, because everybody wanted his counsels, to take part in the framing of the Constitution as a delegate of Virginia in 1787—his fame went on increasing in France from whence tokens of admiration came for him of every kind, some noble, some simple, some high-flown, like that letter from the Chevalier de Lormerie, who made bold to "present a Plan of Perpetual Peace to a general who is even more of a philosopher than a warrior."[179]

Besides letters, French visitors would now and then appear at the door of Mount Vernon. One did so by appointment, and even in virtue of a law, namely Jean Antoine Houdon, the famous sculptor, whose coming was the result of an act passed by the Assembly of Virginia, prescribing "that the executive be requested to take measures for procuring a statue of General Washington, to be of the finest marble and the best workmanship."

The sculptor might be of any nationality, provided he were the best alive. "The intention of the Assembly," the Governor informed Jefferson, then in Paris, "is that the statue should be the work of the most masterly hand. I shall therefore leave it to you to find out the best in any of the European states."[180] Once more it was France's good fortune to be able to answer, Adsum.

The "executive," Governor Harrison, not over-well versed in matters artistic, had thought that all a sculptor could need to perform his task was a painted portrait of the model, so he ordered one from Peale, which would, he thought, enable the artist "to finish his work in the most perfect manner."[181] Houdon decided that he would rather undertake the journey, insisting only that, as he was the support of his father, mother, and sisters, his life be insured, a condition which, owing to the risks, was not fulfilled without difficulty. It finally was, however, so that we know, to a cent, what the life of the great sculptor was worth: it was worth two thousand dollars.

Houdon came on the same ship which brought back Franklin after his long mission to France, and he reached Mount Vernon on October 2, 1785, having been preceded by a letter, in which Jefferson had thus described him to Washington: "I have spoken of him as an artist only, but I can assure you also that, as a man, he is disinterested, generous, candid, and panting for glory; in every circumstance meriting your good opinion."[182] He remained at Mount Vernon a fortnight, an interpreter having been provided from Alexandria for the occasion. The antique costume with which the artist and the model had been threatened at one time was discarded; Washington was represented, not as a Greek, which he was not, but as an American general, which he was, the size being "precisely that of life." Any one who wants to see with his eyes George Washington, to live in his atmosphere, to receive the moral benefit of a great man's presence, has only to go to Richmond. To those who know how to listen the statue will know how to speak. No work of art in the whole United States is of greater worth and interest than this one, and no copy gives an adequate idea of the original, copies being further from the statue than the statue was from the model. One must go to Richmond.

Unfortunately, no notes on his journey, and on his stay at Mount Vernon, were left by Houdon. As was usual with him, what he had to say he said in marble.

Other French visitors of more or less note called at Mount Vernon. Popular in France, even at the time of their worst troubles, when failure seemed threatening, the United States were much more so now, and men wanted to go and see with their own eyes what was the power of liberty, and whether it could, as reported, transform a country into an Eden, and cities into modern "Salentes." The year of the alliance, 1778, Sébastien Mercier, in his De la Littérature, had drawn up a picture of the French people's expectation: "Perhaps it is in America that the human race will transform itself, adopt a new and sublime religion, improve sciences and arts, and become the representative of the nations of antiquity. A haven of liberty, Grecian souls, all strong and generous souls will develop or meet there, and this great example given to the universe will show what men can do when they are of one mind and combine their lights and their courage." Turgot, as mentioned before, had written in the same strain, the same year.[183]

The results of the war had increased those hopes; the success of the unprecedented crusade for liberty caused an enthusiasm which found its expression in verse and prose. The very year of the treaty securing independence an epic poem was published, written in French Alexandrine verse, divided into cantos, adorned with all the machinery of the Greek models, Jupiter and the gods playing their part:

Ainsi parla des Dieux le monarque suprême

—with invocations to abstract virtues:

Fille aimable des Dieux, divine Tolérance.

Preceding by several years Joel Barlow's own, this epic, due to the pen of L. de Chavannes de La Grandière, appeared with ample annotations by the author himself, and dedicated to John Adams, under the title of L'Amérique Délivrée.[184]

The new Tasso, who justly foresaw the immense influence that the change in America would have on Europe, addressed, in tones of the most ardent admiration, Washington and Congress:

Illustre Washington, héros dont la mémoire

Des deux mondes vengés embellira l'histoire;

Toi que la main des Dieux, en nos siècles pervers,

Envoya consoler, étonner l'univers

Par le rare assemblage et l'union constante

D'un cœur pur et sans fard, d'une âme bienfaisante,

Aux talents de Turenne, aux vertus des Catons,

Et qui te vois plus grand que les deux Scipions,

Jouis de ton triomphe, admire ton ouvrage.

Congress is a Greek Areopagus, whose members have Themis and Minerva for their advisers:

Auguste Aréopage, où Minerve elle-même

Prononce avec Thémis par l'organe suprême

De tant de Sénateurs, ornements des Etats,

Une foule d'arrêts où tous les potentats

Du droit des nations devraient venir apprendre

Les principes sacrés, et jusqu'où peut s'étendre

Le sceptre qu'en leurs mains les peuples ont commis,

—you have cast on us "a torrent of light and shown us how to break the detestable bonds of tyrants." A prophetical foot-note, commenting on this passage, announces that "this will perhaps, be seen sooner than one thinks. Happy the sovereigns who will know how to be nothing but just, pacific, and benevolent." Six years later the French Revolution began.

Using humble prose, but reaching a much wider public, Lacretelle, of the same group of thinkers as d'Alembert, Condorcet, and Turgot, himself later a member of the French Academy, was also writing in a strain of exultant admiration: "Since Columbus's discovery, nothing more important has happened among mankind than American independence"; and addressing the new-born United States, he told them of the world's expectation and of their own responsibilities, so much depending on their success or failure: "New-born Republics of America, I salute you as the hope of mankind, to which you open a refuge, and promise great and happy examples. Grow in force and numbers, amid our benedictions....