"In adopting a democratic régime, you pledge yourself to steadfast and pure morality.... But you do not give up those comforts in life, that splendor of society brought with them by riches, sciences, and arts.... The vicinity of corruption will not alter your morals; you will allow the vicinity, not the invasion. While permitting wealth to have its free play, you will see that exorbitant fortunes be dispersed, and you will correct the great inequality in enjoyments by the strictest equality in rights....

"Lawmaking peoples, never lose sight of the majesty of your function and of the importance of your task. Be nobly proud and holily enthusiastic at the prospect of your destinies' vast influence. By you the universe is held in expectation; fifty years from now it will have learned from you whether modern peoples can preserve republican constitutions, whether morals are compatible with the great progress of civilization, and whether America is meant to improve or to aggravate the fate of humanity."[185]

This sense of the responsibility of the new republic toward mankind of the future, and of the importance for all nations of its success or failure caused French thinkers to concern themselves with the problem, to express faith and admiration, but to submit also such recommendations as their studies of humanity's past made them consider of use. The Observations on the Government and the Laws of the United States, of modest, liberal, and noble-minded Abbé de Mably, are, for example, the outcome of such reflections.[186]

The visitor most representative of the views thus prevalent in the French nation, knocked at the gate of Mount Vernon, provided with that infallible open sesame,[187] a letter of introduction from Lafayette. "This gentleman," the letter read, "intends to write a history of America, and you would, therefore, make him very happy if you allowed him to glance at your papers. He seems to deserve this favor, since he loves America very much, writes well, and will represent things under their true light."[188]

The bearer, a sincere admirer and friend of the new republic, and who had the advantage of speaking English fluently, was Brissot, so famous shortly after for the part he played in the French Revolution, then already penetrated with its principles, and having written, young as he was, on the reform of criminal laws, declared in favor of the emancipation of the Jews, founded a "Society of the Friends of the Blacks" and, what is more to the point, a Société Gallo-Américaine, first of its kind, for the members thereof to "exchange views on the common interests of France and the United States." To become a member one had to prove "able and willing to bring to the notice of the others universal ideas on the happiness of man and societies, because, though its special and titular object be the interest of France and the United States, nevertheless, it fully embraces in its considerations the happiness of mankind."[189] In which appears the vastness of humanitarian plans so fondly cherished among us—six years before the Reign of Terror.

The "particular object" of the association was, however, to "help the two countries to better know each other, which can only be realized by bringing nearer together the French individual and the American individual." Books were to be published by the society, the first one to be dedicated "to the Congress of the United States and the friends of America in the two worlds." Newspapers, books, the texts of laws, the journals of Congress were to be imported from "free America." The society would "welcome Americans whom their business should call to France, and whose knowledge would enable them to impart useful information there"; nothing more natural, since the aim of the society was "the welfare of the two nations." Lafayette and Jefferson had been asked to join. One of the founders was Saint-Jean de Crèvecœur, already known by his Letters from an American Farmer, who when he left France to return to the United States was intrusted with the care of "making the society known to the Americans, availing himself of newspapers, or of other means; his expenses, if any, to be repaid."[190] But the farmer-consul, very active in other matters, proved in this one very remiss.

Brissot reached Boston in July, 1788, and found that America was exactly what he had expected it to be: "Sanctuary of liberty," he wrote on landing, "I salute thee!... Would to heaven thou wert nearer Europe; fewer friends of liberty would vainly bewail its absence there." The inhabitants, he wrote, "have an air of simplicity and kindness, but they are full of human dignity, conscious of their liberty, and seeing in all men their brothers and equals.... I thought I was in that Salente, so attractively depicted by Fénelon."

Equality is what strikes him most, as it does the mass of his compatriots; this was the particularly American trait which, as mentioned before, was imported from the United States into France on the eve of our Revolution.

Luxury, the visitor admits, is, of course, a danger; but they know it and arm against it: "The most respectable inhabitants of the State of Massachusetts have formed a society to prevent the increase of luxury"—an attempt which, however, never succeeded, but at Salente.

After having seen the chief cities and paid a visit to Franklin, found very ill but with his great mind unimpaired, Brissot reached Mount Vernon in November, and remained there three days. Different from Houdon, he luckily took notes on the place and on the inhabitants thereof: "The general arrived only in the evening; he returned very tired from a tour over part of his domains where he was having a road traced. You have often heard him compared to Cincinnatus; the comparison is a just one. This celebrated general is now but a good farmer, ever busy with his farm, as he calls it, improving cultivation and building barns. He showed me one of enormous dimensions, just being erected from a plan sent him by the famous English agriculturist Arthur Young, but greatly improved by him....

"All is simple in the house of the general. His table is good, without luxury; regularity is everywhere apparent in his domestic economy. Mrs. Washington has her eye on everything, and joins to the qualities of an excellent housekeeper the simple dignity which befits a woman whose husband has played a great rôle. She adds to it that amenity, those attentions toward strangers which lend so much sweetness to hospitality. The same virtues shine in her niece, so interesting, but who, unluckily, seems to be in a very delicate state of health."

As for the general himself, "kindness appears in his looks. His eyes have no longer that lustre which his officers noticed when he was at the head of his army, but they get enlivened in conversation.... Good sense is the dominant trait in all his answers, great discretion and diffidence of himself goes with it, and at the same time a firm and unshakable disposition when he has once made up his mind."

His modesty is great: "He talks of the American war as if he had not been the leader thereof, and of his victories with an indifference which strangers could not equal.... The divisions in his country break his heart; he feels the necessity of calling together all the friends of liberty around one central point, the need of imparting energy to the government. He is still ready to give up that quiet which causes his happiness.... He spoke to me of Mr. de Lafayette with emotion; he considers him as his child."

Not only on agriculture and government, but also on manners the future President gave his visitor much information: "The general told me that a great reform was going on among his compatriots; people drank much less; they no longer forced their guests to drink; it had ceased to be good form to send them home inebriated; those noisy parties at taverns so frequent in former times were not to be the fashion any more; dress was becoming simpler."