He was wrong. The French Revolution was devolving into anarchy.
I knew—certainly I knew—not to argue with these men. Especially here and now. How often had I counseled my husband to govern his tongue? And yet now, unmoored by my anger at my husband, mine flew free. “It certainly is stupefying that a revolution inspired by our own should turn upon those who fought heroically in the cause of our freedom. Rochambeau and Lafayette both in prison.”
At the mention of Lafayette, Jefferson’s voice gentled and his clear blue eyes filled with sympathy. “Mrs. Hamilton, my own affections have also been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause. But the liberty of the whole earth depends on this contest. And rather than it should fail, I would see half the earth desolated. An Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it now is.”
Though the season was not cold, gooseflesh rose on my arms. What a strange man to be so courtly, so charming—and so blithely condemn half the earth in pursuit of a philosophical ideal. Chilled to the bone by this remark, I glanced, disbelieving, at Jemmy Madison, who had the grace to wince.
As the crowds celebrated a new sister republic with a cannonade, all I could think of was the French king’s downfall. This same king who’d come to our aid in the cause of independence. A king who’d put his fate into the hands of his people. The people who claimed to love him.
And he’d been cruelly betrayed.
I’d read in the papers that the French thronged to watch King Louis die, and cheered when the blade fell and severed his head. They stuffed the king, head and all, into a box. And, afterward, the peasants wanted cuttings of his hair, scraps of his shirt, anything to mount upon a mantelpiece as a trinket. The public wanted to consume him. Like the hounds of hell, they even knelt and lapped up the king’s blood.
Here in America, some called that justice. And I couldn’t help but shudder, because I wore round my neck a pendant with a trinket of George Washington’s hair—a man who’d just been unanimously reelected to the presidency and sworn in for his second term but was now derided as a tyrant in the making. Perhaps even by these very gentlemen standing beside me on the street corner who I wanted to trust would never serve us up to a slavering public.
What a high-minded thing revolution had seemed when it started; but now I wondered if, in trying to bring about liberty, we’d instead opened the gates of endless war, bloodshed, and immorality.
*
“THEY’RE THROWING A ball for the French ambassador, Citizen Genêt,” Lucy Knox huffed, perusing the lemon cake on Martha Washington’s table before returning to her knitting. We Federalist ladies were always knitting, though I worried how easily it could all unravel.
A country. A reputation. A marriage . . .
We were discussing the French ambassador, who was recruiting troops to fight for France in defiance of President Washington’s Proclamation of Neutrality. And radical Francophiles in our country encouraged it!
“Surely you’re mistaken, Mrs. General Knox,” Abigail Adams replied, peering over the length of her sharp nose. “These democrats wouldn’t host a ball. A ball is too aristocratic. It’s to be an elegant civic repast that just happens to be held in the city’s largest ballroom where they’re going to hand out liberty caps and sing ‘La Marseillaise.’”
The ladies laughed, except for Lady Washington and me. Because all I could think was that if French revolutionaries could kill a king and his ministers, Americans could kill a president and his treasury secretary . . .
Shrewdly eyeing the way my hands had stopped working my knitting needles, Abigail said, “Mr. Adams tells me we have our own Robespierres, but fortunately for us, they cannot persuade the people to follow them.”
Thin-lipped, Lady Washington replied, “I’d never have guessed Vice President Adams to be such an optimist.”
This did make me sputter with a laugh. A bitter one. Because the people seemed entirely persuadable, especially as so-called Democratic Clubs sprang up around Philadelphia based on the French Jacobin model. And I began to think nearly treasonous thoughts about this experiment with self-government. My husband couldn’t even govern himself. Not when passion took him. What hope did the common citizenry have of making wise decisions for themselves?
My fears seemed justified when, a few weeks later, ten thousand people were in the streets of Philadelphia threatening to drag Washington from his house and force us to join France’s war against England. Outside our door men shouted, “Down with Washington!”