 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
TO MRS. CRANCH.
5 September, 1784.}
It is now the 5th of September, and I have been
at this place more than a fortnight; but I have had
so many matters to arrange, and so much to attend
to, since I left London, that I have scarcely touched a
pen. I am now vastly behindhand in many things
which I could have wished to have written down and
transmitted to my American friends, some of which
would have amused, and others diverted them. But
such a rapid succession of events, or rather occurrences,
have been crowded into the last two months
of my life, that I can scarcely recollect them, much
less recount them in detail. There are so many of
my friends, who have demands upon me, and who
I fear will think me negligent, that I know not which
to address first. Abby has had less of care upon her,
and therefore has been very attentive to her pen, and
I hope will supply my deficiencies.
Auteuil is a village four miles distant from Paris, and
one from Passy. The house we have taken is large,
commodious, and agreeably situated, near the Woods
of Boulogne, which belong to the King, and which
Mr. Adams calls his park, for he walks an hour or
two every day in them. The house is much larger
than we have need of; upon occasion, forty beds
winter. There are few houses with the privilege
which this enjoys, that of having the saloon, as it is
called, the apartment where we receive company,
upon the first floor. This room is very elegant, and
about a third larger than General Warren's hall.
The dining-room is upon the right hand, and the
saloon upon the left, of the entry, which has large
glass doors opposite to each other, one opening into
the court, as they call it, the other into a large and
beautiful garden. Out of the dining-room you pass
through an entry into the kitchen, which is rather
small for so large a house. In this entry are stairs
which you ascend, at the top of which is a long gallery
fronting the street, with six windows, and, opposite
to each window, you open into the chambers
which all look into the garden.
But with an expense of thirty thousand livres in
looking glasses, there is no table in the house better
than an oak board, nor a carpet belonging to the
house. The floors I abhor, made of red tiles in the
shape of Mrs. Quincy's floor-cloth tiles. These
floors will by no means bear water, so that the
method of cleaning them is to have them waxed,
and then a man-servant with foot brushes drives
round your room, dancing here and there like a
Merry Andrew. This is calculated to take from
your foot every atom of dirt, and leave the room in
a few moments as he found it. The house must be
exceedingly cold in winter. The dining-rooms, of
which you make no other use, are laid with small
apartments are generally upon the first floor,
and the stairs which you commonly have to ascend
to get into the family apartments are so dirty, that I
have been obliged to hold up my clothes, as though
I was passing through a cow-yard.
I have been but little abroad. It is customary in
this country for strangers to make the first visit. As
I cannot speak the language, I think I should make
rather an awkward figure. I have dined abroad
several times with Mr. Adams's particular friends,
the Abbés, who are very polite and civil, three sensible
and worthy men. The Abbé de Mably has
lately published a book, which he has dedicated to
Mr. Adams. This gentleman is nearly eighty years
old; the Abbé Chalut, seventy-five; and Arnoux,
about fifty, a fine, sprightly man, who takes great
pleasure in obliging his friends. Their apartments
were really nice. I have dined once at
Dr. Franklin's, and once at Mr. Barclay's, our consul,
who has a very agreeable woman for his wife,
and where I feel like being with a friend. Mrs. Barclay
has assisted me in my purchases, gone with me
to different shops, &c. To-morrow I am to dine at
Monsieur Grand's; but I have really felt so happy
within doors, and am so pleasingly situated, that I
have had little inclination to change the scene. I
have not been to one public amusement as yet, not
even the opera, though we have one very near us.
You may easily suppose I have been fully employed,
beginning house-keeping anew, and arranging
I have had bed-linen and table-linen to purchase and
make, spoons and forks to get made of silver, three
dozen of each, besides tea furniture, china for the
table, servants to procure, &c. The expense of
living abroad, I always supposed to be high, but my
ideas were nowise adequate to the thing. I could
have furnished myself in the town of Boston, with
every thing I have, twenty or thirty per cent, cheaper
than I have been able to do it here. Every thing
which will bear the name of elegant, is imported
from England, and, if you will have it, you must pay
for it, duties and all. I cannot get a dozen handsome
wine-glasses under three guineas, nor a pair of
small decanters for less than a guinea and a half.
The only gauze fit to wear is English, at a crown a
yard; so that really a guinea goes no further than a
copper with us. For this house, garden, stables, &c.,
we give two hundred guineas a year. Wood is two
guineas and a half per cord; coal, six livres the basket
of about two bushels; this article of firing, we
calculate at one hundred guineas a year. The difference
between coming upon this negotiation to
France and remaining at the Hague, where the house
was already furnished at the expense of a thousand
pounds sterling, will increase the expense here to six
or seven hundred guineas; at a time, too, when Congress
have cut off five hundred guineas from what
they have heretofore given. For our coachman and
horses alone, (Mr. Adams purchased a coach in
England,) we give fifteen guineas a month. It is
number of servants, and one will not touch what belongs
to the business of another, though he or she
has time enough to perform the whole. In the first
place, there is a coachman who does not an individual
thing but attend to the carriages and horses;
then the gardener, who has business enough; then
comes the cook; then the maître d'hôtel; his business
is to purchase articles in the family, and oversee,
that nobody cheats but himself; a valet de chambere,
—John serves in this capacity; a femme de chambere,
—Esther serves in this line, and is worth a dozen
others; a coiffeuse,—for this place, I have a French
girl about nineteen, whom I have been upon the point
of turning away, because Madame will not brush a
chamber; "it is not de fashion, it is not her business."
I would not have kept her a day longer, but found,
upon inquiry, that I could not better myself, and hairdressing
here is very expensive, unless you keep such
a madam in the house. She sews tolerably well, so
1 make her as useful as 1 can. She is more particularly
devoted to Mademoiselle. Esther diverted
me yesterday evening, by telling me that she heard
her go muttering by her chamber door after she had
been assisting Abby in dressing. "Ah, mon Dieu,
't is provoking,"—(she talks a little English.)—
"Why, what is the matter, Pauline, what is provoking?"
—"Why, Mademoiselle look so pretty, I,
so mauvais." There is another indispensable servant,
who is called a frotteur; his business is to rub the
floors.
We have a servant who acts as maître d'hôtel,
whom I like at present, and who is so very gracious
as to act as footman too, to save the expense of
another servant, upon condition that we give him a
gentleman's suit of clothes in lieu of a livery.
Thus, with seven servants and hiring a charwoman
upon occasion of company, we may possibly make
out to keep house; with less, we should be hooted at
as ridiculous, and could not entertain any company.
To tell this in our own country, would be considered
as extravagance; but would they send a person here
in a public character to be a public jest? At lodgings
in Paris last year, during Mr. Adams's negotiations
for a peace, it was as expensive to him as it is
now at house-keeping, without half the accommodations.
Washing is another expensive article; the servants
are all allowed theirs, besides their wages; our own
costs us a guinea a week. I have become steward
and book-keeper, determined to know with accuracy
what our expenses are, and to prevail with Mr.
Adams to return to America, if he finds himself
straitened, as I think he must be. Mr. Jay went
home because he could not support his family here
with the whole salary; what then can be done, curtailed
as it now is, with the additional expense? Mr.
Adams is determined to keep as little company as he
possibly can, but some entertainments we must make,
and it is no unusual thing for them to amount to
fifty or sixty guineas at a time. More is to be performed
by way of negotiation, many times, at one
but the policy of our country has been,
and still is, to be penny-wise and pound-foolish.
We stand in sufficient need of economy, and, in the
curtailment of other salaries, I suppose they thought
it absolutely necessary to cut off their foreign ministers.
But, my own interest apart, the system is
bad; for that nation which degrades their own ministers
by obliging them to live in narrow circumstances,
cannot expect to be held in high estimation
themselves. We spend no evenings abroad, make
no suppers, attend very few public entertainments, or
spectacles, as they are called, and avoid every expense
that is not held indispensable. Yet I cannot
but think it hard, that a gentleman who has devoted
so great a part of his life to the service of the
public, who has been the means, in a great measure,
of procuring such extensive territories to his
country, who saved their fisheries, and who is still
laboring to procure them further advantages, should
find it necessary so cautiously to calculate his
pence, for fear of overrunning them. I will add
one more expense. There is now a Court mourning,
and every foreign minister, with his family,
must go into mourning for a Prince of eight years
old, whose father is an ally to the King of France.
This mourning is ordered by the Court, and is to be
worn eleven days only. Poor Mr. Jefferson had to
hie away for a tailor to get a whole black silk suit
made up in two days; and at the end of eleven days,
should another death happen, he will be obliged to
is the season when silk must be left off. We may
groan and scold, but these are expenses which cannot
be avoided; for fashion is the deity every one
worships in this country, and, from the highest to the
lowest, you must submit. Even poor John and
Esther had no comfort amongst the servants, being
constantly the subjects of their ridicule, until we were
obliged to direct them to have their hair dressed.
Esther had several crying fits upon the occasion,
that she should be forced to be so much of a fool;
but there was no way to keep them from being
trampled upon but this; and, now that they are à la
mode de Paris, they arc much respected. To be
out of fashion is more criminal than to be seen in a
state of nature, to which the Parisians are not averse.
Sunday here bears the nearest resemblance to
our Commencement, and Election days; every thing
is jollity, and mirth, and recreation. But, to quit
these subjects, pray tell me how you all do. I
long to hear from you. House and garden, with
all its decorations, are not so dear to me as my own
little cottage, connected with the society I used there
to enjoy; for, out of my own family, I have no attachments
in Europe, nor do I think I ever shall
have. As to the language, I speak it a little, bad
grammar and all; but I have so many French servants,
that I am under a necessity of trying.
Could you, my sister, and my dear cousins, come
and see me as you used to do, walk in the garden,
and delight yourselves in the alcoves and arbours,
Adams is absent, I sit in my little writing-room, or
the chamber I have described to Betsey, and read
or sew. Abby is for ever at her pen, writing or
learning French; sometimes company, and sometimes
abroad, we are fully employed.
Who do you think dined with us the other day?
A Mr. Mather and his lady, son of Dr. Mather, and
Mrs. Hay, who have come to spend the winter in
France. I regret that they are going to some of
the provinces. To-day, Mr. Tracy, Mr. Williams,
Mr. Jefferson, and Colonel Humphreys are to dine
with us; and one day last week we had a company
of twenty-seven persons; Dr. Franklin, Mr. Hartley
and his secretaries, &c. &c. But my paper warns
me to close. Do not let anybody complain of me.
I am going on writing to one after another as fast
as possible, and, if this vessel does not carry the
letters, the next will. Give my love to one of the
best men in the world.
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |