7515. REVOLUTION (French), Influence of women.—
In my opinion, a kind of
influence which none of their plans of reform
take into account, will elude them all; I mean
the influence of women in the government.
The manners of the nation allow them to visit,
alone, all persons in office, to solicit the affairs
of the husband, family, or friends, and their
solicitations bid defiance to laws and regulations.
This obstacle may seem less to those
who, like our countrymen, are in the precious
habit of considering right as a barrier against
all solicitation. Nor can such an one, without
the evidence of his own eyes, believe in the
desperate state to which things are reduced in
this country from the omnipotence of an influence
which, fortunately for the happiness of
the sex itself, does not endeavor to extend itself
in our country beyond the domestic line.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. ii, 536.
(P.
Dec. 1788)
