WHAT HAD WASHINGTON’S SPIRITUAL SON BEEN doing after the Assembly of Notables? He had participated in the provincial Assembly of Auvergne, where he had distinguished himself by his determination to reform the system of taxation in favor of the less well-off; but his chief goal was to participate in the meetings of the Estates General. It seemed to him that the time had come to give his fight for freedom in America a spectacular continuation in France. It is not certain that he chose correctly by soliciting the votes of the nobility of Auvergne, while the third estate which he fully supported—he had come out in favor of a doubling of its number of deputies—had asked him to be one of its representatives. He probably hoped to bring together the liberal nobles and to foster disciples among his peers. In any event, although he was elected by a hair (198 votes out of 393), he was elected. “I am pleased to think that I will shortly be in an assembly of representatives of the French nation,” he wrote to Washington, who had just taken office as president, on May 26. Throughout the Revolution, Lafayette never stopped writing to his great friend across the ocean, describing his activities as though he needed the older man’s advice, if not his directions. Very conscious of his role as head of state, Washington showed in his replies all the required reserve, and the more the months went by, the more Lafayette realized that the situation in his own country was enormously more complex and difficult than the one he had encountered in America, which involved essentially fighting against invaders from afar.
In the Assembly, he came up against people of his order by systematically supporting the demands of the third estate, notably deliberation in common by all the deputies. It was as though his colleagues’ irritation stimulated him, as though he took pleasure in provoking them.
Gouverneur Morris, a former member of congress who was in Paris on private business (he was appointed American minister to France in 1792), wrote to Washington of Lafayette: “He is today as loved and as hated as he ever may have wished. The nation idolizes him because he has set himself up as one of the principal champions of rights.” But this champion of rights soon appeared too radical to the very conservative Morris, who was a supporter of monarchy in France. Indeed, Morris went so far as to advise Lafayette to include the recognition of a degree of authority for the nobility in the planned constitution.
But Gouverneur Morris was not the only American in Paris who wanted to influence the former combatant of Yorktown, and while he tried to point Lafayette toward more moderation, one of his prominent compatriots, Thomas Jefferson, the serving American minister in France, fostered his democratic zeal.
Though they were both members of the wealthy bourgeoisie and had fought together during the American Revolution, Morris and Jefferson had very different personalities and ideas.
A rich and cultivated businessman, Morris had been conquered by the charm of French high society at the end of the Ancien Régime. He liked the stylish houses, the luxurious furniture, the works of art, the grand dinners, the exquisite manners, and especially the pretty women. A skeptic and a sensualist, for several years he shared with Talleyrand the favors of the sparkling Mme de Flahaut, the irresistible Adèle. Welcomed in circles close to the court, he felt a sincere attachment to Louis XVI, and showed it with more courage than skill in the dark hours of the monarchy. This snobbish and worldly man wanted the constitution to leave the essentials of executive power in the hands of the king, and Lafayette’s dream of an assembly exercising real government power seemed to him dangerously naïve. He attempted for as long as he could to persuade Lafayette that each form of regime ought to be adapted to the particular nature of the country that chose it, or else it could not take root, and the system would not function for long.
Lafayette, who did not wish to sever ties with the monarchy but who nonetheless aimed primarily at establishing freedom and equality in the broadest terms, paid little attention to Morris’s advice and warnings. He even criticized Morris for damaging the cause of democracy by publicly expressing reservations about the struggle he and his friends were engaged in.
Thomas Jefferson was as rich and as taken with the charms of the French aristocracy as Morris, but the resemblance between them ended there. A large planter, lawyer, and political figure, Jefferson of Virginia, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and future president, was essentially an intellectual. He was a man of exceptionally wide-ranging culture, a great jurist who spoke French and Italian, read Greek and Latin, and was as interested in architecture as in natural science. He had designed one of the most beautiful buildings in eighteenth-century America, Monticello, in the style of Palladio, and he could when called upon play a musical instrument, draft a constitution, or draw up a curriculum and regulations for a university.
The aristocratic salons he frequented in Paris were not the same as those where one might meet Gouverneur Morris. They were not places where the search for pleasure prevailed over all, but places for the discussion of ideas, art, and literature. His dearest friends, Mme de Tessé (Lafayette’s aunt), Mme d’Anville, and Mme de Corny, were great liberal figures ahead of their time, above social frivolity, although not at all prudish. Jefferson might be seen as a patrician of the left. His private life was very discreet, although he was socially very active. The widower of a passionately loved wife, he had brought his daughter Martha to Paris as well as a beautiful black governess, Sally Hemings, his mistress.
Jefferson had been Lafayette’s friend when he was fighting in America and was aware of his failings. “His foible,” he wrote to Madison, “is a canine appetite for popularity and fame; but he will get above this.” Jefferson nonetheless shared Lafayette’s aversion to absolute monarchy and hoped for the success of the revolution that he felt approaching. He went so far as to view its excesses as “inevitable,” once he had returned to America in the fall of 1789, which led to his being seen as an American “Jacobin.”
Jefferson had no hesitation in appearing at Duport’s residence when meetings of the Patriotes were held. In addition to Lafayette, he met there men who would soon become famous, notably Condorcet and the young Barnave. His analysis of the situation was lucid. He foresaw strong resistance from circles tied to the court and he criticized Lafayette for not having been elected a representative of the third estate, as Mirabeau, an aristocrat, and Sieyès, a clergyman, had chosen to do. Sitting with the nobility when his ideas were in favor of the people, he ran the risk of losing in both camps. This was indeed what happened. In the meantime, Lafayette submitted to Jefferson a proposed Déclaration européenne des droits de l’homme et des citoyens, resembling the American model, which he presented to the Assembly on July 11. There is no doubt that Jefferson participated in drafting this document, discussion of which was postponed by the president of the Assembly because of the rush of events—the change of government and the dismissal of Necker. Slightly revised by a committee led by Sieyès, the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen was finally adopted on August 26.
Recalled to Philadelphia to take up the post of Secretary of State, Jefferson continued to follow, as closely as contemporary communications permitted, the unfolding of a revolution that he saw as the continuation and extension of the American Revolution, which he hoped would be imitated by other countries in Europe.
Lafayette, who had had a handsome uniform made, spent the summer organizing the National Guard—his army—and maintaining order in the capital to the extent possible. He was absent from the Constituent Assembly on the night of August 4, when his brother-in-law Louis de Noailles and the Duke d’Aiguillon proclaimed the abolition of privileges that he himself had been calling for. In Paris, his courage and calm in confronting a raging and bloodthirsty populace enabled him to save the lives of the Abbé Cordier, Colonel de Besenval, and Soulès (assistant to the unfortunate governor of the Bastille), but he was unable to prevent the hanging, across from the Hôtel de Ville and before his eyes, of the state counselor Foulon, absurdly blamed for price increases, or the killing of Foulon’s son-in-law Bertier de Sauvigny, intendant of Paris. Sickened by these murders, he very publicly resigned his post, and only agreed to reverse his decision under pressure from his officers.
On August 25, the festival of Saint Louis, he presented his respects to the king, who greeted him graciously. The queen herself deigned to smile on the man she nicknamed in private the “fair-haired boy.” Within five weeks her life and that of her husband would depend on this fair-haired boy.