“All Doors Wide Open”
AS THE CONTROVERSY over the Mazzei letter played out, Adams continued to try to resolve the crisis with France diplomatically. Gerry and Marshall would soon arrive in Paris and meet Charles Pinckney, already waiting, to begin their diplomatic mission with the French government. In a letter of support to Gerry, Jefferson wrote, “I do sincerely wish with you that we could take our stand on a ground perfectly neutral and independent towards all nations.”1 Despite Jefferson’s apparent sincerity, Gerry already had suspicions about his motives. Jefferson’s support of France was widely known and, as would be seen later, Gerry had good cause to doubt his seemingly sincere wishes favoring “neutrality.”
In a letter to Abigail Adams written prior to the election of 1796, Gerry had presciently written that he thought Jefferson “not entirely free from a disposition to intrigue.”2 The month after his letter of support to Gerry in 1797, Jefferson wrote to Edward Rutledge, a fellow signer of the Declaration (as was Gerry). Jefferson surpassed his earlier comments to Gerry about neutrality in his letter to Rutledge and presented a strong case for noninvolvement with both France and England. “Our countrymen have divided themselves by such strong affections to the French and the English that nothing will secure us internally but a divorce from both nations; and this must be the object of every real American, and its attainment is practicable without much self-denial,” Jefferson wrote. “But for this, peace is necessary.”3 The vice president’s stated goals—to be both independent of France and England, and neutral in their wide-ranging conflict on land and sea—adds a large question mark to his activities during May and June of the same year. Three days after writing to Gerry espousing neutrality, Jefferson called on Phillipe Létombe, the French consul in Philadelphia.
They met privately on four occasions, described by Létombe later in official dispatches to the French Foreign Ministry. Their first meeting was on May 16, 1797, three days after Jefferson had written to Gerry about neutrality, and, more importantly, on the very same day that President Adams addressed a joint session of Congress. The subject of Adams’s speech that day was the rejection of Pinckney and the escalating crisis with France.
In his speech, Adams made conciliatory gestures to France but also announced “arrangements for forming a provisional army.” These military preparations were meant to influence relations with France, as well as to meet a French invasion which many feared, particularly during the following year.4 Adams also told the Congress that French attempts to alienate the American people from the government “ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and interest.”5
The timing of Adams’s speech and Jefferson’s first meeting with the French consul in Philadelphia is of more than passing interest, though it is not known if Jefferson met with Létombe prior to or following the speech. Did Adams send Jefferson on a domestic diplomatic mission to meet with the French representative, or did Jefferson, angered by Adams’s sometimes aggressive tone in the speech, take it upon himself to “drop in” on M. Létombe? It would have been exceedingly convenient for Jefferson to walk from Congress Hall, where Adams delivered his speeches, at the corner of Chestnut and 6th to Létombe’s office located on South 12th Street, between Market and Chestnut, less than a mile distant.6 If Jefferson had travelled from his lodgings at Francis’s boarding house adjacent to the popular Indian Queen Hotel, on 4th Street, south of Market, to call upon the French representative, the journey to Létombe’s office would have added little more than a few minutes to his likely customary route as Jefferson lived but two blocks from Congress Hall while he served as vice president.7
It is not known whether Jefferson travelled on horseback, by coach, or on foot to visit with Létombe; the manner of conveyance he took to get to the French consul’s office is not relevant as it is unlikely that he could have made these visits and remained unnoticed on every occasion. The public nature of these visits and the friendly open-ended invitation from Jefferson to Létombe that he should feel welcome to “drop in” on the vice president whenever he wished suggests that their meetings were not at all “secret,” as some historians have speculated.
Both Jefferson and Madison had refused the president’s invitation/request several months before to go to Paris as American diplomatic representatives. Since Adet’s departure (and the severance of diplomatic relations between the US and France which his leaving represented), Consul Létombe was therefore the senior French diplomatic representative in the United States, though at a lower rank than minister. Sending the vice president to meet with Létombe could be seen as a reasonable (though unacknowledged) back channel attempt on Adams’s part to express American desires for the restoration of normal relations with France. (Such back channels would be used by the United States and France to great effect later.) Jefferson would certainly have concurred in such a mission.
For Jefferson, the idea of meeting with the French consul without the aggravation and danger of a return to Europe (which Jefferson had said he would never do again), and at a location within minutes of his own residence, would have been highly appealing. For the shared purpose of both Adams and Jefferson to ensure peace between France and the United States, such a series of meetings was perhaps seen by both as potentially beneficial and impossible to ignore. The situation was so convenient that it would have been perhaps more surprising if these meetings, or something similar to them, hadn’t occurred.
If this mission occurred with Adams’s approval, his purpose most certainly would have been to communicate to the French consul (and thus the government of France) that the president and vice president were united in their earnest desire for peace.8
Thus began a flurry of overlapping presidential speeches and Jefferson/Létombe meetings that appear to have been purposefully coordinated. In addition to Adams’s firm desire for peace with France, he also likely wished for another message to be conveyed by his representative: If normalization of relations was not possible and cessation of French naval attacks could not be assured, there would be war. So that the diplomatic and public messages were in synch, Adams reiterated this duality via strategically timed speeches and addresses. France could make no mistake on the matter—there would be peace or there would be war, the choice was theirs.
Jefferson had three more meetings with the French diplomat; the first on May 30, the second on June 5, and the third on June 6. The clustering of these meetings within a week’s time suggests a concerted effort on the part of Jefferson to make some headway with the French diplomat. The key question is—was Jefferson acting in an official capacity, or was he meeting with Létombe for his own purposes? While Jefferson’s social calendar was clearly full during that week, Adams was also very busy during this brief period in exerting influence as president to pressure the French into fruitful discussions. Within the same week that Jefferson met Létombe on three occasions, Adams delivered three speeches (literally two speeches, and one “Reply to the House” letter that was read aloud in Congress) all relating to France.
On May 31, one day after Jefferson’s second meeting with the French consul, Adams announced the triple commission to Congress. (Francis Dana, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, was one of the original three but had to withdraw, and was replaced by Gerry.) Adams made it quite clear that his purpose in sending the three diplomats was normalization of relations with France. “After mature deliberation on the critical situation of our relations with France, which have long engaged my most serious attention, I have determined on these nominations of persons to negotiate with the French Republic to dissipate umbrages, to remove prejudices, to rectify errors, and adjust all differences by a treaty between the two powers.”9 Then, on June 2, 1797, Adams addressed the House of Representatives telling them that “it is now with extreme regret we find the measures of the French Republic tending to endanger a situation so desirable and interesting to our country,”10 Adams said. “Although it is the earnest wish of our hearts that peace may be maintained with the French Republic and with all the world,” Adams proclaimed, “we feel the full force of that indignity which has been offered our country in the rejection of its minister.” Mixing conciliatory language, expressions for peace with France, and the feelings of grievance in the United States at the treatment of Pinckney, Adams warned everyone that if France’s belligerence continued there would be consequences. “Fully, however, impressed with the uncertainty of the result, we shall prepare to meet with fortitude any unfavorable events which may occur, and to extricate ourselves from their consequences with all the skill we possess and all the efforts in our power.”11 This speech, which clearly delineated Adams’s “carrots and sticks” approach to France, was delivered three days before Jefferson’s third meeting with Létombe. Finally, in a short “Reply” of June third to the House of Representatives, which had sent an official letter of approval and support to Adams regarding his speech of the previous day, the president again addressed the issue of France.12 Adams wrote in reply:
I pray you, gentlemen, to believe and to communicate such assurance to our constituents that no event which I can foresee to be attainable by any exertions in the discharge of my duties can afford me so much cordial satisfaction as to conduct a negotiation with the French Republic to a removal of prejudices, a correction of errors, a dissipation of umbrages, an accommodation of all differences, and a restoration of harmony and affection to the mutual satisfaction of both nations … And whenever the legitimate organs of intercourse shall be restored and the real sentiments of the two Governments can be candidly communicated to each other, although strongly impressed with the necessity of collecting ourselves into a manly posture of defense, I nevertheless entertain an encouraging confidence that a mutual spirit of conciliation, a disposition to compensate injuries and accommodate each other in all our relations and connections, will produce an agreement to a treaty consistent with the engagements, rights, duties; and honor of both nations.13
Once again Adams reiterated his dual policy of negotiations with France and preparations for war; Adams’s language however was unmistakably weighted toward peace and normalization. Revolutionary France had clearly become the central issue of Adams’s presidency (in fact, he had inherited it from Washington), with his public and private comments so often touching on the situation in some way. Adams sent his Reply to the House the day after his speech of June second. Three days later Jefferson met Létombe for the third time, followed the next day, June 6, 1797, by their fourth and final meeting. The close proximity in time between Adams’s four speeches in which relations with France played a central role, and Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe which occurred during the same time frame, it is highly likely that the speeches and the vice president’s visits to the French consul in Philadelphia were intricately and directly related.
Perhaps the purpose of Jefferson’s mission, if in fact he had been authorized by Adams to meet with Létombe (as it appears that he was), was to prepare the way for the arrival in Paris of the three American ministers, Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, and to assure for them a favorable welcome.14 Only a few comments made by Jefferson during his private meetings with the French consul are known to history. These several statements must represent but a fraction of the conversations that transpired between the vice president and M. Létombe. Later, Létombe reported to his superiors that Jefferson had told him to “not hesitate to drop in on him anytime I liked.”15 It would seem then that their meetings had been quite successful indeed.16
The Jefferson/Létombe meetings are described by one historian as a “a secret campaign” by Jefferson “to sabotage Adams in French eyes.”17 Another historian of the period describes them as “clandestine conversations” that “verged on treason.”18 In his diplomatic dispatches to Paris, Létombe reported that Jefferson had said that Adams “‘is vain, suspicious, and stubborn, of an excessive self-regard, taking counsel with nobody.’ Jefferson predicted to Létombe that Adams would last only one term and urged the French to invade England. In the most brazen display of disloyalty, he advised the French to stall any American envoys sent to Paris: ‘Listen to them and then drag out the negotiations at length and mollify them by the urbanity of the proceedings.’”19 Jefferson also told the French diplomat that “it is for France, great, generous, at the summit of her glory, to pretend to take no notice, to be patient, to precipitate nothing, and all will return to order.”20 The vice president assured Létombe that Adams would be a one-term president, that he had won the chief executive’s office by a mere three-vote margin, and that “the system of the United States will change” when Adams was out of office.21 One biographer of Marshall wrote, “Jefferson apparently had no doubts about an eventual French victory, and he thought the best course for the United States was to delay negotiations until then.”22 Elbridge Gerry’s suspicions about Jefferson’s claims of wanting American neutrality had been well-founded.
Philadelphia was then not a great or large city, in comparison to London or Paris. It is difficult to conceive that Jefferson, the world-renowned vice president of the United States and key architect of the American Revolution, could have visited the French consul at his official residence in the national capital on four occasions without being observed—nor that those meetings would not have been made known to President Adams. The relationship in time of these meetings in conjunction with Adams’s speeches about France, and the unlikelihood of Jefferson’s four visits to the French consul’s office all remaining unobserved (and not reported to Adams)—suggest strongly that these were sanctioned as opposed to “secret” meetings as several historians have theorized.
Dumas Malone, one of Jefferson’s most respected biographers, struggled to defend the vice president’s actions. “His goals and fears for the country are clear enough, but something further should be asked about the means he employed while occupying what he had expected to find a ‘tranquil and unannoying station.’”23 Malone asserts, “the best short answer is that he rarely did as much of a partisan nature as his political enemies claimed, and that, in keeping as much as possible out of sight, he followed not only the dictates of his own nature but also those of the existing situation.”24 Malone’s assertion that Jefferson rarely did “much of a partisan nature” is, even when only the discussions with Létombe are considered, inexact at best.
A recent biographer of John Adams also took a less than critical view of Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe. “The truth, it happens,” the noted historian wrote, “was that Adams and Jefferson both wanted peace with France and each was working to attain that objective, though in their decidedly different ways.”25 Jefferson’s personal and political criticisms of Adams spoken in private to a foreign official of a country with which the United States might potentially soon be at war, and his stunning recommendation that the American diplomatic mission to France should be obstructed, are extraordinary and disturbing matters. These inflammatory and disloyal statements by Jefferson, whose purpose appears to have been to directly undermine the plans, policies, and existence of the Adams administration, were far too serious to explain away with only a terse dismissal of them.
It is unlikely that President Adams could have been unaware of Jefferson’s activities, as the many “do gooders” and “busy bodies” that circled most of the high leadership of the early republic would certainly have informed Adams as to Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe. It is more likely however that Adams was fully aware of these meetings (though not what transpired during them) because he had authorized them.
Those few unfortunate details of Jefferson’s conversations with Létombe that survived remained unknown until long after the deaths of all concerned. Létombe’s official diplomatic correspondence was published for the first time in the United States in 1904 by the American Historical Association (entirely in the original French).26 That these meetings occurred, and that Jefferson made stunning and disloyal statements, as recorded by the French Consul Létombe and reported by him to his superiors in Paris, is historical fact; the total silence of Adams (and of Jefferson) regarding them presents, however, something of a mystery.
There is no mention of Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe in any of Adams’s writings, public or private. If Adams did not authorize these meetings, it is difficult to conceive that he was unaware of them. These meetings were not likely the stuff of cloak and dagger. Adams and Jefferson both desired peace with France. It is reasonable to conclude that Adams himself authorized Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe.27
Could there have been a better representative of America than Jefferson, a noted Republican and enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution, to approach the highest-ranking French diplomat in the United States for the purposes of discussing peace and normalization? If Adams agreed with Jefferson’s March assessment that a diplomatic mission to France undertaken by the vice president was excluded under the Constitution, he apparently made a determination to press ahead with the Létombe/Jefferson meetings regardless.28 This could explain the permanent silence of both Jefferson and Adams on the matter. Looking back on his attempts to repair the breach with France, Adams wrote, “But I would not foreclose myself from sending a minister to France, if I saw an opening for it consistent with our honor; in short, that I would leave both doors and all doors wide open for a negotiation.”29 Whose door could have been more convenient than Létombe’s; and who better to send to knock upon it than that great friend of the French Republic, Thomas Jefferson?
Had he known of them, Adams would not have condoned those insults and personal criticisms that Jefferson expressed to Létombe; nor would he have accepted without comment and/or official censure Jefferson’s undermining of the mission of the triple commission to Paris. The sensitivities of Adams were widely known, if not infamous. He was aware of these character flaws and worked throughout his life to minimize the difficulties that they caused, particularly his “vanity.” A scandal eclipsing that of the Mazzei letter would certainly have occurred if the details of Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe were known during his lifetime. Had Consul Létombe’s meeting notes been released during Jefferson’s lifetime, could he have been victorious over Adams in the election of 1800? If they had been released during his presidency could he have avoided impeachment?
The Létombe-Jefferson meetings considerably influenced French policy toward the United States. They also played a significant role in ultimately derailing the mission of the three American diplomats who were then preparing to travel to Paris.
“The three Commissioners will be very much at sea in Paris … I believe them to be expecting an unpleasant reception…. I am certain that nothing will throw them off balance as much as a polite but cold reception, infrequent, vague and private meetings and no foreseeable end to the talks,” Létombe wrote to Delacroix in Paris, alluding to Jefferson’s recommendations as to how the American diplomats should be handled.30 The mistaken idea then in vogue in the French government that the Republican (i.e., “Democratic-Republicans”) and Federalist parties were merely partisan pro- and anti-French blocs, respectively, had been essentially substantiated, if not confirmed, by Jefferson’s comments to Létombe. One historian of the era wrote, “Létombe, after the departure of Adet writes to the home-government of his frequent confidential talks with Jefferson and mentions that the ‘Republican party supported by our victories is gaining in this country.’”31 The belief among the French diplomatic and foreign policy community that French successes were causally related to the rise of Jefferson’s party in the United States was a serious, though understandable, miscalculation. Circumstances would later disabuse them of this fundamental misjudgment of American society and politics.
Adams viewed his presidential role as leader-of-the-nation rather than as a “party man” serving as chief executive. He approached his presidential functions as “certainly not that of a partisan. It was simply that the Executive’s was the hand that held the scales: it was all a matter of balance.”32 Washington and Hamilton had “believed,” according to one leading historian, “that with the system of checks and balances in the new government, party politics was unnecessary for the preservation of ordered liberty. The rise of an opposition they identified with a faction opposed not only to the policies of the administration but to the new national government itself. They connected this faction with the French government and its agents.”33
Adams’s beliefs were very much in line with those of his predecessor. Deeply troubled by Jefferson’s partisanship, Adams believed that it undermined both Jefferson’s effectiveness as a national leader, as well as the foundations of their long friendship. Washington’s and Adams’s distrust of opposition parties as being likely oppositional to the government itself was an unfortunate generalization that tended to mischaracterize political opposition as a form of disloyalty.
If Adams had known of Jefferson’s harsh criticisms against him, and those comments and recommendations that were undermining of his presidency (as reported by the French Consul himself to Paris), Adams would certainly have discussed it publicly or to Abigail, at least, in his private letters. The issue would also surely have been raised in the correspondence with Cunningham, which consisted in large part of Adams’s politically oriented complaints, or in his Boston Patriot essays on similar matters. The subject might also have been alluded to during the lengthy Adams-Jefferson correspondence many years later, if such a correspondence could even have been possible. As there is no evidence that Adams ever mentioned these meetings in public or private, there is a good possibility that he was unaware of what had been said between Jefferson and Létombe. While Jefferson was meeting with the French consul in Philadelphia, across the Atlantic the diplomatic situation was rapidly changing. There would be serious consequences for the three American Commissioners soon to arrive in Paris, and for the country they represented.
Little more than a month after Jefferson’s last known meeting with Létombe, Foreign Minister Charles Delacroix was suddenly dismissed. His replacement, as of July 17, 1797, was the hardworking, self-aggrandizing, brilliant, greedy, cunning manipulator (and later, renowned diplomat), bon vivant-without-scruples Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.34
An extraordinary character in the history of France and of European statecraft, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, had embraced much of the anti-Catholic church policy of the Revolution including state control of church properties. He was elected to the Estates-General and became an early adoptee of republicanism (while hedging his bets by quietly retaining a favorable view toward monarchism). Though he continued to support the idea that the monarchy should be retained in some form, he was, as his character would suggest, extremely flexible on the matter, bowing as a sturdy tree to the extraordinary fierce winds of change blowing across revolutionary France. As republican fanaticism and intolerance for royalists, non-jurer clergy, and aristocrats grew during the increasingly authoritarian rule of the French revolutionary government, Talleryrand fled France for England. Wisely waiting many hours for a passport,35 which Danton himself acquired for him, before leaving the country late in 1792, the controversial refugee from France eventually made himself obnoxious to the British Prime Minister, William Pitt.
Talleyrand’s not surprising, yet ill-judged, associations with English Republicans finally pushed the British government, highly nervous about its own vocal revolutionaries (such as Dr. Priestley), to react. Expelled from England in 1794, Talleyrand made his way to Philadelphia. Within a month of his arrival, in accordance with the laws of Pennsylvania, Talleyrand swore an oath of allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania and the United States of America on May 19, 1794.36 The oath included this promise: “I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and to the United States of America, and that I will not at any time willfully and knowingly do any matter or thing prejudicial to the freedom and independence thereof.”37 Another aristocratic French refugee, Lucie de la Tour du Pin, whose mother had been one of Marie Antoinette’s Ladies-in-Waiting, landed in Boston soon after Talleyrand’s arrival in Philadelphia. La Tour du Pin had known Talleyrand well in Paris. They would soon meet again in upstate New York.
A courageous and insightful woman whose father was guillotined during the Terror of the Jacobins shortly before her arrival in America, La Tour du Pin’s straightforward memoir is considered a classic of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire periods in France.38 Her concise character sketch of Talleyrand goes a long way in illustrating this cynical, yet extraordinary man who later became a key player in the drama of John Adams’s presidency. Writing years later of their meeting at her family’s rough farmhouse near Troy, New York, La Tour du Pin wrote,
Monsieur de Talleyrand was amiable as he has always been for me, without any variation, with that charm of conversation which no one has ever possessed to a greater degree than himself … He had known me since my childhood, and therefore assumed a sort of paternal and gracious tone which was very charming. I regretted sincerely to find so many reasons for not holding him in esteem, but I could not avoid forgetting my disagreeable recollections when I had passed an hour in listening to him. As he had no moral value himself, by singular contrast, he had a horror of that which was evil in others. To listen to him without knowing him, you would have believed that he was a worthy man.39
With firsthand experience of American affairs, having lived in the United States between early 1794 and mid-1796 and, in fact, an American citizen—Talleyrand had sworn (and signed) an oath of allegiance—his appointment later to the highest office of the French Foreign Ministry “was hailed as marking a new era in Franco-American relations.”40 Initially—among those who did not know of him personally, of his questionable reputation, or, perhaps most importantly, of his views on America’s predilection to affinity and kinship with England—there was good reason to consider Talleyrand’s appointment as potentially beneficial to the United States. “Talleyrand himself knew the United States and its politics intimately. He had lived in America for the better part of two years, and in most of his public speeches and private business ventures had analyzed the United States and its relations with Great Britain and France.”41 In addition to his own experiences in the United States to draw upon, a number of Talleyrand’s colleagues in the French diplomatic service also were widely knowledgeable on American political affairs.
Talleyrand had available the experience of French diplomats who had served in the United States or lived there after the outbreak of war with Great Britain in 1793, namely, Joseph Fauchet, Pierre Adet, Louis Otto, and Charles de la Forest. The former French consul in New York and schoolmate of Talleyrand, Alexandre Hauterive, soon took up duties assisting Talleyrand in preparing foreign policy statements. One of Talleyrand’s private secretaries, Louis Paul d’Autremont, had lived in Asylum, Pennsylvania, and returned to France with Talleyrand.42 With the new foreign minister, and many of his subordinates, having had direct American experience a more accurate understanding of American domestic politics should therefore have been prevalent in French government counsels, at least in the Foreign Ministry.
Jefferson’s inappropriate comments to Létombe had unfortunately provided further substantiation to many in the diplomatic services of France that the two most influential American political parties were, in fact, little more than French and British sympathy blocs which could be manipulated. Regardless of the Francophile or Anglophile character and rhetoric of these parties, the consensus in America was that neutrality in the conflict between England and France was the best course for the United States. The argument for American neutrality had been clearly and powerfully delineated by Washington, and then also by Adams, who, as Washington’s successor, became its champion. The leaders of France were aware of this policy, of course; they foresaw little consequence for France however in failing to respect it, and chose to ignore it instead.
“A month before Talleyrand’s induction into office, Otto presented for the consideration of the Minister of Foreign Affairs an extended report on the relations between the United States and France,”43 noted historian James Alton James wrote early in the twentieth century. Talleyrand would certainly have seen Otto’s report. In it Otto described the disappointing and confrontational behavior of Genet (French Ambassador to the United States prior to Adet) toward the United States government. James wrote that “this unusual conduct on the part of a foreign minister who had not been presented to the government and whose mission had received no official recognition: became more insulting when Genet accused Americans of ingratitude, and attacked the government in the newspapers with the aim of provoking revolution.” Historian James explained further, “in such conduct, Otto stated, there was a failure to comprehend that while many Americans were applauding the successes of the French Revolution they were insisting on a policy of neutrality on the part of their government, a policy which was at the time equally desirable for both France and the United States.”44
Otto’s report demonstrated that the cause of the difficulties existing between France and the United States was in the main the fault of actions by French official representatives as by any on the part of the American government. Despite the clear evidence of French provocation, which was known in the diplomatic circles at Paris, the new foreign minister’s agenda did not take this into account. The new relationship between England and the United States via the Jay Treaty was a growing risk to France, as was Adams’s dual policy of negotiation and preparations for war. However, there was little that the United States could do against France in the short term to prevent, or effectively retaliate against, French naval depredations (or most any other hostile act that France might undertake).45 This imbalance of force did little to encourage the leadership in Paris to arrange for a speedy reconciliation between the US and France.
Talleyrand was fully aware that President Adams desired peace with the French Republic. In an October 1797 Memoir, Talleyrand alluded to Adams’s May 16 speech to the joint House that “beneath these accusations and the arrogance of the rest of the speech, a strong desire for reconciliation can be detected as well as firm intentions to seek out all possible means.”46 Regardless of the clarity of Adams’s expressed determination for normalization and reconciliation with France, the new foreign minister in Paris felt little inspiration to reciprocate. Canny and calculating, Talleryrand was aware that in delaying a resolution to the crisis (a situation for the French that then had little of the character of a crisis) for as long as possible, benefits for both France and himself could be painlessly and inexpensively acquired. This, then, would be the highly charged political environment in which the three American ministers to France would soon find themselves.
Talleyrand had a great deal more on his mind than mere public service seulement when he accepted his new post. “When after months of intrigue to displace Delacroix and get the Foreign Ministry for himself, the news of his appointment came at last on July 18, 1797, Talleyrand was delirious with joy. ‘I’ll hold the job,’ he exulted over and over, ‘I have to make an immense fortune out of it, a really immense fortune.’”47 With the new French foreign minister’s purposes, a sometimes lopsided mixture of personal wealth accrual in awkward combination with the fulfillment of his official duties, the fortunes of the American Commissioners were seriously threatened. What was in store for Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry would be recalcitrance, rudeness, and obstruction.
The confusion in the highest circles of the French Foreign Ministry regarding the true nature of the American political landscape was directly influenced by Jefferson’s partisan and disloyal statements to Létombe. With their misconceptions of American domestic politics seemingly confirmed by Jefferson’s bashing of Adams, and his recommendations to Létombe on how France should best scuttle the American diplomatic mission to France, the official reception that the American diplomats received in Paris is not surprising.
“Perhaps the most arrogant and insulting taunt given to our country was [sic] the words of Talleyrand’s agents to the American envoys in 1798 when they declared that ‘the diplomatic skill of France and the means which she possesses in your country are sufficient to enable her with the French party in America to throw the blame of a rupture of negotiations on the Federalists as you call yourselves but on the British party as France calls you and you may be sure it will be done.’”48 Such rhetoric fit very nicely into the French policy of diplomatic brinksmanship; the conflicting messages likely confused their American counterparts, and obscured their true purposes.
With the advent of Talleyrand, American government officials soon faced a more complex milieu of conflicting signals. French attacks on American shipping, the rejection of Pinckney, and the bitter departure/recall of French Ambassador Adet, were decidedly negative and confrontational events. In a letter to Létombe dated late August and September 1, 1797, early in his tenure as foreign minister, Talleyrand appeared to be prepared to set a more conciliatory tone, however. Talleyrand wrote that “he allowed that the rejection of Pinckney and its consequences were ‘regrettable’ and ‘involved nothing personal against Mr. Pinckney’ and could be ‘repaired,’ and that ‘we shall do everything necessary when the commissioners arrive to exhibit fully our peaceful intentions.’”49
It is hardly surprising that Talleyrand was not entirely truthful with Létombe; the foreign minister of France failed to mention to his subordinate either his plans for brinksmanship or his goal of making “an immense fortune” from his office.50 Nor did Talleyrand hint that he believed that the people of the United States were decidedly pro-British in their feeling, despite having fought a revolution to gain their independence from England. In a letter to his friend Lord Lansdowne written in 1795, likely as a reaction to the Jay Treaty, Talleyrand wrote, “without France they would never have gained independence,” “America is English to the core,” and, “Americans are inclined to favor the English.”51 Despite Talleyrand’s questionable character and motives, there was still cause for some optimism.
The observations of John Marshall, made during his voyage to Europe, appear to suggest that Talleyrand’s letter to Létombe of late August/early September signified something much more than an empty rhetorical promise to resolve the conflict. In a letter to Washington dated September 15, 1797, Marshall described the non-threatening character of multiple interceptions of his ship by French navy vessels. “By the ships of war which met us we were three times visited and the conduct of those who came on board was such as would proceed from general orders to pursue a system calculated to conciliate America.”52 Though Marshall considered the friendly manner of the French sailors he met when his ship was boarded during the transatlantic crossing as positive signs, his optimism proved to be short-lived.
A staunch Federalist, Marshall did not share Jefferson’s views of the French Revolution. “The same day the liberty of the press was abolish’d by a line, property taken away by another and personal security destroy’d by a sentence of transportation against men unheard and untried. All this is stiled the triumph of liberty and of the constitution,” Marshall wrote to Washington about conditions in France.53 Writing to Washington later from Paris, Marshall’s earlier shipboard hopefulness had evaporated. “Might I be permitted to hazard an opinion it would be that the Atlantic only can save us, and that no consideration will be sufficiently powerful to check the extremities to which the temper of this government will carry it, but an apprehension that we may be thrown into the arms of Britain.”54 Even before meeting with his French counterparts, Marshall felt a strong sense of gloom about the upcoming negotiations; his negative premonitions were swiftly confirmed.
By early October 1797, the three American diplomats had assembled in Paris and were met there, briefly and unofficially, by Talleyrand. As the weeks passed no official meetings occurred, nor were the Americans formally presented to the Directory. On the eighteenth of October, a representative of Talleyrand called upon Pinckney. The agent, a Monsieur Hottinger, privately stated to Pinckney that some members of the Executive Directory had been offended by remarks made by President Adams in his May sixteenth speech, and that only a transfer of monies could alleviate their displeasure. Pinckney was informed that a sizable loan would be required to be paid by the United States government to the French Republic, and a “private douceur” (bribe) of 1,200,000 French livres (approximately 240,000 US dollars, at that time) must be paid to Talleyrand directly.55 Additional unofficial representatives of Talleyrand hounded, cajoled, and annoyed the American diplomats in the following weeks.
The American delegation was soon informed that without the required financial “apology” for Adams’s speech, or at least the delivery to France from the United States government (in the form of a complex transfer of debt) of almost 13 million dollars, no official reception of the diplomats by the government of France would occur. The Americans were reminded that the bribe “must be a separate and additional sum.”56 Finally, in a meeting alone with Gerry, who had known Talleyrand during his time in America, the French foreign minister pressed the American representative about payment of the “loan.” Gerry replied that neither he nor his two colleagues had the necessary authorizations to negotiate a loan to France, whereupon Talleyrand demanded, “Then assume them, and make a loan.”57
Offended at the inhospitable treatment and denial to them, as a delegation, of direct access to the French foreign minister, and angered at meeting only his supposed intermediaries (none of whom showed credentials, contrary to diplomatic protocol), the American ministers refused to make any agreement regarding loans or bribes without first consulting their superiors at Philadelphia. They sent no less than six encoded copies of a report of their experiences in France to Adams in at least the same number of ships (to assure that at least one copy was received).58 As the reports made their long journey to Philadelphia, several months of inactivity in Paris followed which included intrigues and delays on the part of the French Foreign Ministry. With growing frustration at French demands, and insulted at the petty iniquities of the French government, Elbridge Gerry determined to take a new approach—he invited Talleyrand to dinner.
Gerry’s hope that a less formal environment would allow the American diplomats to air their grievances directly to Talleyrand and perhaps break the impasse was quickly frustrated. Gerry’s late December dinner party was not a success.59 Soon after this disappointing attempt at gastronomic relations, the French government, in January 1798, issued a belligerent proclamation which stated that any ship that landed at any English port (or at any English colony) would be denied entry to any French port, and that any ships carrying any English merchandise were to be considered valid “prizes” for French privateers. Rightfully seeing this new proclamation as a direct and serious threat against American commerce and a purposeful expansion of tensions between France and the United States, Pinckney and Marshall drafted a protest against the new law, which Gerry refused to sign. Gerry’s refusal to cooperate with his colleagues essentially shattered the triple commission.
Pinckney and Marshall, both Federalists (and Marshall a defender of the Jay Treaty), refused to palliate the French after this latest insult and threat. Gerry, a Jeffersonian-Republican, was less inclined to answer the new provocation with a strong response and had demonstrated a greater willingness to be flexible and deferential to the French. Seeing that the American delegation was splitting over their response to the belligerent French Proclamation, Talleyrand determined to finish the job. The French foreign minister asked the Directory for permission (which was granted) to “pass over” Pinckney and Marshall, “and to deal with Gerry alone.”60 Talleyrand justified this request by noting, “since the Americans were accredited, ‘jointly and severally, envoys extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary,’” therefore dealing with only one of the three American ministers was permissible.61
Early in March 1798, Marshall wrote a dire letter to Washington stating, “before this reaches you it will be known universally in America, that scarcely a hope remains of accommodating on principles consistent with justice, or even with the independence of our country, the differences subsisting between France and the United States.” Informing Washington that the French had not negotiated in good faith, and that only American acquiescence to French demands would result in the diplomats being officially received, Marshall warned Washington that if America did not give France the loan which they demanded, he and his colleagues “will be order’d out of France and a nominal as well as actual war will be commenc’d against the United States.”62 Ten days later, Marshall and his colleagues received an official response to a letter they had sent to Talleyrand in January. Talleyrand’s heavy-handed reply, which he also “sent to Létombe with instructions to give it all possible publicity,” advanced the French diplomatic brinksmanship crisis to the next level.63
Once again complaining of America’s new relationship with England, including accusations of treaty violations, Talleyrand heatedly declared that France would no longer deal with Pinckney and Marshall, but only Gerry. The purpose of this letter, which insulted Pinckney and Marshall and put Elbridge Gerry in a very uncomfortable, if not impossible position, was to split the American delegation.
The foreign minister’s letter was a not-so-subtle demand of Pinckney and Marshall, but not Gerry, to leave France. Loyal and patriotic, Gerry believed that he had no option but to remain in Paris despite Talleyrand’s denunciations of his diplomatic colleagues. The lone Republican in the American delegation, Gerry explained later that he had stayed behind in Paris “because Talleyrand told him France would declare war if he left.”64
After much aggravation and delay Marshall was finally able to leave France in mid-April; Pinckney received permission to remain in the south of France for several months.65 As the only remaining member of the American triple commission to both not be expelled and to remain in the French capital, Elbridge Gerry’s “conduct aroused a storm of protest at home.”66
In a lengthy letter of explanation to Jefferson written in 1801, Gerry wrote, “Mr. Talleyrand had early in the spring declared to me in the name of the Directory, that my departure from Paris would bring on an immediate rupture, & as there had been no instance of an official declaration made by the directory which had not been carried into effect, I have no doubt of it in this instance.”67 With the foreign minister of France promising war if he should depart, Gerry remained in France essentially under duress. Aware of the damage that his remaining in Paris might do to his reputation in the United States, Gerry announced that though he remained, he was no longer acting as an accredited minister.
Gerry informed his French hosts that, due to the expulsion of his colleagues, he was therefore remaining in France as but a private citizen and thus treating in “an individual capacity.” This diplomatic counterattack/parry from Gerry greatly frustrated Talleyrand.68 Several months later Gerry attempted to leave the country but with little success. “My frequent applications for a passport … have been altogether unnoticed,” Gerry complained to Talleyrand early in July 1798.69 Talleyrand’s outrageous, improper demands and disrespectful treatment of the three American representatives became widely known in the United States. American reaction to events in Paris would overturn Talleyrand’s brinksmanship, and stun France.
On March 5, 1798, Adams announced in a Message to the Senate and House that dispatches from the American Commissioners in Paris had been received the previous day. Adams dramatically informed the Congress that because all the dispatches were encoded there would be some delay in releasing them, with one exception (that had been written in plain language, that is uncoded). “The contents of this letter are of so much importance to be immediately made known to Congress and to the public,” Adams declared, “especially to the mercantile part of our fellow-citizens, that I have thought it my duty to communicate them to both Houses without loss of time.”70 The president’s republican opponents however viewed the speech and the delayed release of the encrypted letters from the American diplomats with suspicion.
On March 19, Adams followed up with a more detailed public message, though the dispatches were still not yet released. Adams’s strong tone of conciliation, previously commonplace in prior speeches, was noticeably muted. Using language that appears to show that Adams had read Marshall’s letter to Washington of March 8, the president dramatically announced to the country that the diplomatic mission to France had failed.
After a careful review of the whole subject, with the aid of all the information I have received, I can discern nothing which could have insured or contributed to success that has been omitted on my part, and nothing further which can be attempted consistently with maxims for which our country has contended at every hazard, and which constitute the basis of our national sovereignty.71
Adams’s tone strongly suggested that the conciliatory component of his dual policy of diplomacy with France, that of negotiations and war preparations, had been unsuccessful. Acknowledging publicly that the situation with France had further deteriorated, President Adams informed the Congress that the restrictions on American vessels, which had until then prevented them from arming against French attacks, were no longer in force. “The present state of things is so essentially different from that in which instructions were given to the collectors to restrain vessels of the United States from sailing in an armed condition that the principle on which those orders were issued has ceased to exist,” President Adams said.72 Republican reaction to this speech was one of deep concern that the federalist administration was pushing the country unnecessarily, in their view, toward war with France. Because Adams had not yet released the dispatches from the American ministers in France, the Republican opposition was ignorant as to the true situation. Regardless of not knowing the contents of the dispatches, and likely motivated by a deep suspicion as to the Administration’s motives in not immediately releasing them, Jefferson responded to Adams’s speech with a letter to Madison on March twenty-first in which he described the March nineteenth brief Message to the House as “the insane message.”
Jefferson also recommended to Madison that Republicans should oppose Adams’s withdrawal of the “executive prohibition to arm, that Congress should pass a legislative one.”73 As the leader of the opposition, though still a senior member of the administration, Jefferson’s recommendation to Madison to empower Congress at the expense of the Federalist-controlled executive appears to be a reasonable and legitimate, though strongly partisan, strategy. He would have only several weeks however in which to organize opposition to Adams’s new tougher posture.
On the day prior to Jefferson’s letter of complaint to Madison about Adam’s speech Abigail Adams wrote to her sister, Mary Cranch, in Quincy, Massachusetts. She presciently and ominously complained of Jefferson’s (and his supporters’) seemingly endless opposition to President Adams. “We have renewed information that their System is, to calumniate the President, his family, his administration, until they oblige him to resign, and then they will Reign triumphant, headed by the Man of the People.”74 The First Lady’s sarcasm was based in large part on the perception that she shared with her husband that Jefferson’s extreme republicanism and anti-administration viewpoint had superseded and overturned their long-standing friendship.
Several days later in a letter to her son-in-law, Abigail continued to vent her frustration at Jefferson’s virulent opposition. “How different is the situation of the President from that of Washington? The Vice President never combined with a party against him and his administration, he never intrigued with Foreign Ministers or foreign courts against his own government and country.”75 Abigail’s reference to Jefferson’s “intrigue with Foreign Ministers” suggests that Abigail may have been aware of Jefferson’s meetings with Létombe (though Létombe’s title was consul rather than minister). As it is unlikely that John Adams knew the true nature of Jefferson’s conversations during his private sessions with French Consul Létombe, Abigail was also most likely unaware. The First Lady did however view Jefferson as an active threat rather than as a supportive old friend who happened to have opposing political views.
Driven by their belief that Adams was leading them into a needless war with France, and not yet aware of the devastating contents of the official communications from the American delegation, Republicans around the country loudly agitated for the swift release of the encrypted dispatches. The House voted on April second to call for the president to release the documents. Amidst the clamor for them, and all the criticism from the Republicans regarding them, Adams could not have been more pleased to comply. The dispatches were released the following day. In a short Message sent to the Senate and House on April 3, 1798, Adams announced,
In compliance with the request of the House of Representatives expressed in their resolution of the 2nd of this month, I transmit to both Houses those instructions to and dispatches from the envoys extraordinary of the United States to the French Republic which were mentioned in my message of the 19th of March last, omitting only some names and a few expressions descriptive of the persons.76
Requesting that the Members of the House “deliberate on the consequences of their publication,” Adams was likely fully aware that the release of the dispatches would signal a stunning political victory over Jefferson and his republican supporters.77 One Adams biographer wrote of the highly charged political atmosphere, “He would have been less than human if he had not enjoyed the consternation of his political enemies. It is not, perhaps, going too far to call it panic; certainly it was demoralization.”78 Jefferson quickly realized the error that the Republicans had made in prematurely criticizing Adams prior to the release of the dispatches.
The names that Adams had said were omitted from the dispatches were those of the French agents who had unofficially met with the American delegation. These representatives of Talleyrand had communicated the French foreign minister’s demands for delivery of a large loan to France, and payment of a douceur to him (for the building of his “immense fortune”), as preconditions to official talks with the government of France. In the decrypted dispatches released to Congress, and thus to the American people, the names of these men were replaced with the letters X, Y, and Z.