Jefferson (22 page)

“Your friend Jefferson has an unfortunate habit of never facing the person he addresses. He looks like a fox.”

Short moved a step closer to the fireplace and frowned. Charles-Louis Clérisseau was the Frenchman with the bulging eyes and sardonic voice he had so often encountered but never officially met until tonight, and then thanks only to Jefferson’s place cards had he learned his name.

“He always gazes to one side, or up at the ceiling,” Clérisseau said. “It makes him appear insincere, or”—he switched from French to English and mouthed the next word with exaggerated delicacy—
“sly.”

“Ah.” Short made a point of looking straight into Clérisseau’s great saucer-shaped eyes before twisting his head to locate Jefferson. “He’s a reserved, diffident man, really.” At the other end of the room Jefferson was displaying some of his books to Buffon.

Clérisseau shook his head. “Diffident like a fox. I believe that trick he played at dinner was first done by Franklin years ago.”

“You think—”

“Moreover,” Clérisseau said, “I find it suggests another disturbing trait.”

“Which is?”

“He makes his defense of America too
personal
. As if, when Buffon and Raynal propose their theories, he himself is being criticized. Look at him—six feet tall, broad-shouldered. What does it matter to him if the moose is large or small? What does it matter to him how big the mammoth is? Is it a personal contest? Your Monsieur Jefferson has a very thin skin.”

“He has a very strong sense of place, in fact,” Short said, wondering if Clérisseau had just said something painfully insightful. No, he thought. Not at all.

“Ah well, place; setting; atmosphere. The sine qua non of an artist. I am an architect, you know, Monsieur. When he asked me to dinner, I sat down and read the description of his mountaintop
house, in Chastellux’s
Traveld
. Monticello. A marvelous name. A marvelous
idea
—to clear off a whole mountaintop and put up a house.”

“He originally meant to call it the Hermitage.” Flushing, Short put his wineglass down on a table.
Hermitage
sounded foxlike.

Clérisseau smiled and said nothing.

By the tall French doors, under a handsome crystal chandelier that Jefferson had bought last week at auction, Buffon held up an engraving between his tiny hands, shook his head, and replaced it in the folio Jefferson opened for him.

“No, no, Monsieur Jefferson,” he said. He looked up at Short and twinkled a greeting. “There we must agree to disagree too. You think that this so-called science of ‘chemistry’ is bound to lead to new and brave discoveries, to
unlock the secrets of nature
—your words?” Jefferson nodded. “Whereas I,” said Buffon, beaming at all of them, “think chemistry is merely cookery.”

As Jefferson, objecting vigorously, reopened the folio and began a second defense, the Abbé Raynal moved back a step from the group and squeezed out a square inch of smile for Short.

“I suppose that you, also, Monsieur Short, grew up among Indians and slaves?” Like all the French abbés whom Short had met, Raynal had an impressive repertoire of pleasures. One hand clutched a large glass of Jefferson’s excellent sauternes; the other hand raised a cakey gray mound of snuff to his nose. But the effect of good humor was spoiled by the little dark worms of wax now streaking his cheeks, makeup melted by the heat of the fire.

Short took a new glass of wine from a passing servant and steeled himself to answer diplomatically.

“Slaves, yes. Everybody in Virginia lives among slaves. But I’ve seen few Indians in my life, and then mostly in the towns along the Chesapeake Bay, rarely in the forests or their own villages. Monsieur Jefferson, however, lived much among them when he was a boy. His father traded with them and took them as guides on his map-making expeditions. He seems at home in Paris, as you see, but his boyhood was spent in the wilderness.”

“With savages.” Raynal smiled a great deal, like Clérisseau, but Short felt it a cooler, more condescending smile.

“I doubt if he would agree. Monsieur Jefferson has a high regard for the Indians he knew. In his
Noted on Virginia—
”

“I have not seen the book,” Raynal said.

“Well. There he quotes a wonderful speech by a Mingo chieftain named Logan, a speech the Indian wrote himself when he was accused of breaking a treaty. Jefferson says the speech is worthy of comparison with Demosthenes and Cicero—”

Raynal’s smile became a sneer. With his wineglass he touched Short’s sleeve, a polite signal for interruption.

“Not,” he said with Gallic precision, “Demosthenes and Cicero. Surely not. Monsieur Jefferson’s penchant for exaggeration carries him too far.”

“Logan?” Jefferson said behind them.

“Monsieur Short has been quoting your praises of Logan.” Raynal looked complacently about him. Barrett drew closer, chewing a stick of bread. Buffon lowered himself into a chair and folded his hands in his lap.

“I was saying,” Raynal continued, “that you surely give too much credit when you compare a half-naked savage to Demosthenes.”

“I don’t accept the word
savage
,” Short said doubtfully, shaking his head.

“Logan was a splendid figure,” Jefferson said. “But if you are interested in Indian oratory, I remember another great chief.” He looked down at the floor, then toward the fireplace. “This was a famous warrior from the Cherokee tribe, named Outasette. He was frequently my father’s guest in our house at Shadwell. In about the year ’62—I was still a student at William and Mary—Outasette came to Williamsburg to see the governor and to embark on a trip to England, at the invitation as he called it of his white Father’ the king.”

“He had his portrait painted by Joshua Reynolds,” Barrett said through his breadstick. “I saw it in London. The damned English made such a fuss about him—they love the brutes. Oliver Goldsmith wrote it up in a book.”

“Well, I saw him,” Jefferson said, “not in London, but in his camp outside Williamsburg, before he sailed. About two hundred Cherokee braves had marched in to see him off, and the last night he assembled them out in the forest and made a farewell oration. The moon was in full splendor, I remember, and Outasette stood above us on a cliff, in his feathered headdress and buckskin, and
made a speech directly to her, as if they understood a common language.”

Short’s fingers itched for a pen. When the mood was on him Jefferson could speak for hours in absolutely perfect sentences and paragraphs. One needed only write them down, as from dictation.

“His prayers were for his own safety during the voyage, first, and that of his people during his absence. I remember his sounding voice, his distinct, beautiful articulation, the solemn silence of his people sitting at their scattered fires—all that filled me, a boy of twenty or so, with genuine reverence and veneration.” Jefferson raised his head to smile wryly at Raynal. “Although, of course, I confess that I didn’t understand one word in the language he uttered.”

The abbé had sniffed most of his little gray mound of snuff. Now he wiped the back of his hand across his nose and glanced sideways at Buffon.

“Charming, picturesque memories,” he said. “The scene—you, Monsieur Jefferson, on your knees beside an Indian campfire, the full moon, the orator in his costume—yes, yes, very good, very
American
. But my dear sir, my dear friend, these impressions have nothing to do with history or science, our previous subjects. They only show how quickly the white man falls under the spell of savages—not Demosthenes—and how quickly the white man will then … degenerate.”

Jefferson’s face had turned faintly red.

“For example,” Raynal went on, oblivious, raising one hand, palm open to the company. “For example, one is astonished, really astonished that America has not yet produced a good poet. Or an able mathematician. Or a man of genius in
any
art or science whatever.”

Barrett was staring slack-jawed. William Bingham and several others had stiffened. Even Buffon in his chair stirred uncomfortably.

“Well. When we shall have existed as a people,” Jefferson said with a casual half-shrug of his shoulders, “as long as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, or the Romans a Virgil, or the French a Racine, well then, a fairly deserved reproach, I suppose. Though
degenerate
is hard. On the other hand, in the science of
physics our little country of three millions has already produced a Franklin, whose discoveries in electricity are second to none in all the forty millions of Europe. I imagine Mr. Rittenhouse the equal of any astronomer living. And of course”—he looked mildly from Raynal to Buffon—“in war we have produced a Washington, whose memory will be adored so long as liberty and freedom have their disciples.”

“Ah. Washington. Liberty.” Raynal made a pretense of inspecting the color of his wine. Clérisseau began to say something, but Raynal lifted his chin and spoke loudly over him. “We hear reports that General Washington’s house has been burned by mobs—”

“Nonsense!” said Barrett.

“—and the general himself hanged in effigy.”

“These are reports from British newspapers,” Jefferson said.

“Burned his house,” Raynal repeated firmly. “To the ground. Attacked him. Chased him from his property. Stoned him as he got into his carriage. The liberty-loving mobs. Here in Paris we are much concerned about what they will do, these Ciceronian democrats, when Dr. Franklin finally arrives home from England.”

Jefferson looked over Raynal’s shoulder, at the windows opening onto the Grille de Chaillot. For an instant Short thought Jefferson was about to abandon his lifelong policy of walking away from a quarrel. His face had gone from red to dangerous white, his profile under the flickering candles was thin as a blade. But he inhaled deeply and then looked back at Raynal. “When Dr. Franklin reaches home,” Jefferson said, turning away as he spoke, “the citizens will undoubtedly salute him with the same invisible stones they used on Washington and Lafayette.”

Early the next morning, Jefferson came into the study grinning.

Short looked up from the desk, where he was writing a memorandum to their banker.

“Paul Jones has just left us a parcel of mail from London,” Jefferson said. He took his seat at his own desk, swiveled his chair, and held up two sheets of stiff buff-colored paper. “And
John Adams has written me a letter too wonderful to bury in my files. Listen.”

Short put down his pen and grinned in return.

“To set the scene he first says he paid a call on the Ambassador of Tripoli one afternoon last month. Two secretaries of legation—this pleases Adams, twice the normal attention—two secretaries—ushered him into a room with a fireplace and a pair of luxurious chammy chairs and ottomans arranged in front of the fireplace. They placed him in one of the chairs but obviously didn’t dare sit down themselves. In walks the ambassador five minutes later, a genuine sultan by the name of Abdurrahman, who takes the other chair, crosses his legs, and promptly starts to speak in a combination of Italian and Lingua Franca.”

Jefferson ran his fingers through his hair, then stood again, carrying the letter.

“Adams speaks no Italian,” Short said, leaning back in his chair. “Not a word.”

Jefferson had reached the far wall, on which, hanging to his left, was an oil portrait of Washington meant to give the study an American air; to his right a French
serinette
, a wicker cage holding two small parakeets and a music box on a crank, meant to teach the birds how to sing. He gave his usual glance of bemused irony at the silent birds and shook his head. “Not a word. But let me read. You recall that these Barbary pirates, after capturing who knows how many of our innocent merchantmen, have finally proposed their terms—peace for one year at 12,500 guineas; ‘perpetual peace’ for 30,000 guineas. The subject of the meeting was to offer our counterterms and see if we could ransom our hostages. But the ambassador insisted on a little ceremony first. Now listen, these are Adams’s own words.

“ ‘ “We make tobacco in Tripoli,” said his Excellency, “but it is too strong. Your American tobacco is better.” By this time, one of his secretaries had brought two pipes ready filled and lighted. The longest was offered me; the other to his Excellency. It is long since I took a pipe, as you know, but as it would be unpardonable to be wanting in politeness, I took the pipe with great complacency, placed the bowl upon the carpet, for the stem was fit for a walking cane, and I believe more than two yards in length.’ ”

Jefferson stopped and lowered the sheets of paper, still grinning boyishly. “I think I should commission a painting,” he said. “For the Annals of Diplomacy.”

“He must have turned green—or green and white!”

“No, William, you underestimate the Adams resolve. Listen: ‘I smoaked in aweful pomp, reciprocating whiff for whiff with his Excellency, until coffee was brought in. His Excellency took a cup after I had taken one, and alternately sipped at his coffee and whiffed at his tobacco, and I followed the example with such exactness and solemnity that the two secretaries appeared in raptures and the superior of them, who speaks a few words of French, cried out in ecstacy,
“Monsieur, vous êtes un Turk!”
 ’ ”