Episode 2.8 Life in Paris

[Transcript]

Hello, and welcome to America’s First Ladies. I’m your host, Risa Weaver-Enion.

Episode 2.8 Life in Paris

When we left off last week, Abigail and Nabby had just been quite literally swept ashore in England, arriving at a small town named Deal. Thankfully, there was an inn/tavern just at the beach, so they didn’t have to go far to find lodgings for the night. 

Abigail had never before stayed at an inn. She had never even dined in a public house or restaurant before. Having never traveled more than 50 miles from home, and then only to see family members or friends, she had always dined in private homes. She described the experience: 

“A well dressed hostess steps forward, making a lady-like appearance, and wishes your commands; if you desire a chamber, the chambermaid attends; you request dinner, say in half an hour; the bill of fare is directly brought; you mark what you wish to have, and suppose it is to be a variety of fish, fowl, and meat, all of which we had, up to eight different dishes besides vegetables.”

Early the next morning, they climbed into a post-chaise to take them to London, which was about 70 miles away. A post-chaise was essentially a carriage for hire. The carriage was only big enough to hold two people, and it was pulled by either two or four horses. They were fairly expensive, but traveled quickly. They would stop at designated places along the route to change horses. Fresh horses make travel faster. It took them about 14 hours to travel to London.

Along the way, Abigail got her first taste of English justice. They traveled through the Blackheath, a forested area known for robberies. It was unsafe to pass through it after dark, but on this day, a robbery had been committed in broad daylight. Their carriage was stopped and warned. Abigail wrote in her letter to her sister Mary, 

“We were not a little alarmed. The robber was pursued and taken in about two miles and we saw the poor wretch, ghostly and horrible, brought along on foot. He looked like a youth of twenty only, attempted to lift his hat, and looked despair. You can form some idea of my feelings when they told him: Ay, you have but a short time; the assize sets next month; and then my lad, you swing. Though every robber may deserve death, yet to exult over the wretched is what our country is not accustomed to. Long may it be free from such villanies, and long may it preserve a commiseration for the wretched.”

They also passed through Canterbury, and Abigail noted that the “old Gothick Cathedrals were all of stone very heavy, with but few windows which are grated with large Bars of Iron, and look more like jails for criminals, than places designd for the worship of a deity. [They] have a most gloomy appearence and realy made me shudder.”

When they arrived in London around 8 pm, they were delivered to Low’s Hotel in Covent Garden. No one was there to greet them, because communications took so long, it hadn’t been clear to John when Abigail and Nabby would actually arrive. He had sent John Quincy to London to meet them, but he had waited there a month before giving up and rejoining his father in The Hague. That had been in mid-June, and it was now July 21.

Abigail thought Low’s Hotel was too expensive, so she and Nabby relocated to the Adelphi Hotel the next day, and then she wrote to John to let him know where he could find them. “Heaven give us a happy meeting,” she wrote to him.

John’s response told her that her letter had made him “the happiest man on earth. I am twenty years younger than I was yesterday.” He also mentioned that he would send John Quincy to meet them right away, because he was pressed with work and couldn’t get away. Mind you, he hadn’t seen his wife for four years and eight months. 

For the next 10 days, Abigail and Nabby made the most of their time in London. They visited as many museums as they could, dined out every day, and even went to the studio of John Singleton Copely, who had painted a full-length portrait of John the previous fall. Abigail deemed it to be “a very good likeness…a most beautiful picture.”

Abigail was not used to walking much, but she took a four-mile walking tour of London, later writing, “My walk yesterday gave me a pain in my head, and stiffened me so that I can scarcely move.” I think we can all relate to that! She also wrote that London was “pleasanter than I had expected; the buildings more regular the streets much wider and more Sun shine than I thought to have found.”

They did some shopping, but everything was so expensive, Abigail was hesitant to buy anything that wasn’t necessary. Unfortunately, a lot was necessary. She wrote that she must submit to “the tyrrany of fashion [and visit] the staymaker, the mantua maker, the hoop maker, the shoe maker, the miliner and hair dresser, all of whom are necessary to transform one into the fashionable Lady.” John insisted that they buy “all the proper clothing, let the Expence be what it will.”

They saw Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the Tower of London, presumably only from the outside, since at that time it was still a working prison. They also had a surprising number of visitors during their stay in London. Some were Americans visiting London; others were Loyalists who had fled America during the war and resettled in London. No one seemed to hold a grudge against Abigail for being the wife of one of the primary traitors to the Crown.

Abigail was surprised to find that Londoners were not what she expected. “The Gentlemen are very plainly dresst and the Ladies much less so than with us…[a] common straw hat, no Cap, with only a ribbon upon the crown, is thought dress sufficient to go into company. …There is not to me that neatness in their appearence which you see in our Ladies. The softness peculiarly characteristick of our sex and which is so pleasing to the Gentlemen, is Wholy laid asside here; for the Masculine attire and Manners of Amazonians.” She was referring to the English habit of ladies making their morning social calls dressed in riding habits, including a waistcoat and jockey cap.

She was also surprised at how few dishes they had at dinner. “You will not find at a Gentlemans table more than two dishes of meat tho invited several days before hand.” Except at Parson Walker’s house, where she was entertained “in the Boston stile [with] salt fish, pea soup, Boild fowl and tongue, roast and fryd lamb, with a pudding and fruit.” And on the plus side, London had indoor plumbing! There was no space available for outhouses, and Abigail described the water “conveyd by pipes into a closet by my chamber.” What a concept!

Finally, on July 30, John Quincy arrived. He had been a boy of 12 the last time Abigail saw him; now he was a young man of 17. Abigail couldn’t quite believe how different he was, writing, “Impatient enough I was; yet, when he entered…I drew back, not really believing my eyes, till he cried out, ‘O momma and my dear sister!’ Nothing but the eyes…appeared what he once was.”

John arrived in London on August 7. Neither of them recorded anything about their reunion, but Abigail did tell Mary, “You know my dear sister that poets and painters wisely draw a veil over those scenes which surpass the pen of one or the pencil of the other; we were indeed a very happy family once more met together after a separation of four years.” I guess Abigail was so happy to see John that she didn’t realize they had been separated closer to five years.

In his diary, John simply wrote, “Arrived at the Adelphi Buildings and met my wife and Daughter after a separation of four years and an half. Indeed after a separation of ten years excepting a few visits.” John was counting back all the way to August 1774 when he left for the First Continental Congress. And he was correct. Over the ten year period from 1774 to 1784, John and Abigail only spent about 12 months together, spread out over the first five years of that period.

They all left London the very next day. John Quincy had purchased a family coach and hired drivers, along with a book that John thought would amuse them during the journey, Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.

The coach was only large enough for the four family members, so the two servants, Esther and John, rode behind them in a hired post-chaise. From London they rode to Dover, on the coast, then crossed the English Channel and landed at Calais, on the west coast of France. They spent the next four days traveling to Paris, finally arriving on August 13, 1784.

Abigail was not impressed with Paris. She wrote to her sister, “You inquire of me how do I like Paris? I am no judge for I have not seen it yet. One thing I know is that I have smelt it.” They only stayed in Paris proper for four days before relocating to a house John had rented for them in a small village four miles southwest of the city. Today it’s part of the 16th arrondissement of Pairs. It was called Auteuil, but I’m going to spell that for you, because in classic French fashion, it has way too many vowels. It’s A-U-T-E-U-I-L and looks like it should be pronounced oh-teel but is actually pronounced oh-toy’-uh.

Auteuil had three things going for it: 1) it was near Passy, where Benjamin Franklin still resided; 2) it was close to the Bois de Boulogne, which was a large park where John could get some exercise by walking daily; and 3) it was quite a bit less expensive than living in Paris.

The house they were renting was a palace compared to anything they had ever lived in before. Abigail described it in detail to Mary, 

“Upon occasion, forty beds may be made in it. The first floor contains the public rooms, the salon, as it is called, the apartment where we receive company. This room is very elegant, and about a third larger than General Warren’s hall. The windows of all the apartments in the house, or rather glass doors, reach from the top to the bottom…and give one a full extensive view of the gardens. 

My sewing room is about ten or twelve feet large…and panelled with looking glasses; a red and white India patch, with pretty boarders encompasses it; low backed stuffed chairs with garlands of flowers; a beautiful sofa is placed in a kind of alcove. I have a closet with a window which I could more peculiarly call my own. I am situated at a small desk in an appartement about 2 thirds as large as your own little Chamber. This appartment opens into my lodging Chamber.”

Eight years after enjoying a private space for writing when staying at her uncle’s house during the smallpox inoculation experience, Abigail finally had not one, but two rooms all to herself.

She described the gardens in detail to her niece Betsy Cranch:

“It is delightfull, such a Beautiful collection of flowers all in Bloom, so sweetly arranged with rows of orange Trees and china vases of flowers. [It is laid out] in oblong, octagonals, circles…filled with flowers; upon each side are spacious walks…a wall covered with grape vines…in the middle a fountain of water…little images carved in stone…[and] at the bottom of the garden are a number of Trees, the branches of which unite and form Beautiful Arbors, the tops of the Trees all cut even enough to walk upon them.”

On the other hand, the house had been neglected for years. She wrote to her niece, “with twenty thousand livres of expense in repairs and furniture, the house would be elegant. [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.” 

There’s no easy way for me to convey how much 20,000 livres would be in today’s dollars, because the livre is such an antiquated unit of money, that even when it was used, its value was pegged to different amounts at different times. Suffice it to say that it would likely be millions of dollars in today’s money.

Abigail was also flummoxed by the rules of domestic service in France. She was used to having servants who were jacks or jills of all trades. Anyone would pitch in to do what was needed. Not so in Europe. In addition to the two servants she brought with her from Braintree, she was required to maintain a staff of six French servants, not one of whom would “lift a finger to perform the work of another. … Your Coiffer de femme, will dress your Hair, and make your bed, but she will not Brush out your Chamber. Your cook will dress your victuals, but she will not wash a dish, or perform any other kind of business.” She concluded that they were all a “pack of lazy wretches.”

Overall, Abigail did not have a favorable opinion of Paris, and was shocked—shocked, I tell you!—to discover how many prostitutes were registered in the city. On one hand, this was scandalous to Abigail’s prim Calvinist upbringing; but on the other hand, at least in Paris the prostitutes were registered and didn’t just roam the streets wantonly like they did in London. 

In a letter to Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail left no question about where she stood on the matter:

“What idea, my dear madame, can you form of the manners of a nation, one city of which furnishes (blush, oh, my sex, when I name it) 52,000 unmarried females so lost to a sense of honor and shame as publicly to enroll their names in a notary office for the most abandoned purposes and to commit iniquity with impunity. Thousands of these miserable wretches perish annually with disease and poverty, whilst the most sacred of institutions is prostituted to unite title and estates.”

She’s writing here of the custom of arranged marriages among the aristocracy of France, which were primarily brought about to join families and protect landed estates. Most aristocratic spouses were unfaithful to each other because why be faithful to someone you don’t love and didn’t want to marry in the first place? Abigail was appalled. But I find it amusing that she uses the word “prostitution” when talking about arranged marriages but can’t bring herself to use it when talking about actual prostitution. Her letter continued:

“Which of the two Countries can you form the most favorable opinion of? France where vice is Licenced or Britain where it is suffered to walk at large soliciting the unwary, and unguarded as it is to a most astonishing height in the Streets of London where virtuous females are frequently subject to insult? In Paris no such thing happens.”

She also felt that Paris was in general safer than London. In Paris one enjoys “perfect security to your Person, and property, but in London, at going in and coming out of the Theatre, you find yourself in a Mob: and are every Moment in Danger of being robbed.”

But she did find Parisians to be a little too absorbed in having fun, versus being hard-working like the Londoners. Both cities were teeming with people, but the Londoners seemed more serious, while the Parisians “from the gayety of the Dress, and the Places they frequent I judge Pleasure is the Business of Life.” She also took issue with the lack of piety on the Sabbath: “Paris upon that Day pours forth all her Citizens into the environs for the purposes of recreation. [The Bois du Boulogne] resounds with Musick and Dancing, jollity, and Mirth of every kind. In this Wood Booths are erected, where cake, fruit, and wine are sold.”

You can take the woman out of Puritan New England, but you can’t take the Puritanism out of the woman.

Abigail’s social life was also curtailed in France, for two related reasons. First, unlike in England, where the resident ladies could pay the first visit to Abigail, in France, Abigail was expected to pay the first visit before the French ladies would return the visit. Second, Abigail was reluctant to make any visits because she did not speak French. She had studied it since she was a girl, but she could only read and write it.

So at first she limited herself to only visiting with acquaintances who spoke English, one of whom was the Marquis de Lafayette’s wife, whom she rather enjoyed. She also continued studying French, being tutored by John and John Quincy, both of whom were fluent at this point. She met a few Americans in Paris, among them Anne Bingham, who had married an insanely wealthy man. Abigail deemed her “very handsome [but] rather too much given to foibles. Less money and more years may make her wiser.”

She also met the famous naval hero John Paul Jones, who didn’t impress her either. She wrote to her sister, “I dare say you would be as much dissapointed in him as I was. From the intrepid Character he justly Supported in the American Navy, I expected to have seen a Rough Stout warlike Roman. Instead of that I should sooner think of wrapping him up in a cotton wool and putting him into my pocket, than of sending him to contend with cannon balls.”

One American Abigail liked very much was Thomas Jefferson. He had arrived in Paris shortly before Abigail had, and he had rented a house near the Paris Opera House. His daughter Martha (called Patsy, of course) lived with him, along with a slave named James Hemings. The Adamses socialized often with Jefferson, and even Nabby got to know him quite well.

Abigail and Nabby would often go to the theater with Jefferson, and what I’m about to say may really surprise you. Although Abigail had read many plays in her lifetime, she had never before seen one performed…because there were no theaters in Boston! She became quite a fan of the theater, and of the opera, where the dancing was delightful. But she was a bit scandalized by the skimpy outfits worn by the dancers. She wrote to Mary:

“The dresses and beauty of the performers were enchanting, but no sooner did the dance commence that I felt my delicacy wounded, and I was shamed to be seen looking at them. Girls clothed in the thinnest silk and gauze, with their petticoats short, springing two feet from the floor, poising themselves in the air, with their feet flying, and as perfectly showing their garters and drawers, as though no petticoats had been worn, was a sight altogether new to me.”

In March 1785, the Marquise de Lafayette invited the Adams family and Jefferson to join her party at Notre Dame to celebrate the birth of a second son to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. 

Slight detour incoming: This child was Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy. Because he was the second son of the king, he was not expected to inherit the crown, but his elder brother Louis-Joseph died in 1789, just before the French Revolution began. Louis-Charles then became the heir to the throne. When his father Louis XVI was beheaded in 1793 during the Revolution, Louis-Charles automatically became Louis XVII, but only to the royalists. France was a Republic at that point. Louis-Charles died in prison in 1795 at the age of 10. When the monarchy was restored in 1814, his uncle Louis took the throne under the name Louis XVIII. So if you’ve ever wondered why the French monarchy jumps from Louis XVI to Louis XVIII, now you know why.

The celebration of the birth of Louis-Charles was probably the grandest event Abigail ever attended in her life. Jefferson speculated to Nabby that the number of people in the streets of Paris that day probably equalled the entire population of Massachusetts. John Quincy recorded the event in his diary:

“There was but just space sufficient for the carriages to pass along, and had there not been guards placed on both sides at a distance not greater than ten yards from one another, there would have been no passage at all for the coaches. For as it was, the troops had the utmost difficulty to restrain the mob.” Inside Notre-Dame they were seated in a gallery overlooking the choir, because the Marquis and Marquise de Lafayette were important people. All of Parliament was there, along with bishops, the Archbishop, and the King himself. The Queen, of course, was still in confinement after giving birth.

John Quincy continued, “and as soon as his Majesty had got to his place and fallen upon his knees, they began to sing the Te Deum, which lasted half an hour, and in which we heard some exceeding fine music. … What a charming sight: an absolute king of one of the most powerful empires on earth, and perhaps a thousand of the first personages of that empire, adoring the divinity who created them, and acknowledging that He can in a moment reduce them to the dust from which they spring.”

It’s funny how taken with royalty Americans are, especially these Americans, who had literally just lived through a war to rid themselves of a monarchy.

While living in France, Abigail never tired of complaining about how expensive everything was and how little money they had. Congress had reduced the annual salary of its European envoys to $9000, which is equal to about $298,000 today. Not too shabby!

I’ll quote here from Woody Holton’s book Abigail Adams: A Life, “[S]he worried that her husband’s expenses would exceed his income. ‘I have become Steward and Book keeper,’ she told her sister Mary, ‘determining to know with accuracy what our expences are, and to prevail with Mr. Adams to return to America if he finds himself straightned as I think he must be.’ Although too few documents survive to re-create the family’s budget, [Abigail’s] anxiety does not appear to have been warranted. As grand as the [house at Auteuil] was, the house, stable, and gardens rented for only 200 guineas a year, which was less than a tenth of John’s salary, even after Congress cut it to 9,000 dollars (2,250 guineas). 

Abigail estimated that the family’s living expenses (including rent and everything else she could think of) would add up to somewhere between 600 and 700 guineas per year—roughly a third of what her husband earned. To be sure, there would be other necessary expenditures. For instance, the Adamses would have to host at least a few ‘entertainments,’ which could cost up to 60 guineas each. But there was little real danger of his income exceeding his expenses.”

Yet Abigail insisted that Congress was being “penny wise and pound foolish” by not paying its envoys better. She continued in her letter to Mary, “For that nation which degrades their own ministers by obliging them to live in narrow circumstances, cannot be expected to be held in high estimation themselves. … 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 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 pense, to fear overrunning them.”

I’ll remind you that the Adamses were living in a forty-room mansion while in Paris. I don’t think that qualifies as “narrow circumstances.”

Expenses aside, the family was living a pretty great life in Auteuil. I’m going to quote here from Edith Gelles’s book Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage because she describes the typical day using a smattering of quotes from Abigail’s letters to Mary:

“On a typical day, Abigail would rise ‘not quite so early as I used to when I provided the turkeys and geese we used to feast upon, but as soon as my fire is made and my room cleaned.’ She then awakened her daughter and knocked at the door of her son ‘who always opens it with his book in his hand. By that time we are all assembled to the Breakfast.’ Breakfast completed, John retired to his reading or writing and she to her household chores—directing her staff or sewing, ‘for I still darn stockings.’ 

John Quincy translated Horace and Tacitus in preparation for college, while his sister, struggling with her French, translated Fénelon’s Télémache. ‘In this manner we proceed till near 12 o’clock when Mr. A takes his cain and hat for his forenoon walk which is commonly four miles. This he completes by 2.’ At noon, the ladies ‘repair to the toilete’ where they dressed and were coiffed—’at 2 we all meet together and dine. In the afternoon we go from one room to another sometimes chat with my son or make him read to me. Emilia (her daughter’s pen name) in the same manner works reads or plays with her brother which they can do together in a game of romps very well.’ …

‘The afternoon here is very short,’ she continued, ‘and tea very soon summons us all together. As soon as that is removed the table is covered with mathematical instruments and books and you hear nothing till 9 o’clock but of theorems and problems, bisecting and dissecting tangents and sequences which Mr. A is teaching to his son; after which we are often called upon to relieve their brains by a game of whist. At 10 we all retire to rest.’”

This was the most time they had spent together as a family since 1774, when Nabby was only 9 and John Quincy was 7. No doubt everyone was enjoying this chance to be together and just live life. Abigail wrote to her sister Elizabeth that John certainly enjoyed it, writing, “He professes himself so much happier having his family with him, that I feel amply gratified in having ventured across the ocean.”

Spring 1785 brought about many changes. For one, John Quincy was ready to leave Europe and go home. He wanted to attend Harvard, but he had been out of traditional schools for so long, he had some preparations to make to ensure he would be admitted. And on April 26, John received word from Congress that he had been named minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain. Jefferson would remain in Paris, replacing the elderly Franklin as minister to France.

John had fervently wished for this assignment, and it was a step up to be sole minister to Great Britain instead of part of a joint commission in France, but he regretted leaving Paris and Jefferson, writing to his friend and brother-in-law Richard Cranch, “I shall find nowhere so fine a little hill, so pleasant a garden, so noble a forest and such pure air and tranquil walks, as at Auteuil. I shall part with Mr. Jefferson with great regret.”

Even Abigail felt that she would miss some aspects of Paris, despite how much she had disliked it upon her arrival 10 months prior. She regretted having to leave her garden and Jefferson most of all. He would miss them too, writing to John after they arrived in London, “The departure of your family has left me in the dumps. My afternoons hang heavily on me.”

In mid-May 1785, John Quincy left Auteuil for Lorient, a town in Brittany on the northwest coast of France. From there he would take a ship back to Boston, where he hadn’t been in five and a half years. He didn’t travel entirely alone, however. The Marquis de Lafayette had entrusted him with a pack of seven hunting dogs that were a gift for none other than George Washington. There’s no mention of how he got the dogs from Boston to Mount Vernon.

On May 20, John, Abigail, and Nabby left the house at Auteuil and rode in their family carriage to Calais, where they crossed the English Channel to Dover—the exact reverse of their trip the previous August.

Next week, we’ll join the Adamses in London, where they will spend the next three years of their lives.

Thanks for listening to this episode! It was produced by me, and the music is by Matthew Dull. Thanks to everyone who has left a rating or review of the podcast—it means the world to me!