Episode 5.3 The Monroes in France

[Transcript]

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

Episode 5.3 The Monroes in France

We left off last week in December 1792. James had just found himself embroiled in Alexander Hamilton’s love life by inadvertently discovering Hamilton’s affair with Maria Reynolds. Let’s pick back up with government business, not that there was much.

James found the Senate as slow to do anything as always. He was still unsuccessfully trying to get them to open their sessions to the public. After the recess in March 1793, he returned to Virginia with Elizabeth and Eliza. They had purchased a different parcel of land in Albemarle County and were working on getting the house into a habitable condition so they could properly host guests.

I didn’t delve too far into this in last week’s episode because we had other things to cover, but James spent most of his Congressional recesses engaged in a newspaper war with Hamilton. They both wrote under pseudonyms, as usual. The recess of 1793 was no different. President Washington had issued his neutrality proclamation, aiming to keep America from getting embroiled in France’s wars against pretty much every country in Europe. At first James supported it, because he supported Washington. But then, like all good sycophants, he changed his tune to be more in line with Jefferson’s thinking. 

Over the summer of 1793, Monroe and Madison jointly wrote a series of resolutions they wanted the various Virginia counties to pass. They were careful to phrase the resolutions as critiques of the neutrality proclamation, rather than of Washington himself. Several Virginia counties did end up adopting the resolves, but as with most resolutions, they didn’t really change anything in the big picture.

The Monroes did not return to Philadelphia until late November, in time for Congress to convene in December. Thankfully, they missed the great yellow fever epidemic that we’ve discussed at length in previous seasons. Elizabeth and Eliza stayed in Philadelphia only long enough to arrange travel to New York. Lawrence Kortright was gravely ill, and Elizabeth wanted to be by his side. 

In February 1794, Elizabeth’s sister Mary wrote to James because the family needed help understanding Lawrence’s financial affairs. Elizabeth’s sisters were married to merchants. What they needed was a lawyer. So James left immediately for New York. He drafted a will for Lawrence and was back in Philadelphia by February 19. The same day that James finally got his motion passed to open the Senate debates to the public, Lawrence Kortright died.

The will left one-third of Kortright’s estate to Elizabeth. There’s no word on who received the other two-thirds. Considering that Kortright had five children, this puzzles me. But I have no explanation, unfortunately. Elizabeth’s only brother, John, contested the will, so perhaps he, too, was puzzled. As I mentioned in episode 5.1, there are no biographies about Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, so a lot of these little details are just passing mentions in the biographies of James Monroe that I read. I would love to know what happened with Lawrence’s will, but I just don’t.

As tensions between Britain and France escalated, and as both countries were attacking neutral American vessels at sea, President Washington decided that he needed to send a new minister to France and also a special envoy to Britain. The Federalists wanted the envoy to Britain to be Hamilton, but Monroe thought that was a terrible idea. He had the nerve to give Washington his thoughts, unsolicited. It did not go over well with the president. 

Monroe wrote that appointing Hamilton would be “not only injurious to the public interest but also especially to your own.” Washington replied, “As I alone am responsible for a proper nomination, it certainly behooves me to name such a one as in my judgment combines the requisites to the peace & happiness of this country.” He underlined the words “alone” and “peace” to emphasize his points.

In the end, Washington did not name Hamilton as the special envoy to Great Britain because Monroe was not the only one opposed to the nomination. But maybe Monroe should have kept his mouth shut, because Washington’s replacement nominee was John Jay, a man whom James mistrusted perhaps even more than he did Hamilton.

James hadn’t been a fan of John Jay’s ever since Jay was involved in the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty, which we discussed in episode 5.2. Jay was currently serving as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a role he did not intend to vacate, despite the fact that he would likely be in Britain for several months, if not years. 

James and other Republicans in Congress were outspoken against Jay’s appointment to Great Britain. James and his fellow Virginian John Taylor objected that sending a judge as minister to a foreign country would “destroy the independence of the judiciary,” and Aaron Burr argued that allowing Jay to hold both positions would be “contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.” Despite these objections, Jay was confirmed by a vote of 18 to 8.

At the same time all this was unfolding, President Washington was also deciding what to do about the minister to France. As I mentioned last week, Gouverneur Morris was not quite diplomatic enough to serve as an actual diplomat. The French government had asked that he be removed as minister, so Washington needed a replacement.

His first choice was James Madison, but this was spring 1794, and Madison was courting Dolley Payne Todd and had no wish to leave the country. (Even had he not been courting Dolley, it’s almost certain he would have turned down Washington. He never had any desire to leave the country or make a long sea voyage.) Madison recommended Aaron Burr for the post, but Washington greatly disliked Burr and wasn’t about to send him.

The President’s next choice was Robert Livingston, another Republican, but Livingston turned him down too. Washington wanted to send a Republican who was sympathetic to the French Revolution because he thought that would help ease the tensions over his refusal to involve America in France’s wars in Europe. After being rejected by two prominent Republicans, he turned to James Monroe. He actually asked his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, to make the approach to Monroe, which he did on May 26, giving Monroe only one hour to provide his answer.

Instead of making the decision on his own, James asked Madison for help. He would have preferred to ask Jefferson, but considering that Jefferson was at Monticello, there was no time for that. Monroe asked Madison to speak with some of their Republican colleagues and get their opinions on the matter. Apparently the responses Madison received were all in favor, because Monroe accepted the appointment. His nomination was put before the Senate on May 27, and he was approved the next day. It was official: James and his family would be going to Paris.

In the letter he wrote to the French government announcing the appointment of Monroe, President Washington called James “one of our distinguished citizens [known for] his fidelity, probity, and good conduct.”

James received a packet of detailed instructions for his role, which would later prove difficult for him to comply with in their entirety. Since I don’t have access to the primary source documents, I’m going to quote Tim McGrath’s words from his book, James Monroe: A Life.

“Monroe was to render himself acceptable to the French government, but maintain his (and his country’s) self-respect. He was to articulate Washington’s neutrality policy whenever necessary, which would probably be on a daily basis: Support the French as our first ally, but remind them they would get neither money nor manpower to assist their growing war with much of Europe. Monroe was to keep in constant correspondence with Randolph regarding the activities of the French navy, and any developments in their politics or policy. … He must mitigate any French resentment regarding the arrival of John Jay in England, and tell Randolph about any changes in the government’s attitude toward commerce and religion. He was to keep a coded journal, but not put any business in writing, except, of course, ‘verbal communication’ that should be ‘carried on in writing.’” 

The instructions also read: “You go, Sir, to France to strengthen our Friendship with that country…shew [sic] our confidence in the French Republic without betraying the most remote mark of undue complaisance.” And Randolph told Monroe, “There may be an opening for France to become instrumental in securing to us the free navigation of the Mississippi.” 

John Quincy Adams would later write a joint biography of James Madison and James Monroe. Here’s what he had to say about Monroe’s appointment to France:

“The contemporaneous missions of Mr. Jay to Great Britain, and of Mr. Monroe to France, are among the most memorable events in the history of this Union. Mr. Jay and Mr. Monroe each within his own sphere of action, executed with equal ability the trust committed to him, in the spirit of his appointment and of his instructions. …But neutrality was the duty and inclination of the American administration, and neutrality was what neither of the great European combatants might endure.” In short, the deck was stacked against the new ministers to Great Britain and France.

Elizabeth and Eliza were still in New York with her family, so James sent word that Elizabeth should pack whatever clothes the two of them had with them, and take a coach to Philadelphia as soon as possible. 

The new property in Albemarle County was only a few miles from Monticello, so he asked Jefferson to recommend where the house should be built on the property and look out for it while he was in France. He figured they would be overseas for three or four years. This was not the first time Jefferson had assisted James with personal business. The previous year, Jefferson had sold a family of six enslaved people to James.

We haven’t talked about slavery yet this season, but James Monroe definitely did have some slaves. He never had as many as Washington, Jefferson, or Madison, and he didn’t grow up on a large plantation, but growing up, his father had purchased at least eight slaves. James worked in his father’s tobacco fields alongside the enslaved laborers and hired laborers.

There’s no information available as to whether Elizabeth grew up with any enslaved house servants. Slavery was much less common in New York than in the South, but it certainly wasn’t non-existent. It’s quite possible that her first experience with enslaved servants was when she moved to Virginia with her new husband.

The slaves that Jefferson sold to Monroe were part of the Hemings family. You’ll recall from season 3 that Patty Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, was probably the half-sister of Jefferson’s later mistress, Sally Hemings. Sally and her siblings were more likely than not the offspring of Patty’s father, John Wayles, and one of his slaves, Betty Hemings. Monroe purchased a woman named Thenia Hemings from Jefferson, and her five daughters. Thenia was Sally’s older sister. 

There’s no documentation to support this theory, but it’s supposed that Thenia asked to be sold to the Monroes because they already owned her husband. This information comes from Tim McGrath’s Monroe biography, but he doesn’t say where Thenia, her daughters, or her husband were located once purchased by Monroe. There was no house on the Albemarle County land yet, and the Monroes weren’t even living in Virginia, so there would have been no need for enslaved house servants. 

James owned another house somewhere in Charlottesville, so Thenia and her daughters may have lived there and taken care of the house in the Monroes’ absence. It’s also possible they were hired out to other families either on a long-term or short-term basis—this was a fairly common practice. It’s one more of those grand mysteries.

The Monroe family departed for France from Baltimore on a ship called Cincinnatus on June 18, 1794. Traveling with them were one of Jefferson’s distant cousins, Fulwar Skipwith, who would serve as Monroe’s secretary; Monroe’s 14-year-old cousin Joseph Jones, Jr.; and two white servants, Michael the majordomo and Polly the housemaid. Skipwith was to be a temporary secretary because Aaron Burr’s stepson John Prevost was going to replace him once he was able to depart from New York.

The ship was also packed full of flour for the French government, and James had added a supply of hams, salted meats, and sugar. Sadly, we don’t have a detailed inventory of everything they took, like we did when John Adams made his first voyage to France.

And although the Monroes were traveling in the summer, when the sea wasn’t quite as dangerous as in the winter, there was still the possibility of thunderstorms along the way. And even though the United States wasn’t at war, there was still the danger of being attacked by either French or British vessels on the high seas, or being taken by privateers. Crossing the Atlantic was always a dicey proposition, but it was dicier when there was a war on.

Thankfully, the Monroes enjoyed calm weather and no incidents of piracy on their voyage. James wrote to Madison, “the passage was free from storms We enjoyed our health. None were sick except…myself an hour or two. Mrs. Monroe and the child escaped it altogether.” If you remember the story about Abigail and Nabby Adams having to be tied to their chairs on the ship’s deck in order to avoid being tossed about during their crossing, you’ll appreciate how lucky the Monroes were.

Eliza Monroe was now 7 ½ years old. James read poetry to her during the crossing, and Elizabeth continued teaching her to sew, knit, and draw. James and Elizabeth were both already fluent in French, and they presumably practiced with Eliza along the way.

Harlow Giles Unger says the voyage took them 29 days, but Tim McGrath says they arrived into the port at Le Havre on July 31. If they left on June 18 and it took 29 days to cross, they would have arrived on July 17. So one of them must be wrong, but I don’t know which one. At any rate, it was July 1794 when they arrived, and the French Revolution was still eating its own. Maximilien Robespierre, architect of the extremely bloody Reign of Terror, had just been guillotined. James and Elizabeth were basically stepping off a ship and into hell.

As soon as they reached shore, stevedores confiscated their luggage and rifled through it. All the foodstuffs the Monroes had brought were also confiscated. If they had hoped to distribute the food themselves to the neediest French citizens, they were disappointed. The food was likely all eaten by starving dock workers. Pretty much everyone was starving in France in those days, which is why they had brought the food in the first place.

They spent the night in Le Havre and departed for Paris the next day by carriage. Their luggage was returned to them before they left. In his first letter to Secretary of State Randolph, James wrote, “The country from Havre to Paris, and Paris itself, appears to enjoy perfect tranquility. It is generally agreed that…Robespierre had become omnipotent. It was his spirit which dictated every movement, and particularly the unceasing operation of the guillotine. Nor did a more bloody and merciless tyrant ever wield the rod of power. His acts of cruelty and oppression are perhaps without parallel in the annals of history.”

The Monroes arrived in Paris a few days after leaving Le Havre and took rooms at the Hôtel Cusset. Gouverneur Morris was not on hand to greet them, but he showed up after a few days, escorted James to the Commissary of Foreign Affairs, announced his recall and introduced James as his replacement, and then left. He was less than helpful.

James presented his credentials and was dismissed with a curt, “I’ll send these to the Committee of Public Safety. You’ll hear from them in due time.” After not hearing anything for 10 days, James decided on an unusual course of action. He sent a letter directly to the National Convention, which was the nominal governing body of France, introducing himself and requesting to make a speech to the Convention “to make known my mission immediately to the Representatives of the people.”

This was not how diplomacy was typically handled, but it seems to have worked. The next day James went to the National Convention and made his speech, which was greeted with thunderous applause. One French delegate later wrote, “It was a moving scene…one of the most famous sessions of the National convention.” The president of the convention strained to give the much taller Monroe the bise, kisses on both cheeks, and then issued a decree that the American flag should be displayed in the convention hall next to the French flag, “as a sign of the union and eternal fraternity of the two people.”

Once it became clear that James, unlike Gouverneur Morris, was going to be a competent minister, American expats began inundating him with requests for help with various matters. James wrote, “My house was crowded with them, from the morning till the evening, each rendering an account of his claims. … I was forced to employ several secretaries, generally three, and to rent a separate house for them.”

A couple of weeks after his speech to the National Convention, James met with the Committee of Public Safety, which was the real governing body of France. He pressed America’s claims: an end to the embargo on American ships in the port of Bordeaux, payment for goods delivered to French colonial officials in the Caribbean, and an end to the seizure of American vessels at sea. The Committee promised to address the concerns and sent him on his way.

In the meantime, Morris had finally vacated the official embassy residence, so the Monroes were able to move in. It was in Faubourg Saint-Germain, across the Seine from the Louvre. It was near several other embassies, which afforded the Monroes easy access to socializing. Eliza was enrolled at a nearby boarding school run by Madame Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, a former lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. At this school, Eliza would become best friends with another student, Hortense de Beauharnais, who was the daughter of Josephine de Beauharnais from her first marriage. Josephine was not yet the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, but she was his mistress.

James hired a series of tutors for his cousin Joseph Jones, Jr., but he was so unruly that they all quit. James eventually forced him into a boarding school near Eliza’s school. James visited Eliza when he could, but he sent letters via Elizabeth when he couldn’t get away. They contained the usual fatherly advice to take her studies seriously, encouraging her to make “such progress in all things, as merit the perfect approbation of Madame Campan. … Don’t forget among all your useful acquirements the comparatively trivial one of playing and singing several airs on the harp. I will get you one in Paris. That is an accomplishment that will be really useful to you.”

By the end of 1794, the French government had agreed to all of James’s diplomatic demands. He wrote to Secretary Randolph, “I have the pleasure to inform you that…a decree has passed the Convention whereby it is resolved to carry into strict execution the treaty of amity and commerce between the United States and this Republic…and open wide the door of commerce to every American citizen. So that, at present, any person bringing productions into the ports of this Republic, may sell them to whom he pleases. …

I had reason to believe…that we had now the best prospect of the most perfect and permanent harmony between the two Republics, I am very sorry…this prospect has been somewhat clouded by accounts from England that Mr. Jay had…concluded a treaty of commerce with that government: Some of those accounts state that he had also concluded a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive. As I knew the baneful effects which those reports would produce, I deemed it my duty…to use my utmost to discredit them.”

The Monroes also began to be invited to official state receptions. Within a short time of their arrival, Elizabeth was known as La Belle Américaine, the beautiful American woman. She was poised and elegant, and her beautiful gowns complemented her personal beauty. 

I’ve mentioned in passing a couple of times that once Monroe became president, Elizabeth was unfavorably compared to her predecessor, Dolley Madison. We’ll learn more about why that is later this season, but an undertaking she made while in Paris shows that Elizabeth was just as brave as Dolley, and instead of saving a portrait, she saved a human being.

As I said last week, the Marquis de Lafayette was caught up in the government upheavals taking place throughout the French Revolution. One minute you could be a hero, and the next minute you were an enemy of the state. Lafayette himself was languishing in an Austrian prison, but his wife, Adrienne, had been imprisoned in Paris and sentenced to death. Her mother, sister, and grandmother had already been guillotined, just a few days before Robespierre was executed and the Monroes arrived in France.

Adrienne had been languishing in prison for more than 10 months when she wrote a letter to the new American minister in France. The Marquis de Lafayette was as much a hero to Americans as he was to the French. He and Monroe had fought together during the war, and James considered Lafayette a friend. It was difficult for him to receive this letter from his friend’s wife.

“I have learned that a minister of the United States has recently arrived in France, and I believe that upon his arrival was invested with such powers of a people in whose interest I have rights so dear to my heart. All the misfortunes I have not yet suffered I no longer dread. … I have begun to hope that my heart’s wish will be fulfilled, my irons broken, and that I will be reunited with my children. It is now ten months since they were taken from me. They had even at the hour of their birth, a second country, and they must hope for her protection. It is easy to believe that deliverance is at hand, and it is through him I hope to attain my rights.”

Clearly she hoped that James could do something to get her out of prison. Her reference to her children having a second country refers to the high regard Lafayette was held in over in America. They weren’t actually American citizens, but they were something like honorary citizens, thanks to Lafayette’s actions during the American Revolution.

But James was in a tricky bind. Because Madame de Lafayette was not legally an American citizen, as American minister, he had no leverage to request her release. If he had tried to press the French government, it could have turned into an international incident.

But Elizabeth Monroe was not an official representative of the United States government, and she decided that she could do something to aid the Marquise. Her solution was to pay a visit to Madame de Lafayette in Plessis prison. They loaded their carriage with baskets of food and wine, and Elizabeth put on an elegant gown of dark velvet with an ermine fur scarf. 

The Plessis prison was a former college that had been converted into a prison when the number of state prisoners outstripped the guillotine’s ability to behead them all quickly. The regular prisons were full, so Robespierre converted the massive building into a makeshift prison. Carriages were not a common sight on the small streets surrounding Plessis, so as Elizabeth made her way toward the prison, the people took notice. When her carriage actually stopped at the prison, a crowd quickly gathered.

In his autobiography, James recorded the events as he remembers Elizabeth recounting them to him.

“As soon as she entered the street, the public attention was drawn to it, and at the prison gate the crowd gathered round it. Inquiry was made, whose carriage is it? The answer given was, that of the American Minister. Who is in it? His wife. What brought her here? To see Madame Lafayette. The concierge, or prison keeper, brought her to the iron railing in which the gate was fixed. A short time before, her mother and grandmother had been taken from the same prison and beheaded, and she expected from the first summons to her to experience the same fate. On hearing that the wife of the American Minister had called…she became frantic, and in that state they met. The scene was most affecting. The sensibility of all the beholders was deeply excited. The report of the interview spread through Paris and had the happiest effect…and the liberation of Madame Lafayette soon followed.”

It didn’t happen instantaneously, or even as quickly as James implied in his recounting of it. Elizabeth’s first visit to the prison put the French government on notice that the Americans were paying attention to how this woman was treated. The death sentence was lifted. She was soon moved to a different converted prison, and then to a third prison near Notre Dame cathedral. James met with the Committee of Public Safety regarding Madame de Lafayette’s situation, and Elizabeth continued to visit her. Finally, in January 1795, the Marquise was released from prison, and it was all thanks to Elizabeth Monroe.

Prior to her visit to the prison, Elizabeth had never met Adrienne de Lafayette. She hadn’t even met the Marquis de Lafayette. She had no personal connection to their family, she only knew that Lafayette was an important friend to her husband, and that it was important to try to save his wife. Paris was on a hair-trigger the entirety of the Revolution. Mobs could and did turn violent at the drop of a hat. As Elizabeth stepped out of her carriage surrounded by a crowd of strangers, she was almost certainly afraid for her life. But she soldiered on, and her bravery and willingness to face down the prison keeper saved Adrienne de Lafayette’s life.

Upon her release, Madame de Lafayette went straight to the Monroes’ home in Paris. They welcomed her graciously, and James gave her $1000 because she had literally nothing. Her children, who had been hidden by family servants to keep them from falling into the hands of the government, were returned to her. James worked on getting the entire family passports so they could leave France.

The Lafayettes’ son, named George Washington Lafayette, was put on a ship to America with his tutor. Madame de Lafayette sent with him a letter addressed to the president that began, “Sir, I send you my son. It is with deep and sincere confidence that I entrust this dear child to the protection of the United States…whose feelings towards the boy’s father I well know.”

Unfortunately, President Washington would deem it too politically sensitive to take in young George Washington Lafayette, and the boy would end up living with Alexander and Eliza Hamilton. Eliza Hamilton later recalled, “The President and Mrs. Washington would gladly have received [him] into their family, but state policy forbade it at that critical time.” In other words, the French were so touchy, that they were likely to view it as an international incident, at best, and an act of war, at worst, if President Washington had heeded the pleas of his old friend’s wife and taken in their son, who was named after him, for crying out loud.

We’ll leave it there for this week. Next week, we’ll deal with more diplomacy and drama as the Monroes continue their sojourn in France.

Thanks for listening to this episode. It was produced by me, and the music is by Matt Dull.