Calvert of Strathore by Carter Goodloe

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CALVERT OF STRATHORE

BY CARTER GOODLOE

1903

CONTENTS

I. The Legation at Paris
II. The France Of 1789
III. "The Lass with the Delicate Air"
IV. At the Palais Royal
V. The Private Secretary
VI. Mr. Calvert Meets Old and New Friends
VII. An Afternoon on the Ice
VIII. The Americans are Made Welcome in Paris
IX. In which Mr. Calvert's Good Intentions Miscarry
X. At Versailles
XI. Mr. Calvert Attends the King's Levee
XII. The Fourth and the Fourteenth of July
XIII. Monsieur de Lafayette Brings Friends to a Dinner at the Legation
XIV. Mr. Calvert Rides Down into Touraine
XV. Christmas Eve
XVI. Mr. Calvert Tries to Forget
XVII. Mr. Calvert Meets an Old Enemy
XVIII. Mr. Calvert Fights a Duel
XIX. In which an Unlooked-for Event Takes Place
XX. Mr. Calvert Sees a Short Campaign under Lafayette
XXI. Mr. Calvert Quits the Army and Engages in a Hazardous Enterprise
XXII. Mr. Calvert Starts on a Journey
XXIII. Within the Palace
XXIV. The Tenth of August

CALVERT OF STRATHMORE

CHAPTER I

THE LEGATION AT PARIS

There seemed to be some unusual commotion, a suppressed excitement,
about the new and stately American Legation at Paris on the morning of
the 3d of February in the year of grace (but not for France--her days
and years of grace were over!) 1789. The handsome mansion at the corner
of the Grande Route des Champs Elysees and the rue Neuve de Berry, which
had lately belonged to Monsieur le Comte de l'Avongeac and in which Mr.
Jefferson had installed himself as accredited minister to France after
the return of Dr. Franklin to America, presented an appearance different
from its usual quiet.

Across the courtyard, covered with snow fallen during the might, which
glittered and sparkled in the brilliant wintry sunshine, grooms and
stable-boys hurried between ecuries and remises, currying Mr.
Jefferson's horses and sponging off Mr. Jefferson's handsome carriage,
with which he had provided himself on setting up his establishment as
minister of the infant federation of States to the court of the
sixteenth Louis. At the porter's lodge that functionary frequently left
his little room, with its brazier of glowing coals, and walked up and
down beneath the porte-cochere, flapping his arms vigorously in the
biting wintry air, and glancing between the bars of the great outer gate
up and down the road as if on the lookout for some person or persons. In
the hotel itself, servants moved quickly and quietly about, setting
everything in the most perfect order.

At one of the windows which gave upon the extensive gardens, covered,
like all else, with the freshly fallen snow, Mr. Jefferson himself could
now and then be seen as he moved restlessly about the small, octagonal
room, lined with books and littered with papers, in which he conducted
most of his official business. A letter, just finished, lay upon his
desk. 'Twas to his daughter in her convent of Panthemont, and full of
that good advice which no one ever knew how to give better than he. The
letter being folded and despatched by a servant, Mr. Jefferson was at
liberty to indulge his restless mood. This he did, walking up and down
with his hands clasped behind his back, as was his fashion; but, in
spite of the impatience of his manner, a smile, as of some secret
contentment or happy anticipation, played about his lips. At frequent
intervals he would station himself at one of the windows which commanded
the entrance of the hotel, and, looking anxiously out at the wintry
scene, would consult the splendid new watch just made for him, at great
cost, by Monsieur l'Epine.

It was on the stroke of twelve by Monsieur l'Epine's watch when Mr.
Jefferson, gazing out of the window for the twentieth time that morning
of February 3d, saw a large travelling berline turn in at the big grille
and draw up under the porte-cochere in front of the porter's lodge. In
an instant he was out of the room, down the great stairway, and at the
entrance of the rez-de-chaussee, just as the postilion, dismounting,
opened the door of the carriage from which emerged a large, handsome man
of about thirty-five or six, who moved with surprising agility
considering the fact that he boasted but one good leg, the other member
being merely a wooden stump. He was followed by a younger man, who
sprang out and waited respectfully, but eagerly, until Mr. Jefferson had
welcomed his companion.

"Mr. Morris!--my dear sir! welcome to Paris! welcome to this little spot
of America!" said Mr. Jefferson, shaking the older man cordially by the
hand again and again and drawing him toward the open door. And then
passing quickly out upon the step to where the young man still stood
looking on at this greeting, Mr. Jefferson laid a hand affectionately on
his shoulder and looked into the young eyes.

"My dear boy, my dear Calvert!" he exclaimed with emotion, "I cannot
tell you how welcome you are, nor how I thank you for obeying my request
to come to me!"

"The kindest command I could have received, sir," replied the young man,
much moved by Mr. Jefferson's affectionate words and manner.

Turning, and linking an arm in that of each of his guests, Mr.
Jefferson led them into the house, followed by the servants carrying
their travelling things.

"Ah! we will bring back Virginia days in the midst of this turbulent,
mad Paris. 'Tis a wild, bad place I have brought you to, Ned," he said,
turning to the young gentleman, "but it must all end in good--surely,
surely." Mr. Jefferson's happy mood seemed suddenly to cloud over, and
he spoke absently and almost as if reassuring himself. "But come," he
added, brightening up, "I will not talk of such things before we are
fairly in the house! Welcome again, Mr. Morris! Welcome, Mr.
Secretary!"--he turned to Calvert--"It seems strange, but most
delightful, to have you here." Talking in such fashion, he hurried them
up the great stairway as fast as Mr. Morris's wooden leg would permit,
and into his private study.

"Ha! a fire!" said Mr. Morris, sinking down luxuriously in a chair
before the blazing logs. "I had almost forgot what the sight of one was
like, and I was beginning to wish that this"--he looked down and tapped
his sound leg, laughing a little whimsically, "were wood, too. I would
have suffered less with the cold!"

"I am sure you must have had a bitter journey from Havre," rejoined Mr.
Jefferson. "'Tis the coldest winter France has known for eighty
years--the hardest, cruellest winter the poor of this great city, of
this great country, can remember. Would to God it were over and the
spring here!"

"I should imagine that it had not been any too pleasant even for the
rich," said Mr. Morris, shivering slightly. But Mr. Jefferson paid no
attention to the sufferings of the rich suggested by Mr. Morris, and
only stirred the blazing logs uneasily.

"At any rate it serves to make our welcome here seem the warmer, sir,"
said Calvert, from where he stood divesting himself of his many-caped
top-coat.

"Ah! that is spoken like you, Ned! But stand forth, sir! Let me see if
you are changed, if four years at the College of Princeton have made
another fellow of my old Calvert of Strathore." He went over to the
young man and drew him into the middle of the room, where the cold,
brilliant sunshine struck full on the fine young face. There was no
shadow or line upon it.

"You are much grown," said Mr. Jefferson, thoughtfully, "much taller,
but 'tis the same slender, athletic figure, and the eyes and brow and
mouth are not changed, thank God!"

"Is there no improvement, sir? Can you note no change for the better?"
said Calvert, laughing, and attempting to cover his embarrassment, at
the close scrutiny he was undergoing. "But I fear not. I fear my college
life has left as little impress on my mind as on my body. I shall never
be a scholar like you, sir," he added, with a sigh.

"And yet, in spite of your disinclination to study, you have gone
through college, and most creditably. Dr. Witherspoon himself has
written me of your career. Does that say nothing in your favor?"

"To be sure it does," broke in Mr. Morris, laughing. "There is no merit
in being a scholar like Mr. Jefferson here, who was born a student. He
couldn't have helped being a scholar if he had tried. But for you, Mr.
Calvert, who dislike study, to have made yourself stick to the college
curriculum for four years, I consider a great and meritorious
achievement!"

"I agree with you entirely, Mr. Morris," said Mr. Jefferson, joining in
the laugh, "and as for that, Ned has done more than merely stick to the
curriculum of the college. Dr. Witherspoon, in writing me of his
progress, was pleased to say many complimentary things of several
excursions into verse which he has made. He especially commended his
lines on 'A View of Princeton College,' written something after the
manner of Mr. Gray's 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.'"

"What!" said Mr. Morris, "an ode on 'A View of Princeton College'! My
dear Mr. Calvert, couldn't a young man of your years find a more
inspiring theme than a college building to write upon? Instead of an
_alma mater_, you should have chosen some _filia pulchra_ to make verses
to," and he gave Mr. Jefferson a quizzical look.

"I agree with you again, Mr. Morris," said that gentleman, laughing
heartily, "and I think that you and I would have made no such mistake at
Ned's age," and he sighed a little as he thought of the gay pleasures of
his own youth, the dances and walks and talks with "Belinda," and his
poetic effusions to her and many another.

"Nor even at our own," objected Mr. Morris. "I assure you I feel myself
quite capable of composing verses to fair ones yet, Mr. Jefferson." And
indeed he was, and rhymed his way gayly to the heart of many a lady in
the days to come.

As for Calvert, he only smiled at the light banter at his expense,
scarcely understanding it, indeed, for as yet he carried a singularly
untouched heart about in his healthy young body.

Mr. Morris arose: "I must be going," he said. "I have sent my things on
to the Hotel de Richelieu--" but Mr. Jefferson pressed him back into his
seat.

"You are my guest for the day," he declared, interrupting him, "and must
take your first breakfast with Ned and myself here at the Legation. I
will send you around to the rue de Richelieu in my carriage later on. I
have a thousand questions to ask you. I must have all the news from
America--how fares General Washington, and my friend, James Madison, and
pretty Miss Molly Crenshawe?--there's a lovely woman for you, Ned, in
the bud, 'tis true, but likely to blossom into a perfect rose. There is
but one beauty in all Paris to compare with her, I think. And that is
the sister of your old friend d'Azay. And what does Patrick Henry and
Pendleton these days? I hear that Hamilton holds strange views about the
finances and has spoken of them freely in Congress. What are they? My
letters give me no details as yet." And more and more questions during
the abundant breakfast which had been spread for them in the
morning-room adjoining Mr. Jefferson's library. Now it was a broadside
of inquiries aimed at Mr. Gouverneur Morris concerning the newly
adopted Constitution which he had helped fashion for the infant union of
States and the chances of electing General Washington as first president
of that union; now it was question after question regarding Dr.
Franklin's reception in America on his return from France and release
from his arduous duties and the vexatious persecutions to which he had
been subjected by his former colleagues--the most outrageous and
unprovoked that ever man suffered--and there were endless inquiries
about personal, friends, about the currency in America, and about the
feeling of security and tranquillity of the States.

The breakfast, generous as it was, was over long before Mr. Jefferson
had tired of his questioning, and they were still sitting around the
table talking when a visitor was announced. It was Monsieur le Vicomte
de Beaufort, Lafayette's young kinsman and officer in the American war,
who came in directly, bowing to Mr. Morris, whom he had known well in
America, and embracing Calvert with a friendly fervor that almost five
years of separation had not diminished. He had known of his coming
through Mr. Jefferson, and, happening to pass the hotel, had stopped to
inquire at the porter's lodge whether the travellers had arrived.

"'Tis a thousand pities d'Azay is not here to welcome you, too, my dear
Calvert," he said, regretfully, "but he will be back to-morrow with his
aunt, the old Duchess, and his sister. He is gone down to Azay-le-Roi,
his chateau near Tours, to fetch them. But come! I am all impatience to
show you a little of my Paris. We won't wait for d'Azay's return to
begin, and I am sure Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris will excuse you for a
few hours. Is it not so, gentlemen?" He looked around at the two older
men. "Calvert has shown me Virginia. I long to return the compliment and
show him this little piece of France!"

"But first," objected Mr. Jefferson, "I should like to show him the
Embassy. Come, gentlemen, we will make a rapid tour of the apartments
before you set out on your larger explorations." And, leading the way,
he began to point out the public and private apartments, the state
dining-room, with its handsome service of silver plate, the view of the
large gardens from the windows, the reception-hall, the doorways, the
great staircase ornamented with sculptured salamanders, for Monsieur de
l'Avongeac's ancestors had built the house during the reign of Francois
I. and had adorned it everywhere with the King's insignia. 'Twas a very
magnificent hotel, for Mr. Jefferson had been unwilling to jeopardize
the fortunes of the new republic by installing its legation in mean
quarters, and it was eminently well arranged for the entertainment of
the brilliant society that gathered so frequently by his invitation.

When they had made the tour of the establishment and had reached the
head of the great stairway again, Mr. Jefferson dismissed the two young
men with a final injunction to return soon, as he had much to talk over
with Calvert. As the clanging door shut upon them, the two older men
turned and went into Mr. Jefferson's study.

"I have to thank you, Mr. Jefferson," said Mr. Morris, seating himself
once more before the crackling fire, "for a most pleasant acquaintance.
I will confess now that when you wrote me suggesting that your new
secretary should make the journey to France with me, I was scarcely
pleased. 'Tis a long trip to make in the company of one who may not be
wholly congenial. But from the moment Mr. Calvert presented himself to
me in Philadelphia, on the eve of our sailing, until now, I can truly
say I have enjoyed every instant of his companionship. I had heard
something of him--much, indeed--from General Washington and Mr.
Hamilton, but I was wholly unprepared to find so sincere, so intelligent
a young gentleman. There is a strength, a fine reserve about him which
appeals greatly to me."

"I thank you," said Mr. Jefferson, gratefully. "I love him as though he
were my son, and any praise of him is dear to me. Do you wonder that I
want him near me? Besides, 'tis imperative that I have a private
secretary. Mr. Short, our secretary of Legation, who is now in Italy
travelling for his health, like myself, is overworked; there are a
thousand affairs to be attended to each day, and so little method in our
arrangements as yet; our instructions and remittances from Congress are
so irregular, our duties so confounded with mere courtesies, that we
make but little progress. Besides which the state of affairs in this
country renders all diplomatic and business relations very slow and
uncertain--I might say hazardous--" He stopped and looked thoughtfully
into the fire.

"I am sorry to hear that," said Mr. Morris, quickly. "I came over on
business myself. And on business not only for myself, but on behalf of
Mr. Robert Morris and of Constable & Co., of New York City. As you
probably know, we have made large shipments of tobacco, contracted for
by several farmers-general, but such has been the delay in delivery and
payment after reaching this country that we deemed it absolutely
necessary to have someone over here to attend to the matter. At Havre I
found affairs irregular and prices low and fluctuating. I was hoping the
markets would be steadier and quieter in Paris."

"I am afraid you will not find it so," replied Mr. Jefferson, shaking
his head. "I am persuaded that this country is on the eve of some great
change--some great upheaval. I see it in the faces of those I meet in
the salons of the rich and noble; I see it in the faces of the common
people in the streets--above all, I see it in the faces of the people in
the streets."

Again he stopped and looked thoughtfully into the blazing fire. Mr.
Morris's keen eyes fastened themselves on the finely chiselled face
opposite him, aglow with a prophetic light. "I would be obliged," he
said at length, "if you would give me some detailed account of the state
of this government and country. I should like to know just where I
stand. At the distance of three thousand miles, and with slow and
irregular packets as the only means of communication, we in America
have but an imperfect and tardy conception of what is going on in this
country." He poured out a small glass of cognac from a decanter which
stood on a table at his elbow, and, settling himself comfortably in his
chair, prepared to listen.

It was a long story that Mr. Jefferson had to tell him--a story with
many minute details touching the delicate relations between France and
America, with many explanations of the events which had just taken place
in Paris and the provinces, with many forecastings of events shortly to
take place in the kingdom of Louis XVI. Perhaps it was in the
forecasting of those events so soon to take place, of those acts of the
multitude, as yet undreamed of by the very doers of them, that Mr.
Jefferson most deeply impressed his listener. For there was no attribute
of Mr. Jefferson's mind so keen, so unerring, so forceful as that
peculiar power of divining the drift of the masses. It was this power
which later made him so greatly feared and greatly respected in his own
land. Forewarned and forearmed, he had but to range himself at the head
of multitudes, whose will he knew almost before they were aware of it
themselves, or else to stand aside, and, unscathed, let it pass him by
in all its turbulence and strength. But though he could foresee the
trend of events, his judgment was not infallible as to their values and
consequences. Even as he spoke of the disquieting progress of affairs,
even as he predicted the yet more serious turn they were to take, his
countenance expressed a boundless, if somewhat vaguely defined, belief
and happiness in the future.

The glow of enthusiasm was not at all reflected in the keen, attentive
face of the younger man opposite him, whose look of growing disquietude
betrayed the fact that he did not share Mr. Jefferson's hopes or
sympathies. Indeed, it was inevitable that these two men of genius
should hold dissimilar views about the struggle which the one had so
clearly divined was to come and of which the other so clearly
comprehended the consequences. It was inevitable that the man who had
the sublime audacity to proclaim unfettered liberty and equality to a
new world should differ radically from the man whose supreme achievement
had been the fashioning and welding of its laws. They talked together
until the wintry sun suddenly suffered an eclipse behind the mountains
of gray clouds which had been threatening to fall upon it all the
afternoon, and only the light from the crackling logs remained to show
the bright enthusiasm of Mr. Jefferson's noble face and the sombre
shadow upon Mr. Morris's disturbed one.

CHAPTER II

THE FRANCE OF 1789

France was sick. A great change and fever had fallen upon her, and there
was no physician near skilled enough to cure her. Now and then one of
her sons would look upon the pale, wasted features and note the rapidly
throbbing pulse, the wild ravings of the disordered brain, and,
frightened and despondent, would hurry away to consult with his brothers
what should be done. But never to any good. Medicines were tried which
had been potent with others in like sickness, but they seemed only to
increase her delirium or lessen her vitality--never to bring her
strength and reason. Day by day she grew worse. 'Twas as if some quick
poison were working in her veins, until at last the poor body was one
mass of swollen disfigurements, of putrid sores, that only a miracle
from Heaven could heal. As miracles could not be looked for, everyone
who had any skill in such desperate cases was called, and a thousand
different opinions were given, a thousand different cures tried. And
when all was seen to have been in vain, her tortured children, in their
despair, left her and turned upon the false physicians, putting them to
death and with ferocious joy avenging her agonies. And in the quiet
which thus fell upon her, when all had left her to die, the fever and
pain vanished; from her opened veins the poisoned blood dropped away; to
the blinded eyes sight returned; in the distracted brain reason once
more held sway. Slowly and faintly she arose and went about her
business.

It was of that fast-sickening France, of that blighted land of France,
that Mr. Jefferson spoke so earnestly in the gathering darkness of that
winter's day in the year 1789. The storm which had just swept over the
American colonies had passed, leaving wrecks strewn from shore to shore,
'tis true, but a land fairer and greater than ever, a people tried by
adversity and made strong. The tempest, which had been so gallantly
withstood by our ably manned ship of state, had blown across the
Atlantic and was beating upon the unprotected shores of France. The
storm was gathering fast in that most famous year of 1789--the _alpha_
and _omega_ of French history, the ending of all things old, the
beginning of all things new, for France. Two years before the bewildered
Assemblee des Notables had met and had been dismissed to spread their
agitation and disaffection throughout all France by the still more
bewildered Lomenie de Brienne, who was trying his hand at the impossible
finances of France after the fall of that magnificent spendthrift,
Monsieur Colonne. He, in turn, had been swept from his office and
replaced by the pompous and incompetent Necker. Lafayette, the _deus ex
machina_ of the times, had asked for his States-General, and now in this
never-sufficiently-to-be-remembered year of 1789 they were to be
convoked.

All France was disquieted by the elections--nay, more, agitated and
agitating. Men who had never thought before were thinking now, and, as
was inevitable to such unused intellects, were thinking badly. For the
first time the common people were permitted to think. For the first time
they were allowed, even urged, to look into their wretched hearts and
tell their lord and king what grievances they found there. What wonder
that when the ashes were raked from the long-smouldering fires of envy,
of injustice, of oppression, of extortion, of misrule of every
conceivable sort, they sprang into fierce flame? What wonder that when
the bonds of silence were loosed from their miserable mouths, such a
wild clamor went up to Heaven as made the king tremble upon his throne
and his ministers shake with fear? Who could tell at what moment this
unlooked-for, unprecedented clemency might be withdrawn and silence once
more be sealed upon them? What wonder, then, that they made the most of
their opportunity? What wonder that, suddenly finding themselves strong,
who had been weak, they _did_ make the most of it?

The world seemed topsy-turvy. Strange ideas and theories were being
written and talked about. Physical science had been revolutionized.
People suddenly discovered that what they had held all their lives to be
facts were entire misconceptions of the truth. And, if they had been so
mistaken about the facts of physical science, might they not be equally
mistaken about theology, about law, about politics? Everywhere was
doubt and questioning. Revolution was in the air. It was the fashion,
and the young French officers returned from the War of Independence in
the American colonies found themselves alike the heroes of the common
people and of the fashionable world.

True to its nature, the nobility played with revolution as it had played
with everything from the beginning of time. It played with reform, with
suggestions to abandon its privileges, its titles, with the freedom of
the newly born press, with the prerogatives of the crown, with the tiers
etat, with life, liberty, and happiness. It was a dangerous game, and in
the danger lay its fascination. Society felt its foundations shake, and
the more insecure it felt itself to be the more feverish seemed its
desire to enjoy life to the dregs, to seize upon that fleet-footed
Pleasure who ever kept ahead of her pursuers. There was a constant
succession of balls, dramatic fetes, dinner-parties, of official
entertainments by the members of the diplomatic corps in this volcanic
year of 1789. The ministers of Louis's court, being at their wits' end
to know what was to be done to allay the disturbances, were of the mind
that they could and would, at least, enjoy themselves. The King having
always been at his wits' end was not conscious of being in any unusual
or dangerous position. As short-sighted mentally as he was physically,
he saw in the popular excitement of the times nothing to dread.
Conscious of his own good intentions toward his people, he saw nothing
in their ever-increasing demands but evidences of a spirit of progress
which he was the first to applaud. Unmindful of the fact that "the most
dangerous moment for a bad government is the moment when it meddles with
reform," he yielded everything. The nobles, noting with bitterness his
concessions to the tiers etat, told themselves that the King had
abandoned them; the common people, suspicious and bewildered, told
themselves that their King was but deceiving them. The King, informed of
the hostile attitude of the nobility and the ingratitude of the masses,
vacillated between his own generous impulses and the despotic demands of
the court party. By the King's weakness, more than by all else, were
loosened the foundations of that throne of France, already tottering
under its long-accumulated weight of injustice, of mad extravagance, of
dissoluteness, of bloody crime.

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