In April, Madison notified Mr. Gallatin of Dallas's probable retirement from the Treasury, and offered him the post if he cared to return to it. He was perfectly aware of his supreme fitness for the direction of the Treasury, and he declined with reluctance, because he was disturbed by the suspension of specie payments. Remembering Madison's weakness in 1812 on the subject of the renewal of the bank charter, which Gallatin considered necessary in the situation of the finances, he could hardly have felt a desire to return to the cabinet in that or indeed in any other capacity. He was perfectly conscious that as leader of the House of Representatives, as secretary of the treasury, and as negotiator of the Ghent treaty, he had brought into the triumvirate all its practical statesmanship. His short career abroad had opened to him a new source of intellectual pleasure. He had earned a right to some hours of ease. Diplomacy at that period, when communication was uncertain and difficult, was perforce less restricted than in these latter days, when ambassadors are little more than foreign clerks of the State Department without even the freedom of a chief of bureau. Gallatin felt entirely at home, and was happy in this peculiar sphere. There was no time in his life when he would not have gladly surrendered all political power for the enjoyment of intellectual ease, the pursuit of science, and the atmosphere of society of the higher order of culture in whatever field. And Paris was then, as it is still, the centre of intellectual and social civilization. Jefferson rejoiced in Gallatin's appointment to France, and rightly judged that he would be of great service there. Of Louis XVIII., however, Jefferson had a poor opinion. He thought him 'a fool and a bigot, but, bating a little duplicity, honest and meaning well.' Jefferson could give Gallatin no letters. He had 'no acquaintances left in France; some were guillotined, some fled, some died, some are exiled, and he knew of nobody left but Lafayette.' With Destutt de Tracy, an intimate friend of Lafayette, Jefferson was in correspondence. Indeed, he was engaged on the translation of Tracy's work on political economy, the best, in Jefferson's opinion, that had ever appeared.[21]