The Convention was signed at Morfontaine, the elegant country home of Joseph Bonaparte, and the occasion was turned into a festival,--illustrated afterwards by the engraving of Piranesi,--where nothing was wanting that hospitality could supply. The First Consul was there, with his associates in power; also Lafayette, rescued from his Austrian dungeon and restored to France; and there also were the plenipotentiaries of both sides, with American citizens then in France, all gathered in brilliant company to celebrate the establishment of concord between the two republics.[197] The First Consul proposed as a toast, “_To the manes of the French and the Americans who died on the field of battle for the independence of the New World_”; so that even at this generous festival, to grace a reconciliation founded on the postponement of claims and counter-claims, the youthful chief, whose star was beginning to fill the heavens, proclaimed the undying obligations of the United States to France. This strain has been adopted by M. Thiers, who, after referring to this convention as the first concluded by the Consular Government, says: “It was natural that the reconciliation of France with the different powers of the globe should begin with _that republic to which she had in a measure given birth_.” The great historian, while thus recording our obligations to France, shows how claims and counter-claims had been postponed. “The First Consul,” he says, “had allowed the difficulties relative to the Treaty of Alliance of the 6th of February, 1778, to be adjourned; but, on the other hand, he had required the adjournment of the claims of the Americans relative to captured vessels.”[198] In this summary the stipulations at the signature of the Convention are accurately stated. Though imperfect, it was the first in that procession of peace, embracing Lunéville, Amiens, and the Concordat, which for a moment closed the Temple of Janus, whose gates had been left open by the Revolution in France.