The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and PrivateJefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9): Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1865
Being called by our Government to assist in its domestic administration,
instead of paying my respects to you in person as I had hoped, I am
to write you a letter of adieu. Accept, I pray you, Madam, my grateful
acknowledgments for the manifold kindnesses by which you added so much
to the happiness of my stay in Paris. I have found here a philosophic
revolution, philosophically effected. Yours, though a little more
turbulent, has, I hope by this time, issued in success and peace.
Nobody prays for it more sincerely than I do, and nobody will do more to
cherish a union with a nation, dear to us through many ties, and now more
approximated by the change in its government.
I found our friend Doctor Franklin in his bed--cheerful and free from
pain, but still in his bed. He took a lively interest in the details I
gave him of your revolution. I observed his face often flushed in the
course of it. He is much emaciated. Monsieur de Crevecoeur is well, but
a little apprehensive that the spirit of reforming and economizing may
reach his office. A good man will suffer if it does. Permit me, Madame la
Comtesse, to place here my sincere respects to Monsieur le Comte Houdetot
and to Monsieur de St. Lambert. The philosophy of the latter will have
been greatly gratified to see a regeneration of the condition of man in
Europe so happily begun in his own country. Repeating to you, Madam, my
sense of your goodness to me, and my wishes to prove it on every occasion,
adding my sincere prayers that Heaven may bless you with many years of
life and health, I pray you to accept here the homage of those sentiments
of respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be, Madame la
Comtesse, your most obedient, and most humble servant.
TO MADAME LA DUCHESSE D'AUVILLE.
New York, April 2, 1790.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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