embody the best there was in the newly constituted Union. BOOK THREE _An American View of Europe_ CHAPTER I SOCIETY AND TRAVEL The _Ceres_ reached Portsmouth nineteen days after leaving Boston, a remarkably swift passage, without incident, except for three days spent in fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, while the ship was becalmed. Jefferson and his companions were delayed a week in Portsmouth by Martha's slight illness, and then went directly to Paris, where he arrived on August 6, 1784. Jefferson was to remain in France till the fall of 1789--five years crowded with pleasures, social duties, political duties, and hard work. His activities were so varied and his interests so diversified that it is no longer possible to follow any chronological order; we must establish arbitrary divisions, though Jefferson passed at all times from one subject to another and was incessantly busy with undertakings and plans truly encyclopedic. First of all, he had to find quarters. He had put up at the Hôtel d'Orléans, Rue des Petits Augustins, then he had rented "Hôtel Tête-Bout, cul-de-sac Tête-Bout", and a year later moved to a house belonging to M. le Comte de L'Avongeac "at the corner of the Grande Route des Champs Elysées and Rue Neuve de Berry", where he continued to live as long as he remained in Paris. His secretary Short and Colonel Humphreys, secretary to the legation, lived with him. It was "a very elegant house, even for Paris, with an extensive garden, court and outbuildings, in the handsomest style."