That was all he could say, and even so he had probably said too much, for it was a risky thing for a diplomat to write about or to discuss at all. Jefferson was certainly guilty of trespassing on a province that constituted an essential part of the internal politics of the kingdom. And yet the charge of plotting against the existing government cannot be laid at his door. As long as he remained in France, and I believe, even after he came back to America, he carefully refrained from giving any encouragement to those of his French friends who held radical views. He was caught in the torrent and, as we shall see later, did not always observe the reticence of an old-fashioned diplomat; but whatever influence he exerted was exerted in order to maintain rather than to overthrow the existing order of things. During his trip he observed the condition of the peasants and, much to his surprise, found among them a smaller degree of poverty than he had expected; but if he made observations and entered many minute facts in his diary, he did not come to any conclusion nor did he seem to have been interested by the state of mind of the people. He had judged them once for all, he knew that they were priest-ridden and lord-ridden and did not see how any real reform might originate from them. Once, however, but only once, did he indicate that he had paid serious attention to the work before the Assembly. Writing to Lafayette's aunt, Madame de Tessé, in the evident expectation that she would communicate his ideas to the proper persons, he drew up an almost complete plan of administrative reforms: To have frequent meetings of the Assembly of Notables; the Assembly to be divided into two houses--the Noblesse and the Commons; the Commons to be taken from those chosen by the people for provincial administrations; the number of deputies for the Nobility to be reduced. These two Houses so elected "would make the King great and the people happy." And the next sentence expresses very cleverly, too cleverly perhaps, that this innocuous reform would in fact be a sort of revolution, the name of which would be avoided. "They would thus put themselves in the track of the best guide they can follow (the king); they would soon overtake it, become its guide in turn, and lead to the wholesome modifications wanting in that model, and necessary to constitute a rational government." What he had in mind at the time was a sort of government following very closely the lines of the British, not as an ideal but as a temporary measure; for before the eyes of his friends he held another prospect. But for the present that was the maximum they could wisely expect; "should they attempt more than the established habits of the people are ripe for, they may lose all, and retard indefinitely the ultimate object of their aim."[195]