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CONTENTS
{ October 1788 - March 1789 }A Acher, Jean-Baptiste, letter from, 297; letter to, 338 Adams, John, letters from, 410, 599; letters to, 332, 442; letter to, from Stephen Higginson, 599 Agents, American, in France, circular letter to, 457 Alexander, L., letter to, 457 (note) American agents in France, circular letter to, 457 Amoureux, M., letters from, 520, 648 Anterroches, Madame d', letters from, 588, 684; letter to, 627 Armand, Charles C. See La Rouerie Ast, William Frederick, letter from, [339]; letter to, 279 Audibert, Dominique, letters from, 354, 507; letter to, 279; observations by, on use of American potash in manufacture of soap, 508 Authentication of writings, Jefferson's refusal to undertake, 389 B Baldwin, Abraham, letter from, [285] Bancroft, Edward, letters from, 578, 629; letters to, 492, 602, 605, 657, 692 Barrett, Nathaniel, letters from [411], 618 Barziza, letter from, 428 Barziza, Lucy Paradise, letters from, 298, 611; letter to, 384 Baux, Jean & David, letter from, 352; letter to, 397 Beaurepaire, Quesnay de. See Quesnay Bellefonds, Affidavit for, 489 Bert, Claudius de, letter from, 398; letter to, 464 Bethune-Charost, letters from, 371, 510, 700; letter to, 459 Blackden, Samuel, letter from, 462 Bondfield, John, letters from, 336, 444, 549, 585; letters to, 45, 353, 457 (note), 621 Books, list of, ordered from Van Damme, 491 Boyd, Ker & Co., letter from, 11 Brac de la Perriere, letter from, 390 Brahm, letter from, 627 Brailsford & Morris, letter from, 632 Brehan, Madame de, letter from, 399; letters to, 552, 655 Brionne, Madame de, letter from, 580 Brossier, James I., letter from, 532; letter to, 537 C Cain, Alexander, letter from, 668 Carmichael, James, letter from, 285 Carmichael, William, letters from, 46, 353, 498, 642; letters to, 385, 615, 700 Carnes, Burrill, letters from, [31], 483, 528, 532, 588; letters to, 457 (note), 553 Carriage, invoice of John Kemp to Jefferson for, 469 Cathalan, Stephen, Jr., letters from, 183, 409, 635; letters to, 285, 457 (note), 462 (2), 532, 595 Chardon, letter from, 442 Chauvier, Pere, letter from, 401; letter to, 395 Chazal, Marc, letter from, 406 Chiappe, Giuseppe, letter from, 577 Chiappe, Joseph, letter from [545] Church, Angelica Schuyler, letters from, 210, 515; letter to, 553 Church, Catharine, letter from, 44; letter to, 28 Claiborne, Richard, letters from, 359, 402 Clerici, Gaudenzio, letter from, 475 Commissioners of the United States Treasury, letter from, 581; letters to, 593, 656 Condorcet, Jefferson's Notes on Slavery from, 494 Consular Convention of 1788, notes and documents concerning, 66-180: Editorial note, 66; Moustier's observations on delay of, 92; Oster's "Articles a Examiner," 100; French projet based on Convention of 1784, 113; observations on foregoing, 118; Jefferson to Montmorin, 121; observations by Rayneval on Jefferson's letter, 126; "First Form Proposed on the Part of the United States," 127; Ray- neval's observations on Jefferson's projet, 137; La Luzerne's observations on Jefferson's projet, 140; "Motifs des Articles du Projet," 143; "First Counterproposition on the Part of France," 150; Jefferson to Rayneval, 158; Jefferson's observations on the contre-projet, 159; "Second Form Proposed on the Part of the United States," 163; the official French text as signed, 164; the official English text as ratified, 171 Corny, Madame de, letter to, 37 Cosway, Maria, letters from, 372, 525; letter to, 445 Cowley, Hannah Parkhouse, letter from, 510 Crevecoeur, St. John de, letters from, 28, 273, 414 Currie, James, letter to, 365 Cutting, John Brown, letters from, 12, 393; letter to, 47 D D'Aranda, letter to, 700 Debt, foreign, proposals for funding, 190-209: Editorial note, 190; [Jacob van Staphorst's?] plan, 197; Jefferson's plan, 201 Declaration of Rights, proposed, drawn by Lafayette and by Dr. Richard Gem, 438 Delaire, Thomas, letters from, 410, 643; letter to, 490 Dessin, Pierre, letter to, 511 D'Estaing, letter to, 649 Diodati, letter to, 475 Donald, Alexander, letters from, 280, 457; letter to, 185 Dugnani, letters from, 11, 211, 326 Dumas, C. W. F., letters from, 6, 32, 347, 484, 613, 693; letters to, 48, 622 Dupre, Augustin, letter from [418]; letters to, 413, 545, 554, 588 Dussaut, letter from, 458; letter to, 459 Duvivier, Pierre Simon, letters from, [417], [588] E Elie Lefebvre Freres, letter from, 589 Eppes, Elizabeth Wayles, letter to, 355 Eppes, Francis, letter to, 357 F Fabbroni, Giovanni, letter from, 701 Fanning, James, letter from, 586; letter to, 533 Fernand-Nugues, letter from, 371; letter to, 372 Fraissmet & Cie., letter from, [509] Franklin, Benjamin, letter from, 36 French ministry, report to, on whale fishery, 256. See Whale fishery. Frin, J. F. & Cie., letter from, 551; letter to, 555 G Geismar, letter to, 582 Gem, Richard, proposed Declaration of Rights drawn by, 438 Gerna, Anthony, letter from, 187 Gilmer, George, letter to, 360 Gordon, William, letter from, 345; letter to, 674 Gouvion, Jean Baptiste de, letter from, 675; letter to, 680 Grand & Cie., letter from, 283 Grand, Ferdinand, letter to, 7 Grouber de Groubentall, letter from, 50; letter to, 274 Guerard & Portas, letter to, 457 (note) H Hall, Edward, Jr., letters from, 10, 31, 424 Hare, Charlotte, letters from, 407, 584 Havre, letter from, 446 Higginson, Stephen, letter from, to John Adams, 599 Hopkinson, Francis, letters from, 32, 324, 345; letters to, 369, 649 Humphreys, David, letter from, 300; letter to, 676 J Jay, John, letters from, 287, 290, 359, 628; letters to, 56, 211, 304, 429, 447, 478, 520, 603, 644, 658; letter to, from Robert Mont- gomery, 288 Jefferson, Martha, letter to, from De La Borde de Mereville, 478 Jefferson, Randolph, letter to, 433 Jefferson, Thomas, observations by, on contre-projet for Consular Convention, 159; plan for funding foreign debt, 201; memoranda concerning American, British and French fisheries, 226; Observations on the Whale Fishery, 242; state of the case of Schweighauser & Dobree, 315; refusal to authenticate writings, 389; circular letter to agents in France, 457; invoice for carriage, 469; translation of part of Condorcet's Reflexions sur l'esclavage, 494; report to, by Audibert on use of American potash in manufacture of soap, 508; notes on macaroni, 544. See Consular Convention; Debt, foreign; Whale fishery. Jones, John Paul, letters from, 506, 515; letter to, 686 Jones, William, letter from, 411; letter to, 346 K Kemp, John, invoice of, to Jefferson for carriage, 469 Knox, Henry, letters from, 346, 427 L Lackington, James, letter from, [670]; letter to, 647 Ladevese, letter from, 576; letter to, 636 Lafayette, letters to, 269, 703; proposed Declaration of Rights drawn by, 438; letter to Necker from, 225; inquiries of, on whale fishery, 234. See whale fishery. Lafayette, Madame de, letter from, 703 La Lande, letter to, 475 La Luzerne, letter from, 465; letters to, 270, 485; observations by, on Jefferson's projet, 140 Lambert, letter from, 292; letters to, 270, 292 Metherie, Jean Claude de La, letters from, 327, 552 Lamy, D., letter from, 388 Lanchon Freres & Cie., letter to, 283 Langat, Mademoiselle Thomas de, letter from, 479; letter to, 510 Langeac, letter from, 8; letters to, 8, 556 (2) La Rouerie, Marquis de (Col. Charles Armand), letter from, 390 Le Couteulx & Cie., letter from, 368 Ledyard, John, letter from, 180 Lee, Henry, letter from, 619 Lefevre, letter from, [441] Le Roy, Madame, letter from, 407 Lewis, Charles Lilburne, letter to, 427 Lewis, Francis, letter from, 325 Lewis, Nicholas, letter to, 362 Limozin, Andre, letters from, 52, 54, 182, 183, 314, 338, 368, 390, 465, 595; letters to, 53, 327, 349, 457 (note), 623 Littlepage, Lewis, letter from, 544 Luttrell, Edward, letter from, 434; letter to, 476 M Macaroni, Jefferson's notes on, 544 Macarty, R., letter from, 679 MacCarthy Brothers, letter from, 670; letter to, 690 Madison, James, letters from, 3, 16, 339, 352; letters to, 187, 436, 659 Madison, the Rev. James, letter from, 533 Malesherbes, letter from, 647; letter to, 636 Mareil, Guichard de, letter from, 576; letter to, 589 Mason, John, letters from, 36, 369; letter to, 284 Maupin, letter from, 477 Megatherium, description of, 504 Mereville, De La Borde de, letter from, to Martha Jefferson, 478 Meunier, letter from, 364; letter to, 523 Monroe, James, letter from, 557 Montgomery, Robert, letter from, to John Jay, 288 Montmorin, letters to, 34, 55, 121, 271, 307. See Consular Convention. Morgan, pere et fils, letter from, 425; letter to, 460 Moustier, letters from, 22, 293, 399; letter to, 652; observations on delay of Consular Convention by United States, 92. See Consular Convention. N Necker, Jacques, letter from, 435; letter to, 271, 486; letter from Lafayette to, 225. See Whale fishery. Necker, Madame, letter from, 480; letter to, 487 Nesbitt, Jonathan, letter from, 577; letters to, 527, 637 O O'Bryen, Richard, letter from, [459] Observations on the Whale-Fishery, by Jefferson, 242. See Whale fishery. Oster, Martin, "Articles a Examiner" for Consular Convention, 100. See Consular Convention. P Packet boats, proposal by Daniel Parker concerning, 307 Paine, Thomas, letters from, 363, 453, 561; letters to, 372, 671 Paradise, John, letter from, 9; letter to, 277 Paradise, Lucy Ludwell, letters from, 9, 52, 413, 455, 466, 512, 516, 594; letters to, 418, 461, 694 Parent, letters from, 570, 679; letters to, 480, 638 Parker, Daniel, letter from, 324; letter to, 347; proposal by, concerning packet boats, 307 Payne, Thomas, letter to, 511 Perrault, letter from, 426 Playfair, William, letter from, 654 Potash, American, observations by Audibert on use of, in manufacture of soap, 508 Pouget, letter from, 441 Price, Richard, letter from, 38; letter to, 420 Q Quesnay, Beaurepaire de, letters from, 606, 624; letter to, 617 R Ragondez, Jacques, letter from, 407 Ramsay, David, letter from, 5 Ramsay, John, letter from, 278; letter to, 427 Rayneval, observations by, on Jefferson's letter on Consular Convention, 126; on Jefferson's projet, 137; letter to, 158. See Consular Convention. Reflexions sur l'esclavage, Jefferson's translation of part of, by Condorcet, 494 Renaud, letter from, 621 Rights, Declaration of, drawn by Lafayette and Dr. Richard Gem, 438 Rittenhouse, David, letter from, 51 Rose, Duncan, letter from, 592 Rotch, Francis, answers to Lafayette's inquiries on whale fishery, 234. See Whale fishery. Ruellan & Cie., letter from, 654. Rumare, Gregoire de, letter from, 343; letter to, 345 Russell-Greaves, Thomas, letters from, 350, 413; letters to, 464, 595 Rutledge, John, Jr., letters from, 404, 538, 613; letters to, 481, 701 Rutledge, John, Sr., letters from, 278, [577] S Sasserno, Andre, letter from, 401 Sauvage, letter from, 37; letter to, 284 Schweighauser & Dobree, Jefferson's State of the Case of, 315 Shippen, Thomas Lee, letters from, 295, 472, 517, 663; letters to, 417, 638 Short, William, letters from, 10, 25, 41, 272, 310, 377, 405, 448, 538, 571, 590, 607, 704; letters to, 275, 343, 481, 529, 596, 667, 694 Skipwith, Fulwar, letters from, 11, 337, 517; letters to, 354, 605 Slavery, Jefferson's notes from Condorcet on, 494 Smith, Williams Stephens, letter from, 559 Soap, manufacture of, observations by Audibert on use of American potash in, 508 Soules, Francois, letter from, 684; letter to, 691 Stephen, Hannah, letter from, [409] Stewart, Dugald, letter from, [648] Swan, James, letter to, 691 T Talbot, Silas, letter from, 275 Tesse, Madame de, letter from, 629 Thiery fils aine, letter from, 705; letter to, 706 Treasury, U.S. Commissioners of the. See Commissioners of the Treasury Trumbull, John, letters from, 9, 25, 50, 209, 364, 468, 514, 524, 634, 640; letters to, 44, 52, 293, 440, 467, 523, 561, 663, 668 U United States, foreign debt of, proposals for funding, 190; agents in France, circular letter to, 457; Consular Convention with France, documents on, 66-180. See Debt, foreign; American agents, Consular Convention, Whale fishery, Commissioners of the Treasury. V Van Damme, letters from, 40, 474, 706; letter to, 490 Vanet, letters from, 5, 40 Van Staphorst, Nicolas, letter from, 5; letter to, 614. See also Willink & Van Staphorst; Debt, foreign. Van Staphorst, Nicolas & Jacob, letter from, 648. See also Willink & Van Staphorst. Vaughan, Benjamin, letters from, 351, 673, 707; letter to, 640 Vernes, Jacob, letter from, 391; letter to, 457 (note) Vernon, letter from, 409 Villedeuil, letter from, 584; letters to, 536, 575 Virieu, letter from, 453 W Walter, Gerard, letter from, [409] Washington, George, letters from, 295, 546; letters to, 328, 336 Whale fishery, documents concerning, 217-268: Editorial note, 217; letter from Lafayette to Necker on, 225; Jefferson's memoranda concerning American, British, and French fisheries, 226; Lafayette's inquiries of Francis Rotch concerning, 234; Jefferson's Observations on the Whale-Fishery, 242; report to the Ministry on, 256; arret concerning whale oil, 268 Whale oil, arret concerning, 268. See Whale fishery. Willard, Joseph, letter to, 697 Willink & Van Staphorst, letters from, 12, 56, 570, 609, 681; letters to, 49, 586, 641, 702. See also Van Staphorst, Nicolas & Jacob Wurtz, letter from, 478; letter to, 485 DRAWING OF THE MEGATHERIUM SENT TO JEFFERSON FROM MADRID, 1789 40 This and the following illustrations of the fossilized skele- ton of a glyptodon-"un quadrupedo muy corpulento y raro"-that was discovered in the valley of the Lujan near Buenos Aires in the late 1780's provide an additional bit of evidence that Spain was not, as sometimes supposed, an island altogether untouched by the tides of the Enlighten- ment. They also indicate the manner in which naturalists ap- proached skeletal remains in the infancy of paleontology, and they reveal something of the state of scientific com- munication at the end of the eighteenth century. Jefferson could scarcely have known at the time what an important drawing and description of a skeleton he held in his hand when he opened Carmichael's letter of 26 Jan. 1789. Neither the drawing nor the description (see p. 504-5) has ever been reproduced heretofore, and if Jeffer- son had not been enjoined to secrecy on the ground that a publication was being prepared in Spain, scientists might have been spared some difficulty. Even thirty-five years later the father of vertebrate paleontology, Georges Cuvier, could only estimate measurements from engravings be- cause no published description of the skeleton contained such precise information as was made available to Jefferson in 1789. When Cuvier first presented such calculated measurements he was able to say that, of all animal fossils of great size, this was the most recently discovered, the rarest, and yet the first to have its osteology fully known because of the relative completeness of the skeleton and also because the greatest pains had been taken immediately to have the bones mounted (Cuvier, Recherche sur les ossemens fossiles, ou l'on retablit les caracteres de plusieurs animaux dont les revolutions du globe ont detruit les especes, Paris, 1823, v, p. 174). The articulation and mounting of the skeleton was done by Juan Bautista Bru, prosector of the Gabinete de Historia Natural that had been founded by Charles III in 1771 (now the Museo de Ciencias Naturales). Bru made drawings of the entire skeleton and the separate parts, and these drawings were engraved for the publication that Carmichael mentioned early in 1789 as being then in preparation under the auspices of the "Academy of Natural history," by which he must have meant the Gabinete de Historia Natural. It is possible that Bru drew the sketch and wrote the description that Carmichael sent to Jefferson, but the differences between the ink and wash drawing and the engraving later pub- lished from Bru's known sketch, the discrepancies in the descriptions, the error in the number of teeth, and the nature of the "Observations" suggest that the person who furnished Carmichael with "the inclosed Sketch and notes" was more likely one of Bru's anatomical students. The drawing bears the following notations (in the same hand as that employed in the description printed in this volume as an enclosure of Carmichael's letter of 26 Jan. 1789): "and do not add the feet for the were very ill aranged, and the bones which compose them were very improperly placed. The molar teeth are six in every jaw 3 at every side. The are curvated and of square forme, with a triangular chanel on the superior surface. Their longit. six inches more or less: and near 2 square inch in bigness." It is evident from this that the skeleton was in an incom- plete state of articulation when Carmichael's friend gave him the drawing and description. The teeth actually num- bered sixteen molars, but at the time the drawing was made the anterior teeth in each jaw evidently had not been put in place. Hence the author of the sketch accounted for only twelve. The drawing is on a sheet of Spanish paper bearing the watermark "JOSEPH CONILLERA" and measuring 19.4 by 30 cm.; a crease in the middle shows that it was folded to the size of the two sheets of paper containing the descrip- tion and measurements (8 pages, measuring 14.6 by 20 cm., of which p. [4] and [8] are blank); these two sheets bear a cardinal's-hat watermark. It is curious that Jefferson made no specific reference to this skeleton when, on 8 May 1789, he thanked Car- michael for the "interesting papers" sent to him. In view of his sometimes extravagant efforts to rebut the theory of Buffon and others that the American climate had a degen- erative effect upon animal life, it is even more remarkable that he did not remember this drawing when, less than a decade later, there came to him a few large bones of an unknown animal that had been found in a limestone cave in western Virginia. These bones included three claws but no teeth. Nevertheless, Jefferson wrote at once to the presi- dent of the American Philosophical Society, David Ritten- house, saying that these were the "bones of an animal of the family of the lion, tyger, panther &c. but as preeminent over the lion in size as the Mammoth is over the elephant" (TJ to Rittenhouse, 3 July 1796). Here indeed was an opportunity for a massive rebuttal of Buffon, piled on top of all other proofs that Jefferson had gathered so assiduously -too assiduously, John Adams thought, for a proposition that hardly needed refuting-and so he began at once to prepare an account of this unknown animal for publication in the American Philosophical Society's Transactions. If, in his enthusiasm for rebutting Buffon, Jefferson had remembered the drawing and descriptive sketch that Car- michael had sent him only a few years earlier, he might have been spared the necessity for altering his words to Rittenhouse. That necessity became apparent soon after he arrived in Philadelphia early in March 1797, bringing with him the memoir on the animal that, for convenience, he had designated as "the Great-claw, or Megalonyx." For there he saw Cuvier's account of the megatherium and, with it, the following engraving. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.) ENGRAVING OF THE MEGATHERIUM FROM THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE, 1796 40 This engraving, which appeared in the September 1796 issue of the Monthly Magazine, was accompanied by a con- densed translation of Cuvier's Memoire sur un squelette fossile trouve sur les bords du Rio de la Plata that had appeared in Paris earlier that year. During the week that he took office as Vice-president of the United States, Jeffer- son read this "Notice concerning the Skeleton of a very large Species of Quadruped, hitherto unknown, found at Paraguay, and deposited in the Cabinet of Natural History at Madrid" (Monthly Magazine, and British Register for 1796, II, 637-8). Perhaps at this time he procured a copy (Sowerby, No. 682). If the evocative words in the caption caused him to think of his drawing and description of the same skeleton, he gave no evidence of the fact: that manu- script, in any case, was at Monticello and Jefferson was much more interested at the moment in Cuvier's classifica- tion of the Paraguayan animal as it affected his own ac- count of the Virginia bones. The skeleton called meg- atherium by Cuvier was clearly similar in some respects to the bones of the animal called megalonyx by Jefferson. Cuvier had declared the former to be different from all known animals, but he had had no difficulty in placing it at once among the "unguiculated quadrupeds destitute of cutting teeth." On reading this, Jefferson added a post- script to his memoir on the megalonyx, explaining that he had seen Cuvier's description of the megatherium after completing his own paper. The clear implication was that he had made no alterations in the body of the memoir, which he said had been "ready to be delivered in to the Society" when he came across the Monthly Magazine. In the postscript Jefferson asserted, with good reason, that he thought the engraved "figure ... not so done as to be relied on, and the account ... only an abstract" of Cuvier's original publication. Yet he saw at once the similarities between the megatherium and the megalonyx, and agreed perhaps reluctantly that the former was "probably ... not carnivorous." But the fact is that Cuvier's accurate classification of the Paraguayan skeleton did cause Jefferson to make some changes in the body of his manuscript. As written, the opening sentence stated: "In a letter of July 3. I informed our late most worthy President that some bones of a very large animal of the family of the lion, tyger, panther &c. had been recently discovered within this state," &c. As to the relevant words "the lion, tyger, panther &c." this was a direct quotation from Jefferson's letter to Rittenhouse. Yet Cuvier's description caused the new president of the Ameri- can Philosophical Society now to abandon this positive identification and to retreat into the safer generalization: "a very large animal of the clawed-kind." Here and else- where Jefferson made appropriate changes in the manu- script wherever he had categorically placed the megalonyx among the felidae. This scientific caution was also evident in Dr. Caspar Wistar's account (with plates) of the bones of the megalonyx, published in the same volume of the Society's Transactions (IV, 526-31). Wistar raised the question whether the megalonyx and the megatherium were similar, but concluded that, "for want of a good plate, or a full description we are unable at present to decide upon that subject." But, poor as the plate in the Monthly Magazine was, the classification that Cuvier made so un- equivocally stood the test of-time. In the face of it, Jeffer- son feared that his own equally unequivocal identification of the megalonyx would not survive. The timely encounter with the Monthly Magazine saved him from complete scientific error. It should be noted, however, that a contrary view is ex- pressed by G. G. Simpson in "The Beginnings of Verte- brate Paleontology in North America," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, LXXXVI (Sep. 1942), p. 157, wherein he states that Jefferson, in his only at- tempt at personal identification of a fossil, made inaccurate observations, used faulty methods, and arrived at the erroneous conclusion that "the bones were those of a great cat, some three times the size of a lion." He further states: After finishing the paper, and quite possibly on consulting with [Caspar] Wistar although this is not recorded, Jeffer- son saw a figure of Megatherium and recognized the possibility of relationships or identity between that animal and the megalonyx, but he unfortunately read his memoir as written and permitted it to be published in the original form two years later. ... Wistar was successful where Jefferson had failed." Here, unfortunately, Professor Simp- son was led into error by Jefferson's own words in the post- script to his paper dated 10 Mch. 1797. He seems to have drawn from these words the natural inference that Jeffer- son had not revised the body of the paper and, in conse- quence, to have interpreted the remaining passages about the lion, the comparative measurements, and the conjec- tural remarks and questions as constituting a positive identification, whereas Jefferson had in fact done his best to remove all traces of categorical classification from his paper as written-even from the words quoted from the letter to Rittenhouse. Further, it should be noted that when Wistar presented his description two years later, he had the advantage of having seen accounts of the megatherium by Garriga as well as by Cuvier. Even so, on the question of the relationship of the two animals, Jefferson in 1797 (in the postscript) and Wistar in 1799 sounded a similar note of caution. It should be said, however, that in his appraisal of the work of these men, Simpson is funda- mentally correct in showing that Jefferson's contributions to vertebrate paleontology lay in his support of it with a broad, encompassing view rather than in his own scientific achievement in this area, that the traditional overemphasis even among paleontologists on Jefferson's contributions as a scientist needed a balancing corrective, and that it "is ironic that the traditions of later vertebrate paleontology should have transferred to Jefferson much of the credit that Jefferson, himself, rightly granted to Wistar" (same, p. 151-3). Yet it is quite possible that the caution ex- hibited by Wistar, which Simpson found "altogether excep- tional in that day," may have echoed that in Jefferson's postscript rather than his own scientific views. For Wistar must have been impressed by Cuvier's unhesitating identi- fication of the megatherium and by Garriga's more com- plete description of the bones, both of which were available to him in 1799. The plate showing the skeleton was, as Wistar said in justification for avoiding a positive conclu- sion, a poor one. But in 1796 Cuvier had had less to go on than was accessible in Philadelphia in 1799. Although Juan Bautista Bru had projected a publication of his description of the Paraguayan skeleton some years earlier, Cuvier's Memoire sur un squelette fossile was the first account of it to be put in print. This priority, like Jefferson's receipt of the drawing and sketch from Car- michael, reflected the haphazard means of scientific com- munication of the time. It also suggested the fact that nationalistic aspirations of the day affected scientific work. For, while Cuvier's general classification was accurate, he had depended upon such inexact data and such an im- perfect drawing that he was later obliged to apologize for his sources and to pay tribute to the Spaniard whose work had in fact preceded his own. If Jefferson's sense of national pride was needlessly offended by the theory of Buffon, European scientists were not immune to the in- fluence of nationalism: the recently-founded Institut de France was the instrument through which Cuvier, one of its first members, came to make premature publication of a discovery that rightfully belonged to Spanish scientists, a fact which the latter-similarly affected by national pride -were not slow to assert. In the 1823 edition of his Recherche sur les ossemens fossiles, v, 174-91, Cuvier handsomely complimented Bru upon the useful example he had set for Peale, Adams, and others, gave an account of the skeleton's history, and presented measurements that he calculated on the basis of engravings. In doing this he ex- plained that the Citizen Roume, a French West Indian official who had passed through Madrid early in 1795, had procured proofs of engravings made from Bru's drawings, had sent them to the Institut without any description save a short notice of his own, and had thus provided the sole evidence on which, in April 1795, Cuvier had made a de- tailed report to the Institut. A short extract of this report was printed "dans le Magasin encyclopedique, avec une mauvaise copie de la figure. du squelette entier" (same, p. 175). It was this publication, he added, that had served as the foundation for all that had been written on this skeleton, both by those who had adopted his opinion as well as by those who had opposed it. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.) ENGRAVING FROM JUAN BAUTISTA BRU'S DRAWING, 1796 41 "On my arrival in Philadelphia [in May]," Jefferson wrote to John Stuart on 15 Aug. 1797, "I met with an account published in Spain of the skeleton of an enormous animal from Paraguay, of the clawed kind, but not of the lion class at all." The book that he saw in Philadelphia was Jose Garriga's Descripcion del esqueletto de un quadrupedo muy corpulento y raro que se conserva en el real gabinete de l'historia natural de Madrid, Madrid, 1796, a handsome folio volume with excellent plates of the articulated skele- ton and of the various parts, engraved from the drawings made some years earlier by Juan Bautista Bru. There were probably two copies of this work in Philadelphia in 1797, one owned by Dr. Benjamin S. Barton and the other by John Vaughan, both friends of Jefferson. Barton's copy was acquired with other books from his library by the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1829 (communication from Edwin Wolf, 2d, to the Editors, 31 Jan. 1958), and Vaughan's copy was presented to the American Philosophi- cal Society in 1818; the former has evidently disappeared, and the present illustration is taken from the latter (through the generous cooperation of Mrs. Gertrude D. Hess, Assistant Librarian). It is not certain which of these friends lent a copy to Jefferson. In his prologue Garriga made it quite clear that he had been inspired by Cuvier's publication in Paris to publish Bru's plates and descriptions of the skeleton. He felt that it was his duty not only to see that justice was done to Bru, but also to show that the Spanish nation had naturalists who had not been negligent in describing in the greatest detail the first and most perfect of the three skeletons of the megatherium that had been found in the kingdom (two others had been discovered, one in Lima in 1795 and the other in Paraguay, both imperfect). A friend had lent him a copy of Cuvier's report on the skeleton, and he had set out to translate it for publication in Spain. Cuvier's reference to engravings in Madrid led Garriga to Bru. He found that Bru not only had the plates but also possessed a description that he had written of the skeleton and had tried to publish some years earlier-a statement confirmed by Carmichael's letter to Jefferson. Garriga compared these with Cuvier's description, found the latter defective, and conceived the idea of publishing both. Bru, after some hesitation, sold his plates to Garriga, and thus both descrip- tions were included in the work, Garriga announced, in order that the public could better discern the mistakes in the notice issued by a foreigner before a more exact ac- count could be published in Spain, despite its prior avail- ability there. Aiming another barb at Cuvier, he, too, as- sumed the mantle of scientific caution. this extraordinary animal could not be classified with certainty, owing in part to the fact that the two recently-discovered fossils had not been promptly and carefully described. In the meantime, until further work of this sort could be done, Garriga hoped that Bru's description would present to naturalists the best information available to that time (Garriga, De- scripcion del esqueletto, prologue). The words, for differ- ent reasons, echoed those of Jefferson and Wistar in America. But when Jefferson encountered Garriga's work in Phila- delphia two or three months after he had seen Cuvier's account in the Monthly Magazine, he accepted the latter's classification of the megatherium, thought some facts in- dicated that the megalonyx was the same animal, and yet exhibited a reluctance to give up his first opinion: "There are [other facts] which still induce us to class him with the lion," he wrote John Stuart on 15 Aug. 1797. By 1803 he had come to the opinion that the megatherium and the megalonyx were "probably the same animal" (TJ to Lacepede, 24 Feb. 1803). Garriga's work was the subject of a scathing review in the Journal de Madrid by-so Cuvier designated him-"un anonyme espagnol," who also attacked Cuvier's classifica- tion of the skeleton (Recherche sur les ossemens fossiles [Paris, 1823], v, 176). Perhaps the reviewer was Spanish, but there is little doubt that nationalist feelings affected the progress of knowledge about the megatherium. Yet Jefferson and Cuvier, who never corresponded, had the highest esteem for each other. When Cuvier's Lecons d'anatomie comparee appeared in 1800, Jefferson thought that "nothing like it as to extent of plan or accuracy of performance has ever yet appeared in the world" (TJ to the Rev. James Madison, 9 May 1801). And in the 1823 edition of Recherche sur les ossemeris fossiles, Cuvier, in commenting upon the megalonyx, wrote: "M. Jefferson ...dont les vertus et les talens ont fait le bonheur du peuple qu'il gouvernoit et l'admiration de tous les amis de l'humanite, et qui joint a ces qualites superieures un amour eclaire et une connoissance etendue des sciences auxquelles il a procure de notable accroissemens, est le premier qui ait fait connoitre cette interessante espece d'animal fossile" (v, 160). If the test of scientific genius is the ability to reason to correct conclusions from inadequate data, young Cuvier established his claim on receiving Roume's proofs from engravings of drawings by Bru. Jefferson, who might also have been the first to describe the skeleton from Paraguay, proved that his genius lay not in scientific per- formance but in his attitude toward science. THE MEGATHERIUM IN THE MUSEO DE CIENCIAS NATURALES, MADRID, AS MOUNTED BY BRU 41 This photograph, made in 1958 through the courtesy of the officials of the Museum and with the cooperation of Mrs. Dudley R. Hutcherson, shows the skeleton as origin- ally mounted. The legend beside the skeleton compounds several errors. It states, correctly, that the fossil bones of this great mammal were found in some excavations near Buenos Aires and were sent to Spain by the Marquis of Loreto, vice-roy of Paraguay, but declares that this oc- curred in September 1789. This erroneous date goes back at least as far as Garriga's assertion in Descripcion del esqueletto in 1796 that the Marquis of Loreto had dis- patched the bones in seven boxes and that they had arrived in Madrid on 29 Sep. 1789. Carmichael's letter to Jefferson enclosing the drawing of the partially-articu- lated skeleton is dated 26 Jan. 1789, and was received by Jefferson in April. Clearly, therefore, the date on the legend errs as to the year. But this is a useful error. It suggests, because Garriga was so specific about the day and the month, that the true date of arrival in Madrid may have been 29 Sep. 1788. If this is so, it confirms the statements of Cuvier and Garriga that the mounting of the skeleton took place immediately on its arrival in Spain, and leads to the supposition that the drawing sent Jefferson represents a state of the articulation of the skeleton prior to the mak- ing of Bru's drawings. The legend errs also in stating that the skeleton was de- scribed by Garriga on its arrival in Madrid and was mounted by Bru in 1796. This, of course, conflicts with the principal purpose of Garriga's Descripcion del esque- letto, which was to show that Bru had mounted and de- scribed the skeleton promptly on arrival. Cuvier's place in the chronology of this sequence of reactions is also dis- located by the assertion on the legend that Cuvier had studied the fossil in 1836, which was forty years after he had first done so and four years after he had died. But these errors are of little moment and are more than offset by the care that the Museum officials have taken to preserve the integrity of Bru's work. The legend states that the specimen preserves in its general lines the original form of mounting given to it at the close of the eighteenth century, calls attention to the deficiencies which reflect the state of scientific knowledge of that era, and concludes with this justifiable appraisal (translated): "The present specimen and the total installation have been respected since the historical and archaeological value of this notable fossil from the pampas of the Argentine Re- public is much greater than its purely paleontological worth." Along with the deficiencies, the intricately-wrought iron supports and the carved wooden replacements for miss- ing members may still be observed in this achievement of the Spanish naturalist who labored so carefully and diligently in 1788-1789 and who sought without success to have his findings published. Garriga made some amends to Juan Bautista Bru in the name of national pride. Cuvier paid generous tribute to him. But Jefferson never knew to whom he was indebted for the earliest known drawing of the first fossil skeleton ever to be mounted by a scientist. From that drawing it is now possible to advance the date of Bru's achievement several years earlier than that fixed by scientists or even by the Museum that has had the wisdom to preserve his work in its original state. (Simp- son, "Beginnings of Vertebrate Paleontology in North America," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, LXXXVI [Sep. 1942], 158, fixes Bru's priority- as indeed Cuvier did in 1823-but dates it "in or about 1795.") It is astonishing that Jefferson never seems to have in- quired about, or even to have remembered, a drawing that touched upon one of his foremost interests in the realm of science. The manuscript does not bear even his customary endorsement, and therein may lie the key to the explana- tion for this unaccountable silence. Carmichael's letter arrived in Paris on 6 April 1789, at a time when Jefferson draw up the application to Congress. The draft was re- ported on 11 Nov. 1788 and was referred to the committee of the whole house where it was debated and reported in amended form three days later (JHD, Oct. 1788, 16, 17, 37, 42-4). There is evidently no copy of the first draft among the "rough bills" in the Virginia State Archives (John W. Dudley to the Editors, 27 Feb. 1958), and hence no way of telling whether Henry, Monroe, or some other member of the committee framed the document in its first form. But Monroe himself is authority for the state- ment that the "draft was revis'd and corrected by [Theo- dorick] Bland" (who had also been a member of the Vir- ginia ratifying convention and had voted against adoption), and that it was characterized by Bland's "usual fire and elegance" (Monroe to TJ, 15 Feb. 1789). The appeal to Congress here reproduced, rewritten by Bland, was Vir- ginia's response to the circular letter from New York. In addition, the legislature approved letters to Governor Clinton and to the various states. But the tide of nationalism swept over Patrick Henry and other defenders of state sovereignty. On 5 May 1789 it was Bland himself, member of Congress from Virginia, who introduced that state's formal application for the call- ing of another constitutional convention, the first ever to come before the national legislature. But James Madison, the day before, had given notice that, later in the month, he would bring on the subject of amendments to the con- stitution. This timely maneuver, together with Madison's astute leadership in securing Congressional approval of the amendments that ultimately came to be known as the Bill of Rights, averted the danger. Thus Madison, more than any other individual, is entitled to the honor of having frustrated the disruptive effort of Patrick Henry and his followers, first in the Virginia convention and later in Con- gress. Both were personal victories and both were of heroic magnitude, incalculable in the extent of their influence on the nation. It seems evident that Jefferson carefully avoided direct comment on the political position of Monroe, aligned at this time with Jefferson's old enemy. Earlier, when Monroe had sent him a copy of his Some Observations on the Con- stitution and had specifically asked for comment, Jefferson had made no reply. Nor did he respond to the opinions ad- vanced by Monroe as to the subject of Virginia's resolution calling for a second convention. But, whatever he may have thought of Monroe's early position of hostility to the Con- stitution and later attitude of neutralism, there can be no doubt that Jefferson agreed with Madison in thinking that such a convention would involve very dangerous risks (Monroe to TJ, 12 July 1788; Monroe to TJ, 15 Feb. PRICE-LIST OF VINEGARS, MUSTARDS, PRESERVED FRUITS, &C. 73 Gourlay, Tableau General du Commerce des Marchands, p. 591, lists Maille as one of the two manufacturers of vinegars in Paris, and states that such products were made there "de toutes qualites, qui sont tres-estimes, et dont il se fait beaucoup d'envois dans l'etranger." The supporting scroll of the price-list shows that it was engraved by Ber- nard in 1786. Jefferson may have obtained it about that time or later when he made a selection of vinegars to send to Francis Hopkinson (see TJ to Limozin, 12 Nov. 1788; Limozin to TJ, 12 Nov. 1788; Hopkinson to TJ, 23 Oct. 1788; the price-list is in DLC: TJ Papers, 236:42345). Maille's establishment was located in rue St. Andre-des- Arcs. There are also to be found in the Jefferson Papers several comparable price-lists and prospectuses belonging to this period. One is a 3-page printed price-list of the Buanderie de la Briche whose office was located at Hotel de Vicq, 169 rue St. Martin. This set forth prices for laundering household stuffs and clothes for men, women, children, and domestics; announced a reduction of price in some of the items; and gave assurance that "le Linge blanchi ... n'est ni battu ni brosse" and that "sa conservation et sa blancheur seront le merite de la methode qu'on a substitue a cet usage" (DLC: TJ Papers, 35: 5958-9; dated 1 Dec. 1787; endorsed by TJ: "Washing"). There is also another 3-page price-list of the same laundry, dated three months earlier, giving directions about sending, marking, and de- livering laundry and announcing a policy against accepting laundry from hospitals, physicians, and other sources that might be contaminating (DLC: TJ Papers, 33: 5591-2). About this time TJ must also have received a 2-page printed "Prospectus des avantages qu'offre au Public l'etablissement d'une Manufacture de Plombs coules, formee a Paris par le Sieur Leroux de Beaulieu, aux Champs-Elysees, et donc 1'Academie des Sciences a reconnu l'utilite." Leroux de Beaulieu offered sheet lead sufficient to cover a square toise (36 square feet) weigh- ing 144 pounds and costing 66 livres 12 sous: Jefferson noted the following comparative cost at the top of the prospectus: "In England, sheet lead, rolled or run, costs about a guinea the hundred weight i.e. 112 lb." (DLC: TJ Papers, 40: 6813, printed at Paris, 1788; endorsed by TJ: "Sheet lead"). (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.) THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THOMAS PAINE, 1788 328 In the fall of 1787 John Trumbull painted from life "the portrait of Mr. Jefferson in the original small Declaration of Independence" (Sizer, ed., Autobiography of Colonel Trumbull, p. 152; reproduced in enlarged form in Kim- ball, Jefferson, I, frontispiece). From this Trumbull made three replicas in miniature. Two of these were presented to Maria Cosway and Angelica Church (see Vol. 10: xxix, 466). The third, here reproduced, was painted for Martha Jefferson and was sent to Jefferson by the diligence late in 1788 in "a little case" packed in a box that con- tained saddles, harness, books, and paper. Short had sug- gested the idea of making this third replica because he thought it would be a "very clever gallant thing" to do and because the portrait of Jefferson by Mather Brown (see Vol. 1: frontispiece) was thought "by every body here to be an etude" (see note, Trumbull to TJ, 19 Dec. 1788). Trumbull acted upon this suggestion, and extended the gallant gesture by including in the case a second portrait. This second portrait, here reproduced, is identifiable only by the fact that, in his acknowledgment of 12 Jan. 1789, Jefferson thanked Trumbull for "the portrait of Mr. Paine," calling it a "perfect likeness." These companion portraits were brought to America in 1789. That of Jefferson re- mained in the family; it is now on loan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is reproduced by permission of the Estate of Mrs. Edmund Jefferson Burke, and through the courteous cooperation of Mr. David B. Little, Secretary. That of Paine-appropriately enough in view of the spec- tacular career of its pamphleteering, cosmopolitan original -had a far more remarkable history. In his undated, 11-page manuscript "Catalogue of Paint- ings &c. at Monticello" (MHi), Jefferson listed among the paintings and other objects in the lowest of three tiers in the parlor-between prints of Kosciuszko and Rumford and not far from the medals of Revolutionary officers that Jefferson had much to do with while in France-the follow- ing: "[No.] 59. Thomas Paine. An original on wood by Trumbul." After Jefferson's death, this portrait was sold in Boston with statuary and other paintings from Monti- cello (A Catalogue of the Second Exhibition in the Athenaeum Gallery Consisting of Specimens by American Artists, Boston, 1828, lot 316). From 1828 until recently this portrait of Paine was lost to view. When Theodore Sizer's The Works of Colonel John Trumbull, Artist of the American Revolution appeared in 1950, it was described as "unlocated," being recorded (p. 68) under "Unidentified Men." This reproduction was made from a miniature painted on a rectangular piece of mahogany that had been acquired in Concord, Massachusetts, about 1912 by Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood of Marlboro, Massachusetts. Thus, at the time that the exchange of letters between Jefferson and Trumbull in 1788-1789 was brought to Professor Sizer's attention, he had already identified the miniature as being Trumbull's work. This exchange provided him with the necessary clue to identification of the subject, but it was only a clue. He studied reproductions of every known portrait of Paine at the Frick Art Reference Li- brary, as well as "abundant prints, photographs of por- traits, Paine's death mask, and even caricatures," compar- ing these with the miniature owned by Mrs. Greenwood. This part of the task was greatly facilitated by the assist- ance of Colonel Richard Gimbel, Curator of Aeronautical Literature at the Yale University Library, a collector of Paine's works and an authority on his iconography. This effective collaboration between one who was expert on the artist and another who was expert on the supposed sub- ject resulted in a prompt, decisive, and indubitable identifi- cation. In Boston the two collaborators placed "the Jeffer- son family miniature alongside the still questionable Paine. They fitted like two peas in a pod. Both were painted on rectangular pieces of mahogany (unusual for Trumbull), which appeared to come from the same plank, though the Greenwood one was on a slightly smaller piece. The painted ovals, however, were identical in size, 4 7/8 by 3 3/4 inches. Even the character of the stains on the backs were the same for both. Stylistically, both were identical, the pigment and the manner of handling it coinciding exactly, except that the Jefferson had been cleaned and newly varnished and the other was dirty, dry, and mutilated. Both were painted in a more sketchy manner than Trumbull ordinarily employed, but then both were intended as pres- ents and were not to be incorporated in historical composi- tions (as were the sixty at Yale [e.g. see Vol. 12:66]). ... The crackling on the surface of both-unusually large -was the same. Both were examined under the ultra- violet light-from the front, back, and sides; similitude was conclusively demonstrated" (Theodore Sizer, "Tom Paine's Portrait," Yale University Library Gazette, xxx [April 1956], 139-42). Thus, after a century and a quarter in obscurity, the portrait of Paine has emerged into the light. Through purchase from Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood, the miniature has been restored to the walls of Monticello by The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, with whose per- mission it is here reproduced. However, prior to this transfer and before it was known what the ultimate dis- position of the miniature would be, Mrs. Greenwood had granted a similar permission, for which the Editors were and are grateful. Both miniatures are reproduced unframed and in exact size. From this it can be discerned that, in one particular, Professor Sizer's statements must be modi- fied: the ovals are not "identical in size, 4 7/8 by 3 3/4 inches." The Editors do not believe that this discrepancy affects the validity of the identification. The eyes of the Paine portrait appear to have been pricked with a pin-the mutilation re- ferred to by Professor Sizer. The portrait of Jefferson-more than its prototype or either of the two other replicas made from it-seems to suggest the features of an aristocratic young Englishman and recalls the fact that in 1786, while he was on a tour of gardens and country houses with John Adams, Jeffer- son was mistaken for an Englishman (Abigail Adams [Smith] to J. Q. Adams, 27 July 1786). By contrast, when the miniature of the English-born Paine first came to Professor Sizer's attention in 1947, it had already been taken to represent a prominent figure of the upper Hudson river gentry, Philip Schuyler. A FRUSTRATED EFFORT BY VIRGINIA TO CALL A SECOND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 329 "The new Government must Act with Caution and make itself felt, by its Beneficence," wrote John Adams to Arthur Lee on 18 July 1788, "or we shall have a new Con- vention for Amendments" (NjP: Roger W. Straus Collec- tion). This was only a few days after James Madison and his followers had won a heroic but perilously close victory for national unity in the Virginia ratifying conven- tion. It was plain to the victors there that the extremists among the anti-federalists had not given up the field. One of their objects, as Madison expressed it, was to elect to the new Congress members who would "commit suicide on their own authority" (Madison to Washington, 27 June 1788, quoted in Brant, Madison, II, 229). An element of this plan included Patrick Henry's use of the technique that came to be known as the Gerrymander; aided by this he unsuccessfully pitted Monroe against Madison. But as the results of the ensuing general elections became clear, the expedient of calling a second convention became the only alternative. An overt move in this direction had come in the form of a circular letter from the New York ratifying convention, and this met with welcome approval by Patrick Henry and his supporters in the Virginia legislature. This disturbed Madison greatly. "An early convention is in every view to be dreaded in the present temper of America," he wrote Jefferson on 23 Aug. 1788. Monroe, however, thought that another general reconsideration of the consti- tution "could in no event be productive of harm" (Monroe to TJ, 15 Feb. 1789). He was a member of the legislature that convened on 19 Oct. 1788 and took a prominent part in Virginia's effort to produce such a convention. Patrick Henry drafted the resolution for this purpose, and both he and Monroe were members of the committee appointed to draw up the application to Congress. The draft was re- ported on 11 Nov. 1788 and was referred to the committee of the whole house where it was debated and eported in amended form three days later (JHD, Oct. 1788, 16, 17, 37, 42-4). There is evidently no copy of the first draft among the "rough bills" in the Virginia State Archives (John W. Dudley to the Editors, 27 Feb. 1958), and hence no way of telling whether Henry, Monroe, or some other member of the committee framed the document in its first form. But Monroe himself is authority for the state- ment that the "draft was revis'd and corrected by [Theo- dorick] Bland" (who had also been a member of the Vir- ginia ratifying convention and had voted against adoption), and that it was characterized by Bland's "usual fire and elegance" (Monroe to TJ, 15 Feb. 1789). The appeal to Congress here reproduced, rewritten by Bland, was Vir- ginia's response to the circular letter from New York. In addition, the legislature approved letters to Governor Clinton and to the various states. But the tide of nationalism swept over Patrick Henry and other defenders of state sovereignty. On 5 May 1789 it was Bland himself, member of Congress from Virginia, who introduced that state's formal application for the call- ing of another constitutional convention, the first ever to come before the national legislature. But James Madison, the day before, had given notice that, later in the month, he would bring on the subject of amendments to the con- stitution. This timely maneuver, together with Madison's astute leadership in securing Congressional approval of the amendments that ultimately came to be known as the Bill of Rights, averted the danger. Thus Madison, more than any other individual, is entitled to the honor of having frustrated the disruptive effort of Patrick Henry and his followers, first in the Virginia convention and later in Con- gress. Both were personal victories and both were of heroic magnitude, incalculable in the extent of their influence on the nation. It seems evident that Jefferson carefully avoided direct comment on the political position of Monroe, aligned at this time with Jefferson's old enemy. Earlier, when Monroe had sent him a copy of his Some Observations on the Con- stitution and had specifically asked for comment, Jefferson had made no reply. Nor did he respond to the opinions ad- vanced by Monroe as to the subject of Virginia's resolution calling for a second convention. But, whatever he may have thought of Monroe's early position of hostility to the Con- stitution and later attitude of neutralism, there can be no doubt that Jefferson agreed with Madison in thinking that such a convention would involve very dangerous risks (Monroe to TJ, 12 July 1788; Monroe to TJ, 15 Feb. 1789; TJ to Madison, 18 Nov. 1788). (Courtesy of the Library of Congress.) ELEVATIONS OF THE CHAPEL AND BUILDINGS OF THE ABBEY OF PENTEMONT 360 The engraved plates reproduced on this page showing the convent and its chapel were drawn by F. Franque, col- laborator of the architect, and were engraved by Benard; they are from Oeuvres d'architecture de Pierre Contant d'lvry (Paris, 1769), and are in the Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale. These plates, which were for an initial plan and were not carried out in every detail, are apparently the only 18th century illustrations of the Abbey of Pentemont, aside from a small drawing of a detail of the chapel by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. Though earlier than the 1780's, they present the architectural appearance of the convent as Jefferson and his daughters knew it. The plans were drawn by the architect Pierre Contant d'Ivry (1698-1777), and work on the buildings was begun in 1747. The chapel was dedicated in 1753 by the Dauphin, and was completed in 1756. An ambitious building pro- gram, inaugurated by Madame Bethisy de Mezieres soon after she became head of the fashionable school in the year that Jefferson was born, neared completion only in 1790 when the abbey was dissolved. The chapel is still intact and since 1846 has been the Temple Reforme de Pente- mont; the convent buildings are now the Ministere des Anciens Combattants. For a note on the abbey and Madame de Bethisy, who seems to have been more noticed in con- temporary accounts for her administrative talents and for her skill in the realm of salons and ecclesiastical politics than for her piety, see note to Chastellux to Jefferson, 24 Aug. 1784. For an account of, and contemporaneous verifi- cation for, the family tradition that Martha's schooling in the convent led her seriously to contemplate becoming a nun, see note to Jefferson's letter to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, 15 Dec. 1788. The program of study at the convent, which began with rising at seven, included music, drawing, geography, history, arithmetic, dancing, instruction on the harp or harpsichord, and theatricals. The regime among the pupils was far from egalitarian. There were two rates, the higher one for those girls who ate at the Abbess' table, as Jeffer- son directed Martha to do when he was absent in the south of France in 1787 (TJ to Martha Jefferson, 28 Mch. 1787). Certain pupils even had their own servants and a governess, and ate apart from the others, as, for example, did Princess Marie d'Orleans (Francois Rousseau, "His- toire de l'Abbaye de Pentemont," Memoires de la Societe de l'Histoire de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France, XLV [1918], p. 171-227; Marquis de Segur, "L'Education des Jeunes Filles au XVIIIe siecle," in Esquisses et ricits, Paris, 1908, 139-203). No records of the period give so fresh or lively a view of life at Pentemont as the letters exchanged between Jefferson and Martha in 1787. See also Jefferson's letter to Mary Jefferson Bolling, 23 July 1787. Jefferson's friend Jean Armand Tronchin, minister from Geneva, was influenced by his example, and on 10 March 1788 wrote of Madame de Bethisy and her school: "L'Abbesse qui le gouverne est une femme du monde accoutumee diriger de jeunes Demoiselles Protestantes; elle en a souvent d'Angloises; la fille de M. de Jefferson y est actuelement, et je sais qu'on obtient aisement de ne point leur parler de Religion, ou plutot de ne les entretenir que des points qui ne sont pas sujets a controverse, et surement elle en sortira tout au moins aussi bonne Protestante qu'elle y sera entree" (Archives de Geneva, Switzerland). (Courtesy of the Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, through Howard C. Rice, Jr.) MINIATURE OF MARTHA JEFFERSON BY JOSEPH BOZE AND PHYSIOGNOTRACE PORTRAIT OF THOMAS JEFFERSON BY QUENEDEY AND CHRETIEN, 1789 361 This miniature, in the Hugh Campbell Wallace Collection that was presented to the American Embassy in Paris in 1930 by former Ambassador Hugh C. Wallace, shows Martha Jefferson at the age of seventeen. Her hair is reddish, her eyes blue, her dress cream-colored, and around her waist is a blue ribbon. The miniature is signed "J.B." and was executed by Joseph Boze ( 1744-1826 ). There is no evi- dence that Jefferson corresponded with Boze, and his Ac- count Books reveal no payments to him or indeed to any- one for a miniature made of Martha in 1789. It is possible that the portrait was presented by Martha as a farewell gift to some friend or teacher. On 22 April 1789, two days after Jefferson had paid his account there in full, he "gave Patsy for vales at Panthemont" the sum of 81 livres; this (which was on the same day that he attempted to have his own portrait profile taken by the physiognotrace method) was very probably for gratuities to servants or members of the staff of the school. Such a personage as the redoubtable Madame de Bethisy de Mezieres, mistress of the school, obviously could not be so recognized by Martha in saying her farewells, and the miniature may have been intended for her or someone of comparable station. The medallion bears on its reverse a paper insert which contains the following inscription in an unidentified (and probably later) hand: "Mlle Martha Jefferson fille de Monsieur Thomas Jefferson Ministre Americain a Paris MDCCLXXXIX." There is also in the Wallace Collection in the American Embassy a wood engraving after this miniature, bearing in its upper corner the following pen- cilled notation: "Journal des Modes 1809." This would seem to indicate that the engraving, possibly accompanied by a sketch that might tell something of the provenance of the miniature, appeared in some journal of fashion of that date. Such a one was Lamesengere's Journal des dames et des modes. This has been searched carefully, but no such engraving or sketch has been found. However, there seems no reason to doubt the attribution or the date. The physiognotrace, invented by Gilles Louis Chretien in 1786 and exploited commercially when he formed a part- nership with Edme Quenedey in 1788 and set up business in the rue des Bons Enfants (later, in 1789, in the rue Croix des Petits Champs), was a device for making a por- trait that was "a precursor of the photograph and a rival of the silhouette." It produced an exact tracing in outline of the life-sized profile of the sitter, the features, hair, and clothing being drawn in later by hand. From this portrait, by means of a pantograph, the likeness was transferred in reduced size directly to a small copperplate with graver and roulette, from which prints could be made in the usual manner. According to an early prospectus issued by Quen- edey and Chretien, the original portrait cost 12 livres, while the engraving and twelve prints cost 36 livres. The procedure involved the purchase of a ticket at the Palais Royal and the making of an engagement for the sitting; the 6 livres paid for the ticket was an advance payment on the total-unless the sitter failed to keep the appointment. At the studio the tracing was made and, after a lapse of some days, the sitter could procure there the portrait, the plate, and the prints. A drawing of the apparatus is in the Bibliotheque Nationale and is reproduced (Plate I) in Rene Hennequin's Edme Quenedey...portraitiste au physionotrace (Troyes, 1926-1927). As might have been expected of one interested in all new technological improvements and particularly in the me- chanical reproduction of paintings and printing (see TJ to Stiles, 1 Sep. 1786, and following documents), Jeffer- son was apparently the first American to have his physi- ognotrace portrait made. Thanks to his own Account Book, to Gouverneur Morris' diary, to Quenedey's record of ticket holders, and to the researches of Hennequin and Rice, the facts can be presented with exactness. On 22 April 1789, accompanied by Morris, Jefferson went to the Palais Royal to purchase tickets, but found that it was too late. He agreed to call again upon Morris "some Morn- ing" later, and the measure of his interest is suggested by the fact that he called the very next day. Only one ticket, number G-22, was available and Jefferson paid 6 livres for that. On the 29th he paid an additional 30 livres, thereby being entitled to receive the plate and twelve prints. Two of the prints are preserved in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliotheque Nationale. These are de- scribed by Hennequin in his Avant les photographies: les portraits au physionotrace graves de 1788 a 1830 (Troyes, 1932), a biographical, critical, and illustrated catalogue of portraits made by this method. The print here repro- duced bears the inscription: "Quenedey del. ad vivum et sculp." The other print bears no inscription at all, but in other respects is identical with the first. Hennequin points out three characteristics that make this Jefferson profile unique among all of the 1800 specimens studied in his definitive work. First, the inscription is the only example of its kind, the usual inscription being an abbreviated form of that found on the profile of Gouverneur Morris: "Des- sine par Quenedey grave par Chretien inventeur du physi- onotrace." Second, the black background, although em- ployed by Quenedey in his later work, was not customary in the profiles made when he was in partnership with Chretien in 1788-1789. Third, the slightly irregular oval form of the engraving differentiates it from the cir- cular form of other portraits made in 1789. These facts suggested to Hennequin the following hypothesis: that the print here reproduced was not actually the profile engraved in 1789, but was probably "une replique modifiee" of it, "executee pour des raisons commerciales par le signataire vers 1801, au moment ou la personnalite de Jefferson fut mise en relief par son elevation a la presidence des Etats-Unis"; that Quenedey's inscription was truthful in stating that the portrait was made from life, though done at least ten years earlier; but that there was less truth in its assertion that the plate had been engraved by Quenedey because the background and the oval clumsily-traced from the original circular medallion indicated that he had merely retouched the plate engraved by Chretien in 1789. In brief, Hennequin said this meant that the Quenedey print of circa 1801 presented the features of Jefferson the diplomat of 1789 and that the principal lines of the physiognotrace engraved in the latter year by Chretien could be recognized therein. This conclusion by a careful scholar was, as Rice has said, "both judicious and plausible"-a judgment in which the Editors readily concur (Howard C. Rice, Jr., "A 'New' Likeness of Thomas Jefferson," WMQ, 3rd ser., VI [1949], 88). Unfortunately, Hennequin was unable to find a single specimen of the print in its 1789 state, and the information contained in Jefferson's meticulous Account Books was not available to him. Had he possessed the latter, he would have known that Jefferson had paid 36 livres for the plate and twelve prints and, therefore, another and even more plausible hypothesis would no doubt have occurred to him: that is, that what Quenedey had available circa 1801 for retouching was not the copperplate at all but the original full-scale drawing, and that in consequence he was equally truthful in the assertion that the plate of the pres- ent print had been engraved by him. Rice's description was published in 1949 primarily in the hope of revealing possible unidentified prints of the 1789 engraving that might "repose somewhere in public or private American collections." Nearly a decade has elapsed since the publication of this article, but in the interval no copy of that engraving has come to light either in America or in Europe; hence an exact comparison of the two states of the print is not yet possible. The print here reproduced was evidently acquired by the Bibliotheque Nationale during the 19th century. It measures 8.7 x 7.3 cm. and is in the Cabinet des Estampes (N2. Vol. 585; negative B 3977). The other print, without lettering, was acquired from a descendant in 1907 along with other examples of Quenedey's work. When Fevret de Saint-Memin constructed a physi- ognotrace in America on the basis of a description in the Encyclopedie and began his career as a portraitist by this method, Thomas Jefferson (in 1804) was one of the several hundred persons who sat for him. The profile made by Saint-Memin's method will be reproduced in a later volume. (Courtesy of the American Embassy, Paris, through Howard C. Rice, Jr.; Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale.)
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