ersons who might censure Gouverneur Morris's frankness one may quote
a short passage from Boswell's "Johnson." "To discover such weakness,"
said Mrs. Thrale to Doctor Johnson, speaking of the autobiography of
Sir Robert Sibbald, "exposes a man when he is gone." "Nay," said the
pious and great lexicographer, "it is an honest picture of human
nature."

This, then, excuses the clever and wise Gouverneur Morris for
enlightening us as to the paternity of a son of Madame de Flahaut.
Morris, for a time that condoned the amourettes of Benjamin Franklin,
was virtuous. Madame de Flahaut, afterward Madame de Souza, gave Morris
a hint that he might easily supplant Talleyrand in her affection. "I
may, if I please, wean her from all regard toward him, but he is the
father of her child, and it would be unjust." In this noble moment Mr.
Morris chivalrously forgets the existence of the Count de Flahaut!

In 1789, Mr. Morris continues to write platonic verses to Madame de
Flahaut; the Queen's circle at Versailles is worried about the fidelity
of the troops; the Count d'Artois holds high revelry in the Orangery; De
Launey's head is carried on a pipe in the streets of Paris, and murdered
men lie in the gutters. But the fashionable life of Paris is not
disturbed. Mr. Morris goes to dinner. He is invited for three o'clock,
to the house of Madame la Comtesse de Beauharnais. Toward five o'clock
the Countess herself came to announce dinner. Morris is happy in the
belief that his hunger will be equal to the delayed feast. For this day,
he thinks he will be free from his enemy, indigestion. He is
corroborated in his opinion that Madame de Beauharnais is a poetess by

a very narrow escape from some rancid butter of which the cook had
been very liberal.

But this is froth, and yet indicative of the depth beneath. It seems to
me that there is no more interesting and useful book on the French
Revolution than this autobiography. It ought to be placed near De
Tocqueville's "Ancient R['e]gime" and "Democracy in America."

On December 2, 1800, he believed it to be the general opinion that Mr.
Jefferson was considered a demagogue, and that Aaron Burr would be
chosen President by the House of Representatives. The gentlemen of the
House of Representatives believed that Burr was vigorous, energetic,
just, and generous, and that Mr. Jefferson was "afflicted with all the
cold-blooded vices, and particularly dangerous from false principles of
gov