s,
vacillated between his own generous impulses and the despotic demands of
the court party. By the King's weakness, more than by all else, were
loosened the foundations of that throne of France, already tottering
under its long-accumulated weight of injustice, of mad extravagance, of
dissoluteness, of bloody crime.

Nature herself seemed to be in league with the discontent of the times.
A long drouth in the summer, which had made the poor harvests poorer
still, was followed by that famous winter of 1789--that winter of
merciless, of unexampled, cold for France. And in the heat of that long
summer and in the cold of that still longer winter, the storm gathered
fast which was to rise higher and higher until it should beat upon the
very throne itself, and all that was left of honor and justice in France
should perish therein.

CHAPTER III

"THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR"

It was to that unhappy land of France that Mr. Jefferson had come almost
five years before on a mission for Congress. For some time it had been
the most cherished design of that body of patriots to establish
advantageous commercial treaties with the European powers, thereby
securing to America not only material prosperity, but, more important
still, forcing our recognition as a separate and independent power, and
creating for the new confederation of states a place among the
brotherhood of nations. Confident that Mr. Jefferson's astuteness,
erudition, and probity would make a powerful impression upon those whom
it was so much to our interest to attach to us, Congress had, on the 7th
day of May, 1784, appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary for the
negotiation of foreign commercial treaties. Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams,
his co-workers, were already eagerly awaiting him in Paris.

But, great as was Mr. Jefferson's patriotic interest in the cause he was
to represent at the court of Louis XVI., his exile from Monticello was
very painful to him. The recent death of his wife there, and the youth
of the two children he was to leave, bound him to the place. Having also
very clearly in mind Mr. Jay's and Dr. Franklin's disappointments and
bickerings in London in the same cause of commercial treaties, he looked
forward with growing distaste to the difficulties and diplomatic
struggles before him; for Mr. Jefferson was always more ready to lead
than to combat. Perhaps, too, he did not relish the idea that although
in his own country no one was more gen