No less clearly did he foresee, long before the event, and when all was hope and rejoicing, that it was almost impossible to count upon a peaceful, gradual, and bloodless development where so many long-established, hatred-sowing abuses had to be corrected. This, however, was what, as a friend of France, he would have liked to see, and even before the Revolution had really started he had expressed to Lafayette, in striking words, his wish that it might prove a "tacit" one: "If I were to advise, I should say that great moderation should be used on both sides.... Such a spirit seems to be awakened in the kingdom as, if managed with extreme prudence, may produce a gradual and tacit revolution, much in favor of the subjects."[196]
The movement is started, the Bastile falls, and Lafayette sends the key thereof to his former chief. "It is a tribute," he wrote, "which I owe as a son to my adopted father, as an aide-de-camp to my general, as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." Washington placed the key at Mount Vernon, where it is still, and returned thanks for this "token of victory gained by liberty over despotism."[197]
The beginnings were promising. The great leader was full of admiration, of awe, of apprehension. To Gouverneur Morris, then American minister to France, President Washington, as he now was, wrote on the 13th of October, 1789, in these prophetic terms: "The Revolution which has been effected in France is of so wonderful a nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact. If it ends as our last accounts to the 1st of August predict, that nation will be the most powerful and happy in Europe; but I fear, though it has gone triumphantly through the first paroxysm, it is not the last it has to encounter before matters are finally settled. In a word, the Revolution is of too great a magnitude to be effected in so short a space, and with the loss of so little blood. The mortification of the King, the intrigues of the Queen, and the discontent of the princes and the noblesse will foment divisions, if possible, in the National Assembly." The "licentiousness of the people" is not less to be feared. "To forbear running from one extreme to the other is no easy matter; and should this be the case, rocks and shoals, not visible at present, may wreck the vessel."[198]
The grandeur and importance of the change fills him, in the meanwhile, with wonder. In his before-quoted letter of April 29, 1790, to La Luzerne he said: "Indeed, the whole business is so extraordinary in its commencement, so wonderful in its progress, and may be so stupendous in its consequences that I am almost lost in the contemplation. Of one thing, however, you may rest perfectly assured, that nobody is more anxious for the happy issue of that business than I am, as nobody can wish more sincerely for the prosperity of the French nation than I do." To another correspondent, Mrs. Graham, he described "the renovation of the French Constitution," as "one of the most wonderful events in the history of mankind." So late as the 20th of October, 1792, he was writing to Gouverneur Morris: "We can only repeat the sincere wish that much happiness may arise to the French nation and to mankind in general out of the severe evils which are inseparable from so important a revolution."
Throughout the unparalleled crisis, the French friends of Washington kept him informed of events, of their hopes and fears. Lafayette's letters have been printed; those of Rochambeau, written in his own English, have not, and many of them are of great interest. The French general had early foreseen the necessity for profound changes, owing to abuses, to the excessive privileges of the few, the burdens of the many, the increasing maladministration, especially since Necker had been replaced by "a devil of a fool named Calonne."[199] Maybe the States General will provide an adequate remedy, by devising a constitution: "I hope very much of this General States to restore our finances and to consolidate a good constitution."[200] But he has doubts as to what "aristocratical men" will do.
Himself a member of the Assembly, Rochambeau considers that there are not, in reality, three orders—the nobles, the clergy, and the third estate—but two: "the privileged people and the unprivileged." The vote being, in accordance with law and custom, taken per estate or order, the two privileged ones always vote in the same way and can ever prevail. Rochambeau informs Washington that, as for himself, he "voted in favor of the equal representation of the third order; your pupil Lafayette has voted for the same opinion, as you may believe it; but we have here a great number of aristocratical men that are very interested to perpetuate the abuses."[201]
He agrees with Washington that, in order to reach safe results, developments should be slowly evolved; but the temper of the nation has been wrought up, and it is, moreover, a fiery temper. "Do you remember, my dear general," he writes, "of the first repast that we have made together at Rod-Island? I [made] you remark from the soup the difference of character of our two nations, the French in burning their throat and all the Americans waiting wisely [for] the time that it was cooled. I believe, my dear general, you have seen, since a year, that our nation has not change[d] of character. We go very fast—God will that we [reach] our aims."[202]
In his moments of deepest anxiety Rochambeau is pleased, however, to remember "a word of the late King of Prussia," Frederick II, who, considering what France was, what misfortunes and dangers she had encountered, and what concealed sources of strength were in her, once said to the French minister accredited to him: "I have been brought up in the middle of the unhappiness of France; my cradle was surrounded with refugee Protestants that, about the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the beginning of the regency of the Duc d'Orleans, told me that France was at the agony and could not exist three years. I [have] known in the course of my reign that France has such a temper that there [is] no bad minister nor bad generals [who] be able to kill it, and that constitution has made it rise again of all its crises, with strength and vigor. It wants no other remedy but time and keep a strict course of diet."[203]
Events followed their course, but, while everything else was changing in France, the feeling for Washington and the United States remained the same. The two countries felt nearer than before, and showed it in many ways. At the death of Franklin the National Assembly, on the proposal of Mirabeau, went into mourning for three days; our first Constitution, of 1791, was notified to the American Government: "President Washington," the French minister informed his chief, "received the King's letter with the tokens of the greatest satisfaction; and in accordance with your orders a copy of the Constitution and of the King's letter to the National Assembly was given to him as well as to Mr. Jefferson."[204] Tom Paine, though an American, or rather because an American, was elected by several departments a member of the Convention, took his seat, but, as he knew no French, had his speeches translated and read for him; he played an important part in the drafting of our second Constitution, the republican one of 1793. As a sacred emblem of liberty, the American flag was displayed in the hall where the Convention held its sittings. A quite extraordinary decree was rendered by this body in the second year of the Republic, "after having heard the petition of American citizens," deciding, and this at a time when everybody was liable to arrest, that "the wives of American citizens, whatever the place of their birth, should be exempted from the law on the arrestation of foreigners."
The 14th of July was, in the meantime, celebrated in America, just as in France, as marking a new progress in the development of mankind. Our minister, Ternant, gave Dumouriez a glowing account of such a celebration: "It affords me great satisfaction to inform you that, in spite of the news received the day before of the bad success of our first military operations, the Americans have given, on the occasion of this anniversary, touching signs of their attachment for France and proof of the interest they take in the success of our arms. You will see by the bulletins and newspapers accompanying this letter that the same sentiments have been manifested in almost all the cities which count in the Union, and that the 14th has been celebrated with the same ardor as the 4th, which is the anniversary of American independence."[205]