The time came at last for his definitive retreat to Mount Vernon. He reached it a saddened, grand old man, longing to be at last an American farmer and nothing more, and never to go "beyond twenty miles" from his home. "To make and sell a little flour annually, to repair houses going fast to ruin, to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe."[212]
His desire was to continue to the end in the regular occupations he describes to McHenry, in a letter giving us the best picture we have of everyday life at Mount Vernon. Wondering what he might say that would interest a secretary of war, he writes: "I might tell him that I begin my diurnal course with the sun; that if my hirelings are not at their places at that time I send them messages expressive of my sorrow for their indisposition; that, having put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further, and the more they are probed, the deeper, I find, the wounds are which my buildings have sustained by an absence and neglect of eight years; by the time I have accomplished these matters, breakfast (a little after seven o'clock, about the time, I presume, you are taking leave of Mrs. McHenry) is ready; that, this being over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer as well? And how different this from having a few social friends at a cheerful board! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, and tea brings me within the dawn of candle-light; previous to which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that as soon as the glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table and acknowledge the letters I have received; but when the lights are brought I feel tired and disinclined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will do as well. The next comes and with it the same causes for postponement and effect, and so on....
"It may strike you that in this detail no mention is made of any portion of time allotted for reading. The remark would be just, for I have not looked into a book since I came home; nor shall I be able to do it until I have discharged my workmen, probably not before nights grow longer, when possibly I may be looking in Doomesday Book."[213]
But in this calm retreat, described with a truth and charm almost reminding one of William Cowper's familiar letters, and where he was to spend such a small number of years, trouble, as previously, soon knocked at the door. It seemed at one time as if the former commander-in-chief of Franco-American armies would have to lead the Americans against the French. In spite of the preparations which he had himself to superintend, he refused to believe that war would really occur: "My mind never has been alarmed by any fears of a war with France."[214] But in his judgments of the French, as governed by the Directoire, Washington was gradually receding toward the time when he knew them only through Steele and Addison, and had, "in the Spectator, read to No. 143."
He died without knowing that the threatening clouds would soon be dispelled; that the next important event which would count in the annals of the United States and make their greatness secure would come from those same French people: the cession by them, unexpected and unasked-for, not of New Orleans, but of the immense territory then called Louisiana; and that, while his feelings toward the French had undergone changes, those of the French toward him had remained unaltered.
When the news came that on Saturday, 14th of December, 1799, the great leader had passed away,[215] the French Republic went into mourning; for ten days officers wore crape, flags were flown at half-mast, and the head of the state, young Bonaparte, issued an order in which he said: "Washington is dead. This great man fought tyranny. He established on a safe basis the liberty of his country. His memory will ever be dear to the French people as well as to all the free men of the two worlds, and especially to French soldiers, who, like himself and the American soldiers, fight now for equality and liberty."
An impressive and unparalleled ceremony thereupon took place at the Invalides, the Temple of Mars, as it was then called. Detachments from the Paris garrison lined the aisles; all that counted in the Republic was present, Bonaparte included, and Fontanes, the most famous orator of the day, delivered the funeral eulogy on the departed leader: "Washington's work is scarcely perfected," he said, "and it is already surrounded by that veneration that is usually bestowed only on what has been consecrated by time. The American Revolution, of which we are contemporaries, seems now consolidated forever. Washington began it by his energy, and achieved it by his moderation. In rendering a public homage to Washington, France pays a debt due to him by the two worlds."
In one of the first sentences of the oration, England (with whom we were at war) was courteously associated to the homage rendered by us to the great man: "The very nation," said Fontanes, "that recently called Washington a rebel, now looks upon the emancipation of America as one of those events consecrated by the verdict of centuries and of history. Such is the privilege of great characters."[216]
In the centre of the nave stood the bust of Washington, wreathed in flags and laurels. Years before, in Independence Hall at Philadelphia, on a spot now marked by an inscription, the flags taken at Yorktown had been laid at the feet of the President of Congress and of the minister from France, Gérard de Rayneval. Now General Lannes, the future marshal, came forth and with appropriate words laid before the image of the former commander ninety-six flags taken from the enemy by the troops of republican France.
A plan was formed thereupon, the realization of which troublous days did not allow, to erect a statue of Washington in Paris (he now has two there and one in Versailles, gratefully accepted gifts from America), and a decree was prepared by Talleyrand recalling, as a motive, the similitude of feelings between France and that "nation which is sure to be one day a great nation, and is even now the wisest and happiest in the world, and which mourns for the death of the man who did more than any, by his courage and genius, to break her shackles and raise her to the rank of independent peoples.... One of the noblest lives which have honored mankind has just passed into the domain of history.... Washington's fame is now imperishable; Fortune had consecrated his titles to it; and the posterity of a people which will rise later to the highest destinies continuously confirms and strengthens those titles by its very progress."
Châteaubriand, Lamartine, Guizot, Cornelis de Witt, Laboulaye, Joseph Fabre, many other French thinkers and writers, vied with each other in their praise and admiration throughout the century. Châteaubriand, who had seen the great man at Philadelphia in 1791, inserted in his Voyage en Amérique his famous parallel between Bonaparte and Washington: "The republic of Washington subsists; the empire of Bonaparte is no more; it came and went between the first and second journey of a Frenchman[217] who has found a grateful nation where he had fought for some oppressed colonists.... The name of Washington will spread, with liberty, from age to age; it will mark the beginning of a new era for mankind.... His fame rises like one of those sanctuaries wherein flows a spring inexhaustible for the people.... What would be the rank of Bonaparte in the universe if he had added magnanimity to what there was heroical in him, and if, being at the same time Washington and Bonaparte, he had appointed Liberty for the heiress of his glory?"