a, for instance, the city
which already was beginning to have a reputation for spinster
propriety which became its boast in the next century, we hear that
"... before Genet had presented his credentials and been acknowledged
by the President, he was invited to a grand republican dinner, 'at
which,' we are told, 'the company united in singing the Marseillaise
Hymn. A deputation of French sailors presented themselves, and were
received by the guests with the fraternal embrace.' The table was
decorated with the 'tree of liberty,' and a red cap, called the cap
of liberty, was placed on the head of the minister, and from his
travelled in succession from head to head round the table."[1]

[Footnote 1: Jay's _Life_, I, 30.]

But not all the Americans were delirious enthusiasts. Hamilton kept
his head amid the whirling words which, he said, might "do us much
harm and could do France no good." In a letter, which deserves to be
quoted in spite of its length, he states very clearly the opinions of
one of the sanest of Americans. He writes to a friend:

It cannot be without danger and inconvenience to our interests, to
impress on the nations of Europe an idea that we are actuated by
the same spirit which has for some time past fatally misguided the
measures of those who conduct the affairs of France, and sullied
a cause once glorious, and that might have been triumphant. The
cause of France is compared with that of America during its late
revolution. Would to Heaven that the comparison were just! Would
to Heaven we could discern, in the mirror of French affairs, the
same decorum, the same gravity, the same order, the same dignity,
the same solemnity, which distinguished the cause of the American
Revolution! Clouds and darkness would not then rest upon the
issue as they now do. I own I do not like the comparison. When I
contemplate the horrid and systematic massacres of the 2nd and 3rd
of September, when I observe that a Marat and a Robespierre, the
notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit triumphantly in
the convention, and take a conspicuous part in its measures--that
an attempt to bring the assassins to justice has been obliged to
be abandoned--when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was
a continued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence of his
heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he was the monarch,
who, though ed