need of economy, and in the curtailment of other salaries I
suppose they thought it absolutely necessary to cut off their foreign
ministers. But, my own interest apart, the system is bad; for that
nation which degrades their own ministers by obliging them to live in
narrow circumstances, cannot expect to be held in high estimation
themselves. We spend no evenings abroad, make no suppers, attend very
few public entertainments,--or spectacles, as they are called,--and
avoid every expense that is not held indispensable. Yet I cannot but
think it hard that a gentleman who has devoted so great a part of his
life to the service of the public, who has been the means, in a great
measure, of procuring such extensive territories to his country, who
saved their fisheries, and who is still laboring to procure them further
advantages, should find it necessary so cautiously to calculate his
pence, for fear of overrunning them. I will add one more expense. There
is now a court mourning, and every foreign minister, with his family,
must go into mourning for a Prince of eight years old, whose father is
an ally to the King of France. This mourning is ordered by the Court,
and is to be worn eleven days only. Poor Mr. Jefferson had to his away
for a tailor to get a whole black-silk suit made up in two days; and at
the end of eleven days, should another death happen, he will be obliged
to have a new suit of mourning, of cloth, because that is the season
when silk must be left off. We may groan and scold, but these are
expenses which cannot be avoided; for fashion is the deity every one
worships in this country, and from the highest to the lowest, you must
submit. Even poor John and Esther had no comfort among the servants,
being constantly the subjects of ridicule, until we were obliged to
direct them to have their hair dressed. Esther had several crying fits
upon the occasion, that she should be forced to be so much of a fool;
but there was no way to keep them from being trampled upon but this, and
now that they are _a la mode de Paris_, they are much respected. To be
out of fashion is more criminal than to be seen in a state of nature, to
which the Parisians are not averse.

AUTEUIL, NEAR PARIS, 10th May, 1785.

Did you ever, my dear Betsey, see a person in real life such as your
imagination formed of Sir Charles Grandison? The Baron de Stael, the
Swedish Ambassador, comes nearest to that character, in his manners and
personal appeara