ills for the redemption of our captives, and the medals which Mr.
Jefferson had contracted should be struck off for the foreign officers
who had engaged in the revolution. This refusal placed the American
Minister in a most embarrassing position. To his demands the Holland
bankers replied that Congress had appropriated the money in their charge
solely to the payment of the interest on the Dutch loan through the year
1790. As a failure to pay the interest on the loan would have been fatal
to the credit and standing of the infant republic in the eyes of Europe,
it was evident to Mr. Jefferson that a new loan would have to be set
going to defray the new debts. This delicate and difficult project (for
our credit was none of the best and the old loan had not all been taken
up) he intrusted to Calvert, and so quickly and satisfactorily did the
young man execute his commission that he was back again in Paris by the
end of the month with reports highly gratifying to the American
Minister.

"You have a better head for finances than even Mr. Hamilton, whose
opinions are so much quoted in Congress," says Mr. Jefferson, with a
smile. "I think no one could have conducted these affairs to a better
issue. It has always been my opinion that your peculiar talents lay in
the direction of finances, and now I am persuaded of it."

So delighted was Mr. Jefferson with Calvert's performance that he
recounted the successful embassy to Mr. Morris, whose good opinion of
Calvert was greatly increased, and, having always had a liking for the
young man, he took occasion to see more than ever of him. He insisted on
Calvert's accompanying him frequently into the great world of Paris
where he himself was so welcome, and where, indeed, the young man's
presence was also demanded on all sides--even by royalty itself in the
person of Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans, whose acquaintance Mr. Morris
had made in the apartments of Madame de Chastellux in the Palais Royal.
Although accustomed to the company of the highest nobility, Mr. Morris
was somewhat uncertain whether he would get along well with royalty, and
would not have pursued the acquaintance begun by chance in Madame de
Chastellux's salon had not the Duchess expressed her pleasure in his
society in most unequivocal terms. Satiated with flattery, bored by the
narrow circle in which she was forced to move, profoundly humiliated by
the neglect and viciousness of her husband, she was charmed by the wit,
in