John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

26. V:30. At seven, the Coachman came with the Curricle, and I returned home to Ealing, to Breakfast. But as I have not acquired the faculty after a day of dissipation of settling my Spirits down to a steady occupation, this day was in a great measure wasted— I wrote scarcely any thing. I paid a visit to General Dumouriez, who is almost my next door neighbour, and returned to him the Letters which were left with me about a fortnight since, with several Letters from the Post-Office. The Letters had given me some insight into the views and present situation of the man, and I had now a long conversation with him which gave me more— Dumouriez was at one time an important personage in the world— It is now more than twenty years since he was obliged to fly from the army which he had led to victory, and seek refuge among the enemies whom he had vanquished— He is now seventy five years of age, burning with ambition to return to France, and recommence a Career, in which by a confession more true than sincere, in one of the letters he said he had done nothing but de brillantes sottises. The uneradicable vices of his character are Vanity, Levity and Insincerity.— They are conspicuous in his writings and were not less remarkable in his Conversation with me— Like all vain people his greatest delight is to talk of himself. He told me that he had been twelve years in the service of this Country— That he had first been sent for, to assist in a plan of defence for this Country against a French invasion— He had made his bargain with the British Government— They had offered him terms which he had accepted, and he lived upon them, comfortably, though not in opulence— That while Louis 18th: had been in this Country, he had often seen, and at one time had been much in favour with him— But Louis had a favourite, a Count de Blacas, who had done him infinite mischief, and when he went over to France in 1814 there was some coldness of the king towards him— After the king was at Paris, settling his Government, Macdonald, who had been one of his Aid de Camp’s said to the king— What— Sir! Come without Dumouriez?—without the Vainqueur de Gemmappe? Some proposal had then been made, that he should be appointed a Marshal of France and a member of the house of Peers— But this was not obtained; and finally the only thing offered him, was the rank of Lieutenant General, with full pay, but without any command—which he refused—his situation here was better than that. He was here upon good terms with all parties; the Ministers and opposition were all his friends— He gave his opinions freely, as he thought might be useful, and wrote Memoirs when required. He had resided in his present habitation these two years and a half, with the Count de St Martin his Aid de Camp and his wife— They had lost their only Son, in Portugal— He saw very little Society here; and very seldom went to London; except on occasion of some Solemnity like that of yesterday with he could not avoid. He spoke of the present State of Affairs in France; but so as to convince me that he knew nothing more of them than is contained in the Newspapers— He said that he was for the Mornarchie Constitutionelle— For it was impossible at this time to govern France either par l’absolutisme, or by a Republic— He had advised that the king should at once make a prime Minister, disband the army, form a new one attached to the royal cause; that the armies of the allies should all withdraw; and that they should take and keep the fortresses on the frontiers until the king’s Government should be settled. Instead of which there were now two Prime Ministers, Talleyrand and Fouché—and three armies— The army of the Loire— The remnant of Buonaparte’s troops; an army forming under the king’s authority, and an army collected by the Duke d’Angouleme in the South, violently royalist, and which had committed great excesses of reaction— The Duke d’Angouleme had imprudently said that it would never be well with France, until they were all of the same religion; and at Nismes six hundred Protestants had been massacred; they were hunted like wild beasts and great multitudes of them had been obliged to fly from their habitations and take refuge in the Cevennes. These enormous foreign armies were exhausting the Country— The rainy Season would soon be setting in; and if they did not take care, they would then have as destructive a War to carry on, as the French had found in Spain— As to these dangers to the foreign armies, they are so perfectly chimerical, that they indicate only the General’s Old Age— The foreign armies are perfectly safe but the measure of oppression upon the French People, will exceed all bounds— I asked Dumouriez whether he did not think they would finish by 312making a Poland of France— He said, if they did, he should only regret that he was not thirty years younger— He spoke also of the Duke of Orleans— In one of the Letters which I returned to him he had written, esperons toujours—non pas du coté du faux Télémaque, que je vois ici quelquefois, mais sans confiance; mais d’un autre coté.— I had observed yesterday that he was very assiduous in paying his Court to the faux Télémaque; and this day he spoke of him as if with the highest attachment— Said he had brought him up— That he was like a child to him. That his Sister Mademoiselle d’Orleans, looked upon him Dumouriez almost as a father— That he had advised the Duke to go to France as he lately did— That he had suffered there every species of mortification— That Court etiquettes had been raised to exclude his wife from the entrées, though she was a king’s daughter— That the duchess d’Angouleme had been mortified because the Duchess d’Orleans’s parties had been crowded, while those at the Thuileries had been in a manner deserted— And lately when they were fugitives here,—the Duchess d’Angoulême said to the Duke d’Orleans, that her husband was coming from Spain; but not to stay here— He would go immediately to join the king—“parceque c’est sa place”— When the Duke went lately to France— They were going to send Princes of the blood to preside at the electoral Colleges— Monsieur was at Paris—the Duke d’Angouleme at Bordeaux— The Duke de Berri at Lille— The Duke de Bourbon was to have gone to the Vendée, and the Duke d’Orleans to Lyons, but one obstacle after another had been raised, and the king had told the Duke of Orleans that the Duke of Bourbon could not go into the Vendée, and perhaps he might as well not go to Lyons— The Duke had then asked the king’s permission to come to England again, which the king had immediately granted. He told me he was going to dine with the Duke of Orleans to morrow— We had a great variety of Conversation upon the topics; upon the Emperor Alexander, who received him last Summer, at London, on the same day that he did Mr Gallatin and Mr Harris; and who he says, has taken such a distaste to Russia, that he will not return to St Petersburg at all; but talks of staying with his army in Germany— Of the king of Prussia who he says is a good man, but entirely under the controul of his Generals— That ten or twelve of them, Gneisenau, Kleist, Tauenzien, and others have formed an association among themselves a sort of self-created Order of knighthood, which they call the order of Virtue— Blucher is of it—but has no weight or influence in it— Gneisenau being the effective man— As to their Virtue, it means nothing more nor less than Ambition and Avarice— The spirit of conquest has taken possession of them; and they are for making Prussia now play the part which France played for ten or fifteen years—on returning home from the General’s after a walk with him in his garden, I found John and Charles had come home from school; and that Mr & Mrs Perkins, and Mr and Miss Haven had been to pay us a visit— There was so much rain in the course of the day that we could not walk in the Evening.