Jefferson and his Colleagues, A Chronicle of the Virginia | Page 7

for public receptions. On such occasions he begged Mrs.
Dolly Madison to act as hostess; and a charming and gracious figure
she was, casting a certain extenuating veil over the President's
gaucheries. Jefferson held, with his many political heresies, certain
theories of social intercourse which ran rudely counter to the prevailing
etiquette of foreign courts. Among the rules which he devised for his
republican court, the precedence due to rank was conspicuously absent,
because he held that "all persons when brought together in society are
perfectly equal, whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or out
of office." One of these rules to which the Cabinet gravely subscribed
read as follows:
"To maintain the principles of equality, or of pele mele, and prevent the
growth of precedence out of courtesy, the members of the Executive
will practise at their own houses, and recommend an adherence to the
ancient usage of the country, of gentlemen in mass giving precedence
to the ladies in mass, in passing from one apartment where they are
assembled into another."
The application of this rule on one occasion gave rise to an incident
which convulsed Washington society. President Jefferson had invited
to dinner the new British Minister Merry and his wife, the Spanish
Minister Yrujo and his wife, the French Minister Pichon and his wife,
and Mr. and Mrs. Madison. When dinner was announced, Mr. Jefferson
gave his hand to Mrs. Madison and seated her on his right, leaving the
rest to straggle in as they pleased. Merry, fresh from the Court of St.
James, was aghast and affronted; and when a few days later, at a dinner
given by the Secretary of State, he saw Mrs. Merry left without an
escort, while Mr. Madison took Mrs. Gallatin to the table, he believed
that a deliberate insult was intended. To appease this indignant Briton
the President was obliged to explain officially his rule of "pole mele";
but Mrs. Merry was not appeased and positively refused to appear at
the President's New Year's Day reception. "Since then," wrote the

amused Pichon, "Washington society is turned upside down; all the
women are to the last degree exasperated against Mrs. Merry; the
Federalist newspapers have taken up the matter, and increased the
irritations by sarcasms on the administration and by making a burlesque
of the facts." Then Merry refused an invitation to dine again at the
President's, saying that he awaited instructions from his Government;
and the Marquis Yrujo, who had reasons of his own for fomenting
trouble, struck an alliance with the Merrys and also declined the
President's invitation. Jefferson was incensed at their conduct, but put
the blame upon Mrs. Merry, whom he characterized privately as a
"virago who has already disturbed our harmony extremely."
A brilliant English essayist has observed that a government to secure
obedience must first excite reverence. Some such perception,
coinciding with native taste, had moved George Washington to assume
the trappings of royalty, in order to surround the new presidential office
with impressive dignity. Posterity has, accordingly, visualized the first
President and Father of his Country as a statuesque figure, posing at
formal levees with a long sword in a scabbard of white polished leather,
and clothed in black velvet knee-breeches, with yellow gloves and a
cocked hat. The third President of the United States harbored no such
illusions and affected no such poses. Governments were made by
rational beings--"by the consent of the governed," he had written in a
memorable document--and rested on no emotional basis. Thomas
Jefferson remained Thomas Jefferson after his election to the chief
magistracy; and so contemporaries saw him in the President's House,
an unimpressive figure clad in "a blue coat, a thick gray-colored hairy
waistcoat, with a red underwaist lapped over it, green velveteen
breeches, with pearl buttons, yarn stockings, and slippers down at the
heels." Anyone might have found him, as Senator Maclay did, sitting
"in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his
shoulders elevated much above the other," a loose, shackling figure
with no pretense at dignity.
In his dislike for all artificial distinctions between man and man,
Jefferson determined from the outset to dispense a true Southern
hospitality at the President's House and to welcome any one at any hour
on any day. There was therefore some point to John Quincy Adams's
witticism that Jefferson's "whole eight years was a levee." No one

could deny that he entertained handsomely. Even his political
opponents rose from his table with a comfortable feeling of satiety
which made them more kindly in their attitude toward their host. "We
sat down at the table at four," wrote Senator Plumer of New Hampshire,
"rose at six, and walked immediately into another room and drank
coffee. We had a very good dinner, with a profusion