Among the guests were Madame la Duchesse d'Azay, Adrienne,
Monsieur and Madame de Montmorin, Monsieur and Madame de Lafayette,
Madame de Tesse, Mr. Morris, Beaufort, Calvert, and Mr. Short.
The Duchess of Azay had accepted her invitation with characteristic
brusqueness.
"I don't approve of your Fourth of July, Monsieur Jefferson," she said,
"but I always approve of a good dinner, and your wines are so excellent
that I dare say I shall drink your toasts, too." "I promise you there
shall be none to offend the most ardent royalist," returned Mr.
Jefferson, laughing at the old woman's sturdy independence. And so she
had come, and Madame de St. Andre with her, though Adrienne, too, was a
stanch royalist, and had not been carried away by the popular enthusiasm
for liberty and Monsieur de Lafayette which was spreading like wildfire
through all ranks of Parisian society.
"I am here, not because I am so greatly in love with your fine American
principles," she said to Calvert, who was seated beside her at the
table, "but because I like your Mr. Jefferson. For myself, I vastly
prefer a king and a court, and I like titles and rank and power--all of
which is heresy in your American ears, is it not?" she asked, with a
perverse look.
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