Читать книгу The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 3 (of 9) - Томас Джефферсон, Thomas Jefferson - Страница 58

New York, April 2, 1790.

Being called by our Government to assist in its domestic administration, instead of paying my respects to you in person as I had hoped, I am to write you a letter of adieu. Accept, I pray you, Madam, my grateful acknowledgments for the manifold kindnesses by which you added so much to the happiness of my stay in Paris. I have found here a philosophic revolution, philosophically effected. Yours, though a little more turbulent, has, I hope by this time, issued in success and peace. Nobody prays for it more sincerely than I do, and nobody will do more to cherish a union with a nation, dear to us through many ties, and now more approximated by the change in its government.

I found our friend Doctor Franklin in his bed—cheerful and free from pain, but still in his bed. He took a lively interest in the details I gave him of your revolution. I observed his face often flushed in the course of it. He is much emaciated. Monsieur de Crevecoeur is well, but a little apprehensive that the spirit of reforming and economizing may reach his office. A good man will suffer if it does. Permit me, Madame la Comtesse, to place here my sincere respects to Monsieur le Comte Houdetot and to Monsieur de St. Lambert. The philosophy of the latter will have been greatly gratified to see a regeneration of the condition of man in Europe so happily begun in his own country. Repeating to you, Madam, my sense of your goodness to me, and my wishes to prove it on every occasion, adding my sincere prayers that Heaven may bless you with many years of life and health, I pray you to accept here the homage of those sentiments of respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be, Madame la Comtesse, your most obedient, and most humble servant.