The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson

By Subject

FRANCE / RESTORATION OF BOURBON MONARCHY

What effect will the apparent restoration of the Bourbons have on your movements? Will it tempt your return? I do not see in this a restoration of quiet; on the contrary I consider France as in a more volcanic state than at any preceding time, there must be an explosion and one of the most destructive character. I look forward to crimes more fierce and pitiless than those which have already distinguished that bloody revolution. These are not scenes, my dear friend, for you to be thrown into. They have no analogies with the tranquillity of your character. True, we cannot offer you the scientific society of Paris, but who can enjoy science, or who think of it in the midst of insurrection, madness and massacre? Besides, you possess all science within yourself; from others you can get nothing new, and the pleasure of communicating it should be greatest where it is most wanting.

to J. Correa de Serra, 1 January 1816