The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
FRENCH PEOPLE
I am much pleased with the people of this country. The roughness of
the human mind is so thoroughly rubbed off with them, that it seems as
if one might glide through a whole life among them without a jostle.
Perhaps, too, their manners may be the best calculated for happiness
to a people in their situation, but I am convinced they fall far short
of effecting a happiness so temperate, so uniform, and so lasting as
is generally enjoyed with us. The domestic bonds here are absolutely
done away, and where can their compensation be found? Perhaps they may
catch some moments of transport above the level of the ordinary
tranquil joy we experience, but they are separated by long intervals,
during which all the passions are at sea without rudder or compass.
Yet, fallacious as the pursuits of happiness are, they seem on the
whole to furnish the most effectual abstraction from a contemplation
of the hardness of their government. Indeed, it is difficult to
conceive how so good a people, with so good a King, so well-disposed
rulers in general, so genial a climate, so fertile a soil, should be
rendered so ineffectual for producing human happiness by one single
curse, -- that of a bad form of government. But it is a fact, in spite
of the mildness of their governors, the people are ground to powder by
the vices of the form of government. Of twenty millions of people
supposed to be in France, I am of opinion there are nineteen millions
more wretched, more accursed in every circumstance of human existence
than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the whole United
States. I beg your pardon for getting into politics. I will add only
one sentiment more of that character, that is, nourish peace with
their persons, but war against their manners. Every step we take
towards the adoption of their manners is a step to perfect misery.
to Mrs. Trist, 18 August 1785
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