Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1

22d. JQA 22d. Adams, John Quincy
22d.

My father went to Versailles. Mr. Short went with him to be presented at Court. Variable Weather: much Snow in the morning, fair weather at noon, and Stormy again, in the Evening. The Duke of Dorset said to my father, while they were passing from one chamber to another “what nonsensical business all this noisy parade is!” My father said it was curious that a person like him, who had from his Childhood been brought up to it, should speak in that manner of it: “I have always hated it,” replied the Duke, “and I have avoided it whenever I possibly could.” Thus 226it is almost universally. People who pass all their lives in Pomp and Parade, are as much averse to it, as any body; and yet they do not abolish it; and nothing is more difficult than laying aside established customs, though every body agrees, that they are absurd.

24th. JQA 24th. Adams, John Quincy
24th.

Paris in the morning. Mr. Williams and Mr. Franklin went with us. They breakfasted at M: de St. Olympe's.1 I went to Gogué et Née de la Rochelle, booksellers Quai des Augustins. Bought Rollin's histoire Romaine, and Mr. Necker's book.2 Mr. Jefferson was not at home: nor any body at his House. Mr. Franklin3 has taken lessons of animal magnetism, he laugh'd at it much; yet said it was a very useful discovery.

1.

A French West Indian with business interests in Martinique and North America (AA2, Jour. and Corr. , 1:50–51; Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S. , 3:168; 4:110, 116).

2.

Charles Rollin, L' Histoire romaine, depuis la fondation de Rome jusqu'à la bataille d'Actium . . ., 7 vols., Paris, 1738–1741. JQA's set mentioned here may be one of two different sixteen-volume editions at MQA, both of which bear his bookplate, and one of which also carries his autograph. Of the several works of Jacques Necker, French financier and statesman, in the Adams libraries, the only contemporary publication bearing JQA's bookplate is De l'administration des finances de la France, 3 vols., [Paris], 1784.

3.

William Temple Franklin, the natural son of Benjamin Franklin's natural son William, had served as his grandfather's secretary since 1776. Temple was a member of the Paris Société de L'Harmonie, a group founded by the followers of Frederick Anthony Mesmer. Mesmer, a Vienna-trained physician, claimed to have discovered the property of animal magnetism, a fluid conducted by a kind of occult force in himself which contained curative powers. Owing in large part to Mesmer's great success in Paris, Louis XVI appointed Benjamin Franklin in March 1784 a member of a royal commission to examine the subject of animal magnetism, which was denounced in their report that summer. Franklin doubted its existence, and the cures claimed for it strengthened his belief in mankind's credulity (Franklin, Papers , 1:lxii; JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:356; 3:102–103, 169; Claude-Anne Lopez and Eugenia W. Herbert, The Private Franklin, N.Y., 1975, p. 255–258).

25th. JQA 25th. Adams, John Quincy
25th.

Paris. At the Opera. Panurge dans l'lsle des Lanternes;1 a new Opera. 12th time. Words, which are very indifferent M: Morel: music, which is exquisite M: Gretri. I dont know how it happens, but the more this gentleman composes, the better his music is, I think. The dancing was also admirable, Gardel,2 and Vestris,3 perhaps the two best dancers in the world, performed together; and strove to surpass one another. Mesdemoiselles Saunier, Langlois and Zacharie, were much applauded. Such 227magnificent Scenery, such rich dresses, such delicious music, vocal and instrumental, and such inimitable dancing, combined together, appear rather an effect of enchantment than of art: I never yet saw an Opera, with so much Pleasure. The words are very bad.

1.

A comedy by Étienne Morel de Chédeville (sometimes Chefdeville), Paris, 1785, with music by André Grétry; it was performed at the Académie Royal de Musique (Brenner, Bibliographical List; Journal de Paris, 25 Feb.).

2.

Probably Pierre Gabriel Gardel, “le jeune,” French dancer and choreographer and brother of Maximilien Joseph Léopold Gardel (Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale; Journal de Paris, 1 March 1783).

3.

Probably Marie Auguste Vestris, son of the Italian dancer Gaetano Apollino Baldassare Vestri, called Vestris (Hoefer, Nouv. biog. générale ).