Note 612 — Chapter VII
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Paris made an impression on the envoys as different as their temperaments. Vans Murray records the effect on Gerry, who had written to his friends in Boston of "how handsomely they [the envoys] were received in Paris and how hopeful he is of settlement!!!"
"Good God—he has mistaken the lamps of Paris for an illumination on his arrival," writes our alarmed Minister at The Hague, "and the salutations of fisherwomen for a procession of chaste matrons hailing the great Pacificator!... His foible is to mistake things of common worldly politeness for deference to his rank of which he rarely loses the idea.... Gerry is no more fit to enter the labyrinth of Paris as a town—alone—than an innocent is, much less formed to play a game with the political genius of that city ... without some very steady friend at his elbow.... Of all men in America he is ... the least qualify'd to play a part in Paris, either among the men or the women—he is too virtuous for the last—too little acquainted with the world and himself for the first." (Vans Murray to J. Q. Adams, April 13, 1798; Letters: Ford, 394.)