I thank again each of the following who read and offered valuable suggestions on part or all of the manuscript: John Zentay, Steven Barclay, Dr. Edward Kaplan, Dr. William B. McCullough, Philip W. Pillsbury, Jr., Dr. Fred Pitt man, Robert Doran, and the late George Cochran.
To my longtime editor Michael Korda of Simon & Schuster, and to Carolyn Reidy, Jonathan Karp, Bob Bender, David Rosenthal, Julia Prosser, Jackie Seow, and Gypsy da Silva of Simon & Schuster, to Amy Hill, who designed the book, and Wendell Minor, who designed the jacket, I can only emphasize what joy it has been to work with them and how fortunate I feel to have their support and their friendship.
Again I must express my particular thanks to Fred Wiemer, copy editor extraordinaire, for his superb, sharp-eyed editing, and this time in both English and French. Proofreaders Jim Stoller, John Morgenstern, Bill Molesky, and Ted Landry, and indexer Chris Carruth were all part of the team.
To my exceptional literary agent, Morton L. Janklow, I am greatly indebted, and especially for his enthusiasm for the idea for this book right from our first conversation about it.
My family has once again played an important part as first readers and as listeners to my continuing talk about the project as it moved forward year by year. Daughter Melissa McDonald and son Geoffrey have read every chapter in successive drafts. Son David has given astute editorial comment throughout, and son Bill accompanied me on the rounds of historic sites in Paris.
My wife, Rosalee Barnes McCullough, has been as always the first of my first readers and the best, wisest provider by far of advice and encouragement. To her I am indebted above all.
— David McCullough
January 24, 2011
SOURCE NOTES
1. The Way Over
A great part of the source material for this book is, in addition to being of historic value, a pure joy to read because so many of the protagonists were superb writers. This is vividly clear from the very start, in what they wrote of their time outward bound for France. Such descriptions to be found in the letters and journals of even those who did not regard themselves as professional writers—like Emma Willard, Charles Sumner, or Thomas Appleton—amply qualify as American literature of the sea. Anyone wishing a sample of the professional virtuosity of a writer like Nathaniel Willis need only read his hilarious account of dining on board the brig Pacific in rough weather.
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3 The thought of going abroad: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 190.
4 “a little pleasure concealed”: Cooper, Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper, Vol. I, 126.
4 “when standing in a pair of substantial boots”: Ibid., 56.
4 By contrast, his friend Charles Sumner: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 92.
4 Emma Willard, founder: Lutz, Emma Willard: Pioneer Educator of American Women, vii.
4 “My dear mother was rather alarmed”: Cooper, Correspondence of James Fenimore Cooper, Vol. I, 52.
5 “got entirely out of trim”: Franklin, James Fenimore Cooper: The Early Years, 395.
5 “How long do you mean to be absent?”: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 5.
5 “classic features”: Lutz, Emma Willard: Pioneer Educator of American Women, 87.
5 “She was a splendid looking woman”: Ibid., 45.
6 “Old Ironsides”: Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I, 81.
6 “tasted the intoxicating pleasure”: Ibid., 80.
6 tried law school for a year: Ibid., 78.
6 “anything better than a rural dispenser”: Ibid., 82.
6 “sameness”: Ibid., 74.
6 “We learned nominally”: Ibid., 38.
7 Mathematics utterly bewildered him: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 47.
7 “an indefatigable and omnivorous student”: Ibid., 106.
7 “The thought of going abroad”: Ibid., 190.
7 In 1822 he had undertaken: Morse’s House of Representatives hangs in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. His Marquis de Lafayette still hangs in New York’s City Hall.
8 Word came of the death of his wife: Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and Journals, Vol. I, 265.
8 “My education as a painter”: Ibid., 289.
8 “historical painter”: Morse passport, Samuel F. B. Morse Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
8 “right hand man”: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 18.
8 “quite prettily”: Ibid., 17.
8 “terribly timid”: Ibid., 18.
8 When the friendly proprietor: Ibid., 22.
9 “Little Healy”: Ibid., 25.
9 “I told her that I was an artist”: Ibid., 31.
9 One small, especially lovely: The portrait of Fanny Appleton is on display at Longfellow House—Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
9 I knew no one in France: Healy, Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter, 35.
10 “anticipation of Oscar Wilde”: Holmes, A Mortal Antipathy, 4.
10 “dress them up one day”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, preface.
11 When news of the July Revolution: New York Evening Post, September 8, 1830.
11 He had worked for a while: Proud part of the Union Oyster House history, Boston, Mass.
11 Steamboats by this time: Allington and Greenhill, The First Atlantic Liners, 7.
12 a London packet fittingly named Crisis: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 9.
12 But a wide sea voyage: Washington Irving, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent (NY: Heritage Press, 1939), 8.
13 Fare to Le Havre: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 14.
13 Acquaintances who had made the trip: Susan Cooper to her sister, May 30, 1826, James Fenimore Cooper Papers, Beinecke Library, Yale University.
13 “I am very glad, my dear”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 210.
13 “Follow, my dear boy”: Ibid., 212.
14 The written “Instructions”: Warren, The Parisian Education of an American Surgeon, 8.
14 “fond of theaters and dissipation”: Arnold, Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D., 48.
14 “And a sad time”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 213.
14 “great depression”: Silverman, Lightning Man, 94.
14 “We have left the wharf”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 211.
14 And as she came down the river: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 12.
15 “the fairest wind”: Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and Journals, Vol. I, 300.
15 “inquire into everything”: Brogan, Alexis de Tocqueville, 145.
15 “In rough weather”: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 19–20.
16 “It is a day”: Ibid., 13.
16 in contrast to Wendell Holmes: Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I, 83.
16 “The accommodations”: New York Evening Post, February 28, 1833.
17 I felt nothing of that do-little: Appleton, Life and Letters of Thomas Gold Appleton, 86.
17 “voice in the steerage”: Ibid., 87–88.
17 “the still-life of the day previous”: Ibid., 88.
17 “chattering in terror”: Ibid.
17 “deeply, darkly, beautifully blue”: Ibid., 89.
17 “A most delightful evening”: Ibid., 90.
17 What an odd, good-for-nothing: Ibid., 91–92.
18 “vast islands of ice”: Ibid., 92.
18 “Some of the older passengers”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 11.
18 “Then the waters rise up”: Ibid., 10–11.
18 Thus with the raging element: Ibid.
18 “the rocking and rolling”: Ibid., 2.
19 “If any lady of your village”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 14.
19 “Literally ‘cabined’”: Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming
of the Civil War, 45.
19 “Bay of Fundy tide”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 215.
19 In going abroad at my present age: Ibid., 214.
20 “cataract of French postulation”: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 27.
20 “vexatious ceremony”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 25.
20 In conversation with an English-speaking: Ibid.
20 “to pay the Virgin Mary”: Ibid., 15.
21 “Everything was old”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 218.
21 “beyond the reach”: Ibid.
21 “none of the prestige”: Ibid.
21 “If you feel very aristocratic”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 26.
22 I looked at the constantly occurring ruins: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 32.
23 “inexpressible magic”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 27.
23 I had heard of fifty: Ibid., 26–27.
23 “the great lion of the north”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 221.
24 And here was I: Ibid., 222.
24 In an account of his own first stop: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 76.
2. Voilà Paris!
Of the contemporary books about Paris drawn on for this chapter, Pencillings by the Way by Nathaniel Willis, John Sanderson’s two-volume The American in Paris, and James Fenimore Cooper’s Gleanings in Europe: France are outstanding. Sanderson’s first volume in particular is a jewel, one of the best books about Paris by an American ever written. Of the letters and journal entries, those by Charles Sumner and Oliver Wendell Holmes are invariably descriptive and revealing.
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25 The origin of Paris: Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1827, 1.
26 “Voilà Paris!”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 31.
26 “And with my mind full”: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 36.
26 “The streets run zig-zag”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 33.
26 “dirt and gilding”: Cooper, Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper, Vol. I, 145.
26 “We were amidst”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 30.
27 “quite pretty” rooms: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 37.
27 There are few things: Ibid., 37.
28 indispensable was Galignani’s New Paris Guide: See, for example, Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1827, 182.
28 “the bread is fine”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 32.
28 “Miss D”: Ibid., 33.
28 We took the rounds: Ibid., 34.
29 a few “wearable things”: Ibid.
29 “When I went in”: Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse: His Letters and Journals, Vol. I, 316.
29 In her turn: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 39.
29 “His heart seemed to expand”: Ibid., 40.
29 “If he keeps near the wall”: Oliver Wendell Holmes to his parents, May 31, 1833, Holmes Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
30 Holmes, like his fellow Bostonians: Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I, 85; Dowling, Oliver Wendell Holmes in Paris, 184.
30 The cold continues intolerable: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 241.
30 “I freeze behind”: Ibid.
31 “My voyage has already been compensated”: Ibid., 234.
31 flâner: Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I, 88.
31 “Ah! To wander”: Balzac, Works of Honoré de Balzac, Vol. II, 133.
31 Interestingly, “Home, Sweet Home”: Overmyer, America’s First Hamlet, 202.
31 “If you get into melancholy”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 128.
32 “uniform politeness”: Galignani’s New Paris Guide, 1827, 27.
32 “Indeed,” wrote Holmes: Morse, Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I, 101.
32 “the originality of American civilization”: Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 46.
33 “You ask a man the way”: Appleton, Life and Letters of Thomas Gold Appleton, 135.
33 “Don’t you hate to see”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 57.
33 how he had “decorated” himself: Longfellow, Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Vol. I, 173.
33 “the glory of a little French hat”: Ibid.
34 “You should remember that you are an American”: Calhoun, Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life, 44.
34 No matter what is the article of trade: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 38.
34 “caressing and caressing”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 67.
35 “The French dine to gratify”: Ibid., 87.
35 “in blending flavors”: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 124.
35 A dinner here: Ibid., 125.
35 “loud modern New York”: Emerson, The Journals and Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Ferguson, Vol. IV, 197.
35 “the most hospitable of cities”: Ibid.
36 Then a person who cut profiles: Ibid., 198.
36 Nathaniel Willis kept seeing: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 84.
36 “impatient of all levity”: Arnold, Memoir of Jonathan Mason Warren, M.D., 51.
37 Happy the nation: Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, 125.
37 John Sanderson hired a cabriolet: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 47.
37 “It is a queer feeling”: Willis, Pencillings by the Way, 43.
37 No sooner had Cooper settled in Paris: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 277.
37 “He calls the Tuileries”: Ibid., 281.
38 The captain commenced: Ibid., 278.
38 best “look-out”: Ibid., 88.
38 We were fortunate: Ibid., 89.
38 The domes sprung up: Ibid., 90.
39 “peculiarities”: Ibid.
39 “confused glittering”: Ibid.
39 Charles Sumner, for his part: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 276.
39 “streets without houses”: Ibid., 133.
39 “It only grows under”: Ibid.
39 “great design”: Ibid.
40 “We must, if it be possible”: Hugo, Notre-Dame of Paris, 28.
40 “That, its author”: Ibid.
40 “The atmosphere brightened”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 166.
41 “that most chivalrous”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 77.
41 The bridge immediately: Ibid., 55, 77.
41 “very heart of Paris”: Ibid., 53.
42 “with a throb”: Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. I, 88.
42 “Holmes and I actually were at the Louvre”: Appleton, Life and Letters of Thomas Gold Appleton, 130.
42 Another day Appleton returned on his own: Ibid., 132–33, 137–38.
42 “much esteemed and bear a high price”: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 247.
42 “little or no drapery”: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 302.
42 No, my dear girls: Willard, Journal and Letters, from France and Great Britain, 62.
43 “running and hiding their faces”: Cooper, Gleanings in Europe: France, Vol. I, 302.
43 “Who would live in this rank old Paris”: Sanderson, The American in Paris, Vol. I, 98.