Thus--wrote he--you see the value of energy in Government for such a measure, which would have been wrapt in the flames of war and desolation in America, ends without creating the slightest disturbance. Every attempt to criticize even mildly the government is followed immediately by stern measures, suppressing the London papers, suppressing the _Leyden Gazette_, imprisoning Beaumarchais, and imprisoning the editor of the _Journal_, the author of the _Mercure_, etc.[186]
It is not until February, 1786, that he gave hints, quite incidentally, that the situation might become critical and that serious disturbances might be feared for the future.
But he did not see anywhere any immediate danger of a political commotion and during that year he continued to repeat in his letters that "Europe was very quiet for the present." As a matter of fact, he had come to the conclusion that the case of the Old World was hopeless; they were past redemption and, "if the Almighty had begotten a thousand sons, instead of one, they would not have sufficed for this task. If all the sovereigns of Europe undertook to emancipate the minds of their subjects, a thousand years would not place them on that high ground on which our common people are now setting out." France has become a horrible example to place constantly before the eyes of America, to remind her that the most important factor for the happiness of the people is the diffusion of common knowledge that will enable them to preserve themselves from kings, nobles, and priests, for it is impossible to imagine a people of more pleasant dispositions, more made for happiness, surrounded by so many blessings of nature, and yet "loaded with misery by kings, nobles, and priests, and by them alone."[187]
Never before had Jefferson been so vehement in his denunciations of kingly and priestly usurpations, never had he been so positive of the necessity of preserving American civilization from any foreign influences. But again this is not with him an _a priori_ view, it is the result of his observations more than of his theories.
He was confirmed in his hatred of the French régime by his conversations with Latude, who "comes sometimes to take family soup with me, & entertains me with anecdotes of his five & thirty years imprisonment, all of which for having written four lines on Madame de Pompadour."[188]