Episode 23 - Where Decent Nature Spreads A Shade

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 23 - “Where Decent Nature Spreads A Shade”
Published on June 10, 2021

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is a Women's History podcast where we feature eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Katherine Gehred. Now you might remember a few weeks ago, I did an episode about Elizabeth Parke Custis Law. And I mentioned that there's a lot of stuff about Elizabeth that I don't know, and if anybody out there does know, they should contact me, because I'd be interested to find out. Well, my guest this week did exactly that. This is my friend, Dr. Cassandra Good, who I have met and worked with in the past, she is a historian, writer and a teacher in the Washington DC area, she's the author of Founding Friendships, which is an excellent book, but the friendships between men and women in the early American republic. So, pretty relevant to this podcast. And she's currently working on a book about Martha Washington's grandchildren, The Custises. So hello, Cassandra.

Cassandra Good

Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Kathryn Gehred

In your book, Founding Friendships, you talk about the friendships between men and women in the early republic, how would you characterize those friendships? And in what way are they different from male and female friendships today?

Cassandra Good

You know, the word "friend" gets used in a lot of different contexts back then, and so I had to decide for myself, you know, what, what am I talking about in terms of a friendship between men and women. And this was a relationship that was affectionate, that was reciprocal, and that the people in it described as a friendship. And those relationships also involve choice and freedom to leave. Unlike marriages, at the time, it was very hard to leave a marriage and you didn't have quite as much latitude in terms of who you were, who were going to marry, versus who you are going to be friends with, and I think that choice and freedom are sort of key terms here, because those are also really important values in the early republic. So, these friendships really represent the values of the time period, and in fact, they better represent those kind of values, and especially equality than any other relationship between men and women at this time. Marriages, you know, people start talking about marriage as being based on friendship and equality at this period, but legally, with the doctrine of coverture, a man still had legal power over his wife, she couldn't own property if they were married, unless there was some special arrangement, and you know, the men had a lot of power over women, whereas in a friendship, they really didn't have that there was a much more egalitarian nature to it. I do want to point out, though, that what I'm really talking about here is a phenomenon with upper middle class, or elite, white people, basically, and that doesn't, that's not to say that it was impossible for these relationships to happen with other people, but these are the people that left the kind of records that tell us about those friendships, these are the people who were literate, and who could afford paper and pens and postage to write each other the kind of letters that are a great sources for this. In terms of comparing these relationships to today, you know, I think, back then, and now there's still a sort of prejudice against friendships between men and women, in the sense that people assume there must be something sexual, and, you know, I didn't mention in my definition, you know, there is nothing sexual, I don't think that a physical aspect of a friendship means it's not a friendship, depends how people are defining it. The difference really, between then and now is that if there was a sexual and that the risk there, or even the perception of a sexual element, the risk to women was so much higher back then, especially an unmarried woman, her reputation, and her ability to find a husband depended on her reputation as a virgin. And if there was any hint that that was not the case, she could be unable to get married, which meant she wasn't gonna be able to support herself financially. So, it's actually a pretty serious, the stakes are pretty serious for women, in terms of the risks of these friendships, unlike today, fortunately.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, would you say, if there's a man and woman who in the eighteenth century that were married to other people, like they're both already married, friendships between them maybe had a little bit more leeway, because people would just sort of assume nothing was going on? Or was the gossip just as bad?

Cassandra Good

Well, usually what people did in those circumstances is include their spouses. So, if you look at George Washington's letters to Elizabeth Powell, for instance, he always mentions Martha towards the end of the letter, and that she he's sending her good wishes too. And so that's sort of the safety feature there. And for women who were married, they were supposed to have their husbands permission, basically to be friends with or correspond with a man, and in fact, Elizabeth Powell gives Washington's nephew Bushrod Washington a hard time because he writes her without getting her husband's permission first, and she says, you know, you know better than to do this because there's sort of an unwritten rule about that, but yeah, I think there is a little bit more safety, and actually, for women who have been widowed and are slightly older, they probably have the most leeway.

Kathryn Gehred 

Alright, so that was your previous book. Tell me a little bit about the current project that you're working on, and what inspired you to write about the Custis family?

Cassandra Good

Yeah, so when I was researching founding friendships, I came across several friendships between Eliza Parke Custis later Eliza Parke Custis Law, and men, and then her sister Nellie Custis Lewis, and, you know, I always had to look at who are these people, I had never heard of either of them, and I discovered that they were Martha Washington's grandchildren, George Washington step grandchildren, and the George Washington and help raise both of them basically, de facto adopted Nellie, and was like, I thought George Washington didn't have kids. How have I never heard of these people? What happened to them? And I started looking, and I thought, well, surely somebody has written a biography of this family. And it turned out, you know, there are a couple of books from like the 50s without footnotes about them, but that was it. And there's not even really scholarly articles about them. Their papers hadn't been transcribed, for the most part, a group of Nellies had been published in this amazing volume by Patricia Brady called George Washington's Beautiful Nelly, and that is a wonderful source, but that's only the tip of the iceberg of her letters, and so they also had two siblings, another sister, Martha Custis Peter, and then the youngest was a brother George Washington Parke Custis went by I mean, I usually just for ease of a name, that long column by his nickname as a kid, which was "Wash." And, the four of them actually, even though they are not blood related to George Washington, they're the ones that are celebrities as the first family during the presidency, and they are also the ones who after Washington's death really claim the mantle as Washington's family. He had blood related nieces and nephews, but it's these Custises who have ended up with all the Washington relics, all the stuff, they don't have Mount Vernon, but they have all this stuff from it, that they're displaying in their own homes in the DC area, and they're sort of making careers, even the women out of being related to George Washington, that's their entree into society and into participating in politics. So I really tell the story, or I will be telling the story in this book of their birth during all four of them are born during the revolution, and live until the eve of the Civil War, and in some ways, I see their story of what happens to them and how they set up their public presence as failing to live up to the kind of ideals that the Founding Fathers and that founding generation established. I think that in some ways, their failures are what gets us to the Civil War, like not them personally, but, you know, although, you know, George Washington Parke Custis, his daughter, married Robert E. Lee, and so we have this connection, you know, the straight line, and people knew that Lee was thus related by marriage to the family, and I think that because of Lee's role in the Civil War, after the war, people basically forgot who the Custises were,

Kathryn Gehred 

as somebody who has been spending the past five years working on the Martha Washington, collection of her letters. This is such a necessary book, this is going to be so good. I'm very excited about it.

Cassandra Good

I'm excited too.

Kathryn Gehred

So, when I asked you if you were interested in appearing on the podcast, you sent me this fantastic letter from Rosalie Stier Calvert, to her mother, how did you come across this letter?

Cassandra Good

So, I knew about Rosalie because I had actually come across her in my previous project too, and knew that she mentioned the Custises. There is an edited and translated edition of her letters to her family. That's called The Mistress of Riversdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, and it's edited and translated, almost all the letters are translated from French by Margaret Law Callcott, and these letters are actually most of the originals are still in Belgium. So, having this translated edition with annotations and everything is amazing, and she tells many interesting stories about the Custises says she's about the same age as they are, even though she is their aunt. She's married to their uncle George Calvert, and she lives fairly close to DC. So they're sort of in the same social circles.

Kathryn Gehred 

So as an introduction to our listeners, who was Rosalie Stier Calvert,

Cassandra Good

So I think the first thing Rosalie, if she was here would want you to know is that she was a European woman from a very wealthy family. She was born in Antwerp to Henry Joseph Stier and Mary Louise Peters in 1778. They have a nice townhouse in Antwerp. They have a chateau outside of the city, and they also have a fourteenth century castle, that her mother inherited. And, her mother also inherited a huge art collection of works by Dutch masters. So, this is an aristocratic family, very wealthy, and they are worried about the advancing French Revolution. It's coming their way, and so they flee for America in 1794. So it's Rosalie who's 16, her parents and then her two older siblings, Isabel, along with her husband and kids, and then her brother Charles and his wife, and then of course, they also bring the paintings. This is the finest collection of art to be on American soil ever at this point. And the family, it's sort of a family business, and in fact, Rosalie keeps up being part of that business, I think the rest of her life. And, so they're first getting settled in Philadelphia. Then they move to Annapolis, where she meets George Calvert, and Rosalie is actually the English speaker in the family. She had been out of school with English nuns before they came to America. So, she meets George Calvert, from the famous Calvert family in Maryland, although he is from the illegitimate line of Calvert's that illegitimate line still ends up inheriting plenty of money and land. You know, he also is related to George Washington's family through his sister who's married John Parke Custis, so you know, he's a pretty eligible guy, but her father, they weren't planning on staying in America for good. Their hope was always to go back to Europe. And he didn't want Rosalie marrying an American. He eventually relents, though, and they finally get married in 1799. And in fact, they visit Mount Vernon on their wedding trip. So pretty nice honeymoon. They later settle at a plantation in Maryland that had 76 enslaved people. And then they ended up moving to a house that her father started to build. He bought a plot of land not far from where George Calvert and Rosalie were living, and they called the plot their Riversdale, and he starts building this gorgeous mansion. And, this is if you know, the geography, the area, Bladensburg is not that far from DC. This is where there'd be an important battle, leading up to the invasion of Washington in the War of 1812. So, she's not far from the city, but still in an area that's mostly, you know, rural plantations, things get better back in Europe, for aristocrats, and so the Stiers go back. They leave in the summer of 1803, leaving Rosalie and George and their growing family, and a large number, a number of enslaved people in this absolutely beautiful federal mansion, which anybody can go visit. It's open to the public Riversdale in Prince George's County, Maryland.

Kathryn Gehred 

Before we dig into the letter, I like to introduce some of the key players usually before we go in. So a person who features heavily in this letter is Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, who the first time I read it, and I heard Madame Bonaparte I had no idea who they were referring to. So, could you introduce Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte?

Cassandra Good

Yay, I think Elizabeth probably would have looked at somebody like Rosalie as a model of who she wanted to be. She was born to a wealthy Baltimore family in 1785, but she always sort of yearned to be a European aristocrat. So it was just her luck that she met and fell in love with Napoleon's younger brother Jerome, who's traveling in the US in the early nineteenth century, and they ended up getting married in late 1803. And this marriage is problematic in a bunch of ways. First of all, the Bonaparte's are Catholic. And while Maryland is more tolerant towards Catholics in other places, this is still a problem in America. The other thing is, you know, he's the brother of an arch enemy of the United States. Napoleon is, you know, we still have the Napoleonic wars going on in Europe at this point, they're a threat to the United States. I don't think people realize how close America came to war with France in the War of 1812. They almost did a joint declaration of war against Britain and France. So like, even in 1803, Napoleon is not a popular person in America, and so for an American to marry his brother, not only is she marrying into an enemy family, she's marrying into an aristocratic you know, an emperor's family. Is she going to get some kind of title? What is that going to mean? We weren't supposed to have aristocracy in America. They actually consider a constitutional amendment, possibly because of this. That's at least what one of her biographers Charlene Boyle Lewis argues that they're so freaked out about Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte that they're they almost passed an amendment to sort of ban titles for anybody in America. Now Elizabeth marriage doesn't turn out great. They have a short run in the US, where they wow everybody with how well dressed they are and fancy and wealthy, and then Jerome goes back to France to try and smooth things over with Napoleon who clearly wanted him to marry into another royal family. Napoleon's not having it. He has the marriage in annulled, when Elizabeth and their infant son are on a boat trying to get into France, he blocks the boat from coming in to port, he does not let Elizabeth into the country. It's hard to even imagine that you could do that back then. But it was physically possible, but he blocked her cuts off the marriage. And marries Jerome off to a German princess. So Elizabeth, none of this has happened at the point of this letter, she's still on cloud nine with her new husband and fabulous wealth. So, that's sort of what you need to know about her to understand the letter.

Kathryn Gehred 

For people who are maybe a little bit more politically savvy living in the federal city at this point, do you think that they saw this relationship as doomed from the start? And all of a sudden though they have to meet with these people? Or how do you think Washington society saw this match?

Cassandra Good

There was a wariness in Washington at this point, in part because of Jefferson and the Democratic Republicans who have come into power, and they are wary of any signs of aristocracy. They thought that the Federalists and the Washington and Adams administrations had been too aristocratic almost royalist that they had too much ritual, too much display of wealth and fancy clothes. And, they get nervous around the Europeans, just even the ambassadors that are in town, because of their displays of wealth, you know, when they have dinner parties, it's at a level that no American can afford, and you know, so it's an even if we think about the biggest houses in America, at this point, are just puny compared to the castles in Europe, there's a real difference here. And, there's a political issue there too, because they think that to have a republic, to have a democratic republic, you need to have virtuous citizens, and part of that virtue is being simple, being modest, that any displays of luxury are going to get you into bad political waters, and so there's a real political and even partisan valence, because of the Democratic Republicans being more into this idea. Rosalie sort of certainly would have identified with the Federalists, that Custises. Three of the four of them were Federalist. Eliza Parke Custis Law was actually a Democratic Republican.

Kathryn Gehred

Ever the contrarian.

Cassandra Good

Yes, that caused a rift with the rest of her family. Rosalie was also a monarchist, she thought the whole democracy thing in America was silly. She became friends with a later French leader, British ambassador, Augustus Foster, you know, she had a sort of flirtatious friendship with him that she wrote about as well. And that's when I first came across her, but you know, she, in some ways, is able to pull off the aristocratic European thing in ways that are safer, because she actually is European.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, I think that's very good context leading into this letter. The only other couple points I want to mention is at the time of writing this Rosalie is 26 years old, she'd been married to George Calvert, for about five years at this point, she had two young children. and she was very early on in her pregnancy with a third at the time that she wrote this. And, she's writing the letter to her mother, who had just recently gone back there, she they had moved back to the Netherlands, and so she's actually only just recently moving into that beautiful house, and is continuing work on it. But, there's a little bit of discussion of the house and the letter. So I wanted to mention that key players in the letter are Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. But we also you'll also recognize the name Thomas Law, who comes up in this letter, who, who's Thomas Law?

Cassandra Good

So, Thomas Law is this British gentleman from actually a pretty well to do, well known British family, he had served in India, and then a colonial official for awhile, and then decided to come to United States, and he shows up in Philadelphia, when it is the national capital and meets Eliza. He's 20 years older than she is, but they fall in love and get married in the spring of 1796, and then move to Washington, DC. This is before the city has even really been built Law is trying to be an investor in this new capital city, and so they're living in one of the first houses in the city at the point that they move, they're near Capitol Hill, and Thomas Law also had three children born to an Indian woman, we don't know anything about this woman, the relationship, you know, to what degree this was a sexual exploitation relationship, but he does end up bringing two of those children to America, John and Edmund Law and they grew up in America, even though they were almost as old as Eliza, she wanted to be a mother figure to them. And, then she and Thomas also had a young daughter who was born in 1797, who was Eliza Law Jr, basically. And, at the point of this letter Law had gone to Europe for a while, and he was away for longer than Eliza would have liked, and she starts getting annoyed. He comes back, they have a huge party to welcome him home. Rosalie, you know, is involved in all these family parties when he gets back. and she recounts that, and, you know, he's sort of a eccentric, but likable, witty guy who likes to write poems, as we'll see. But, it is not long after this letter takes place that he and Eliza end up separating, and it is the scandal of Washington for the rest of 1804. Everybody in Washington is writing about this, and you know, you can see with his behavior in this letter, you know, is there some sense that this is part of Eliza's problem with him? We don't know. Basically, from what I can tell a lot of people were speculating about why they separated and even Rosalie Nellie, Eliza sister, they basically say, they just couldn't get along with each other. That's all it came down to. Back then you did not separate for that reason. But, Eliza was a really independent person, and she wasn't going to do things the way other people did. So that should help knowing that before we get into the letter

Kathryn Gehred 

Rosalie Stier Calvert, to Marie Louise steer.

"Riversdale 2 March 1804. Dear Mama, I haven't heard from you in two months. During this time, there have been a huge number of ships coming into Baltimore from Amsterdam, and with each one I thought I would finally receive your letters. You can imagine my impatience and being disappointed each time. We have had a very hard winter. We could cross over the Potomac on horseback. The snow was deep and stayed on the ground a long time, and we had the pleasure of going to Washington by sleigh several times. One night, as we were returning home, we met another sleigh carrying Betsy Lloyd. The road was narrow our horses very lively, and in passing the other two fast we overturned in several feet of snow. Before the gentleman in the other sleigh could come to our aid, we were already on our feet and ready to go on our way. This makes for a diversion of sorts, and is pleasant. There were several large dancing parties this winter. Mr. Taylor gave a very nice one a few days ago, he had two bands of good musicians, one for the dancers, the other made up of military instruments, clarinets, kettle, drums, etc, etc. They played in the round salon where it made a delightful effect. I like dancing more than ever. There is a ball every Tuesday, alternately at Georgetown and on Capitol Hill. The clothes they wear are extremely becoming, although some display a little too much, among others, Madam Bonaparte, who wears dresses so transparent and tight, you could see her skin through them. No shimmies at all. Mrs. Mary, the new English ambassadress is very fat, and covers only with fine lace two objects that could fill a fourth of a bushel. I'm enclosing some verses that Mr. Law who stayed here gave me the other day, you may not understand all of the humor, you must get my brother to read them to you. The occasion which gave rise to them is this. Mrs. Bonaparte came to a dance given by Mr. Smith wearing a dress so transparent that you could see the color and shape of her thighs and even more. Several ladies made a point of leaving the room, and one informs the bell that if she did not change her manner of dressing she would never be asked anywhere again. Our nephew Law, who was a great poet, composed the first verses. Colonel Byrd wickedly told the lady that someone had written some very pretty verses about her beauty, and she's so insisted on seeing them that the poor poet in order to keep his eyes had to write the second verses. At the moment I am busy making curtains, slipcovers etc. For the dining room. The curtains are of that blue striped English cloth who gave me trimmed with a white fringe intermixed with small blue tassels. There's just enough material for the windows and the sofa. The cornices are white and gilt and I plan to paint the room yellow. The middle bedroom has curtains and bed hangings of white Dimity with white fringe intermingled with green and red embellishment which is quite elegant. The carpenter is going to start finishing the other bedroom now. I want to make the garden my principal amusement this summer. I hope that Charles will send me plans for the lake and for some bridges and gates. My children and my husband are in good health. Please give my compliments to Papa, your affectionate daughter, R.E. Calvert"

And then appended to this letter included in it is of course Thomas Law's poem which I thought I would let Cassandra deliver.

Cassandra Good

"I was at Mrs. Smith's last night and highly gratified myself. Well, what have Madame Bonaparte why she's a little whore at heart, or lustful looks for wanton air, her limbs revealed her bosom bear, show her ill suited for the life of a Colombian's modest wife. Wisely she's chosen her proper line, she's formed for Jerome's concubine. Napoleon full of trouble conquers for an empty bubble. Jerome's conquest full of pleasure gains him a substantial treasure, the former triumphs to destroy, the latter triumphs to enjoy the former's praise were little worth if even he vanquished all the earth. The latter Heaven itself has won for the adored Miss Patterson."

And I should note that there's a little section of the poem where there's some ellipses, and there's a footnote that says these lines were probably censored by Thomas Law. And we never knew what those lines said, Until very recently, when I found another copy of this poem, which must have been Law's own copy of the poem that did not have these lines censored and those two lines so this comes right after "her lustful looks, her wanton air, her limbs revealed her bosom bare knees, something else almost displayed, were decent nature spreads a shade." So, those lines cut out and we have to assume if they were censored, he's referring to female anatomy there.

Kathryn Gehred 

And, he's like, maybe I don't want my aunt's mother to read this.

Cassandra Good

Exactly.

Kathryn Gehred

So, that's pretty saucy. That's a that's a saucy poem. I love the image of Aaron Burr, basically going up to Madame Bonaparte and telling her about this poem. It just seems like such high school bullying tactics. What is your take on Thomas Law writing this poem?

Cassandra Good

You know, he liked writing poems, he wrote other sort of playful poems. I mean, he wrote a poem about his separation from Eliza. At a certain point, we know he wrote a lot of poems. And I don't know that he would have seen this as necessarily malicious. I, but you know, he is making a joke at the expense of a woman's sexuality. So, there is a hard edge there. And, you know, making fairly sexual set of jokes here about her, which he clearly thinks are justified based on the way she's dressing. Now, you know, obviously, she would not have agreed, that would be justified. What she's wearing is the fashion in Paris. And,

Kathryn Gehred 

I wanted to ask, is that so? Is this really like she's showing up in this clear dress? Or this transparent dress? Is that something that like people were wearing elsewhere? Or people were wearing and that people in Washington were just surprised by? Or, is this something that tells you about maybe their response to it was dramatic?

Cassandra Good

Yeah, there's some debate about how transparent this was, you know, she's not wearing something that's, you know, see through plastic, right, but you know, what she's wearing is a white gown that doesn't have any undergarments, and as you know, if you wear something white, you can see through it sometimes if it's not thick enough fabric. And so that is probably what's happening here. The other thing is, usually women were not wearing things that other other than at the bust, they weren't wearing things that clung to their bodies, partially because they had these undergarments separating them. So the fact that there was no in between this could cling to her body in a way that would show that form that people weren't used to. So, there are people you can see portraits of French woman at this time, wearing see through dresses where you can pretty clearly see their breasts through the dress. It's not clear that that's what's happening here. It's unclear exactly how transparent This is. But certainly Americans are more prudish than Europeans when it comes to this kind of clothing.

Kathryn Gehred 

Do you feel like the response to Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte was politically charged because a lot of times when there's these sort of public outrage about a woman's behavior, there's more to it than just what is on its face. And I noticed even in the poem, he mentions he says something about a "Colombian's modest wife." So he's saying he's, he's tying it into politics of the time of what's appropriate for a Colombian's modest wife to be wearing.

Cassandra Good

Right in Colombia is a figure representing America. So, he's saying, you know, an American's modest wife would not dress this way. And we were talking before about the importance of virtue in a Democrat Republic, and particularly in Washington, after the Jeffersonians have come in, and they are trying to emphasize simplicity as part of their virtue. Now, that didn't mean they weren't showing off wealth when even wearing a white gown, preferably for them with undergarments was a way you can show off simplicity. But you were also showing off wealth because having a white gown meant you were rich enough to have people clean it for you, and you know, it was very labor intensive to clean white fabric and keep out sweat stains and things like that. So having a white gown, in fact, could both display wealth and simplicity. A see through white gown is another story. There were other instances where Americans in Washington at this time are worried about what people are wearing, and what it's going to do for the future of the Republic so that British ambassador's wife, Mrs. Mary shows up at a party wearing supposedly undemocratic diamonds and was turned away, and you know, Jefferson famously received Mr. Mary, when he first came to call on him at the president's house wearing a robe and tattered slippers, and he was sort of tossing one of the slippers on his toe. Jefferson could afford to wear nice clothes, right? They're sending messages with their clothes, about politics, and so she happens Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte is sending a message that people don't like, and one of her biographers Charlene Boyer Lewis says, in American terms, "she failed as a citizen and a lady." And I think that sort of sums it up.

Kathryn Gehred 

I was excited to see the mention of Mrs. Mary in this a little bit of unfortunate fat shaming of Mrs. Mary. But that was a funny, it's kind of a funny line with the two objects that could fill a fourth of a bushel.

Cassandra Good

Yeah, yeah. I mean, she Rosalie isn't pulling any punches here, either. No, she could be pretty acerbic and her letters.

Kathryn Gehred 

And yeah, she's clearly delighted with this poem, if she wants to pass this on. When she has the line where she says, to get my brother to read, read them to you, is that because of a language issue, or is that because she's thinks her mom will pick up on sort of the saucier comedy?

Cassandra Good

My guess is that with the translation, or just the euphemisms that she thinks her, her mother is not going to understand the humor of this poem, and wants her to pick up on it. This isn't necessarily the poem, kind of poem that I can see an American woman sending to her mother. I mean, it's even without those censored lines, it's fairly inappropriate.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, as I was trying to look at more about the context, I did come across the way that Louisa Catherine Adams described Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte at one of the parties at the same social season. She said, "we were last evening at a ball given by Mrs. Biden, his Thornton, mat, and Bonaparte, who makes a great noise here, was there almost naked." That's the only way she described it, but that just knew she makes a great noise, and was almost naked.

Cassandra Good

Yeah, I mean, the almost naked thing is, that seems to be what people thought it looked like.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Cassandra Good

Although I'm sure by our terms, she would have looked much more clothed.

Kathryn Gehred 

Right, because I know the fashion was, was getting a little bit more daring with like lower cut dresses, and I know that sometimes they would have with a dolly Madison's like, squeezes or whatever, there was some discussion of the way women were dressed. It seems like Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte really wanted to be a part of sort of European society. And this was her way of doing that in America.

Cassandra Good

Right, and she must have been somebody who sort of delighted in getting people talking, because you don't wear a dress that, you know, is going to be scandalous in America to a party held by the Secretary of the Navy, in the nation's capitol full of politicians, and, you know, and Burr obviously thinks this whole thing is hysterical, too. And I think, you know, I think in some ways he and Thomas Law were probably kindred spirits. Burr had a playfulness to him and a wit. He also was somebody who liked women a lot in various ways. I mean, Burr himself, well, we don't know of any children out of wedlock. He had had an affair with a woman named Leonora Sansay, who actually wrote a novel in letters partially based on their relationship. Burr himself, is an interesting figure here in his mischief making.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, that's, I think, is a side to it, because, you know, Thomas Law came to the United States with three children that he had with a woman who was not married to, and Burr obviously has his own sort of sexual scandals, lot of scandals like this in Washington. So it's kind of of course, Thomas Law can come to America with three illegitimate children and still write a poem or call somebody else a horror, which is just delightful.

Cassandra Good

Well, I think that really comes out of the fact at that sexuality, there's different standards of sexuality for elite white women, and even poor white women, those same sexual standards don't necessarily apply, and certainly, to women of color, different sexual standards would have applied and, you know, who was appropriate to be sexually exploited, varied by race, I mean, Rosalie's own husband had a number of children within an enslaved woman, you know, in what could only have been an exploitative relationship, and she knew about it, Eliza's, brother Wash had children with enslaved women. So, you know, they could still have a very strict standard about white, elite, white women's purity, and think differently about women of color.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, this with the way that Law and Burr are sort of delighted by this very scantily clad woman at this party, and it's simultaneously he's complimenting her with this poem, but also degrading her, but also he he clearly is getting a big kick out of this, this woman just being creepy. I feel like he's just being creepy.

Cassandra Good

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's hard to know exactly how this would have come off to her because he then does, because Burr has said, oh, you know, Mr. Law, wrote a poem about you. Then he writes this alternate poem about her that she's going to be able to see, and, you know, writing poetry there about somebody else is a bit flirtatious. He is a married man, and he, you know, he's sort of known as a character. And there's a story about him. We don't know exactly when this would have occurred, but there's a story about him that when he was at the springs, at Berkeley Springs, he had gone in to the baths, the public baths there and then forgot to get dressed again and walked out into a crowd of people naked. I mean, we don't know for sure that this happened.

Kathryn Gehred

"Where decent nature casts the shade." Thomas Law.

Cassandra Good

Right, right. Well, just the fact that that story would be told about him suggests there is an eccentricity about him. I don't see it necessarily as creepiness, although again, we don't know how exactly he approached Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, a lot of his poems come off as more playful. He definitely gave poems to other people. Through today's lens, certainly there is a creepiness factor, you know, he was old enough to be Eliza's father, he had these children out of wedlock, he later would have a child with an African American woman, he may have brought a French mistress back from Europe with him when he came back in 1803. So, this is a man who, you know, certainly applies different sexual standards to himself than to women of his class.

Kathryn Gehred 

I like the his last verse that he added, where he says Napoleon's brother is smarter than Napoleon because well, Napoleon might take over the world. He doesn't have this beautiful wife, someone at the adored Miss Patterson, which maybe he'd have to add into that poem to make it less insulting. He wrote another poem about Elizabeth Patterson after he saw, yeah, so she had her portrait done by Gilbert Stewart that showed her face from three different angles and law responded to that portrait. He said, "The painter won't overwhelm the sculptors art for Venus statue. We no longer fear the matchless form of Madam Bonaparte will not by Stewart at full length appear. But ah, the figure with three heads in one with so much fervor idolized will be I tremble lest our faith should be undone with this new captivating Trinity." It seems like she was very striking. Like a beautiful woman.

Cassandra Good

So you can see some of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte's dresses and jewelry, even her tiara at the Maryland Center for history and culture and on their website. So they don't have the famous transparent gown. And, she was absolutely a beauty and took pride in that, and in fact, lived a very long, long life until I believe 1878.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, after after, everything sort of blew up with Napoleon, what was what was next for Elizabeth.

Cassandra Good

So she was trying to get some kind of recognition for her son, and payments from the French. She was hoping that her son would move to France and stay in France. She herself went to France for a while. And she was in some of the same circles as Eliza Parke Custis Law in Washington for a little while. So, she she was back in Washington at a certain point. So she's going back and forth between Europe and America. Her son ultimately settles back in America, to her disappointment, and then she also comes back to America

Kathryn Gehred 

Is she still sort of part of high society at that point, or does she have to kind of reclaim her spot?

Cassandra Good

I think that she always had an air about her that, and I think she saw herself as superior to a lot of people in America, she always looked down on America, and would have preferred to be in Europe. So you can definitely you can read a lot more about her in Charlene Boyer Lewis's biography, or else Carol Burke, and also has a biography of her. So, you have two different options for reading about her. And in fact, Charlene Boyer Lewis's book has that portrait on the front, this Stewart portrait that we're talking about here with the three, three heads and one.

Kathryn Gehred 

That's cool. So, I feel like there's there's a lot of sort of gender expectations and things going on as letter. What does this whole sort of tobacco say about the expectations of womanhood in the early republic?

Cassandra Good

Yeah, I think this really shows the degree to which womanhood, gender, sexuality are all policed in this period, and policed as part of a larger political project, and a project about making a new country making a new democratic republic, and making a country that is different from Europe. They can wear the scandalous see through gowns and aristocratic old France, where, you know, part of the panic about the French Revolution that happened in both America and Europe was that women were getting too influential in this period, and it was their fault that the government fell and that things went to pieces, right. And so there is this sort of fear of women's sexuality. And that's not to say that women have no role. In fact, you know, if, if they're bad behavior can hurt things that are good behavior can help things part of their role in upholding their public is this model of what we call Republican womanhood or republican motherhood, they were supposed to be well educated to be able to converse with their husbands and raise their sons to be good citizens. So, they do have this role, but it's certainly quite a restrictive one. I think the other thing we can sort of see from this is the way Washington society is starting to come together, the city has only existed for a few years, less than five years, really at the point of this party. And it's clear that it is not going to be a city like New York and Philadelphia that have an established wealthy elite. This is going to be a different place with different standards, a different tone, and you know, that would change with different presidents, but Jefferson is really trying to get things off on a different foot. And you know, he certainly has pretty conservative ideas about women's roles and what they should be. And I think we see some of that here, too.

Kathryn Gehred 

It's almost feels like she sort of like busted in, at exactly the wrong moment for Thomas Jefferson's vision of what he wanted the United States to be could sort of, as in the case of many women in history sort of take the brunt of a lot of this. The blame of the downfall of of society. There's no, there's no room for being able to see someone's dies through their dress in Republican motherhood.

Cassandra Good

Absolutely not. Katherine MK Mitchell talked about in 1811, "Elizabeth coming to a presidential dinner wearing a dress that quote, expose so much of her bosom and laid bare her back nearly halfway to the bottom of her waist. The state of nudity in which she appeared attracted the attention of the gentleman, for I saw several of them taking a look at her bubbies when they were conversing with her." Which I've never seen the word "bubbies" used for boobs before. But and I remember asking my advisor in grad school, when I read this is that thing, and she's like, I've never heard that before.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, I imagined it doesn't come up a lot of times in correspondence, but she had to bring up people because people are threatening her that she can't go to and then she won't be invited to any more events and she'll be thrown out of events and women are leaving when they see her walk into nice dresses, and she just keeps wearing those dresses to these parties.

Cassandra Good

Yes, clearly, Elizabeth is a determined woman. And I think in some ways, it's hard to imagine her getting along with Eliza Parke Custis Law because of how headstrong both of them were. But, they do have this in common that they have this independent streak that there are certain things in their lives that they are just going to do. Whether it's Eliza saying I am separating from my husband and getting my own farm, and you just try and stop me I'm doing it, or whether it's Elizabeth saying, you know, I'm going to marry the French Emperor's brother, and I'm going to wear what I want, even if it's scandalizes you there is something likable about that I think in both of these women.

Kathryn Gehred 

Absolutely. They I mean they were born into a position in society where they have a little bit more flexibility although they also have a lot of as you can tell, of scrutiny, public scrutiny, and they just ignore the scrutiny and just do what they want.

Cassandra Good

Yeah, and Eliza Parke Custis Law at one point says basically that she would have been happier if she had been born a man, or her life would have been easier like she wanted to get the kind of education the boys got. I don't think Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte felt like that. I think she reveled in she seems pretty feminine. Yeah, I think she reveled in being a woman, but certainly also, you know, had this independent streak. It's interesting to see Burr come in here because he's also he's friends with both of Laws. He is a Democratic Republican like him, like both of them, and he hasn't killed Hamilton yet. So keep that in mind. Although, you know, I'm quite amazed if you look at the accounts of when he comes back, that I'm not sure that that would have changed how popular he was with the Democratic Republicans. They apparently welcomed him with open arms back into Washington. When he comes back after having killed Hamilton. I remember reading about that kind of shocking, but yeah, so he was friends with Eliza Parke Custis Law, you know, so I'm sure that this was some of the, you know, chitchat at the party and just causing trouble that Burr was known for?

Kathryn Gehred 

Rosalie steered she, she, her politics are quite different from the Democratic Republicans. But it seems like she sort of finds herself in this group.

Cassandra Good

Well, she is hanging out at this party because it's sort of for everybody in Washington, but her circles, certainly she would have preferred staying in Federalist circles. And, in fact, Eliza after she separates from Thomas law goes and stays with Rosalie for a little while, and, you know, they're close for a while. Rosalie says some pretty nice things about her and then they sour on each other, and Rosalie later says, like I was wrong about her. I can't stand her at and this is her niece.

Kathryn Gehred

Wow.

Cassandra Good

You know, I'm sure they still saw each other, but their relationship definitely soured. 

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. It was a delight to have you.

Cassandra Good

Thanks for having me.

Kathryn Gehred

As for my listeners, I will provide show notes a link to some of these books that we've been mentioning some of the documents, many links to some of the places that we've mentioned and some of these exhibits, so you have some stuff to look through. And as ever, I am your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much.