Albert Gallatin
compensated, by the care of a maiden lady--Mademoiselle Pictet--who had
taken him into her charge at his father's death. This lady, whose
affection never failed him, was the intimate friend of his mother as
well as a distant relative of his father. Young Gallatin remained in
this kind care until January, 1773, when he was sent to a
boarding-school, and in August, 1775, to the academy of Geneva, from
which he was graduated in May, 1779. The expenses of his education were
in great part met by the trustees of the Bourse Gallatin,--a sum left in
1699 by a member of the family, of which the income was to be applied to
its necessities. The course of study at the academy was confined to
Latin and Greek. These were taught, to use the words of Mr. Gallatin,
"Latin thoroughly, Greek much neglected." Fortunately his preliminary
home training had been careful, and he left the academy the first in his
class in mathematics, natural philosophy, and Latin translation. French,
a language in general use at Geneva, was of course familiar to him.
English he also studied. He is not credited with special proficiency in
history, but his teacher in this branch was Muller, the distinguished
historian, and the groundwork of his information was solid. No American
statesman has shown more accurate knowledge of the facts of history, or
a more profound insight into its philosophy, than Mr. Gallatin.
Education, however, is not confined to instruction, nor is the influence
of an academy to be measured by the extent of its curriculum, or the
proficiency of its students, but rather by its general tone, moral and
intellectual. The Calvinism of Geneva, narrow in its religious sense,
was friendly to the spread of knowledge; and had this not been the case,
the side influences of Roman Catholicism on the one hand, and the
liberal spirit of the age on the other, would have tempered its
exclusive tendency.
While the academy seems to have sent out few men of extraordinary
eminence, its influence upon society was happy. Geneva was the resort of
distinguished foreigners. Princes and nobles from Germany and the north
of Europe, lords and gentlemen from England, and numerous Americans went
thither to finish their education. Of these Mr. Gallatin has left
mention of Francis Kinloch and William Smith, who later represented
South Carolina in the Congress of the United States; Smith was
afterwards minister to Portugal; Colonel Laurens, son of the president
of Congress, and special envoy to France during the war of the American
Revolution; the two Penns, proprietors of Pennsylvania; Franklin Bache,
grandson of Dr. Franklin; and young Johannot, grandson of Dr. Cooper of
Boston. Yet no one of these followed the academic course. To use again
the words of Mr. Gallatin, "It was the Geneva society which they
cultivated, aided by private teachers in every branch, with whom Geneva
was abundantly supplied." "By that influence," he says, he was himself
"surrounded, and derived more benefit from that source than from
attendance on academical lectures." Considered in its broader sense,
education is quite as much a matter of association as of scholarly
acquirement. The influence of the companion is as strong and enduring as
that of the master. Of this truth the career of young Gallatin is a
notable example. During his academic course he formed ties of intimate
friendship with three of his associates. These were Henri Serre, Jean
Badollet, and Etienne Dumont. This attachment was maintained unimpaired
throughout their lives, notwithstanding the widely different stations
which they subsequently filled. Serre and Badollet are only remembered
from their connection with Gallatin. Dumont was of different mould. He
was the friend of Mirabeau, the disciple and translator of Bentham,--a
man of elegant acquirement, but, in the judgment of Gallatin, "without
original genius." De Lolme was in the class above Gallatin. He had such
facility in the acquisition of languages that he was able to write his
famous work on the English Constitution after the residence of a single
year in England. Pictet, Gallatin's relative, afterwards celebrated as a
naturalist, excelled all his fellows in physical science.
During his last year at the academy Gallatin was engaged in the tuition
of a nephew of Mademoiselle Pictet, but the time soon arrived when he
felt called upon to choose a career. His state was one of comparative
dependence, and the small patrimony which he inherited would not pass to
his control until he should reach his twenty-fifth year,--the period
assigned for his majority. It would be hardly just to say that he was
ambitious. Personal distinction was never an active motor in his life.
Even his later honors, thick and fast though they fell, were rather
thrust upon than sought by him. But his nature was proud and sensitive,
and he chafed under personal control. The age was restless. The spirit
of philosophic inquiry, no longer confined within scholastic limits, was
spreading far and wide. From the banks of the Neva to the shores of the
Mediterranean, the people of Europe were uneasy and expectant. Men
everywhere felt that the social system was threatened with a cataclysm.
What would emerge from the general deluge none could foresee. Certainly,
the last remains of the old feudality would be engulfed forever. Nowhere
was this more thoroughly believed than at the home of Rousseau. Under
the shadow of the Alps, every breeze from which was free, the Genevese
philosopher had written his "Contrat social," and invited the rulers and
the ruled to a reorganization of their relations to each other and to
the world. But nowhere, also, was the conservative opposition to the new
theories more intense than here.
The mind of young Gallatin was essentially philosophic. The studies in
which he excelled in early life were in this direction, and at no time
in his career did he display any emotional enthusiasm on subjects of
general concern. But, on the other hand, he was unflinching in his
adherence to abstract principle. Though not carried away by the
extravagance of Rousseau, he was thoroughly discontented with the
political state of Geneva. He was by early conviction a Democrat in the
broadest sense of the term. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more
perfect example of what it was then the fashion to call a _citoyen du
monde_. His family seem, on the contrary, to have been always
conservative, and attached to the aristocratic and oligarchic system to
which they had, for centuries, owed their position and advancement.
Abraham Gallatin, his grandfather, lived at Pregny on the northern shore
of the lake, in close neighborhood to Ferney, the retreat of Voltaire.
Susanne Vaudenet Gallatin, his grandmother, was a woman of the world, a
lady of strong character, and the period was one when the influence of
women was paramount in the affairs of men; among her friends she counted
Voltaire, with whom her husband and herself were on intimate relations,
and Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, with whom she corresponded. So
sincere was this latter attachment that the sovereign sent his portrait
to her in 1776, an honor which, at her instance, Voltaire acknowledged
in a verse characteristic of himself and of the time:--
"J'ai baise ce portrait charmant,
Je vous l'avourai sans mystere,
Mes filles en out fait autant,
Mais c'est un secret qu'il faut taire.
Vous trouverez bon qu'une mere
Vous parle un peu plus hardiment,
Et vous verrez qu'egalement,
En tous les temps vous savez plaire."
At Pregny young Gallatin was the constant guest of his nearest relatives
on his father's side, and he was a frequent visitor at Ferney. Those
whose fortune it has been to sit at the feet of Mr. Gallatin himself,
in the serene atmosphere of his study, after his retirement from active
participation in public concerns, may well imagine the influence which
the rays of the prismatic character of Voltaire must have had upon the
philosophic and receptive mind of the young student.
There was and still is a solidarity in European families which can
scarcely be said to have ever had a counterpart in those of England, and
of which hardly a vestige remains in American social life. The fate of
each member was a matter of interest to all, and the honor of the name
was of common concern. Among the Gallatins, the grandmother, Madame
Gallatin-Vaudenet, as she was called, appears to have been the
controlling spirit. To her the profession of the youthful scion of the
stock was a matter of family consequence, and she had already marked out
his future course. The Gallatins, as has been already stated, had
acquired honor in the military service of foreign princes. Her friend,
the Landgrave of Hesse, was engaged in supporting the uncertain fortunes
of the British army in America with a large military contingent, and she
had only to ask to obtain for her grandson the high commission of
lieutenant-colonel of one of the regiments of Hessian mercenaries. To
the offer made to young Gallatin, and urged with due authority, he
replied, that "he would never serve a tyrant;" a want of respect which
was answered by a cuff on the ear. This incident determined his career.
Whether it crystallized long-cherished fancies into sudden action, or
whether it was of itself the initial cause of his resolve, is now mere
matter of conjecture; probably the former. The three friends, Gallatin,
Badollet, and Serre seem to have amused their leisure in planning an
ideal existence in some wilderness. America offered a boundless field
for the realization of such dreams, and the spice of adventure could be
had for the seeking. Here was the forest primeval in its original
grandeur. Here the Indian roamed undisputed master; not the tutored
Huron of Voltaire's tale, but the savage of torch and tomahawk. The
continent was as yet unexplored. In uncertainty as to motives for man's
action the French magistrate always searches for the woman,--"cherchez
la femme!" One single allusion in a letter written to Badollet, in 1783,
shows that there was a woman in Gallatin's horoscope. Who she was, what
her relation to him, or what influence she had upon his actions, nowhere
appears. He only says that besides Mademoiselle Pictet there was one
friend, "une amie," at Geneva, from whom a permanent separation would be
hard.
Confiding his purpose to his friend Serre, Gallatin easily persuaded
this ardent youth to join him in his venturesome journey, and on April
1, 1780, the two secretly left Geneva. It certainly was no burning
desire to aid the Americans in their struggle for independence, such as
had stirred the generous soul of Lafayette, that prompted this act. In
later life he repeatedly disclaimed any such motive. It was rather a
longing for personal independence, for freedom from the trammels of a
society in which he had little faith or interest. Nor were his political
opinions at this time matured. He had a just pride in the Swiss Republic
as a free State (Etat libre), and his personal bias was towards the
"Negatif" party, as those were called who maintained the authority of
the Upper Council (Petit Conseil) to reject the demands of the people.
To this oligarchic party his family belonged. In a letter written three
years later, he confesses that he was "Negatif" when he abandoned his
home, and conveys the idea that his emigration was an experiment, a
search for a system of government in accordance with his abstract
notions of natural justice and political right. To use his own words, he
came to America to "drink in a love for independence in the freest
country of the universe." But there was some method in this madness. The
rash scheme of emigration had a practical side; land speculation and