In everything relating to France Washington had observed the utmost caution, and his friendliness had been all the more marked because he had felt obliged to be guarded.  He had exercised this care even in personal matters, and had refrained, so far as possible, from seeing the emigres who had begun to come to this country.  Such men as the Vicomte de Noailles had been referred to the State Department, and in many cases the maintenance of this attitude had tried his feelings severely, for the exiles were not infrequently men who had fought or sympathized with us in our day of conflict.  Now came the new minister of the republic, a being apparently devoid of training or manners.  Before he had been received, or had appeared at the seat of government, before he had even taken possession of his predecessor’s papers, he had behaved in a way which would not have been inappropriate to a Roman governor of a conquered province.  He had ordered the French consuls to act as admiralty courts, he had armed cruisers, enlisted and commissioned American citizens, and had seen the vessels of a power with which the United States were at peace captured in American waters, and condemned in the States by French consular courts.  Three weeks before Genet’s audience Jefferson had a memorial from the British minister, justly complaining of the injuries done his country under cover of our flag; and while the government was considering this pleasant incident, Genet was faring gayly northward, feted and caressed, cheered and applauded, the subject of ovations and receptions everywhere.  At Philadelphia he was received by a great concourse of citizens, called together by the guns of the very privateer that had violated our neutrality, and led by provincial persons, who thought it fine to name themselves “citizen” Smith and “citizen” Brown, because that particular folly was the fashion in France.  A day was passed in receiving addresses, and then Genet was presented to the President.

A stranger contrast could not easily have been found even in that strange time, and two men more utterly unlike probably never faced each other as representatives of two great nations.  In the difference between them the philosopher may find, perhaps, some explanation of the difference in the character and results of the revolutions which came so near together in the two countries.  Nothing, moreover, could well be conceived more distasteful to Washington than the Frenchman’s conduct except the Frenchman himself.  There was about the man and his performances everything most calculated to bring one of those gusts of passionate contempt which now and again had made things unpleasant for some one who had failed in sense, decency, and duty.  This was impossible to a President, but nevertheless his self-restraint from the beginning to the end of his intercourse with Genet was very remarkable in a man of his temperament.  At their first interview his demeanor may have been a little colder than usual, and the dignified reserve somewhat more marked, but there was no trace of any feeling.  His manner, nevertheless, chilled Genet and came upon him like a cold bath after the warm atmosphere of popular plaudits and turgid addresses.  He went away grumbling, and complained that he had seen medallions of the Capets on the walls of the President’s room.