A treaty of commerce is certainly concluded between France and Russia.  The particulars of it are yet secret.

I enclose the gazettes of France and Leyden to this date, and have the honor of assuring you of those sentiments of perfect esteem and respect, with which I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th:  Jefferson.

LETTER XLVI.—­TO MRS. BINGHAM, February 7, 1787

TO MRS. BINGHAM.

Paris, February 7, 1787.

I know, Madam, that the twelve-month is not yet expired; but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honor of being put into your hands.  You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not find the tranquil pleasures of America, preferable to the empty bustle of Paris.  For to what does that bustle tend?  At eleven o’clock, it is day, chez madame, the curtains are drawn.  Propped on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are read, and the billets of the well.  She writes to some of her acquaintance, and receives the visits of others.  If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble round the cage of the Palais Royal; but she must hobble quickly, for the coiffeurs turn is come; and a tremendous turn it is!  Happy, if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over!  The torpitude of digestion a little passed, she flutters half an hour through the streets, by way of paying visits, and then to the spectacles.  These finished; another half hour is devoted to dodging in and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper.  After supper, cards and after cards, bed; to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill-horse, the same trodden circle over again.  Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond the present moment; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it with us; eternally in pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us.  If death or bankruptcy happen to trip us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the next morning.  In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment with a healthy and an useful activity.  Every exertion is encouraging, because to present amusement it joins the promise of some future good.  The intervals of leisure are filled by the society of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cobweb, by being spread over a thousand objects.  This is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind; now let me have it in yours.  If we do not concur this year, we shall the next; or if not then, in a year or two more.  You see I am determined not to suppose myself mistaken.