Washington [443]
A small house, just like the adjacent houses, was the palace of the President of the United States; no guard, not even a footman. I knocked; a young maid servant opened the door. I asked her whether the general was at home; she answered that he was. I added that I had a letter for him. The girl asked for my name; it is not an easy one to pronounce in English and she could not repeat it. She then said gently: “Walk in, Sir. Entrez, Monsieur,” and she walked ahead of me through one of these narrow passageways which form the vestibule of English houses. Finally she showed me into a parlor and bade me wait for the general.16
One wonders whether Chateaubriand also noticed that a hairdressing shop stood next door to the presidential “palace.”
The president hobnobbed with the city’s commercial elite, especially the two wealthy couples he had befriended during earlier stays in Philadelphia: William and Anne Willing Bingham and Samuel and Elizabeth Willing Powel. Washington was chivalrous with both wives. When he sent Anne Bingham a watercolor version of the portrait of him by the Marquise de Bréhan, he appended this stylish note: “In presenting the enclosed (with compliments to Mrs. Bingham), the President fulfills a promise. Not for the representation—not for the value—but as the production of a fair hand, the offering is made and the acceptan[ce] of it requested.”17 With Elizabeth Powel, Washington continued to permit himself social liberties that he took with no other woman. In an age when subtle social signals counted a great deal, Washington boldly signed his letters to her, “With the greatest respect and affection”—extremely unusual for Washington.18 She, in turn, addressed her letters to “My dear Sir” and signed them, “Your sincere affectionate friend.”19 We know from Washington’s letters that he met with Elizabeth Powel many times but often failed to note their meetings in his diaries. At the very least he was beguiled by this social and political confidante. On the other hand, Powel was also a good friend of Martha, and George consulted her before buying gifts for his wife. In a sign that the Washingtons were slightly awed by this rich bluestocking, George would draft letters for Martha to send to Eliza Powel, and Martha would then rewrite them in her own hand.
On Sundays the president attended church and afterward was enveloped by throngs of admirers. One observer recalled him leaving Old Christ Church, wrapped in his blue cloak, with organ music bellowing behind him. Instead of touching people, he nodded to the hushed crowd that instinctively parted before him, so that there was something vaguely ecclesiastical about his presence: “His noble height and commanding air . . . his patient demeanor in the crowd . . . his gentle bendings of the neck, to the right and to the left, parentally, and expressive of delighted feelings on his part; these, with the appearance of the awed and charmed and silent crowd of spectators, gently falling back on each side, as he approached, unequivocally announced to the gazing stranger . . . behold the man!”20
Even as president, Washington’s interests were wider, his curiosity more far-ranging, than is commonly supposed. Confident in his own taste, he personally selected the paintings that adorned the presidential mansion—“fancy pieces of my own choosing,” he called them.21 He had an occasional sense of fun that belied his grave air. In April 1793 he led a party of eight to see the first American circus, staged by an English equestrian acrobat, John Bill Ricketts, who had set up a Philadelphia riding school. And he remained a keen theatergoer, absorbing a steady diet of history plays, farces, and satires. He patronized the South Street Theater so frequently that he had his own private box, complete with cushioned seats and plush red drapery. With a soldier stationed at each stage door and four distributed in the gallery, Washington probably enjoyed better security than did Lincoln the night of his assassination at Ford’s Theater.
However bowed down by presidential tasks,