To Thomas Jefferson from Jacob Wagner, 15 January 1805
From Jacob Wagner
Tuesday morning [15 Jan. 1805]
J. Wagner’s best respects to the President of the U. States. He has learnt at the French Minister’s, that the style of addressing Jerome Bonaparte, used by the Minister and proper to be used by others, is Monsieur and Sir, in the manner a private frenchman was addressed before the Revolution.
RC (DLC); partially dated; addressed: “The President of the U. States”; endorsed by TJ as a letter of 15 Jan. 1805 received from the State Department on the same day and “Jerome Bonaparte.”
learnt at the French Minister’s: Louis Marie Turreau de Garambouville, who succeeded Louis André Pichon as minister plenipotentiary to the United States, had arrived in Washington on 18 Nov. and presented himself to TJ on 23 Nov. (Aurora, 23 Nov.; National Intelligencer, 26 Nov.).
When Jerome Bonaparte and his wife, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, dined with TJ in January 1804, TJ addressed them as monsieur and madame. On 18 May 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte declared himself emperor and his brothers Joseph and Louis as princes of the empire with right of succession. Jerome and a fourth brother were excluded—Lucien because of a political dispute with Napoleon and Jerome because of his marriage to Elizabeth Patterson in 1803. American papers carried the news of Jerome Bonaparte’s exclusion, but there was some confusion among them as to his title and the extent of Napoleon’s displeasure. Jerome Bonaparte dined with TJ on 13 Feb. 1805 at a table that included Turreau. Following the dinner, Bonaparte attended a large party at the home of Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, whose brother was Elizabeth Bonaparte’s uncle by marriage (Eugene L. Didier, The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte [New York, 1879], 14, 23-4; Washington Federalist, 1 Aug., 28 Nov., 5 Dec. 1804; Relfs Philadelphia Gazette, 19 Nov. 1804; National Intelligencer, 26 Oct., 30 Nov. 1804; John Quincy Adams, diary 27 [1 Jan. 1803 to 4 Aug. 1809], 137, in MHi: Adams Family Papers; Vol. 42:235-6; Appendix II). See also Vol. 41:603n.