1. Lafayette wrote to WSS on 16 Jan., briefly mentioning the meeting of the Assembly of Notables, but in WSS’s 24 Jan. letter to John Jay he quoted virtually verbatim from Lafayette’s account in this letter of the assembly’s membership (Roof, Smith and Lady description begins Katharine Metcalf Roof, Colonel William Smith and Lady: The Romance of Washington’s Aide and Young Abigail Adams, Boston, 1929. description ends , p. 142–143; Dipl. Corr., 1783–1789 description begins The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America, from … 1783, to … 1789, [ed. William A. Weaver], repr., Washington, D.C., 1837 [actually 1855]; 3 vols. description ends , 3:60).

2. Of 30 Nov. 1786, above.

3. While JA and Thomas Jefferson pursued a diplomatic resolution, Lafayette advocated a more aggressive response to the seizure of American ships in the Mediterranean. In [ca. 6 March 1786] letters to Jefferson and Henry Knox, Lafayette recommended sending John Paul Jones to lead a naval blockade of key ports in the Barbary States (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 9:318–320). See JA’s reasons for dismissing Lafayette’s suggestion in his 6 June letter to Jefferson, above.

4. Acting at the request of the French finance minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Louis XVI gathered the Assembly of Notables at eleven o’clock in the morning on 22 Feb. 1787 in the Salle des Menus Plaisirs at Versailles. The 144-member convention, composed of noblemen, clergy, magistrates, and municipal officers, had not met formally since 1626, and signaled French interest in experimenting with constitutional monarchy. Delayed by the 13 Feb. death of the Comte de Vergennes and by Calonne’s illness, the notables split into seven bureaus to address the ruinous state of France’s economy. They took a brief hiatus to observe Easter and adjourned on 25 May, reshaping public opinion but effecting no fundamental change in economic policy. Lafayette, one of the younger and more radical noblemen in attendance, reported to the American commissioners, George Washington, and WSS on the proceedings, which spun out of both Calonne’s and the king’s control.

Initially, Calonne planned to use the convention to leverage popular support for his financial reforms, so that he could sidestep the anticipated resistance of local parlements. Calonne sought to impose a general land tax and stamp tax, to lift internal customs barriers, to regulate the corn trade, and to create elective provincial assemblies. But the notables, shocked to learn of the country’s dire financial straits, spent most of the debates indicating their displeasure with Louis XVI and the inadequacy of Calonne and the finance ministers who had preceded him. They countered with an aggressive set of reforms to resolve the crisis, including new forms of fiscal equality and improved accounting of public revenue in the provinces. Far from earning him the “great Honour” that Lafayette predicted, the notables’ well-publicized criticism of Louis XVI caused his waning popularity to plummet further in the assembly’s aftermath. The king dismissed Calonne on 8 April and later exiled him from Paris (Schama, Citizens description begins Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, New York, 1989. description ends , p. 237–246; Gottschalk, Lafayette description begins Louis Gottschalk, Lafayette, Chicago, 1935–1940; 4 vols. description ends , 4:279–300; Cambridge Modern Hist. description begins The Cambridge Modern History, Cambridge, Eng., 1902–1911; repr. New York, 1969; 13 vols. description ends , 8:100–106, 144). See also Jefferson’s account of the opening of the assembly, in his letter to JA of 23 Feb. (Jefferson, Papers description begins The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, Princeton, N.J., 1950– . description ends , 11:176–177).

At the assembly, Lafayette spoke often as an ardent proponent of toleration toward Protestants, freedom of trade, and the need to reform criminal law. He read JA’s Defence during the “Very Solemn” debates and likely drew on it to make his own arguments for local assemblies. “Some of our friends, who Agree with mr Turgot’s democratic principles, were Surprised that I, a Republican in the Heart, did vote for Such distinctions in the Assembly as would form or Rather prepare a check in future times, and a division in three Branches,” he wrote to JA on 9 April; he enclosed a report of the notables’ actions in a subsequent 30 May letter (both Adams Papers description begins Manuscripts and other materials, 1639–1889, in the Adams Manuscript Trust collection given to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1956 and enlarged by a few additions of family papers since then. Citations in the present edition are simply by date of the original document if the original is in the main chronological series of the Papers and therefore readily found in the microfilm edition of the Adams Papers (APM). description ends ). In his reply to Lafayette of 27 Oct., JA was optimistic about the growth of local sovereignties meant to counterbalance or improve the royal ministry’s policy making. According to JA “the Provincial assemblies, if they act only as Councillors of the King must operate for the benifit of the Nation” (LbC, APM Reel 113).