QUEEN DOLLEY
by
DOROTHY CLARKE

PART ONE

Scotchtown

(1778-1783)

IT WAS gone.  She could not believe it at first.  Surely the string must
have slipped to one side, away from the cleft between her small, firm
breasts.  Putting her hand under the white kerchief folded about her
neck, she ran swift fingers over the bodice of her gray muslin frock.
Nothing.  No bulging of a hard metal object.

She felt all along the sides of the straight, plain dress covering her
thin body from throat to ankles, even looked under her feet dangling
from the hard bench, in case it might have fallen when she sat down. No,
it was gone, her most precious possession.  The string, tied so
carefully by Mother Amy that morning, must have come loose.

"Thee, Dolley Payne, where are thine ears?  Out listening to birdsongs?
And thine eyes?  Certainly not fixed on thy spelling words.  Thrice have
I spoken."

"H-" Miserably the child tried to focus her gaze on the kindly but
accusing features of teacher John.  "I'm sorry, sir."

"Very well.  I will repeat.  Spell uncle for me."

"U-u-n," she began.  She still saw his disapproving gaze through a haze
of misery.  "K-I-e," she finished lamely.

"No, Friend Dolley, thee is not thinking.  After school we will have a
little time of Meeting together."

Oh, no! She could not bear the thought of staying in school.  Not today,
when she could hardly wait to hunt along the path! The rest of the
session seemed endless.  To make it worse, the readings from the Book of
Discipline were about sins of luxury and vanity.  And when teacher John
read from the writings of George Fox, the founder of their Quaker faith,
it seemed to Dolley that his long, lean finger was pointing straight at
her.  "'Keep out of the vain fashions of the world."

At last school was over.  The pupils filed out, casting smug or
commiserating glances at the unfortunate Dolley. Suddenly she was glad
she had to stay.  If she walked home through the woods with her older
brothers, Walter and Temple, how could she search for the lost treasure?
Now another fear assailed her.  Suppose one of them found the bag lying
on the path, opened it, and showed its contents to Mama! Anxiously she
watched the two boys leave, hoping they would be too full of vigor to
look at the path closely.  They had been her downfall this morning.  She
had let them inveigle her into playing tag, breaking one of the rules
laid down for Quaker pupils, "That in coming to School and returning
home every one shall behave with Decency and Sobriety." If she had
walked soberly, as she should, the string might not have come loose.

"Now, Friend Dolley, we will have our time of Meeting."

"Yes, sir." She looked up obediently, expecting a lecture on paying
attention.

But no, teacher John had other ideas.  "Let us follow the direction of
our founder, George Fox, who admonished us, 'Be still, allow that of God
within thee to guide thy thought."

Dolley's heart sank.  It was going to be like First-day Meeting, as
Quakers called their Sunday service, when they sat for such a long time
on these same hard benches, letting the Inner Light drive away the
darkness of vain thoughts.  She always failed somehow.  just when she
began to feel all warm and glowing inside, as if there were another
presence, the bench would become unbearably hard or her dangling feet
would go to sleep.

Dutifully she tried to sit still and shut out all sinful thoughts.

But it was no use.  The sinful thoughts were still there, and she was
reliving the events that had brought her the priceless treasure.

It was the summer before. Dolley had just turned thirteen, on May 20,
1778. The family were about to move to Scotchtown, the Virginia
plantation that Papa had rented and that had recently belonged to Mama's
cousin Patrick Henry.  Before moving, Papa wanted to make one last visit
to his mother, and to Dolley's delight he took her and her older
brothers with him.  Mama refused to go.  Her husband's family, members
of the Established Church, had been shocked when their son married a
Quaker.

They had been even more horrified when he had become a staunch convert
to the faith, and as a result there had been little intercourse between
the families.  Molly Coles Payne had no intention of going where she was
not wanted.

"See that thy head is not turned," she admonished her daughter.  "Thee
will be seeing frills and furbelows, and thee knows vanity is a sin.
Promise thee will never forget"-suddenly she spoke with an earnestness
that approached severity-"there is nothing, no thing, in this world
worth caring for."

Dolley found her intensity almost frightening.  "I promise."

Although she had visited Grandmother Payne's house before, she had
forgotten it.  Now she stared wide-eyed at the multiplicity of
things-carpets on the floors, sparkling glass and silver on the dining
table, embroidered sheets on the bed.  And Grandmother Payne ... Dolley
gazed at her succession of gowns-rose-colored velvet, silks as blue as
wild lupine or green as new grass.  Then one day Grandmother was wearing
a plain gray dress, not coarse and dull like her own but smooth and
shiny, and, pinned to her breast, the most lovely object Dolley had ever
seen, a golden butterfly with bits of bright color in its wings.

"Oh!" She had to reach up and touch it.  "How beautiful."

"You like it, child?" Grandmother smiled.  Then she was unpinning the
broach, fastening it to the front of Dolley's white kerchief.  "There!
It's only a little trinket, but it is pretty.  Come, look at yourself in
the glass." She guided the child to a mirror.

Dolley stared at her reflection.  They had no mirrors at home, since
Quakers believed them things of vanity.  She saw a delicate face with
piquant features, widely set-apart eyes, black curls peeping out from
the demure Quaker bonnet.  Yet her eyes lingered not on the face but on
the shining golden bauble.

"B-but I can't wear it," she mourned.  "Papa would see."

Grandmother repinned it beneath the kerchief "There, child.

Your father need not see it.  But you'll know it's there."

And there it stayed, precious, touchable through the linen.  But what to
do with it when she got home?  She dared tell no one but Mother Amy, her
beloved black mammy.

"Chile, I know what to do.  I'll make you a little bag and-"

"Well, Friend Dolley, has that of God within thee spoken?  Will thee be
more attentive now to thy duties?"

Startled out of her reminiscences, Dolley stammered, "Y-yes.

Oh-yes, sir!" Surely now he would let her go.

Ah, then, perhaps thee are ready to recite.  Spell uncle."

Dolley floundered.  "U-n ...  u-n ...  u-n-k-l-e."

Teacher John made her write the word uncle on her slate a hundred times.
Then at last he let her go.

Outside, Dolley tripped along the path sedately until she reached the
woods, afraid he might be watching.  Then she began hunting frantically
along the path, among the trees.  Once she saw a glint of gold in the
pine needles. Yes, and it had wings and little flecks of bright color.
Heart lurching with joy, she was reaching for it when it flew away.  A
real butterfly, not a make believe one! She watched, entranced by its
beauty.

Why, she wondered suddenly, would God make such a lovely thing, but
forbid his children of light to wear bright colors?

Mommy was waiting for her, looking more sorrowful than stern.

So Dolley had been disobedient and idle and had had to stay after
school.  "Thee must go quickly now and perform thy daily stint of
sewing," she said. "Thee are more than an hour late."

"Yes, Mama." At least the boys had not found it, or Mama would have
known.  Better to lose it forever than to have the whole family know
about her sin.

Molly Payne looked after her daughter with a terrible yearning.

Sometimes she longed to take the child in her arms and laugh and dance
and forget all the warnings of sin in the Book of Discipline, the way
Mother Amy was able to do.  But, she sighed, of course one could not
encourage idleness or disobedience.

Patiently, mechanically, Dolley finished her sewing.  Now at last she
could vent the long-pent-up emotion.  Finding Mother Amy out in the
slave quarters, she flung herself into the welcoming arms.  "I lost it!"
she sobbed.  "I looked everywhere, and it's gone.  I was wicked.  I was
being punished for my sin, for yielding unto vanity."

"Nonsense!" Taking the child on her lap, Mother Amy rocked her back and
forth.  "You ain't wicked, chile.  Don' let nobody tell you it's wicked
to want a bit of prettiness.  We know betta."

Dolley cried her heart out against the ample bosom until, as always, she
found comfort in the warm black enveloping arms.

THE move to the plantation called Scotchtown had produced varied
reactions from John Payne and his family.

"An Eden, praise the Lord!" exclaimed Papa devoutly, comparing its nine
hundred and sixty broad acres with the scant two hundred and fifty of
his old farm.

"Jolly good!" exulted Walter, eyeing the long bridle paths for riding,
the enticing woods for roaming and hunting.

"A baml" worried Mama, wondering if she could ever make the sixteen big,
bare rooms seem like home.

"A castle!" marveled Dolley.

And nothing, not even a dark smudge on the floor of the big entrance
hall, which Temple darkly hinted was the bloodstain from an ancient
duel, could quench her delight in the new home.

She admired the smooth mahogany paneling on the walls of the big hall
and the two living rooms.  She went into ecstasies over the huge corner
fireplaces, with their polished black marble mantels.  She reveled in
the vast attic under the high, peaked roof, ideal for playing on rainy
days.  But best of all she loved the broad fields and woods for riding,
for exploring.

Her older brothers secretly rebelled against the rigid discipline of the
Quaker household.  She overheard their furtive grumblings.

Why could they not attend the dances and races like neighboring youths?
Why must they always wear the round, flat Quaker hat that made strangers
point and snicker?  Worst of all, why must they endure the jibes, even
flats, of those who called them traitors because they refused to
shoulder guns and fight?

Dolley did not share their frustrations.  Even her sorrow over the lost
bauble was short-lived.  After all, golden butterflies could be better
enjoyed in joyous flight than hidden under one's kerchief.  Besides, it
wasn't things that made life enjoyable.  As long as she lived, Dolley
would always be happy as long as she was surrounded by people.

And at Scotchtown human life abounded. It rippled and flowed through the
huge rooms, spilled out with the rush of young feet into the gardens and
woods.  It hummed and clattered in the little brick buildings clustered
behind the big house, where Papa's thirty or so slaves cooked, tan hide,
spun, and carpentered.  It came riding up the hill to the impressive
walnut entrance door on horseback, in farm carts, occasionally in
elegant chariots, for though Scotchtown was remote from the main
thoroughfares, strangers as well as friends came visiting, curious to
see this former home of the famous Patrick Henry.

Dolley was vaguely aware that somewhere outside the perimeter of their
simple life momentous events were taking place, A war was being fought.
Sitting at the small children's table at dinner when guests were
present, she listened to conversation which contained unfamiliar words.
Taxation. Tyranny.  Continental Congress.  Valley Forge.  Freedom.

Freedom.  She knew what that meant.  It was Scotchtown, with all its
fields and woods to explore.  It was getting out of school or First-day
Meeting, feeling life flow into your cramped arms and legs.  It was
lying in the big four-poster in your small green-and white bedroom and
imagining you were!  in a ship sailing away.

And it was riding your little horse, faster and faster, the wind in your
face, jumping all the barriers that lay along the bridle paths,
believing you could fly over the whole world if you wanted to.

Oh, yes, she knew what freedom meant! But what about those other strange
words?

Finally, Walter, six years her senior, gave Dolley the explanation.
Freedom, yes, and independence.  That was what Virginia and the other
colonies were fighting for.  That English tyrant King George had made
them pay cruelly high taxes, sending soldiers to collect them, yes, even
massacring people up in a place called Boston.  The colonies had all got
together and written a declaration of independence. Remember Thomas
Jefferson, whom they had seen over at Uncle John Coles' house, that
tall, gangly man with red hair?  Well, he had helped write the
declaration.  And another Virginian, George Washington, was fighting the
British now, only he was having a hard time.  Last winter his army
hadn't had enough to eat or wear.  But they hadn't given up.  Walter's
eyes, blue like Dolley's, darkened.  By heavens, he would like to go and
join them!  ...

"Children of lightly" Walter grumbled.  "That isn't what a lot of people
call us.  They say we're troublemakers! Traitors!"

Of course it wasn't so bad now as it was once, he conceded.  In the
past, Quakers had had a rough time in Virginia.  They had been
persecuted, driven out, their houses burned.  But things were different
now.  In Virginia's new constitution of 1776, there was a declaration of
rights, which said people could believe and worship as they wanted.

Dolley sighed in relief.  "Then people can't really think we're
troublemakers, can they?"

"Oh, yes, they can," Walter retorted, " and thee can't blame them.  Why
don't our men fight for liberty?  they wonder.  Why didn't Papa sign the
Continental Association, which agreed to stop buying things from
England?  Because he's a British-lover, they can't help thinking."

"But"-Dolley stared at Walter in anxiety-"could they do something to
hurt Papa? How?"

"Well..  ." Walter temporized.  He hadn't meant to frighten her.

"They could take away his property.  That's why he didn't buy
Scotchtown.  So far he's been safe.  Maybe because people know some of
his relatives are in the militia."

Dolley's anxiety was short-lived, for she was naturally a happy person,
and the war was far away.  Life at Scotchtown was for the most part a
small cocoon of Quaker isolation.  There were the First day Meetings,
when, after long intervals of silence, there would come bursts of
ecstatic prayers, and Dolley could actually feel the warmth of that
Inner Light; the Monthly Meetings, when the lives of all the Friends
were discussed.  Papa and Mama kept records of these, since they were
the honored clerks.

There were frequent visits, too, to her maternal grandparents at Coles
Hill on the Painunkey River. Dolley loved the ten-mile ride.  Never did
the family seem closer than when crowded into the four-wheeled coach
with its two seats facing each other, Papa and Walter on the driver's
seat, the rest of them-Mama, Temple, Dolley, her younger brother Isaac,
and the new baby, Lucy, bunched together like birds in a nest.  (Later
the "new" baby would be Anna, Mary, John, or Philadelphia.  In the
tradition of the day, the Payne family would be large; Dolley would grow
up with eight brothers and sisters.)

Dolley also loved the house high on Coles Hill with its wide, breezy
hall running through the center and its shaded veranda.

But most of all she loved Grandmother Lucy Coles, with her lovely
porcelain complexion and her dark, sparkling eyes.

One day in 1779 the children came home from school to find an imposing
vehicle in the yard, anornate coach with cream body and gold mountings,
requiring four horses to draw it.

"O-o-oh!" exclaimed Temple.  "Does thee see that?  It must have cost a
whole hundred pounds!"

The living room, huge though it was, was full to overflowing, or perhaps
it was the tall figure standing before one of the black marble
fireplaces that made it seem so.  He dominated the scene, not so much
because of his height and his crimson cloak but because of his resonant
voice, which commanded the attention of all those gathered about him. He
stopped at sight of the newcomers.  "Ah! Do I see here some future
leaders of our country?"

,.  Our children, just home from school." Molly Payne presented them.
"Come, children.  Greet your cousin Patrick Henry."

Dolley dutifully curtsied, and the guest eyed her approvingly.

"This must be the young woman I dubbed a 'lovely infant' in the cradle.
I can see that my judgment was prophetic."

"I thank thee, sir," Dolley replied politely.

So this was -the famous cousin of whom Mama was so proud, though with
reservations concerning his un-Quakerlike ardor for revolutionary
violence.  He was the son of Great-aunt Sarah, Grandmother Coles'
sister, and for three years now he had been venor of Virginia.  He had
owned Scotchtown, lived here until 90 his first wife died. Dolley
curtsied again as she was introduced to his new wife, who, Mama
explained, was another cousin, Dorothea Dandridge.

"Remember?" Mama now reminded her.  "Thee were named for her."

Dorothea ...  But you've always told me my name is Dolley, the girl
thought.

She would use both names, as well as Dolly, in future years, but
official records attest to Dolley.

Looking at the lovely Dorothea, granddaughter of one governor and now
wife of another, Dolley smiled with satisfaction.  She tried to be
equally appreciative of cousin Patrick's children, but the girls were
too shy to appear friendly, and the boy, Edward, was soon making himself
obnoxious to his young male cousins.

"My brothers are about your ages, but they're not farmers.

They're soldiers, fighting for freedom.  Why aren't you in the army? Are
you scared?  Or won't your father let you go?"

Dolley saw Walter clench his fists, but he remained silent, controlling
his anger.  Temple, more easygoing, responded good-naturedly to the
taunts. "We're Quakers, and Quakers don't believe in fighting and
killing people."

The guests stayed to dinner, and Dolley, now eleven and promoted to the
adults' table, listened to the conversation with mounting unease.  The
war, heretofore vague and remote, had suddenly become a stern and
frightening reality.  Cousin Patrick, the zealot who had helped fan the
fires of revolution, was as eloquent as he had once been at the Virginia
Assembly.

"You are not a British-lover, Friend Payne," he said at last.

"But I must warn you, if we win this war you may be in real danger.  I
confess I can't understand your position.  For me, there is only one
consideration.  As I expressed it before our grievances exploded into
violence"-the resonant voice rose in thrilling crescendo-"as for me,
give me liberty, or give me death!"

There was a long silence, broken finally by Papa, speaking quietly but
firmly.  "And as for me, Friend Patrick, give me my faith and a clear
conscience, or give me death."

Dolley drew a long breath.  Their guest's dramatic utterance was like
something she had read in the Bible, something about an earthquake and a
fire. Yes, that was it.  Cousin Patrick was both earthquake and fire.
But-after the fire a still small voice.

IN THE weeks that followed, Scotchtown seemed less and less a snug
little entity, remote and safe.  Travelers stopping at the plantation
told of fighting not just far away in the north, in places like Boston
or New York, but in Georgia, South Carolina, even on the coasts of
Virginia.  A British commander, Colonel Banastre Tarleton, was pushing
his way toward them. Dolley shivered.

She had heard of this colonel.  He was nicknamed Bloody Tarleton or the
Butcher, because he showed no mercy to the people he defeated, soldiers
and civilians alike.  Could he ever come here?

she wondered.

Some of the Paynes' guests were shapers as well as reporters of events.
One of them came in autumn of 1779- He was a small, rather
insignificant-looking man, and Dolley was surprised when Papa greeted
him with more than his usual cordiality to strangers.

"Our guest, James Madison," he announced to the assembled family, "is a
man to whom we Quakers owe much.  It was he more than any other who put
into our new Virginia constitution the statute giving us religious
freedom."

Madison, he continued, was a member of the governor's Council of State,
and he was on his way to Williamsburg from his home over in Orange
County.  He had consented to remain with them for dinner.  Meanwhile,
perhaps he would like to look over the plantation, since he also was
engaged in agriculture.  Would he care to ride with some of the
children?

"I would be delighted," said the guest, smiling.

Dolley was not enthusiastic at the prospect, though she had to admit
this stranger was not so unattractive when he smiled.  Still, her first
impression prevailed.  Stodgy, she had instantly catalogued him, with a
sallow complexion, as if he spent most of his time sitting at a desk.
Short too.  But of course if Papa wanted them to take him to ride .  . .

It was a glorious fall day, the air heady with the scent of sundrenched
grain.  It was the kind of day to be riding hard, jumping barriers; not
to be riding demurely, listening to a stranger talk interminably with
Temple about dull things like irrigation and crop rotation.  Finally she
could stand it no longer.

"Why don't we just ride?" she suggested during a lull in the
conversation.  The guest seemed agreeable, and she led them over the
path she liked best, one with lots of barriers for jumping.

Somewhat to her disappointment he proved to be an excellent horseman,
taking all the jumps with an easy precision that Temple, always a bit
hesitant, never quite equaled.  Presently they came to a place where the
path veered around a deep cleft, and of course Temple turned away from
it.  Nobody ever tried to jump this gully.  But there it lay, a tempting
challenge.  Suddenly Dolley dug her heels into the sides of her little
horse and headed straight for the yawning cleft.  It was a wonderful
feeling when her mount responded, taking her across with a long, flying
leap-only just across, however.

To her surprise she found that the guest had followed close behind-and
landed skillfully, with more space to spare than she had herself A bit
chastened, for there had been one frightening moment when she had seemed
to hang on the edge 'of nothingness, she rode home docilely behind her
two companions.

Dinner promised to be a very dull affair.  The guest sat stiffly and
properly, talking with Papa about various mundane things crops, the
price of tobacco, and the depreciation of paper currency.

An old sobersides.

Then all at once he smiled, and there came a transformation.

"You have a fine plantation, Friend Payne," he said pleasantly.

"And some-shall I say?-unusual children.  Your son must be a great help
to you.  He knows your fields like the pages of a favorite book.  And
your daughter-"

He glanced toward Dolley with a twinkle in his eyes.  "Children!  A
perplexing task, I should think, reading them.  Something I know nothing
about Twenty-eight years old and still unmarried! But I should think it
might be a bit like training a horse." He gave a self-deprecating laugh.
"I remember one mare that I was trying to break to the plow.  Beautiful,
lively little animal.  I never succeeded.  Somehow she was always just
one big jump ahead!"

Dolley made a choking sound, unnoticed in the general laughter.  And she
had thought the guest an old sobersides, with no sense of humor.

Conversation returned to their problems as planters.  "The most serious
liability for the plantation owner," said Madison finally, "is slavery.
We can't run our big estates without slaves, yet they are an intolerable
burden on our consciences.  How can we logically be fighting a war for
freedom while claiming that we have the right to own other human
beings?"

Papa's face lit up.  For many years, he explained with unaccustomed
frankness, Quakers had struggled because of their conviction that
slavery was a grave sin.  Yet they themselves were slaves to the system.
They were forbidden by Virginia law to free their slaves.  And, as Mr.
Madison had suggested, how could they run their plantations without
them?  He was relieved to find that other planters, not only Quakers,
felt the same way.

"Oh, yes," Madison assured him.  "There are many of us.  I could give
you some names-Thomas Jefferson, General Washington himself" His rather
low, thin voice became stronger.  "believe," he continued, "that slavery
is incompatible with democracy.  No matter how democratic in mine a
government may be, if slavery prevails, it must be aristocratic in fact.
Let us hope it will not be so in our new country."

An unusual guest, thought Dolley after he'd left.  Small and
insignificant-looking, yes.  But during their ride, sitting straight and
high on his horse, he had seemed a giant.  He had cheerfully accepted
her challenge and showed it for what it was, an act of foolish bravado.
And when he had something important to say, he sounded like a Quaker
filled with the Inner Lightly As mons passed, life.  at Scotchtown
seemed to be moving inexorably toward some uncertain climax.  The war
for independence was being fought now almost wholly in the south.  A
British general named Cornwallis had gained victories in the Carolinas
and by 1781 had arrived in Virginia, plundering the country, passing
within a few miles of Scotchtown. Another British contingent under
Colonel Banastre Tarleton-"the Butcher"-was burning crops, confiscating
food, carrying off horses or cutting the Let: A springtime vista of
Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.

Above: Scotchtown, Dolley's girlhood home. Right: The young Dolley,
shortly arranged her marriage to "the great little Madison."

throats of those too young to he of any use, attempting to destroy all
that enabled the colonists to wage war.

Some planters were moving their families to safer places, but not Papa.
Let Tarleton and his marauders come to Scotchtown if they chose.  He
would not run away.  "If we refuse to fight," he said simply, "we should
take the consequences."

Tarleton came.  Fortunately, the hotheaded Walter was away, staying with
relatives in Philadelphia.  Papa and Temple were in the fields when the
troop of redcoats came pouring along the road at the foot of the hill,
like a long, undulating crimson tide.

Mama stood at the door and watched them, her other children gathered in
a half-fascinated, half-terrified group behind her.  The tide did not
flow past.  It came straight up the hill, led by a tall, commanding
figure riding a magnificent horse.

"Quickly" Mama ordered Mother Amy.  "Take the children to thy cabin!
Keep them there!"

Obediently the servant herded the children toward the rear door.  Once
outside, eleven-year-old Isaac broke away and disappeared around the
corner of the house.

"Mercy me, dat chile! Whatever shall I do?"

"I'll get him," Dolley assured her, starting after him.  Mother Amy
hustled the two younger children, Lucy, age three, and the new baby,
Anna, to her cabin behind the kitchen.

Dolley found Isaac crouched behind a boxwood hedge.  He pulled her down
beside him.  "Look! We can see it all from here."

"Oh." Through an opening in the glossy green leaves, Dolley stared at
the red tide flowing up the hill, the tall, determined horseman in the
lead.  Tarleton, of course.

He stopped at the foot of the steps leading up to the open door.

"You there, Patrick Henry!" he shouted.  "Despicable traitor! We know
this is your house.  Come out! Come Out, or, by heavens, I'm coming in
after you!"

Was Mama still there, standing inside the door or, as Dolley hoped
desperately, had she followed Mother Amy to the cabin?

The colonel hesitated.  Sunlight flashed on his sword as he drew it from
its sheath.  Then, spurring his horse, he rode straight up the steps and
through the doorway. Dolley could hear the dull thud of hoofs on the oak
floor of the great hall. She closed her eyes, as if to shut out the
horror that might be taking place.  That sword! Did the Butcher kill
women as well as horses?

Time passed....  Minutes ...  hours?  Then again there was a clatter of
hoofs, and the rider emerged, descended the steps, shouted a command,
and the red tide flowed back down the hill.

For a while Dolley and Isaac did not move, just looked at each other.
Then slowly they made their way around the house, hardly daring to enter
for fear of what they might find.  Dolley's heart lurched.  Mama was
there, but not standing as they had left her.

She was on her knees, bent over.  Had she fainted?  Was she-?

Then Dolley burst out - laughing.  Mama was down on the floor, wiping
with her petticoat at the marks made by the horse's hoofs l Papa came
running, his face white.

"It's all right," mama assured him calmly.  "He thought cousin Patrick
still lived here.  When I told him he had sold the house, this Colonel
Tarleton or whoever he was just turned around and went away.  But look
what his horse did to our floor!"

That was the nearest the war came to Scotchtown. In October, General
Washington and his French allies defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown.  The
fighting was over.  And in 1782 the law was changed, making it legal for
owners to free their slaves.

bors in Virginia, had been discussing a move to Philadelphia-that City
of Brotherly Love, founded by their fellow Quaker William Penn.  Many of
their friends had already moved.  Now at last they too could leave.  The
gates of paradise had opened.

It was a lengthy procedure.  First, each of their slaves must be given a
paper of manumission.  The horses must be sold, possessions packed.
Mother Amy and the cook chose to go with the Paynes, but as freed women,
to be paid wages.

"On the 21st of Second Month, 1783," the records read, "John Payne
requests a certificate for himself and family to join themselves to
Friends in Philadelphia." And the following month the certificate of
removal was granted for "John and Mary Payne and their children: Temple,
Dolley, Isaac, Lucy, Anna, Mary, and John." John was an infant born that
same year.

moving day came at last The coach-and-six was ready and waiting.  Papa
was still busy somewhere.  As she was about to climb into the coach
after Mama, Dolley suddenly turned and ran back into the house.  She
climbed the stairs and gazed into the echoing emptiness of the attic,
where she had played on many days.  Downstairs, she ran caressing
fingers over one of the black marble mantels.

Never, she knew, in any of the houses she might live in someday would
there be anything so beautiful.

"Thee, Dolley!" called Muna in her most peremptory voice.

"Yes, yes.  I'm coming."

But she came reluctantly.  For it was not just Scotchtown she was
leaving behind.  It was childhood.

PART TWO

Philadelphia

(1783-1793)

"JuLy 9, 1783," MoIIY's cousin Elizabeth Drinker reported in her
journal, "John Payne's family came to reside in Philadelphia."

It was a new world, a new life, in a city of over thirty thousand people
Wide-eyed, Dolley roamed the narrow streets while her distant cousin and
new friend, Sally Drinker, proudly pointed out landmarks-the State House
(later known as Independence Hall)

with its great bronze bell, where the Declaration of Independence had
been signed; the Indian Queen inn, where rich and famous travelers
stayed; and the famous Treaty Elm, where William Penn had once stood
wearing his blue sash and flat Quaker hat and made peace with the
Indians.

It was the people more than the buildings that Dolley found intriguing.
So many of them! "In my first thirty minutes in Philadelphia," she was
to confess long afterward, "I saw more people than in all of my previous
life."

They moved through the streets in riding chairs, farm carts, elegant
carriages.  They crowded about the "crier of news" on the street corners
at the clanging of his bell.  But most of all Dolley enjoyed the
promenades along Chestnut Street, where in the afternoons, it seemed,
everybody in the city gathered.  It was like a big parade. She gazed in
astonishment at the men and women resplendent in gay colors and bright
finery.

"They cannot be Quakers," Dolley commented wistfully.

"No?  Thee'd be surprised." Sally grinned.  "Some of them are-or think
they are.  Oh, they don't belong to our Meeting.  If they did, they'd be
put out.  We call them wet Quakers!"

After staying for a short time with the Drinkers, the Paynes moved into
a small rented house, one of the tall, narrow buildings in a connected
row-two stories and an attic, with a tiny porch in front.  No garden,
only a few scruffy trees in back. Dolley shared one second-floor bedroom
with her three younger sisters; Mama and Papa and the latest baby,
Philadelphia, occupied the other.

Mother Amy and the boys were in the attic.  At times Dolley seemed to
have barely room to breathe.

But the new life had its compensations.  There was the hour each day
when work was done and the women all along the street donned their best
chintz frocks and freshly starched white aprons and gathered on their
tiny front porches, called stoops by Philadelphians.  There they could
chat with their friends on neighboring porches, and the young women,
under their mothers' watchful eyes, could exchange greetings with the
young men, who took this hour for walking up and down the street.

Molly Payne was not pleased to discover that discipline was less strict
among the Philadelphia Quakers than in their Virginia Meeting.
Reluctantly she permitted Dolley to join with other young people,
chaperoned of course, in attending parties, picnics, jaunts into the
country. Dolley, just turned fifteen, blossoming into glowing womanhood,
sunny of disposition, was immediately welcomed into the Drinkers'
youthful coterie.  She entered gaily into the games popular at such
parties: London Bridge Is Falling Down, I Sent a Letter to My Love, and
Forfeits, with an object hung over one's head, while the holder
demanded, "Fine or superfine?" Somehow the feather blown for selecting a
partner more often than not was waited in her direction.

"She came upon our cold hearts in Philadelphia," one of her new friends
reported later, "suddenly and unexpectedly, with all the delightful
influences of a summer sun in the month of May."

In spite of its social advantages, Philadelphia was not proving the
paradise that John Payne had envisioned for his family.  Galloping
inflation following the war sodn depleted his resources.

Some months after his arrival in the city he opened a small starch
factory, investing all available funds in the plant and necessary
equipment.  The family were obliged to curtail expenses and move to an
even smaller house.  In 1785 they were living at 410 Third Street.
John's little factory was on the lower floor, its exudations coating the
living quarters above with a powdery white film.

Dolley cheerfully adjusted to the change.  After the cook died, they
could not afford to hire another. Dolley went with Mother Amy to the
markets, haggling over prices like the poorest housewife.  She learned
to cook as inexpensively as possible, tempting the family with recipes
of her own concoction, some of which would long afterward bring her
culinary fame.

In 1786 the Paynes joined the Pine Street Monthly Meeting.  As always,
John and Molly were active members, John a lay preacher, or Public
Friend, Molly as 'well as he mounting the long platform when the spirit
moved, to exhort the congregation.

Though Dolley was now eighteen, with all the rights of an adult, she
never felt the urge to exhort.  She sat on the women's side of the bare
house of worship, and though she often felt the warmth of the Inner
Light, it was an experience to be treasured in secret rather than
shared.

Membership in the new Meeting meant only one change to Dolley. New
friends.  That girl, for instance, the one with the wide, smiling eyes
and the slightly turned-up little nose.  What was her name? Elizabeth
Collins, though most people seemed to call her Eliza. Certainly they
would be friends.

Sitting silently on the hard bench, heedless of the surreptitious
glances of youthful males on the other side of the bare room, Dolley
could not know that the kindling admiration in one pair of dark, intent
eyes would bring profound change to her life.

"I thee, sir, but-no, I mean never to marry."

Strange avowal for an attractive young woman in this year of 1787, when
marriage was considered the only correct expectation of females But
Dolley was an unusual person.  Oldest daughter in a large family
suffering privation, she could not envision a future when her presence
in the house would not be a virtual necessity.

Mama's last baby, the sickly little Philadelphia, had died the year
before, and since then Molly Payne had seemed to lose her vigor.

Mother Amy was intensely loyal, but she was used to taking orders, not
assuming direction.  The other girls, Lucy, Anna, and Mary, were nine
and under.

This was not Dolley's first proposal of marriage, nor was it the first
time this particular aspirant had pressed his suit.  He had been one of
her group of admirers ever since the day he had first seen her in Pine
Street Meeting.

John Todd was an eminently suitable possibility for marriage.

He belonged to an old Quaker family that had lived for three generations
in Philadelphia or its environs.  When his courtship of Dolley began, he
was a law student, already marked for success in his profession.  He
also had a keen interest in government, and since he was a frequent
caller in the Payne home, Dolley was plunged into an awareness of the
new country's quandary.

The common purpose that had united the colonies in their struggle for
independence, explained John Todd one evening, had disintegrated.  True,
they still belonged to the confederation, but it was each state for
itself, without interest in the common good.  The small states were
jealous of the large ones, the indus states of the north jealous of the
agricultural ones of the south, those in each group jealous of one
another.

"And our government under the Articles of Confederation," he continued,
"is powerless.  It cannot raise taxes to support itself, only request
the states to provide the necessary funds.  That's why Washington's
troops were so often ragged and starving.  Government can issue paper
money, yes, but look what happens to it.

Down, down it goes in value, until it's worthless."

"Ah, yes, it is so true!" John Payne agreed from bitter experience. "All
the wealth I brought with me from Virginia, where has it gone?  A pound
is worth no more than a few pence."

"Each state," John Todd worried, "is acting like a little nation.

Some are printing their own money.  Some are even making treaties of
their own with foreign governments.  I tell thee, Friend Payne, unless
something is done, everything our people fought for will be lost.  We
will have nothing but anarchy!" .  And then suddenly something was being
done.  A constitutional convention had been called to meet right there
in Philadelphia, to discuss ways to strengthen the federal government.
Though the convention was scheduled to begin on May 14, 1787, it was the
twenty-fifth, five days after Dolley's nineteenth birthday, before the
delegates assembled in sufficient numbers for a quorum.

Philadelphia had not witnessed such an assemblage of dignitaries for
years.  Each morning people gathered outside the high wall enclosing the
State House on Chestnut Street to see the delegates arrive, and since
many of them were lodged in the Indian Queen, that also became a popular
rendezvous.  General Washington, riding between the State House and the
home of Bogart Morris, where he was being entertained, was an object of
the most curiosity and admiration.  He, Dolley knew, had been elected
president of the convention.  Benjamin Franklin was a more familiar
sight in his sedan chair, one of the few to be seen in America.

With her parents and some other Pine Street Quakers, Dolley had gone to
tea once in Franklin's garden.  At first she was sadly disillusioned.
Surely this could not be the great hero she had pictured-this short,
stout old man sitting under a big roulberry tree. Looking at him, no one
would have imagined that he had been feted in the courts of Europe while
ambassador to France, made a host of scientific discoveries, including
that strange mystery called electricity!  And he made them all feel at
home.  His daughter, Mrs.  Bache, served them tea.

Dolley, keeping properly quiet and in the background, was startled to
find the great man looking straight at her.  "Thee The venerable
Benjamin Franklin greeting a Philadelphia beauty from his sedan
chair-one of his favorite modes of transportation.

there," he said with a chuckle, pointing his finger unmistakably in her
direction.  "I declare thee to be the most beautiful young lady in all
America.  I have never seen thy equal in all of Paris or London."

Dolley gasped, then flushing, made him a curtsy.  "I thank thee, sir,"
she replied, regaining her poise.

"Don't let thy head be turned," admonished Mama when the visit was over.
"Friend Franklin has the reputation of having an eye for a pretty
fitce."

"Don't worry," Dolley assured her.  "I saw how weak his eyes are
getting."

John Todd was frustrated because the Constitutional Convention was
conducted behind closed doors, in secret.  Delegates were not permitted
to disclose any part of the discussion to others.  The meetings went on
all through the summer, every day but Sunday, sometimes for seven or
more hours, and through the most grueling heat.  In this setting the
delegates struggled to develop a plan for union that would be acceptable
to the thirteen states.

Two plans, John Todd had heard through the grapevine, were being
fiercely debated.

The Virginia Plan, put forward by the delegates from that state, called
for a strong federal government led by a national executive.  The New
jersey Plan merely involved revising the Articles of Confederation,
leaving important parts of sovereignty in the hands of the states.

"It's hopeless," John Todd lamented.  "If they unite on a plan for a
strong central government, it will be a miracle."

Leading names among the delegates emerged, to be paired with
increasingly familiar faces and figures-Franklin and Washing   ton of
course, Edmund Randolph, Alexander Hamilton, and, with greater frequency
and emphasis, James Madison.

One day Dolley was walking with John Todd past the Indian Queen when he
called her attention to a figure at the entrance.

"Look! See that man there?  He doesn't look like much, but they say he's
the most important delegate to the convention.  First to arrive and the
best prepared.  Knows more about .  veinment than any other man alive.
When he speaks, everybody listens, even though he's no orator. In fact,
sometimes they can hardly hear him.

But if the miracle happens, it will probably be his making more than
anyone else's.  They call him the great little Madison."

Dolley looked.  "Yes," she said.  "I remember him.  He came to visit us
once in Scotchtown."

"Yes?  Then let's go and speak to him.  I've already met him.

Let's see if he remembers thee."

"No!" Dolley's refusal was swift and obdurate.  She remembered James
Madison all too well, and she had no wish to arouse his memory of a
foolish child luring him to possible disaster.

The convention dragged on through July, August, into September.  Then
all at once it was over.  On Monday, September 17, John Todd burst into
the Payne house looking almost as jubilant as if Dolley had finally
changed her mind and agreed to marry him.

"it's done! The miracle has happened.  They've signed a new
Constitution, not a revision of the old weak articles, but one
brand-new, one that can create a solid Union, if only .  .  ."

It was a huge if, for to become effective the new Constitution had to be
approved by the Congress and then ratified by at least nine states.  On
September 2o it was laid before the old Congress, meeting in New York.
There it was fought, defended, debated, subjected to near dismemberment,
but finally, on September 28, passed.  Next it would be submitted to a
convention of delegates in each state.  On the morning of September 29
an express rider, changing horses several times along the road, brought
the news from New York to Philadelphia.

"Now," said John Todd, "we just need another miracle."

For the battle in the convention had been only the first skirmish.  Now
the real war began, between those who backed the new Constitution with
its strong central government, and those who wanted to preserve the old,
loose confederation of independent states.  All through the fall and
winter, the following spring and summer, the debate went on.  It was
probably two men who influenced the outcome more than any other,
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who, in a series of essays called
The Federalist, reasonably and skillfully espoused the cause of national
unity.  And again a minute One by one the state conventions met, argued
stormily, but finally voted to ratify the new Constitution.  By summer,
its acceptance was all but guaranteed.

Philadelphia had a double celebration on Ju'Y 4, 1788. Dolley awoke to
the sound of church bells and cannons.  There was a huge parade that
morning. Dolley and her sister Lucy were in the crowd assembled to watch
on Union Green. There were five thousand men in the procession-cavalry,
light infantry, dragoons, manufacturers, printers, masons,
farmers-representatives of all the groups benefitting from the
remarkable new document that began with the statement "We the People of
the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union .  .  ."

"Oh!" breathed Lucy, clutching Dolley's arm at one point in the
procession.  "See that?"

She was gazing at the display of the Marine Society, a large craft under
full sail, its enblazoned name the Federal Ship Union, perfectly
proportioned and complete, a triumphant symbol of the new ship of state.

"Let's hope she doesn't founder," said John Todd, who had managed to
find them in the crowd.

"Yes," said Dolley. On that bright summer day she could not know what an
important role she herself would play in its launching.

DOLLEY Was interested, of course, in the momentous political changes
taking place, but the new government, with General Washington
unanimously elected President by the Electoral College, was in New York,
which seemed far away.  And personal concerns loomed larger.

Papa was not prospering in his starch business.  He was a plantation
squire, not a businessman, and he was sinking into debt.  In spite of
the efforts to economize, the Paynes were forced to keep moving into
smaller and smaller houses, finally landing at 231 New Street.

Papa's discouragement was a dark cloud obscuring the household.  Only in
his beloved Meeting, surrounded by Quaker friends, did he seem to derive
strength and courage to fitce his problems.

Dolley, on the other hand, was becoming restless within the restrictive
Quaker life-style.  She who was blessed with a spirit of independence
was chafing under the inhibitions of the sect to which they belonged. In
1789 a Quaker friend named Sarah Bertier was disowned by the Society for
marrying out of unity, in other words, to a man not a Quaker. Dolley was
shocked and dismayed.

'But-why?" To Mama she expressed her bewilderment.

"They're casting her out, as if she'd committed some terrible sin!"

"Thee knows why." Mama could well speak from experience, having been
disowned herself, until John Payne joined the Friends.  "We Friends must
remain a unified body.  There must be no alien spirit to break the
harmony."

"I-l see." But Dolley was troubled.  And there were more disturbing
events to come.  In that same year Papa went bankrupt.

And to her grief and astonishment the Society, disowned him because he
could not pay his debts.  Papa, whose life had been spent in following
the guidance of his Inner Light, who had been respected as Public
Friend, as Publisher of the Truth! They called themselves Friends, yet
instead of trying to help, they had turned away from him, like the
priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan.

Not everyone turned against him, however.  John Todd, now a practicing
lawyer, became even more loyal to him and the family, handling what were
left of his business affairs, trying to save him as much dignity as
possible.

But even John Todd could do little.  Being disowned by the Society was a
mortal blow from which John Payne was never to recover.  Though in time
he was able to join a more liberal group called the Free Quakers, he was
a broken man.  He spent his days shut away in a room on the second
floor, and took no part in either family or community life.

It was Molly Payne, always the stronger of the two, who took matters in
hand.  Under her leadership the family rallied.  There were fewer of
them now at home.  Walter had sailed for England in.  785- Temple was
working somewhere in Virginia.  Isaac was living independently.
Nevertheless, there were still five children to be supported, and the
family practiced even more rigid economy.

Molly found that many of her friends needed the services of a
seamstress, and she was able to eke out a living.  They managed to
survive.

John Todd, who had been courting Dolley for some four years, without
ever giving up hope, now pressed his suit more urgently.

He wanted to take care of her in this emergency.  And, he pointed out,
as a member of the family he could do more to help them, for he was
beginning to prosper as a lawyer.  Regretfully Dolley refused him once
more.  Why, she wondered, did she not yield to this eminently suitable
man?  Surely he was the one among her many suitors with whom she could
envision spending a contented life.  Was she still, after all these
years, hunting for an elusive golden butterfly?

One day she was putting to rights the upstairs room where John Payne
spent so much of his time.

"Thee, daughter Dolley. I would talk to thee."

"Yes, Father."

"John Todd tells me that he has sought thy hand in marriage."

"Yes, Father."

"He is a good man, daughter, and it is time thee married.  To know thee
settled and happy would be one of the few things left me in life.  Mama
and I are agreed.  Please, for our sakes?"

For their sakes, yes. Dolley was relieved and happy, once it was
settled.  Her parents' satisfaction, her sisters' excitement, and John
Todd's delight were full compensation for any uncertainty.

The wedding was held on January 7,1790- It was a simple affair, strictly
according to Quaker custom. Dolley wore a plain gray cambric gown.  Her
best friend, Eliza Collins, and John's friend, Anthony Morris, were the
attendants.  In spite of the snowy day there were a surprising number of
guests.  After the service of worship the bride and groom stood together
and made their vows, taking each other's hands.

"I, John Todd, do take thee, Dolley Payne, to be my wedded wife, and
promise with divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful
husband until death shall separate us." Solemnly Dolley repeated almost
the same words.

As she sat at the table to sign the marriage certificate she felt as if
time suddenly stood still.  An end-or a beginning?  An end, certainly,
of a carefree girlhood.  But that had come months before, when Papa had
retreated into his twilight of despair.

And of course it was a beginning, a new life.  Looking up into her
husband's happy face, his eyes alight with the fulfillment of hope and
devotion, she felt a surge of relief.  Time started up again, moving
inexorably into the future.

"Dolley Todd," she wrote firmly.

WHY, Dolley asked herself again, had she been so hesitant about
accepting John Todd's proposal?  Because marriage had seemed just
another of the constricting webs that kept her from something-"It
freedom?-for which she yearned.  How stupid she had been t For never had
she felt more tree.  John's love was no confining web.  It was a warm,
safe nest from which one could take adventurous flight will.

Dolley and John Todd lived first in a small rented house on Chestnut
Street, but in November 1791 John's increasing legal practice enabled
him to buy a handsome three-story brick house at Fourth and Walnut.  He
could not do enough, it seemed, to make her happy.  He finished the
house with luxuries that defied the Quaker creed of simplicity: carpets,
mahogany tables, Windsor chairs, and, most elegant of all, one of the
new sideboards on which to display her glassware and silver.  He
provided a horse and riding chair to take her on visits to friends.

Their son, John Payne Todd, to be called Payne all his life, was born
February 2,9, 1792.  It was fitting that Payne, who was destined for a
lifetime of willful self-determination, chose for his arrival a birth
date that would occur only once in four years.

Mama and Mother Amy were with her, and the latter, who had performed the
amne service for most of Molly Payne's children, gathered the new baby
to her ample breast with joy and devotion.

Motherhood was Dolley's crowning happiness.  Never, she confessed to her
friends, had there been such a perfect child.  Rut happiness was mingled
with sorrow.  Her father, John Payne, died.

soon after her son's birth.  At least, Dolley was to comfort herself, he
had lived long enough to hold the boy in his arms.

In death John Payne was taken once more into the fellowship of believers
that had cast him out.  The funeral service was held in the
meetinghouse, and the room was nearly full.  As if, thought Dolley, his
old friends wanted to atone for an action that their Quaker consciences
had not quite been able to reconcile with the promptings of the Inner
Light.

Molly had suffered severe tests of faith during the preceding years. Her
three oldest sons had one by one been disowned by the Society.  Walter
had defected for reasons that had never been very clear.  Temple had
joined the navy, denial of a good Quaker's abhorrence of all that
concerned warfare.  Isaac had found work in Norfolk, and the family had
rejoiced in his apparent success, until rumors had come of a moral
lapse, the mere suspicion of which had caused his expulsion.  Each
disaster had left Molly unbowed.

Now she prepared to cope with this new emergency.

"I shall take boarders," she announced firmly to the family.

She put the plan into operation immediately, moving out of the little
house on New Street into a larger one at North Third.  It was a
fortunate time to embark on such a venture, because the national
government had moved from New York to Philadelphia, and the city was
full of officials eager for comfortable lodgings and, even more
difficult to obtain, good food.  Mother Amy's southern fried chicken and
battercakes were potent attractions.

Then suddenly another disaster.  Mother Amy died.  For Dolley it was
like losing another parent.  Her first memories were of the smiling
black face bent over her cradle.  And for the new enterprise it spelled
tragedy.  Molly Payne could not afford to hire another cook, and she
refused to let John Todd finance one.

Dolley and young Lucy gave their mother all the assistance possible, but
Dolley had her own household to manage, and Lucy at fourteen was a
carefree, dreamy adolescent. Dolley helped also by taking
twelve-year-old Anna to live with her, a service that proved a far
greater joy than burden.

It was Mother Amy herself who in death solved the problem.

All the years of her freedom, it developed, she had saved her small
wages and in a simple will left the full amount to Molly.  It came to an
incredible five hundred dollars I Molly could now hire a capable cook.
Her courageous enterprise was saved.

Dolley felt almost guilty in her own life of contentment and ease, with
a tenderly devoted husband, a baby who certainly had no equal anywhere
in the world, a beautiful new home, and a social life of increasing
satisfaction. "Dolley, love," John marveled after they had attended one
of Martha Washington's Friday evening receptions, which she called
levees, "never have I seen thee more beautifully alive.  In thy sober
Quaker gown thee outshone all those bedecked and females."

Alive, yes. Dolley had felt herself brimming with life.  But she had
been the only one there in dull gray cambric.  Secretly, before her
marriage, she had made herself a delicate gown, Quaker gray, but of
satin, with elbow-length sleeves and square neck.  Now, before the next
reception, she half fearfully, half defiantly, donned it.  More and
more, Quaker women were wearing touches of bright colors and softer
fabrics.  Why shouldn't she? To her relief John nodded his approval.

Martha Washington also approved.  "You look beautiful tonight, my dear,
all aglow with some inner light."

.  Inner Lightly Yes, that was exactly what she had been feeling, as
much as she had ever felt it in Meeting.  She had a sudden sense of
freedom. Religion wasn't meant to be a prison.  She could love beauty
and still be true to her Quaker heritage.  She could even wear bright
colors, perhaps a golden butterfly! She was finding the President's lady
a delightfully informal, motherly person with whom she felt friendly
rapport.  Two of Washington's nephews, Lawrence and George Steptoe
Washington, were residents of Mama's boardinghouse, as were several
important Congressmen, including Aaron Burr, the brilliant Senator from
New York.  Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, whom Dolley remembered
as an old family friend, was also a frequent visitor.

The Payne parlor was often a center of political discussion, and while
John sat with the men, Dolley sometimes helped Mama and Lucy serve tea
to the guests.  The fun-loving, carefree Lucy was suddenly blossoming
into radiant womanhood.  When Dolley saw the girl exchange significant
glances with one of the boarders, she could not help but feel some
concern.

"Has thee noticed," she asked her mother casually, "that young George
Steptoe Washington and Lucy seem friendly?  Does it worry thee just a
bit?  She's at such an impressionable age!" Molly pooh-poohed the idea.
"Lucy?  Why, she's just a child."

"She's fourteen," Dolley pointed out.

"and when she does, it will be some nice Quaker boy."

It was one morning in the summer of 1793, when Dolley was well into her
second pregnancy, that Mama came to her house.

Never had Dolley seen her mother more distraught.

"She's gone.  Look!" she cried, holding out a note.  "A messenger just
brought it."

Dolley took the piece of paper and read:

Dearest Mama.  When thee gets this I shall be Mrs.  George Steptoe
Washington.  We had to do it this way.  Thee would never have consented.
Never fear, we will be married by a respectable clergyman.  George has
arranged it all.  We are going to Virginia, where he has a fine home
ready for us.  I love you all.  Lucy.

"I thought she'd gone to the Drinkers' summer place to spend a few
days," explained Molly.  "Oh, dear, I never should have kept a
boardinghouse, where she could meet outside the faith.  She's just
fifteen.  And he's not a day over seventeen.  But there!" she exclaimed,
immediately contrite.  "I shouldn't be getting thee all stiffed up, in
thy delicate condition."

Dolley smiled.  It would take more than an elopement, especially of a
couple so obviously in love, to disturb the vigorous life near to
fulfillment within her.  She almost envied them.  She had come to love
John Todd, as well as admire and respect him as she always had.  But she
sensed that there was a quality of ecstasy she had never attained in
their relationship.  That these-yes, these children had it she was sure.
She had seen it in the looks they had exchanged.

Suddenly Anna ran into the room, fair face flushed, blue eyes wide.  "A
chariot!" she announced excitedly.  "I think it's the President's.  And
it's stopped right in front of the house!"

Dolley moved to the window.  Yes, it was the President's cream-colored
chariot. A footman was handing out a short, stoutish woman and escorting
her up the steps.

Ushered into the room, Martha Washington did not even wait for the
proper greetings.  She came forward, extending her hands.

"My dears, I just heard the news."

No, she would not take tea.  This was not a social visit.  The
President, she said, had been shocked by the behavior of his young
nephew.  Not that they objected to his choice of a bride, for Lucy was a
most delightful girl, but both of them were so young! And to carry her
off without her family's consent was disgracefully However, she wanted
to assure them that dear Lucy would be loved by her new family and well
taken care of.

"I imagine," Molly said after their guest's departure, that some people
would feel honored to have their daughter marry into the family of the
President of the United States." She sighed.

"If only he had been a Quaker!  I suppose there's no use hoping, because
he's the President's nephew .  .  ."

She was right.  There was no use hoping.  On August 13, 1793, Lucy Payne
was disowned by the Society of Friends.

This time the family compensated for the expulsion of one member by
adding another.  Toward the end of summer William

Temple Todd arrived, becoming a member of the Society at birth.

Life ...  death ...  Always, they seemed so closely intermingled.

On August.  9, Dr.  Benjamin Rush, probably the best known physician of
Philadelphia, came to a horrifying conclusion.  Since the first of the
month, when he had seen a child die from fever and jaundice, he had
treated several other patients with the same symptoms, none of whom had
survived more than four days.

"I am convinced," he told some of his colleagues, "that we are faced
with a plague of yellow fever."

At first they did not believe him.  There had been no outbreak of this
dread disease in Philadelphia since 1762.  But soon his colleagues had
to agree.  On AUgUSt 22 the mayor issued orders for the removal of all
refuse from the streets of the city.  On AugUst 29 the governor of
Pennsylvania recommended that the city do everything "to prevent the
extension of, and to destroy, the evil."

Yellow fever! Starting on the waterfront, it soon overspread the whole
city, a veritable plague.  There was no cure.  All remedies quinine,
wine, mercury, blistering, copious bleeding-were ineffective.  People
were dying by the hundreds.

Where had the pestilence come from?  Ships from the West Indies, where
it was endemic?  "Putrid exhalations," as Dr.  Rush surmised, from some
damaged coffee left to rot on the wharf?  A dead body wrapped in canvas,
which someone had seen unloaded secretly from a ship called the Flora?
Not until a hundred years later would it be recalled that Dr.  Rush had
noted incidentally that in that particular summer "mosquitoes were
uncommonly numerous.

Panic pervaded the city.  People scoured and whitewashed their houses.
If they went outside, they covered their mouths and noses with cloths
soaked in camphor or vinegar, avoided contact with other people, refused
to shake hands.  A person wearing crepe or other signs of mourning was
shunned like a leper.  Funerals so blocked the streets that they were
ordered to be performed only at night.  Business was at a standstill.
People began leaving the city in droves, as if they were fleeing the
plagues of Egypt.  Carts, wagons, coaches-every kind of conveyance,
piled high with possessions, clogged the roads out of town.

Though she was aware of sickness in the city, Dolley had no idea of its
nature or extent.  After a difficult birth, she had been confined to her
bed for many days.  The family tried to keep all problems from her. With
the city denuded of government officials, Molly had closed her
boardinghouse and moved her family into the Todd home, ostensibly to
care for the convalescing mother and the new baby.

"I'm taking thee away," John Todd announced as soon as they felt Dolley
could be moved.  "With this terrible heat, we should get thee and the
children out of the city."

And thee too, she thought, seeing how tired and worried he looked.  Why
was it, she wondered, that so many people needed to have wills made in
summer?

Dolley had to learn the truth, of course.  As they set out for Gray's
Ferry, a popular resort on the banks of the Schuylkill, she saw the
weeping people, the few pedestrians, with cloths pressed to their faces.
When they arrived at the lodging John had managed to secure in the
throngedtesort, she felt profound relief.

They were all here together-Mama; her sisters Anna and Mary; her brother
John and her husband, John; chubby, healthy, eighteen-month-old Payne;
and the precious mite, so small and defenseless-all safe from the
pestilence.  How selfish of her, she thought contritely, to be enjoying
immunity when other women were losing husbands and children!

"I must go back to.  Philadelphia," said John regretfully after he had
seen them well settled in their lodgings.

"Oh-no!" Dolley made swift, anguished protest.

"I'm needed there," he explained quietly.  "The Quakers have set up a
committee to see that people have help in their need.

Besides, my parents are still there.  They refused to leave.  Believe
me, my darling, I'll be back when I can."

He did go back, returning infrequently for hurried visits, each time
looking more harried and tired.  And each time he left, Dolley was
almost beside herself with worry.  To add to her concern, the baby,
delicate from birth, fussed and cried after every feeding.  Presently he
developed a low fever, and she was terrified.  Could he possibly have
contracted the disease?  A letter from james Todd, John's brother,
telling of their father's sickness accentuated her fears.

The next time John came he was almost prostrated by grief.  His father
had died on October 3- Dolley clung to him, begging him again not to
return to the city.  But he insisted.  He must care for his mother, and
there were others who needed him.  Perhaps when he came again, he would
stay.

James Todd secured a house in the country for his mother and brother,
and they were preparing to set out when their mother was taken ill.
After her death, on October 12, John yielded to his brother's urgings
and began to spend his nights in the country, finding some.  release
from tension by going out in the fields mornings and evenings to hunt.
After one such early morning, a damp one, he came in feeling chilled and
unwell.  By the next day, he knew it was the plague.

John knew too well what was in store for him, for he had helped nurse
both father and mother through the terrible sequence raging fever,
delirium, yellowed flesh, and finally the black vomiting that heralded
the end.  For one thing he was thankful.  He could endure the torture
alone.  His family need not participate in his suffering.  Still, if
only-just once more ...  The idea took possession of him.  He set off
immediately for Gray's Ferry.

For Dolley the days of waiting were agony.  She went through the motions
of living, nursing the feebly sucking baby, trying to keep young John
Payne Todd unused.  It was on October 19 that John came.  She was
upstairs when she heard him in the hall.

"I must see her," he was saying with terrible urgency.  "I must see her
once morel No!" he cried as she came running down the stairs, arms
outstretched.  "No nearer! It's in my veins, I can feel it-the fever.
Please, just let me look at you-"

But she did not heed him.  Descending the last few steps, she flung her
arms about him, resisting with all her strength when he tried to push
her away.

They could not persuade him to stay.  In spite of Molly Payne's
arguments and Dolley's pleadings he rushed out of the house, mounted his
horse, and rode away. Frantic, Dolley would have meed after him if her
mother had not pulled her back.  "No, child, there's nothing thee can
do."

Dolley was almost glad when she felt the heat of fever in her own body.
At least she could share the agony he must be suffering.  She took to
her bed, desperately sick.  The yellow fever?

Tradition would call it that, though it lasted longer than the usual
brief duration of that dread disease.  Hours?  Days?  For Dolley time
was measured only by a succession of unrelated sensations, and through
it all her mother's voice.

Bitterness on her tongue.  "I know, dear, it tastes terrible, but just a
few drops." A tugging at her breast.  "There, Willisan Temple, what a
long name for such a little bit of a thing!" Stabs of pain.  "Oh, dear,
Doctor, does thee have to take so much blood?"

The baby again.  "Poor mite! He needs all the strength he can get." More
medicine....  More bloodletting....  But-pain in her breasts instead of
the familiar tugging; emptiness in her arms.

Voices somewhere, sounding far away.  "God help her, what misfortune!
Both dead in the same day!"

"Hush, she must not hear.

Time enough for her to know, later."

She fought her way finally out of the deep confusion and, as if through
dissolving mists, saw her mother's face.

"John?  My baby?" She mouthed the words faintly but clearly.

"Oh, my dear, it's overly Thee have been so sick, and we have been so
worried.  But, thank God, thee are thyself again."

"John?  My baby?" repeated Dolley with a growing, horrifying suspicion.

Molly tried to avoid the question, but she could not hide her tears.
"They had the fever too-at least John did.  Remember?  He went back to
the city.  I'm sure he had the best of care.  His brother sent us word,
five days it was after he left here.  And the baby-so sick and such a
brave little mite."

Dolley tried to lift her head.  "They-both?"

"Yes, child.  But don't think of it now, dear.  It's over.  just get
well thyself."

Dolley sank back onto the pillow.  She closed her eyes.  Better the
depth of confusion, of nightmares, than this awful clarity of
understanding. Husband gone, baby gone.  There was nothing left.  Why
had not the fever taken her too?  She let herself-no, willed herself
back into the bleak darkness that was now more despair than physical
illness.

"Please, darling, thee must take some nourishment.  just a little of
this warm milk, please?"

No.  They wanted her to keep on living when there was nothing to live
for.  Why wouldn't they just let her go?  Deliberately she closed her
lips, turned her face toward the wall.

How long she lay so, inert, unresponsive, she could not have told.  It
was a small voice that finally penetrated her obdurate withdrawal from
reality, faint and piping.

"Mama?"

Startled, she opened her eyes, turned her head.  The young, eager face
was close to hers.  Her beautiful, idolized little Payne.

"Mama?" The blue eyes, so like her own, were brimming with tears.  "Thee
get well?  Thee come back?"

Nothing to live for?  What had she been thinking?  She stretched out her
arms.  "Yes, darling.  Mama come back."

PART THREE

Widening World

(1793-1797)

THE ravaged city, bereft of some five thousand of its inhabitants by
death, many more by flight, slowly returned to a semblance of normal
life.  On November I I only four deaths were reported.  The President
and Congress returned from their recess to concern themselves with
problems other than yellow fever.

For Dolley there was not even a semblance of normality.  Life as she had
known it had ended.  The world with its trees stripped bare, its frozen
ground, was the outer shell of an inner core of coldness.  The big
three-story house on the corner of Fourth and Walnut streets, which she
and John had so proudly bought and furnished, reverberated with echoes.
Even though Mama and the children had moved in with her, it seemed
desolate and empty.

Grief, yes, but that was not her only problem.  She was struggling to
survive.  Though John had made a will giving "all my Estate real and
personal to the Dear Wife of my Bosom," she had received not a penny of
her inheritance.  Repeatedly Dolley asked John's brother James to send
her John's papers so that the estate might be settled, but his only
reply had been a suggestion that she sell John's books to raise any
funds she required.

Sell his books, indeed! "I was hurt, my dear jamey," she wrote, "that
the idea of his library should occur as a proper source for raising
money.  Books from which he wished his Child improved, shall remain
sacred, and I would feel the pinching hand of Poverty before I disposed
of them."

She was feeling its pinching hand.  There was scarcely enough money to
buy the barest necessities.  Molly', she knew, felt guilty because she
and the children were an additional financial burden.

"Thee must not worry," Dolley tried to assure her.  "John was not a poor
man.  Once the estate is settled .  .  ."

Then one day Molly emne, bringing a letter.  "It's from Lucy."

She looked half pleased, half apologetic.  "She wants me to come and
bring the children.  She says they have a big house, this Harewood,
which George inherited.  And he wants us.  But-I shouldn't be leaving
thee, not now!"

Dolley read the letter.  It was an ideal solution.  Security and plenty
for Mama and the children; for her, four fewer mouths to feed! But-to be
left alone-no one to share this new, terrible responsibility!

"Of course thee must go." She tried to sound cheerful.  "Everything is
so uncertain here.  Who knows what the future may bring?" She smiled
ruefully.  "And we thought that was such an unfortunate marriage! Our
Lucy was wiser than we were."

It was settled.  Molly left with her two youngest children, Mary and
John.  Anna, to Dolley's delight, preferred to remain with her.

Now nearly fifteen, this beloved sister, together with her own little
Payne, brought light and warmth to the big, empty house.

But in spite of their presence Dolley felt alone and helpless.

For the first time in her life she had no one to depend on but herself.
Of course she need not have felt devoid of help, for she had many
friends, any one of whom would have welcomed the opportunity to assist
her.  There was Aaron Buff, her mother's former boarder, with whom she
had become well acquainted.

There were the other Quakers at Pine Street Meeting.  But she would not,
could not, ask them for money.  She could not expose family problems to
public gaze.  Instead she sold a few household effects-not books-and
resorted to the only marketable asset she possessed: needlework.

Weeks passed, and still no settlement.  On January 14, 1794, a division
was made,, on paper, of her late mother-in-law's clothing and household
effects.  Two thirds were to go to Dolley and one third to James.
However, she still received no portion of the legacy, or of John's
estate.

February.  And suddenly Dolley knew she had been a dependent child long
enough.  She hired a lawyer, one of John's respected friends, William
Willdns, to give legal assistance.  She sent her brother-in-law a letter
by messenger, not just pleading this time:

As I have already suffered the most serious Inconvenience from the
unnecessary Detention of my Part of my Mother-inLaw's property and of
the Receipt Book and papers of my late Husband-I am constrained once
more to request-and if a request is not sufficient, to demand that they
be delivered this day- As I cannot wait thy return from the proposed
Excursion without material Injury to my Affairs.

The bearer waits for thy answer. Dolley P.  Todd.

At last, results.  She began to receive her portion of Todd family
effects to the value of more than four hundred pounds.  But not until
over a year later would a full settlement be made.

It was during that bleak winter that an incident occurred which would
profoundly aitect her future.  She was walking to market one day by her
usual route, past the Indian Queen inn.  She picked her way carefully,
for it had snowed the night before.

There were few people about, and the hotel looked deserted except for
two men standing talking below the steps.  One of them, she thought,
looked vaguely familiar.  Intrigued, Dolley failed to watch her step.
She slipped on a patch of ice, and would have fallen if a strong pair of
arms had not encircled her.

"Oh!" she gasped.  "I-l thank thee, sir!"

She looked into blue-gray eyes almost level with her own.  No wonder he
seemed familiar.  Old sobersides, she had once thought him.  When she
was firmly on her feet again, the strong arms released her.  "Pray
forgive my presumption, Mistress-?"

His voice rose as if in question.

"Todd," supplied Dolley meekly.

"Ah, yes.  If I am not mistaken, we have met before."

"Years ago." She wondered how good his memory was.

It was all too good.  The gray-blue eyes lighted with that same
whimsical gleam.  "This time, I guess," he said slyly, "it was I who was
one big jump ahead."

Dolley laughed merrily, surprising herself by the sound, for it was the
first time she had heard it in months.  He insisted on escorting her
home, and she did not object.

lAter Dolley marveled at the ease she had felt in the company of the
great little Madison, great because of his political achievements,
little because of his slight figure, not much taller than Dolley's own
five feet five. She had forgotten that he was considered the most
important and influential member of Congress, that he was already being
acclaimed as the Father of the Constitution.

When he had expressed admiration for her husband and sympathy for her
loss, she had lost all awe and reticence and had confided thoughts and
emotions as she might have done to her father or an older brother.

" What must thee have thought of me?" she exclaimed ruefully to liza
Collins.  "Prattling away like a child, boasting of the clever things
Payne says and the bargain I found on a smoked ham!"

"Hm." Thoughtfully Eliza appraised her friend's piquant face with its
blue eyes.  "Hardly a child," she commented.  "By the way," she added
with an apparent change of subject, "that lawyer of thine, William
Wilkins.  I suppose thee knows he is falling in love with thee."

The blue eyes widened in consternation.  "N-no! What makes thee think
so?"

" My dear, I don't think, I know.  So do half the others at Pine Street
Meeting.  All we have to do is see the way he looks at thee, waits to
speak with thee after service."

"B-but he's my lawyer.  He has things to explain."

'Don't look so worried, pet.  It's not thy fault.  Thee can't help being
the most attractive young widow in Philadelphia."

Dolley was worried though.  Somehow it had not occurred to her that
anyone would expect her to remarry.  But this was an age of brief
widowhoods. And William Wilkins had been more than necessarily attentive
to her business affairs.  She had even thought of making him the
guardian of little Payne in case something happened to her.  But no, she
must not do that.  William might think she was encouraging a more
intimate relationship.

Henceforth she was careful to treat him only as a legal adviser, but
that left her with the problem of a possible guardian for Payne.  Life
was so uncertain.  In a matter of days it had robbed her of her husband,
son, and a multitude of friends.  She herself had been close to death.
Now little Payne was the focus of all her hopes and anxieties.  He slept
beside her at night, followed her about the house by day, accompanied
her on all her excursions.

Dolley found the answer to her problem.  It ewne one day when her old
friend Aaron Buff paid a call.  He and Dolley had often enjoyed spirited
conversations at her mother's boardinghouse.

Dolley admired the charming Senator, famous for his distinguished
military career and his brilliant leadership in Congress, and in his
presence she felt more animated than at any time since John's death.
Both of them were lonely; for Buff's wife, an incurable invalid, was
back in their New York home with their daughter, Theodosia.  Burr was
worshipfully fond of his only child.

Dolley was impressed by the attention he was giving to her education-and
the interest he showed in little Payne.

The idea came to her with a flash of inspiration.  She would make a
will, and if anything happened to her, Aaron Burr would be her son's
guardian.  Whatever might happen in the future to cast aspersion on her
choice, her judgment would be vindicated by one biographer, who would
write of him, "He had a veritable passion for adopting and rearing
children."

SuDDENLY Dolley awoke to the discovery that it was spring.

The chestauts began to put forth tender leaves, to stream long catkins.
Presently other trees foamed white or pink or crimson with blossoms.
There was a heady fragrance in the air.  And Dolley felt the hard,
frozen core of her own spirit melting.  Not that the void of terrible
loss had even started to fill.  But, like the renewed earth, she knew
that it was time to live again.

Quakers did not believe in wearing mourning garb, nor did Quaker women
confine themselves any longer to the old coarse grays.  Now Dolley took
from her clothes chest the gowns that John had liked best.  She put on
the prettiest one, topped her black-curls with a filmy bonnet, and went
with Anna to an afternoon tea at the home of their friend Sally,
daughter of Thomas McKean, onetime governor of Pennsylvania.  Once more
she began attending Martha Washington's Friday evening levees.  She took
little Payne to one of William Penn's parks and ran races with Simon the
new, soft grass.  That on her twice-weekly trips to maintain her trim
figure and alluring features attracted unusual male attention, she was
either unaware or happily indifferent.

Until one May day in that year of 1794 ...

As ELizA Collins rEAD inn NOTE delivered to her by messenger her eyes
sparkled with excitement.  It was from Dolley: "Thou must come to me.
Aaron Buff says that the great little Madison has asked to be brought to
see me this evening."

Sol The most eligible bachelor in Philadelphia w--Reeking to pay court
to the city's most attractive widow.  Hastily Eliza packed a portmanteau
with one of her best gowns, summoned the family carriage, and set off
for Fourth and Walnut.  She found Dolley walking the floor in great
perturbation.

"My dear, how wonderful The most brilliant member of the House, they say
he is.  And wouldn't it be exciting, both of us married to prominent men
from Virginia!" Eliza, who was engaged to Richard Bland Lee, another
leading Congressman, was looking forward to her marriage in the near
future.

"But-he's only coming to call," protested Dolley. "How do I know I want
him to court me?  I've scarcely spoken to him."

"Thee will know," Eliza assured her, "before it comes time to decide.  I
did.  Now come, we must make plans.  I brought my buff silk with the
peach-bloom scarf.  What are thee going to wear?"

When evening came they were ready. Dolley was dressed in
mulberry-colored satin, with a dainty cap on her head. She and Eliza
received the two guests in the formal parlor, its polished mahogany
furniture shining in the candlelight.

In spite of her perturbation Dolley was the perfect hostess.

Pouring tea into fragile cups, her hand did not tremble.  Adroitly she
guided the conversation to include some of her guests' major interests:
Burr's love for his daughter, Theodosia, Madison's life as a Virginia
planter.  As the latter talked about his ancestral home, called
Montpelier-meaning bald hills or mountains, he explained-his sober
features brightened, the stern lips softened into the warm smile she so
well remembered.

When the conversation turned to politics, Dolley could relax.

She found herself studying the two men with a critical eye.

Though they were both small, the similarity ended there.  Buff was glib,
argumentative, full of self-assurance; Madison was slow of speech,
quietly confident.  He was older than she was, forty-three to her
twenty-six.  But still ...  Suddenly she wished she had not signed the
will making Buff the guardian of little Payne.

Slow of speech James Madison undoubtedly was, but he was not slow in
pursuing his courtship of the widow Todd.  Once the proper approach had
been made, it became socially correct for a suitor to call, and he did
so in the following weeks, not once but several times.  Before the month
had passed, he made his proposal of marriage, which Dolley received with
dignity and gratitude.

She appreciated the high honor he had paid her.  She did not refuse, nor
did she say yes.  He must give her time to consider.

Big though Philadelphia was, the largest city in the country, its
grapevine was all-pervasive.  It was soon common knowledge that the
great little Madison was courting the widow Todd.  And before long,
Dolley received a note from the First Lady inviting her to tea.  This
was not an unusual request. Dolley was somewhat surprised, however, to
find herself the only guest.  There was a purpose behind the invitation,
it seemed.  Martha Washington wanted to persuade her to accept James
Madison's proposal.

Dolley thanked her for her concern and left as soon as courtesy
permitted.  She was heartened by the First Lady's approval of her suitor
yet more uncertain than ever.  It was she who must make up her mind, not
others, not even the kindly First Lady of the land.

And if the rumor of her engagement had reached the President's ears, how
many others ...  ?

She was soon to discover.  At Pine Street Meeting on Sundays she was
conscious of pursed lips, hostile eyes, averted faces.

Already they were accusing her for even considering marriage to a man
outside the Quaker fold, a "libertine," as they called him.

Eliza Collins, on the eye of her marriage to Richard Bland Lee, was
encountering the same cold disapproval, but apparently without the same
distress.

"Doesn't thee care?" Dolley demanded of her friend when she visited the
Collins house to inspect the elaborate bridal finery.

"They will expel thee from the Society."

"Of course I care," replied Eliza soberly.  "But I love Richard, and I'd
rather be cast out than give him up.  Besides, I won't be the first one.
How about thy sister Lucy?  Isn't she happy?"

"Yes," admitted Dolley.

Still she could not come to a decision.  Suddenly she knew she must get
away from Philadelphia.  She rented her house for six months and made
plans to spend the season in Virginia, telling Madison she would give
him her answer before the season was over.  Telling only Anna, little
Payne, and a maid, she set out by stage in June for Auburn, in Hanover
County, the plantation of her uncle Isaac Winston.  Here, free from all
conflicting warnings and persuasions, she could surely make up her mind.

But she was not free.  Letters kept coming.  One from Catherine Coles,
wife of her cousin, Congressman Isaac Coles, she found amusing, it was
so obviously an attempt at matchmaking:

Now for Madison, he told me I might say what I pleased to you about him.
To begin, he thinks so much of you in the Day that he has Lost his
Tongue.  At Night he Dreams of you and Startes in his Sleep a Calling
you to relieve his Flwne for he burns to such an excess that he will be
shortly consumed and he hopes your Heart will be calous to every other
swam but himself.  He has consented to everything that I have wrote
about him with Sparkling Eyes.  Monroe goes to France as Minister
Plenipo Madison has taken his house.  Do you like it?

Congress adjourned in June.  Madison, she knew, was now in Montpelier
and waiting for her answer.  Letters kept coming from him.  He was
enjoying his rainily, working hard, and hoping ...

Suddenly Dolley was laid low by fever-malaria the doctor called it.
While heat tortured her body, her mind still struggled with the
momentous problem of choice, arguing with itself pro and con, like two
adversaries in the red haze of battle.

To be read out of unity, cast out, like so many others of the family!
How can thee?  ...  But no one can take away the Inner Light.  That
comes not from people but from God.

To unite thyself with one so different from thyself, one so brilliant of
mind, perhaps destined to be a great leader?  Might not thee become a
hindrance?  ...  But perhaps he needs someone like thee, someone to
provide emotion, laughter, love of people.

The struggle went on and on ...  until finally the fever abated, and
along with it the uncertainty.  As soon as she felt well enough, she
left with Anna and PaYne for Harewood, where her sister Lucy Washington
and her mother had been long expecting her.

On the way, stopping overnight in an inn in Fredericksburg, she wrote a
letter to James Madison, saying that after proper time had elapsed she
would become his wife.

On August 18 Madison wrote his jubilant reply:

I received your precious favor from Fredericksburg.  I cannot express,
but hope you will conceive the joy it gave me.  The delay in hearing of
your leaving Hanover which I regarded as the only satisfactory proof of
your recovery, has filled me with extreme inquietude, and the
consummation of that welcome event was endeared to me by the stile in
which it was conveyed.  I hope you will never have another deliberation
on that subject.  If the sentiments of my heart can guarantee those of
yours, they assure me there can never be a cause for it.

IT WAs a happy reunion at Harewood. Dolley had not realized how homesick
she had been for family.  She wept in her mother's arms, exclaimed over
the growth of young Mary and John, ages twelve and eleven, delighted in
the obvious happiness of Lucy and her George.  They in turn expressed
surprise at little Payne's two-year-old precocity and at the lovely
Anna's emergence into the full bloom of womanhood.

Dolley had dreaded disclosing the news of her contemplated marriage. How
would'her mother feel about another member of the family becoming an
outcast from the Quaker fold?  She need not have worried.

"My dear," said Molly Payne equably, "he is a good man, and I am happy
for thee.  I could not have asked a better prospect for thy future."
Perhaps her months of benefitting from the happy marriage she had so
vehemently deplored had taught her the folly of interference in matters
of the heart.

Reaction from others in the family was exuberant.  "Of course you must
have the wedding here," insisted Lucy.  "Don't you think it's a
beautiful house for a wedding?"

She's already saying you instead of thee, thought Dolley. Soon I shall
have to learn.  "Yes," she said.  "It's a lovely house.  I shall be glad
to have it here.  Thee-you are very fortunate, Lucy."

Dolley was happily surprised by Harewood.  Samuel Washington, the
President's brother, had been constantly in debt.  At his death he had
left his children to be supported by his brother George.  But though
still in his teens, George Steptoe Washington was handling his property
with the acumen of a responsible adult.  Harewood was in thriving
condition.  The house was large and comfortable, built of rock quarried
from a magnificent bluegray limestone ridge running through the estate.
Dolley delighted in its elegantly paneled drawing room and gorgeous
mantel of greenish marble.  Yes, it would be a beautiful place to be
married in, a startling contrast to the bare, stark meetinghouse in
Philadelphia.

Sharply conscious of the disparity, she felt the old uncertainty
returning.  How could she change her whole way of life-dress, speech,
manner of worship?  Lucy had felt no hesitation about marrying George,
and seeing them together, Dolley could understand why.  She herself had
not been in love with John Todd until after their marriage, and even
then it had not been this radiant, starry-eyed emotion that shone in
Lucy's face.  Mercilessly she probed her feelings for James Madison,
this man who was seventeen years her senior, vastly superior in
intellect, a leader among his peers.  Did she love him?  Could deep
respect, joy in companionship be called love? Uncertainty -again,
confusion! Then suddenly he was there, riding up the path through the
grove of honey locusts, being greeted with proper Virginia hospitality
by the entire family.  Later, when the family left them alone, he took
Dolley's hands in both his own and looked into her eyes with the same
radiance of emotion that she had often seen passing between Lucy and her
George.

He was eager for an early wedding, but Dolley tried to postpone setting
a date.  She permitted him, however, to place on her finger a beautiful
gold ring set with eight rose diamonds.

At George and Lucy's insistence he remained their guest, while Dolley
continued to temporize.  She watched as he quietly and unobtrusively
endeared himself to members of the family, riding with George over his
estate and giving sage advice about crop rotation and markets; telling
stories of student pranks at the College of New jersey-later Princeton
University-to Mary and John; bringing a sparkle to Lucy's and Anna's
eyes with his thoughtful compliments.  Most of all Dolley observed his
conduct with little Payne.  As they walked in the garden, the boy loudly
insisting on following, Madison hoisted him to his shoulders and made
him chortle with glee.  He encouraged the child to climb on his knee
when the family gathered at tea time.

It was this growing appreciation of his potential as a foster father,
even more than as a husband, that brought her to a decision.

She set the date of their wedding for September 15, six weeks before the
year of her widowhood would have expired.  Time for preparation was
short, and the household was plunged into excitement.  It would be a
small wedding, she insisted, just the family.  Madison's sister Nelly
and her husband, Major Isaac Hite, were invited, but others of his
rainily lived too far away to come.

The day dawned, September 15, 1794- Strange that everything could seem
so normal and ordinary, little Payne fussing to be dressed, servants
clattering pots in the cookhouse.  Was it memory of her first wedding
day that made her start a letter to Eliza Collins, now Lee, who was on
her honeymoon?

My dearest Eliza....  As a proof of that confidence and friendship which
has never been interrupted between us I have stole from the family to
tell you that this day I give my hand to the man who of all others I
most admire.  In this union I have every thing that is soothing and
grateful in prospect-and my little Payne will have a generous and tender
protector.  Best love to you and yours. Dolley Payne Todd.

In spite of lingering misgivings, Dolley could not resist yielding to
the alluring color and noise and fragrance of the day.  The parlor
blossomed into a garden as Anna and Mary brought in great armfuls of
fall flowers.  Tantalizing odors kept drifting from the kitchens.  When
the fitteful hour came, Mwna and Anna helped her into a white satin
dress daintily patterned with lace, and placed a wreath of orange
blossoms on her hair.

As a final touch Dolley fastened about hey neck Madison's wedding gal, a
necklace of intricate medallions depicting, in mosaic, subjects from
Roman history.  Trust him to pick something scholarly! Her fingers
lingered on its shining loveliness as once they had surreptitiously felt
beneath ' her kerchief for the golden butterfly.  Then she descended the
staircase to where the groom waited, looking at her with naked devotion
in his eyes.  He was a suitor to be proud of, faultlessly attired in his
usual black but with a richly embroidered waistcoat and an elaborate
jabot of fine Mechlin lace.  Distinguished-looking he was, in spite of
his slenderness and short stature.  Standing beside him, Dolley was glad
that she had chosen satin slippers with low heels.  She would have hated
to look taller than he.

They entered the parlor, where the Reverend Mr.  Balmain stood waiting
in his ecclesiastical robes, flower-bedecked fire place behind him.  It
was all so queer and confusing compared with the stark simplicity of a
Pine Street Meeting marriage l What was she doing here committing
herself to this man by her side?

" Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to
join this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable
estate, instituted by God .  .  ."

What beautiful words! As the gentle voice continued, the confusion of
thoughts and emotions was absorbed into its quiet cadence.  She was
conscious only of the voice, of a firm hand holding hers.

"James Madison, Jr., wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to
live together in the holy estate of matrimony; wilt thou love her,
comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and
forsaking all others keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall
live?"

Another voice, low but firm and confident.  "I will."

Why, it was not at all stranger Beautiful.  They even used the familiar
thee and thou!

"Dolley Payne Todd, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband ... ?"

It was here.  No more hesitation, no turning back.  The end of one life,
the beginning of another.  She felt the reassuring pressure of the
strong fingers.

"will," she said clearly.

It was over.  Embraces.  Congratulations.  A festive supper with a
loaded table.  Music from a tinkling harpsichord, the girls daring to
cut up the groom's lace jabot as souvenirs of the joyous occasion, with
his beaming approval.

Suddenly in the midst of the festivities Dolley remembered little Payne.
She had always put him to bed, staying by his side until he fell asleep.
Stricken with self-reproach, she hurried upstairs.  He was in her bed as
usual, sound asleep, her faithful maid beside him.  But there were
tearstains on his cheeks, and one small arm was flung out as if in
search of something.

Dolley stooped to kiss the child, and turned to go back downstairs.  As
she passed the desk she saw the letter to Eliza lying as she had left
it. She sat down and, picking up the quill, added a hasty postscript:

"Evening. Dolley Madison.  Alass!  Alass!"

She stared at the last two words.  What had made her write them?  With a
quick motion she tore the paper to eliminate them, not noticing that one
of them still remained, causing readers a century and more later to
wonder.  Why, on the eye of one of the happiest and most noteworthy
marriages in history, that strange, equivocal word-alass?

It would be too long a journey, James decided, to go to his beloved
Montpelier before their return to Philadelphia for the opening of
Congress.  Better for Dolley to meet her new family by degrees than to
be plunged into its confusion all at once.  So during their honeymoon
they spent two weeks at Belle Grove with his sister Nelly and her
husband, Isaac Hite.

There Dolley felt herself happily inducted not only into her marriage
but into her new family as well.  Little Payne was absorbed into the
Hite nursery, containing Nelly's two children, giving the bride more
freedom to cultivate her new relationships.

That the doting mother did not take full advantage of such freedom,
however, was evidenced by a tart comment in one of Nelly's letters,
preserved for posterity: "Then there was that child, who would have
nothing else but to sleep in their bed with them, as he had every night
since they had been man and wife."

Dolley and her new husband arrived back in Philadelphia late that fall,
to take up residence in the house vacated by Madison's friend James
Monroe, who had gone as minister to France. Dolley felt suspended
between two worlds.  Strangers were living in her house. She was living
in the house of strangers.  She avoided her Quaker friends, or rather,
they seemed to be avoiding her.  Yet a lifetime of inhibitions prevented
her from full participation in other friendships.

Then suddenly the inevitable happened.  In December 1794 the Quaker
Monthly Meeting passed a resolution declaring her out of unity.  So the
choice had been made for her.  She was filled with regret yes, but also,
strangely enough, with relief.  Now she could follow the guidance of her
own Inner Light while entering with all energy into her new life as the
wife of James Madison.  It would not be hard, since she knew now that
she felt for her husband a warmth of affection that the faithful John
Todd had never inspired.  And Madison would ask nothing more of her than
to just be herself.

THE FACE LOOKING AT her from the mirror was sweet, young, innocent,
demure, framed by a ruffled cap with lacy ribbons that tied under the
chin.  The gown was a sober color, circled about the neck with a white
kerchief The reflection was very like the miniature of her by James
Peale, the popular artist.  Madison loved the miniature.  He called it
"my lovely Quaker bride."

Dolley gazed steadily into the mirrored blue eyes.  There was more
sadness in them, less sparkle, than in the miniature.  They reflected
the grief she had felt since the news had come the first of the year.
Two of her brothers were dead.  That faithful filmily chronicler, cousin
Elizabeth Drinker, had recorded the tragedy in her journal on January 5,
1795- "I heard this evening of the death of two of Molly Payne's sons,
Temple and Isaac; the latter offended a man in Virginia, who sometime
after shot him with a pistol."

Temple had fallen victim to a fatal sickness.  Fever?  The family had
never been able to discover the details.  Her brothers were all gone now
except John, the youngest.  Earlier, Walter had sailed for Britain from
Virginia and been lost at sea.  Perhaps it was her sense of loss that
had made Dolley put on this sober Quaker garb when dressing tonight for
Martha Washington's Friday levee.

Suddenly Dolley shook herself.  This was not fair to jeremy.

Quickly she began changing.  The rose-colored satin she had made and not
yet worn. It was cut low in the neck after the prevailing style, with
short puffed sleeves.  As a concession to her Quaker heritage she put a
filmy wrap of lace about her shoulders.

The look in jeremy's eyes made the change worthwhile.  Since Congress
opened, he had been worried about national problems, but at sight of her
his features relaxed, his whole face brightened.

"My dear! Never have I seen you more beautiful.  Martha Washington's
Friday levees were social events attended by everybody who was anybody
in Philadelphia.  They provided the perfect setting for political
gossip, for discreet courtship.  The First Lady received seated on a
sofa, greeting each guest as he or she was presented.

Too formal, thought Dolley. If I were in her place, I would be up and
about, trying to make everybody feel at home.

That evening, as always, Dolley responded to the stimulus of a crowd
like a flower opening to the sun. She glowed, sparkled, exuded an
interest in every person encountered as if he or she

 were the only one in the room.  But even while chatting merrily, she
was conscious of jeremy.  She was relieved to see him in long,
apparently friendly conversation with the President.

Already she was becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the political
situation.  Finding her not only interested but shrewdly understanding,
jeremy was sharing with her some of his problems as a Congressman.  She
had read much of his correspondence with his closest friend, Thomas
Jefferson, who, after his resignation as Secretary of State at the end
of 1793, had retired to his Virginia home.  Even in retirement Jefferson
was the acknowledged leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, or as
they were sometimes called in this era, Republicans.  Alexander
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury during Washington's first term,
epitomized the position of the country's other major party, the
Federalists.  The two men had clashed in the Cabins% bringing about the
schism that had created the two factions.  They represented radically
opposing views of government.  The Federalists believed in an
all-powerful central government, with authority in the hands of the
qualified few, chiefly the moneyed classes; the Republicans thought all
nondelegated powers should be reserved to the states, with power in the
hands of the people.

The situation in Europe had intensified the split between the parties.
France and Britain were at war, and America was inevitably affected by
the conflict.  Given their aristocratic leanings, the Federalists tended
to support Britain and its monarchy.  The Republicans, on the other
hand, sympathized with the aspirations of revolutionary France.
Distressed by the schism between the two parties, President Washington
had attempted to steer a middle course.  But now, in his second
administration, he was veering toward Hamilton's concepts of government.
His long and close friendship with both Jefferson and Madison had become
strained.

Dolley knew that this was causing jeremy much pain and regret.

But her husband's greatest worry, she knew, was not over his friendship
with the President.  It was the dangers besetting the country that
distressed him.

Great Britain had long engaged in the practice of stopping American
vessels and removing from them seamen who she claimed were deserters
from her navy.  Then, through an order-incouncil, Britain proclaimed her
right to seize all neutral ships

"I taking goods to British enemies.  Soon American ships, most of them
from Federalist New England, were being stopped and stripped of their
cargoes as contraband.  Their seamen, whether or not claiming American
citizenship, were being impressed into the British navy.  The President,
still determined to maintain peace, had sent John jay to negotiate a
treaty with England that would resolve these grievances.  Like other
American officials, Federalist and Republican alike, Madison was waiting
in an agony of hope and apprehension for the result of these
negotiations.

"I'm afraid," he had confessed to the sympathetic Dolley early in their
marriage.  "Jay is a strong Federalist.  He must have been given his
instructions from Hamilton, careful that they should give no offense to
Britain.  Even if he is able to effect a treaty, what will it be?"

News came at last that a treaty had been negotiated, but when Congress
disbanded in March Of 1795, its terms had still not been made public.
Madison faced the reprieve with a mixture of emotions.  Apprehension.
What did the treaty say that the administration should postpone
announcing its terms?  And delight! At last he could show his beloved
Montpelier to his bride and show her, his incredible good fortune, to
his parents.

It was a seven-day journey, but Dolley enjoyed every moment-the crossing
of wide waters by ferry, the rough rides over muddy, rutted roads, even
the nights in noisy, drafty ordinaries.

From Philadelphia to Chester they traveled, across the Susquehanna,
where the scenery took one's breath away; on to Baltimore; a glimpse, as
they crossed the Potomac, of the bare bones of the new Federal City,
slated to be the nation's capital.  Then Virginia, her childhood home,
but parts of which she had never seen before.

"There it is!" jeremy said.  "Montpelier!" They whirled up the long,
gently sloping drive with a sudden burst of speed, and were engulfed in
a medley of smiling faces, bows, embraces, greetings both exuberant and
dignified.

Montpelier at last. Dolley loved everything about it: the house, square
and solid on its eminence; the broad vistas framed by the foothills of
the Blue Ridge Mountains thirty miles away; especially the people in her
new family, who received her with delight.

James Madison, Sr., looked a bit crusty and forbidding, with thin
patrician features, heavy brows, and strong full lips.  But Dolley
discovered that the lips could smile, the eyes under the lowering brows
twinkle.  It was from him that jeremy had inherited both ' his reserved
demeanor and his wry sense of humor.  Now over seventy, James senior was
a prominent citizen of Orange County, having been county lieutenant,
justice of the peace, vestryman, and leading landowner.  His wife,
Nelly, had home him twelve children, of whom seven had survived.

She looks like a frail reed, thought Dolley of jeremy's mother, ready to
blow away in the slightest wind.  Indeed, Nelly Conway Madison, then in
her sixties, was chronically afflicted with malaria.  But reeds could be
tough, resistant to the harshest winds, and Nelly still had more than a
quarter century to live.

That summer at Montpelier was a prototype of the years to come. Dolley
was pleased to see jeremy turn farmer, helping his father supervise the
growing of tobacco, hemp, and clover.  And she surprised jeremy and his
family by her interest in gardening, digging and weeding among the
irises, peonies, and nasturtiums.

Nelly Madison was delighted when she proved her culinary skills by
baking her favorite seed cakes and layer cakes.

Though life was free and leisurely, activity abounded.  Since jeremy's
brothers had large families, there was plenty of entertainment for Anna
and little Payne.  The boy, especially, basked in the indulgence of
doting elders and the society of admiring peers.  There was company
galore, often twenty-five or thirty to dinner, and there were quilting
parties, dances, and balls.

jeremy might convulse the company with some droll story at dinner, but
he retired into brooding worry once the guests had left. Dolley knew
that he got up from their bed at night to pace or go outside to walk.
The treaty!  What were its terms?  Why were they being kept secret?

Then suddenly his fears were realized.  The terms of the treaty,
intended to be kept secret until the Senate had ratified it, were leaked
through a newspaper.  jeremy received his copy, tore it open, read it.

"It's worse than I feared," he told Dolley in horror.  "It renounces for
us all freedom of the seas.  It forbids our carrying provisions to ports
of the British enemies.  It gives no assurance against the impressment
of our seamen.  It makes us virtually an ally of England and an enemy of
Francer"

It was time, jeremy decided, to take an important journey.

THEY Started one day in July, traveling southwest along a rough trail
that two hundred years later would be indicated on maps as Constitution
Route, for it linked together two of the men whose philosophy of
government was reflected in that historic document.

It was a long, thirty-mile trip, winding up and down the foothills of
the Blue Ridge through country sparsely settled, wild as an uncharted
wilderness but breathtakingly beautiful.

They came finally to a town, kept on south, and presently were climbing,
up ...  up ...  a little mountain.  When they arrived at the top, Dolley
exclaimed in delighted amazement.

Monticello! It crested the height triumphantly, its red brick facade and
white columns blending into its setting of trees and lawns and sky, its
proud little dome rising into the heavens like a crown.  It seemed
indeed the top of the world.

Dolley had met Thomas Jefferson before, but now, it seemed, she was
seeing him for the first time.  What a contrast they were in appearance,
these two men whose brilliant minds were in such close accord-the one
tall, rangy, bold of features, rust hair a bit disheveled, careless in
dress; the other slender, fine-featured, powdered hair carefully combed
over the ears and tied behind, black clothes faultlessly Only the eyes
seemed akin, both bluegray and deep set, both kindled from the amne
inner fire.

Jefferson might be indifferent to accepted modes of dress, but he was a
connoisseur in other areas.  His house was a veritable museum of choice
furnishings, paintings, and statuary brought from Europe.  Dinner was
served at a perfectly appointed table laden with unusually tempting
delicacies-French bread, crisp and tasty; vegetables with piquant
flavors; meats with wine sauces; and for dessert a delectable concoction
called ice cream.

Later, in the library, Dolley sat and listened while the two men talked.
Farming, architecture, astronomy, archaeology, law, politics-they
discussed almost every subject under the sun! She was intrigued by a
small portable writing desk standing on one of the tables.  It was on
that, jeremy had told her, that Jefferson had created the Declaration of
Independence.

She regarded him with mingled awe and curiosity.  Was there any truth in
the rumor that as a youth he had been romantically attracted to her
mother, Molly Coles?  If so, it had been but a passing infatuation, for
his almost fanatical devotion to his beautiful but frail wife, Martha,
was common knowledge.  He had given up ambassadorial honers to remain by
her side, worried by her bed during her frequent illnesses, nursed her
through her last sickness, fainted at her death, vowed never to marry
again.

The whole family enjoyed the days at Monticello, foretaste of many such
visits. Dolley found Martha Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson's elder
daughter, a congenial companion, even though Martha was several years
younger than herself. Maria, Jefferson's other daughter, was almost the
same age as Anna, and the two enjoyed girlish confidences, duets at the
harpsichord, and strolls in the garden.  Payne found an admiring and
docile playmate in Anne, Martha's daughter, three years old like
himself.

But over all hung the shadow of that dark specier, jay's Treaty.

On June 24 the Senate, which was strongly Federalist, had ratified the
treaty by a bare two-thirds vote.  Much of the country was as appalled
by its terms as were Jefferson and Madison.  John jay had been hanged in
effigy, Hamilton stoned on the streets of New York.  It was a sellout to
England, Jefferson insisted, and if the President was weak enough to
sign, Madison must fight its implementation.

Before they left Monticello, their host took Dolley aside.  "You must
keep your husband in public life," he said with the sternness of a
father addressing a child.  "Now that he has made such a felicitous
marriage he may be tempted to retire to private life-"

"As you have done," said Dolley with composure.

"Er, ah, yes." For a moment the great man was nonplussed.

Then he laughed.  "Touchse, my dear.  But"-his manner was more pleading
now than peremptory-"our country's future may depend on your husband,
and your influence will be important."

Dolley looked him straight in the eye.  "My husband," she said, will
make his own decisions.  But wherever they lead him, I shall accompany
and support him to the best of my ability."

Jefferson returned her gaze, not with the whimsical indulgence accorded
a child but with the respect due a woman.  "Yes," he said.  "I believe
you will."

They returned to Philadelphia in November.  There, Madison fought hard
along with other Republicans in the House to prevent the implementation
of the treaty that Washington had reluctantly signed.  But though many
were shocked by the outrageous terms, Madison and his supporters were
defeated by a narrow vote.  He was bitterly disillusioned.

Dolley listened, understood, and wondered how she could best help him.
What should be her role as the wife of a leader in Congress?  Should she
permit the political schisms to dictate the functions she attended, her
choice of dinner guests, hey attitudes toward people?  No.  Let all
argument, rancor, be relegated as far as possible to the halls of
government.  It was up to her to be a social catalys not a promoter of
discord.  Differences, she knew, could often be mitigated, if not
resolved, around a dinner table.

The decision was not hard, for it concerned people, and she liked them
all, whether Republicans or Federalists, southerners or northerners,
foreign dignitaries or rough pioneers from the wilderness.

At the height of the treaty controversy, they were asked to one of
Martha Washington's dinner parties.  jeremy wanted to refuse the
invitation, since his relations with the President were becoming more
and more strained.

"Nonsense!" Dolley chided cheerfully.  "People can disagree and still be
friends.  Besides, Anna has set her heart on going."

This was a persuasive argument, for jeremy was as fond of his lovely
young sister-in-law as if she had been his daughter.

It was a formal dinner party, and Anna looked especially beautiful that
night in a lavender silk dress embroidered with pink roses. Dolley was
not pleased, however, when the guest of honor, Don Carlos Martinez
d'Yrujo, the newly arrived ambassador from Spain, attached himself to
her sister's side with obvious admiration.  Oh, dear! She felt sudden
shock.  Why, the child was-no longer a child, but a young woman in her
teens, of marriageable age.  But-oh, not to someone who might take her
as far away as Spain, not to this peacock! Hair powdered to snowy
luxuriance, striped silk coat lined with satin, a hat tipped with white
feathers, the marquess was the epitome of confident, if not
vainglorious, splendor.  But Dolley was soon relieved, for presently the
handsome Spaniard transferred his attentions to one of Anna's friends,
the dazzling Sally McKean, and kept them there.  Two years later she
would become the Marchioness d'Ymjo.

Thanks partly to Dolley's quiet diplomacy, the long and cherished
friendship between Madison and Washington remained outwardly unspoiled
during the last year of the latter's administration.  But jeremy's
disillusionment had brought him to a firm decision.  He would not run
again for Congress.  Besides, his father, disabled by sciatica, needed
him badly at Montpelier.

On March 4,1797, Dolley sat in Congress Hall with the wives of other
legislators, some like herself for the last time, and saw John Adams
inaugurated as second President of the United States.  But the new
President, looking a bit pompous in his elaborate pearlcolored
broadcloth suit, was not the central figure of the gathering.  Nor was
Thomas Jefferson, the new Vice President, imposing in a blue coat over a
crimson vest.  It was George Washington, a tall, straight figure in
black velvet, who drew all eyes. It was he who received the tremendous
applause as he entered the hall, he who was given the full attention of
the crowd as he introduced his successor.  Everyone, including the new
President, participated in the emotion that swept the crowd.  When he
had taken the oath, Adams covered his face with his hands, his wrist
ruffles wet with his tears.

For it was the end of an era.  Washington, the hero of the nation's
battle for independence, symbol of its freedom for all future
generations, was leaving them.

Seeing jeremy's face suffused with tears, Dolley knew that the
differences between them had been forgotten.  The tears were a
catharsis, washing away the discord, leaving only memory of the long
years of friendship.

Packing, this time for good.  Much luggage, sixteen pieces of it, had
already been sent by water.  It was with mixed emotions that Dolley
watched the last of the trunks loaded onto the carriage.

Was she sorry to see her years in Philadelphia come to an end?

Not when she pictured the broad lawns at Montpelier, where little Payne
liked to run, the gardens that would soon be a profusion of lilacs,
roses, and mock orange.  Her only concern was for Anna, who might miss
the excitement of city life.  For herself there were no regrets.  She
had long ago learned, like the Apostle Paul, In whatsoever state I am,
therewith to be content.

PART FOUR

Washington

(1801-1809)

February, there should have come a hint of spring.  One year, Dolley
remembered, the buds of Montpelier's lilacs had seemed ready to unfold.
Not this year of 1801.  The grounds around the house were still snow
covered; the oaks and dogwoods as bare as in midwinter.  Change was
surely in the offing.

But what?  Spring or more of winter?  More years of comfortable,
satisfying life here at Montpelier, like the last four?  Or who knew
what of excitement and glamour, but also trouble and turmoil?

Father Madison lay in his bed, stricken with a lingering sickness.
Several times he seemed close to death.  James too was ill, afflicted
with an acute attack of rheumatism. Dolley was at her wits end, running
the household, ministering to its two ailing members, attempting to keep
Payne, now a noisy, mischievous nine-year-old, from disturbing the
occupants of the sickrooms.

Dolley's patience was sorely taxed.  The preceding months had been a
succession of quiet and turmoil, triumphs and defeats, and now, most
trying of all, uncertainty.  In the fall of 1800 Jefferson had run for
President on the Democratic-Republican ticket.  They were still waiting
to learn the outcome.  But if Jefferson won, he wanted James to be
Secretary of State.

Secretary of State!  The very words were frightening to Dolley,
suggesting a majestic full-rigged ship bearing down on a defenseless
little rowboat-she being the rowboat.  When Jefferson had mentioned the
possibility on a visit to Montpelier, she had turned confidently th
jeremy, expecting to hear his instant refusal.  Why, he was just getting
the estate organized, exulting in the idyllic life they were enjoying!
But he had not refused.  Demurred, yes.  But with a chill of
apprehension she had known what his decision would be.  Loyalty, duty.
Always they would be his stern mentors.

Well, in spite of her own fears she had given Jefferson her answer long
ago: "My husband will make his own decisions.  But wherever they lead
him, I shall accompany and support him to the best of my ability."
Loyalty and duty, for her also.

Victory! Whatever its consequences, Dolley had rejoiced with James when
Jefferson and Aaron Buff, the Republican candidate for Vice President
had won the popular vote.  There had, however, been a procedural fluke
in the Electoral College.  In those days there were no separate ballots
for President and Vice President.

Electors voted for two men.  The one with the highest number of votes
became President; the next highest became Vice President.

But when the ballots were counted, it turned out that Buff and Jefferson
were tied for first place with seventy-three votes each.

According to the Constitution the election was thrown into the House of
Representatives.

"Of course," James assumed confidently, "it won't come to a vote.  Buff,
being honorable, and knowing he was the choice for Vice President, will
withdraw from the contest."

But Burr was not the honorable man James had thought.  Yielding to an
excess of ambition, he stayed in the race, hoping to win the presidency
for himself.  Now, with the House meeting to ballot, James was
distraught.  In spite of his rheumatism he dragged himself back and
forth along the new portico, eyes focused for the first sight of a
messenger from Federal City.

The news arrived at last, brought by a special messenger.

James came limping into the house, calling for Dolley, his face brighter
than she had seen it in days.  The House had voted for Jefferson.  He
was victorious.

"At lastly" james exulted.  "The people have won.  Now we can see what a
really democratic government can do.  Isn't it wonderful?"

Dolley regarded her husband.  It had not occurred to him, she knew, that
the news meant honor and prestige for himself.  He was thinking only of
the good of his country.  "Yes," she agreed.

"Wonderful indeed."

So it had come.  The end of four satisfying years at Montpelier.

The beginning of excitement, trouble, and turmoil.

Dolley started packing.  If she faced the change with reluctance, she
was the only one.  Anna was exuberant.  She had missed the excitement of
the city; country dances and quilting bees were poor substitutes for
levees and theater parties.  Payne, like any adventurous nine-year-old,
was an enthusiast for change.  They would leave, decided James, directly
after the inauguration on March 4, since his father's health seemed to
be improving.

But late in February, James Madison, Sr., suffered a relapse, and on the
last day of the month he died.  James found himself the executor of an
estate with myriad problems.  It took weeks to settle them.  He must
apportion the property satisfactorily to his mother, his brother,
William, his three sisters and their husbands and children.  He himself
was left the Montpelier mansion and three farms of about five thousand
acres.  Not until late April did the Madisons make their way to the new
capital.

WASHINGTON, as the Federal City was now called in honor of the person
who had labored most untiringly in its creation, was an ungainly but
lusty infant just emerging from the painful throes of birth.  As the
Madisons rode through a marshy wilderness between the President's House
and the Capitol, over rough wheel tracks bearing the incongruous name of
Pennsylvania Avenue, their carriage sank in mud as deep as in the
Virginia backcountry.  On May 2 James was sworn in as Secretary of
State.

Jefferson insisted that the Madisons stay with him until they could find
a place to live. Dolley was captivated by the new President's House,
bare and half finished though it was, situated on an unenclosed piece of
barren ground, surrounded by masses of stone, bricks, and other
materials used in its construction.

"A castle!" she pronounced delightedly, as once long ago she had
exclaimed over the modest magnificence of Scotchtown.

Abigail Adams, moving into the house the preceding November, had used
the same word in a letter to her daughter, though not with the same
complimentary intent.  "To assist us in this great castle, bells are
wholly wanting, and promises are all you can obtain." She had other
complaints: a leaking roof, insufficient lighting.  "And the great
unfinished audience-room I make a drying-room of, to hang the clothes
in." But she had admitted, "It is a beautiful spot, capable of every
improvement."

"I would be grateful," said Jefferson soon after their arrival, "if
Mistress Madison would act as my hostess at a dinner today."

Dolley was dismayed.  Preside at the table of the President of the
United States?  With some of the most important people of Washington
present? She and Anna had been living in the country for four years. The
Washington dignitaries would think them quite hopeless.

Then she remembered.  Jefferson had no wife.  His daughters were unable
to leave their families in Virginia.  How lonely and helpless he must
feel!

"Of course," she said willingly.  "I shall be glad to."

Excitedly she and Anna searched around in their outdated wardrobes for
something presentable to wear.  "What will the women think of us!"
mourned Anna.  "They'll know we're from the backwoods!"

They need not have worried.  There were no women among the guests.  All
were members of Jefferson's Cabinet or men closely associated with his
administration.  Among them were Vice President Aaron Buff, and Dr.
William Thornton, the city district commissioner, a Quaker whom Dolley
had known in Philadelphia.

The dinner was served at a round table in the pleasant south room.
Dolley was impressed with its furnishings: an elegant sideboard, a large
mahogany table, fifteen black-and-gold chairs.  She noted with
satisfaction that there were no rules of precedence.  If any guests had
titles, they were ignored.  Jefferson was dressed neatly but casually,
as befitted his democratic code, in corduroy breeches, a scarlet
embroidered waistcoat, and comfortable satinette shoes.  The food was
delicious, and it was faultlessly served.

But as days passed and no other women were invited to the President's
House, Dolley was troubled.  Surely it was wise for a leader to include
influential females among his associates.

Levees had been held on Fridays when Martha Washington was First Lady,
and Abigail Adams had continued the custom.  But now, no women appeared
at the President's House. Dolley waited each Friday.  Nothing.  It was
Anna, reunited with her friend Sally McKean, now the Marchioness
d'Yrujo, who reported why.

"Listen to this!" Anna said, her eyes sparkling merrily.  "Before you
arrived, the women waited for an announcement of the usual levee.  None
came.  Then some of them, including Sally, decided to take matters into
their own hands.  On the proper day they dressed to the nines and at the
customary hour for the levee came to the President's House.  He wasn't
here, so they waited in the oval room, bound to shame him.  Presently he
came in from a horseback ride, dressed-you can guess how, boots, spurs,
rough clothes.  Oh, he received them courteously, even had the servants
bring refreshments, then explained how he felt about levees.

Waste of time, too much like the panoply of old-world kings.  After a
reasonable interval he led them politely to the door.  They got the
message.  No more levees."

"Oh, dear!" said Dolley. It was even worse than she had thought.  The
female whispering campaign against the President would have already
begun.  She could imagine the innuendos.

"Country boor!"

"Backwoodsman!" But he was not like that at all.

He had a group of guests at his four-o'clock dinner almost every day
but-all men! Something must be done.

"I suppose," she remarked to the President one day, "it is impossible to
have levees with the house in its present condition."

"Not impossible," he replied.  "Mrs.  Adams held court upstairs in the
oval room.  But levees have always reminded me of an audience with
royalty.  Two receptions a year will be sufficient, one on New Year's
Day, the other on the Fourth of July."

"Of course," conceded Dolley, "if you include all kinds and classes of
people in your dinner parties-"

"Certainly.  All kinds and classes.  Every level of society." He
chuckled.  "I even had my butcher at one of my dinners.  I invite them
all, Republicans and Federalists, New England industrialists and western
pioneers, foreign grandees with gilded small swords and Indians with
tomahawks."

"Men-and women?" asked Dolley with significant emphasis.

He was taken aback.  "Why-why, I suppose so." Suddenly his lips broke
into a smile.  "Thank you, my dear," he said humbly.  "I understand your
message."

And he had.  During the next few days his dinner parties included the
wives of several Cabinet members, legislators, diplomats, and common
citizens.  He was a genial host.  Presiding at the table, Dolley could
see wary skepticism give way to a frank, if grudging, appreciation.  To
her relief Jefferson was proving that he could be as popular with women
as with men.

While a guest at the President's House, Dolley was trying to find a
place for her family to live.  Jefferson was being criticized by the
Federalists, she suspected, for "taking boarders." James was busy with
State Department business.  He had no time to hunt for houses.  So
Dolley undertook the job alone.

As she canvassed the city in her carriage, jolting over rutted paths to
the few buildings, which were separated by long stretches of woods and
marsh, she was nevertheless impressed and delighted with the new
capital's possibilities.  Designed by the French expatriate Pierre
Charles L'Enfant, a man with a creative mind and expansive vision,
Washington was laid out in a grand design of streets, broad avenues,
circles, parks, squares.  L'Enfant had placed the Capitol on Jenkins'
Hill, which, he noted, stood "as a pedestal waiting for a monument." For
the President's House he had selected a ridge west of the Tiber, a
little stream that had been originally called Goose Creek.  At the cross
axis running south from the President's House and west from the Capitol,
there was to be the Washington Monument, which he pictured as an
equestrian statue and which would be connected with the Capitol by a
wide avenue.  With only minor changes, it is L'Enfant's design that is
seen in the capital today.

Eventually the Madisons found temporary lodgings in a small house on
Pennsylvania Avenue.  They had hardly settled in before it was time to
leave.  Because of the malarial dangers from the city swamps, most
officials vacated Washington during the summer months.  The Madisons
waited until after the Fourth of July celebration, then drove home by
way of Loudoun County to visit Dolley's old friend Eliza Collins, now
the wife of Richard Bland Lee.  They remained in the country until
October.  It was a pattern they were to follow for the next sixteen
years.

Before leaving Washington, James had asked his old friend Dr. William
Thornton to find him a permanent home.  He was embarrassed because he
was unable to pay the advance rent, six hundred dollars, required for
the house that Thornton eventually secured.  Nicholas Voss, a
contractor, was building the house in question and needed the money, the
whole of the first year's rent, to finish it.  Thornton was good enough
to borrow the funds himself, requiring Voss to complete the house by
October.

Returning to Washington, Dolley pronounced herself delighted with their
new home.  It was just two blocks from the President's House, on F
Street.  Thornton had the third floor divided into four extra bedrooms
with dormer windows, suitable for servants and guests.  The family
apartment on the second floor-bedrooms, parlor, office-library, small
dining room-was soon made attractive with her own familiar furnishings.
The first floor, with its reception rooms, dining facilities, was ideal
for entertaining.

That the widowed Jefferson missed Dolley's gay, enlivening presence was
evidenced from his correspondence.  He and his secretary felt like "two
mice in a church," he had written once before when Dolley left.  "Thomas
Jefferson was much disappointed at breakfast this morning, not having
known of the departure of Mr.  and Mrs.  Madison and Miss Payne; he
hopes they will come and dine with the Miss Butters, who were assured
they would meet them here, and tomorrow with Mrs.  Gallatin and Mr:?.
Mason.  Affectionate salutations."

More notes arrived from the President's House.  "Thomas Jefferson would
be pleased if Mrs.  Madison and Miss Payne .  .  ."

"Thomas Jefferson begs Mrs.  Madison.  .  ." He could have asked other
Cabinet wives to preside at his table, and occasionally did, but he
preferred one whose charm and dignity were balanced by a good-natured
humor that put everyone at ease.  Though Dolley was never designated as
official hostess during the Jefferson administrations, she was so in
fact.

WHILE Dolley juggled two households, her own and the President's, James
was dealing with a multitude of other problems.

The most serious was an attempt by Napoleon to establish an empire in
the New World.  He had already embarked on the reconquest of the island
of Hispaniola, and he was now eyeing the Louisiana territory, that vast
tract stretching all the way from New Orleans to the Canadian border and
containing all the land west of the Mississippi to the Rockies.  France
had once owned this territory but had ceded it to Spain in 1762 as
payment for a useful alliance.  America had a favorable treaty with
Spain assuring the rights of her commerce on the Mississippi.  But
France, under the dictatorship of Napoleon, was now master of much of
continental Europe, including Spain.  And rumors were rife that Spain
had returned the Louisiana territory to France.

Madison sent a sharp protest to Madrid: "To our western citizens, the
Mississippi is everything.  It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac,
and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic states formed into one
stream.  justice, to the western citizens of the United States, is the
only tenure of peace with this country."

Dolley could do little to ease James' worries except provide a
sympathetic ear and a social milieu where problems could be discussed in
an atmosphere of domestic serenity.  Tensions between France and the
United States, as represented by Louis Pichon, the French charge
d'affaires, and the American Secretary of State, relaxed visibly under
the mollifying influence of her honey-sweetened smoked ham and biscuits.

The house on F Street had become a social center second only to the
President's House.  Invitations to Dolley's dinners were prized, and she
was cosmopolitan in her choice of guests.  Congressmen, foreign
diplomats, Republicans, Federalists, Quakers, Baptists-all rubbed
shoulders at her teas and dinners.  Afterward in her drawing room there
was music, and perhaps some dancing.

Still loyal to her Quaker traditions, Dolley did not participate in the
dancing, but she did enjoy playing cards.  A frequent guest in those
days was Samuel Harrison Smith, founder of the National Intelligencer,
the first national newspaper printed in America.

Smith once remarked to his wife, Margaret, that at his first try at loo
he had won two dollars from Dolley, but "felt some mortification at
putting the money of -Mrs.  Madison into my pocket."

Margaret Smith, an indefatigable chronicler, was to become a good friend
of Dolley's.  An intelligent, observant woman, she preserved her
impressions of these early days in a book entitled The First Forty Years
of Washington Society.

Jefferson held to his decision to permit only two celebrations each
year, New Year's and the Fourth of July.  He adamantly refused to have
his birthday, April 13, observed.  The birth of his country, he felt,
was far more important.  And indeed the Fourth of July compensated for
all the forbidden celebrations.  It was a gala event, with gun salutes,
parades, speeches, and, of course, jollily that exceeded the bounds of
sobriety.

This year of 18o2, the Independence Day celebration sported an
additional feature-the Great Cheese.  This was a mammoth concoction
created in Cheshire, Massachusetts, by a group of ardent Jefferson
admirers.  Everyone who owned a cow was asked to contribute all of one
day's milk, although the organizers specified that "no Federalist cow
must contribute a drop." Weighing over twelve hundred pounds, the cheese
had then been brought in a wagon drawn by six horses to Washington
bearing a banner with the words "The greatest cheese in America for the
greatest man in America."

On the Fourth of July, when the President's House was open to guests,
every person who came was invited to share in its consumption, to the
detriment of rugs, furniture, draperies, and all the rest of the decor.
The monstrosity became the talk of the town, and for days Dolley
exhibited what was left of it to curious visitors as she gave them a
tour of the President's House.

It was just as well that the nation had its moment of fun, for in
October 18o2 the Spanish intendant at New Orleans closed the port to all
but Spanish vessels.  Madison was furious at the action.

Was it the work of Napoleon, dictating to Spain and embarking on his
plan of empire in the New World?

The west was clamoring for war-with Spain, if that country still
controlled the west bank of the Mississippi; with France, if it was true
that Spain had ceded the territory to her.  Britain, always at odds with
France, was taking full advantage of the impasse, with Federalist
support, to involve America as her ally.  British charge Edward Thornton
was urging the President to take forcible possession of New Orleans.
Even Jefferson, disillusioned in his French sympathies by the ruthless
and autocratic Napoleon, was tempted to take military action.

The crisis intensified when news came that Spain had indeed ceded the
Louisiana territory as well as East and West Florida to France.  The
weeks required to take messages back and forth across the ocean dragged
interminably.  Jefferson grew more and more grim, Madison more restive
and taciturn.  There were, or soon would be, thousands of American
militiamen on the banks of the Mississippi, all ready to march at a
moment's notice to preserve the country's right to use the river.

Finally Jefferson and Madison decided to send James Monroe, a former
ambassador to France, to Napoleon as a special envoy.

They asked Congress for an appropriation of two million dollars for
unspecified diplomatic purposes.  It was understood, though unstated,
that the money was intended for the possible purchase of New Orleans and
East and West Florida.

"The Floridas and New Orleans," declared James, " command the only
outlets to the sea for the American West and must become a part of the
United States either by purchase or conquest."

War seemed inevitable.

Then came a bombshell!  Napoleon, after a brief peace, was The original
territory of the United States, and subsequent acquisitions.  The
Louisiana Purchase, 828,000 square miles, doubled the size of the
country for fifteen million dollars, or about three cents an acre.

again facing a war with England.  In the event of hostilities, he
decided, he was likely to lose his new American possession to the enemy.
England, with her strong navy, would be sure to seize it as soon as war
was declared.  Moreover, he needed more money to fight.  Out of the
blue, he offered to sell not only New Orleans but the whole of the
Louisiana territory to the United States The price, after some
negotiation: fifteen million dollars! When the news came from the
American envoys, Jefferson and Madison were in a quandary.  They had no
wish to extend the country beyond the Mississippi.  Many people thought
it was too large already.  It would change the whole concept of America
as a compact agricultural country, and double its size.  And-fifteen
million dollars! Congress had been reluctant to appropriate two! A
decision had to be made quickly.  Napoleon might change his mind.  And
Jefferson was not one to hesitate.  It was he who decided, though it was
Madison who had shaped American policy toward this desirable conclusion.
Like many of Madison's other achievements, this o e was not bruited to
his glory at the time, merely hidden in the records, to be discovered
far in the future.

News of the treaty, signed in Paris, arrived in Washington on the
evening before Ju'Y 4, 1803, just in time to be officially announced on
the gala day.  The city came alive.  A discharge of eighteen guns
saluted the dawn.  At noon a crowd flowed through the doors of the
President's House to greet the triumphant leader and to partake
liberally of his punch and cakes;

The year brought other excitement to the Madison family.  The time had
come, James insisted, to put eleven-year-old Payne in school.  It was
some comfort to Dolley that the school chosen, Alexandria Academy, was
just across the Potomac, in Virginia, and that it was the one George
Washington, a first trustee, had picked for his nephew George Steptoe.
The fact that Lucy's husband had once studied there made it seem more
intimately connected with the family.  But Dolley delivered her son up
to strangers with tearful reluctance.  It was her greatest sorrow that
she and jeremy had so far been unable to present a little brother or
sister to the much indulged Payne son.  Though James could not have been
a more loving or thoughtful father, Dolley knew that he must secretly
long for sons of his own.

In the winter of 18o3 the celebrated portrait painter Gilbert Stuart
came to Washington.  This genius, who had won the title of Portrait
Painter of Presidents, was soon in great demand.  He carried on amusing
conversations while he studied his subjects, making them forget
themselves and appear simple and natural.

Stuart's power to amuse was never more in evidence than in his portrait
of Dolley's sister Anna.  It revealed all the beauty and charm that made
her one of the most courted and popular young women of Washington.  Most
marriageable too, conceded Dolley, dreading the day of loss.  Anna was
more than a beloved sister; she was the daughter Dolley and James had
never had, the sunshine that had made bearable all the sorrows of her
first marriage.

Was Gilbert Stuart one of Anna's many suitors?  Some seemed to think so.
At least he was an ardent admirer who managed to portray all her happy,
glowing womanhood.

"I wish you would paint me your portrait," she is said to have remarked
during one of her sittings.

"All right, I will," was his rejoinder.  Whereupon he placed a curtain
in the background of her picture and proceeded mischievously to mold it
into his own boldly aquiline profile.  It is there today, a humorous
self-caricature of the great portrait painter.

The inevitable soon happened.  One of Anna's numerous suitors became
more and more favored.  He was Richard Cutts, a twenty-eight-year-old
member of Congress from Massachusetts, a handsome lawyer, son of a
well-to-do family with property in land and merchant ships. Dolley could
not object when they became engaged.  But, oh, to have Anna gone for
half the year to Richard's home, a far-off outpost of civilization, a
district of Massachusetts called Maine! She consoled herself by
remembering the Marquess d'Yrujo's attentions to Anna and that her
sister's destination might well have been Spain! But as the winter of
18o3 brought events which embroiled them both in a furor of
unpleasantness, she almost wished that dear Anna was already removed
from the hotbed of bickering and intrigue that Washington had become.

JEFFERSON, With his democratic code of etiquette, sometimes trod on
aristocratic toes.  In one instance his policy of equality almost
resulted in an international incident.

The new British minister, the first since Jefferson had taken office,
arrived in America in November.  8o3.  He was Anthony Merry, a rather
unassuming man with no title ano not much wealth, slow, vigilant of his
prerogatives, without imagination.

Mrs.  Merry made up for all these drawbacks.  Large, flamboyant,
bejeweled, she was, as one associate described her, "a fine woman
accustomed to adulation." The toes encased in her stylish slippers were
very aristocratic and very sensitive.

Their voyage had been unfortunate, the ship long delayed by Atlantic
storms.  Nor did the mission itself have a promising start.

For his official presentation to the President, Mr.  Merry donned full
regalia-uniform, gold lace, dress sword.  Madison conducted him to the
President's House, only to find the audience chamber unoccupied-no
Jefferson.  Presently they encountered him in a narrow vestibule, where
crowded against the wall, the new emissary of His Majesty George III was
introduced to a person of commanding height and mien, to be sure, but as
he wrote later, " not merely in undress but actually landing in slippers
down at the heels, and both pantaloons, coat and under-clothes
indicative of utter slovenness.  I could not doubt," he reported in a
dudgeon, "that the whole scene was prepared and intended as an insult,
not to me personally perhaps, but to the Sovereign I represented."

In an attempt to mollify, Madison assured him that the Danish minister
had been received just as informally.  The Dane, Merry retorted bluntly,
was a diplomat of the third rank, while he was of the second.

There was more to come.  The Merrys were invited by Jefferson to a state
dinner for foreign ministers and his Cabinet on January 2, 1804- Good,
thought Dolley. Now they would see that Jefferson was not the country
boot they had thought him.  Once more Merry appeared in full regalia,
his splendor somewhat eclipsed, however, by the flamboyance of the
Marquess d'Yrujo. But Mrs. Merry had no competition among the ladies.
She was attired in satin, with a long train, a shawl at least four yards
in length, a diamond crescent broach, diamond comb, diamond earrings,
and a diamond necklace adorning her full bosom.

Unfortunately, Dolley's hopes for pacification were dashed.

When dinner was announced, she happened to be standing near the
President, and he offered her his arm.  "Oh, no," she whispered.  "Take
Mrs.  Merry." But Jefferson was obdurate.  Smiling, he conducted Dolley
to the dining room and seated her by his side.  The Marchioness d'Ymio,
the former Sally McKean, took the chair at his left.  When Merry started
to take the chair next to her, he was forestalled by a Congressman.
Madison conducted Mrs.  Merry to a place below the marquess.  To make
matters worse, Monsieur Pichon, the minister from France, a nation with
which England was at war, was given a favored place.

Mrs.  Merry was furious.  She toyed with her food, rose early, and
persuaded her equally outraged husband to order their chariot.

"This," breathed Sally d'Yrujo to Dolley as they left the table, " will
cause a war."

It almost did.  The whole town soon heard Mrs.  Merry's protests.
Madison was in a quandary.  He wanted to keep peace with England, yet he
felt bound to support Jefferson.  When Dolley gave a dinner a few days
later to which the Merrys were invited, james gave his arm to Mrs.
Gallatin, wife of the Secretary of the Treasury. To her horror and
disgust Mrs.  Merry found herself alone, and the astonished Mr.  Merry
had to give her his hand.  He wrote to his government in England
complaining bitterly, and Madison, as Secretary of State, was faced with
an international incident.

But there was even worse to come.  Jerome Bonaparte, the brother of
Napoleon, had taken an American wife, the beautiful, well-connected
Elizabeth Patterson.  Here Mrs.  Merry met her match.  At a grand ball
given by the Secretary of the Navy, she costumed herself to the hilt, in
dark blue crepe over white ' satin ending in a long train, head and
shoulders ablaze with diamonds.

But little Betsy Patterson Bonaparte stole the show in a gown of such
gossamer substance that no one "dared to look at her but by stealth."
Mrs.  Merry was further incensed when Jefferson again insisted on
escorting Dolley to the table. Dolley felt like a lamb being led to the
slaughter.  The international furor over what Madison called "diplomatic
superstition" had become a seething caldron.  Writing to James Monroe,
he blushed, he said, at having to "put so much trash on paper."

Jefferson, whose lack of tact had occasioned the impasse, was glad his
daughters were not with him.  The brunt of the battle, he wrote Martha,
was falling on Mrs.  Madison and her sister, who were "dragged in the
dirt of every Federalist newspaper." Was it at this time that embittered
Federalists began whispering that Jefferson and Dolley were conducting
an affair?  Jefferson was amazed at the slander.  "I thought," he noted,
"that my age and ordinary demeanor would have prevented any suggestion
in that form."

There were other rumors assailing her faithfulness. Dolley suffered them
all in silence.  James had too serious problems to be bothered with such
trifles.  They were as unimportant as the criticism she heard leveled at
her dinners.  When it was reported to her that one of them had been
ridiculed by the wife of a foreign minister (Mrs. Merry, no doubt),
because it was more like a harvest-home supper than the entertainment of
a Secretary of State, she laughed good-naturedly.

"Tell her," Dolley replied, "that the profusion of my table is the
result of the prosperity of my country, and I must therefore continue to
prefer Virginia liberality to European elegance."

But gossip about Anna, with no more justification than the girl's
irrepressible friendliness, was another story.  In spite of her dread of
losing her sister, she was almost glad as the time of the wedding drew
near.

Anna was married to Richard Cutts in March 1804, in the drawing room of
the house on F Street.  James, who had been like a father to Anna, gave
her away.  It was a scene of great gaiety, with Dolley outdoing herself
as a hostess.  There was a reception, with many gifts, simple and
homemade most of them, according to the prevailing custom-embroideries,
pincushions, laces, paintings, poems.

Fortunately, there were still several weeks to the end of Congress, so
Dolley would not lose her beloved sister right away.  But when at last
the coach left for Maine, she went to her room and wept.

"One of the greatest griefs of my life," she wrote a friend, "has come
to me in the parting for the first time from my sister-child."

just as disheartening was the quarrel between her old friend Aaron Burr
and Alexander Hamilton.  Hoping to retrieve his political fortunes, lost
in his ill-fated attempt to snatch the presidency in 1800, Buff had run
for governor of New York.  He was ignominiously defeated, he complained
bitterly, through Hamilton's defamation of his character.

Hamilton had called Buff a profligate, a voluptuary suspected on strong
grounds of corruption.  Buff challenged Hamilton to a duel unless he was
willing to retract and apologize.  Hamilton accepted the challenge,
refusing to repudiate statements he felt were true.  He was resolved,
however, to reserve his first fire, in the hope that Colonel Burr would
pause and reflect.

They met on July 11 on the New jersey dueling ground overlooking the
Hudson, facing each other at ten paces.  Burr took aim, fired. Hamilton,
as he had promised, withheld his shot.  He fell.

Dolley could not believe the news.  His wife, Betsey, was one of her
friends. She mourned with her and her seven children.

James, too, grieved over the tragedy.  Though in recent years he and
Hamilton had been at political swords' points, he could not forget how
they had once labored together over The Federalist papers, that he had
shared with the brilliant, erratic, often headstrong patriot the task of
bringing the Union to reality.  He hated the whole idea of dueling,
which he considered a strange and cowardly way to silence a critic.
Forced to treat the Vice President with civility, Madison still could
not help regarding him as a murderer.

Dolley, as well as James, welcomed the summer's respite at Montpelier.
It was well they had that brief relaxation, for the balance of the year
was beset with problems.  Jefferson had lost his daughter Maria in the
spring.  He attempted to assuage his grief in furious activity, finally
deciding to run for a second term.

The campaign of 18o4 was bitter, but the administration was unbeatable.
It had lowered taxes and reduced the public debt.  its great
achievement, the Louisiana Purchase, anathema to New England Federalists
because it threatened to shift power to the west, was popular everywhere
else.. Jefferson and George Clinton, the new vice-presidential
candidate, won all but fourteen electoral votes.  The Madisons were
settled in the house on F Street for another four years.

To DOLLEY'S delight Martha Jefferson Randolph came to Washington to
spend the winter of 1805-1806, bringing her five daughters and one son.
Once again the testiness of the indefatigable Mrs.  Merry reared its
head.

"Does she come as the President's daughter,' came her inquiry, or as the
wife of a Virginia gentleman?  If the latter, she would expect to make
the first call, if the former, to receive it."

The Merrys were not the only foreign diplomats who brought zest to
Washington life.  There was General Louis Marie Tuffeau, the French
minister, who had arrived in November 18o4, startling the populace with
his huge black mustaches, his fiercely crimson face, and beetling
eyebrows; shocking them by the visits of his gold coach to the red-light
district and his repeated beatings of his wife. Dolley, of course,
entertained them both and made friends with the unfortunate Madame
Tuffeau.

"She is good-natured and intelligent," she wrote Anna.  "We ride, walk
together and visit sans ceremony.  I never visit her chamber but I crack
my sides laughing-I wish I could tell you on paper at what."

Then there was the Tunisian ambassador, Siding Suliman Mellimelli, who
arrived in 1805, his impressive, figure clad in scarlet and gold silks,
his eight-inch black beard dwarfed by a turban made of twenty yards of
white muslin.  He came on a sensitive diplomatic mission, hoping to
counter Jefferson's firm refusal to pay tribute to Tunisia to avoid
having American ships pirated.

Mellimelli's arrival happened to coincide with that of numerous tribes
of Indians come to pay honor to the Great White Father-Osages, Pawnee,
Sacs, Missouri, Creeks.  All converged on the President's House at the
New Year's reception.  The Osage chiefs were in full regalia, also the
resplendent Suliman Mellimelli in his gold tunic and crimson doublet.
The Tunisian minis Let: Dolley in one of her famous turbans.

Below: A miniature by Charles Wilson Peale of Madison as a young man.

He obligingly took off his turban to show the Osages that his head was
shaved like theirs except for a little tuft on the crown.  He was the
center of a curious audience watching him smoke his exotic four-foot
pipe or dip into his snuff, deeply scented with attar of roses.  He
seemed quite indifferent to the crowd and stood for the most part aloof,
until, suddenly spying a corpulent female servant coming from the
kitchen, he rushed toward her and with great enthusiasm threw his arms
around her, exclaiming, "The handsomest woman in America! You look like
one of my wives, the best and most expensive one-a load for a camel!"

It was well that Dolley and jeremy could share the humor of events as
well as their serious political implications, for he was struggling with
harassing problems. Britain and France were at war again, and America
was a little neutral power caught between them.  English vessels were
still capturing hundreds of American cargo ships merely on the suspicion
that they were carrying goods to French destinations.  Almost more
debasing was the persistent British practice of kidnapping members of
American crews.

"We are only taking our own deserters," Britain claimed when the United
States protested.  Sometimes this was true, for British sailors were
deserting in large numbers, preferring the more humane treatment of
American officers.  But over and over again the British were taking
native-born Americans.  It was a reprehensible practice that not many
years later would help cause an eruption into armed conflict.

Closer to home, there were the persistent rumors that Aaron Buff was
conspiring with the troublesome Merry and sympathetic Federalists to
make trouble in the west By the fall of 1806 there was indisputable
evidence that Buff was indeed working with Britain to found a separate
nation.  His partner seemed to be General James Wilkinson, commander in
chief of the American army and governor of the Louisiana territory, who,
realizing finally the perfidy of his fellow conspirator, notified the
President and caused Burr Is arrest.

Perhaps it was Dolley's memory of the part he had played in bringing her
and jeremy together that made Aaron Buff's treachery seem almost like a
personal betrayal.

The trial, conducted by Chief Justice John Marshall, a strong Federalist
and opponent of the administration, was inconclusive.

Buff was acquitted of the lesser charge of high misdemeanor, but James
was convinced that in reality it was a case of high treason.

He was harsh in his condemnation of the Chief Justice for his narrow
interpretation of the law and his dismissal of evidence on technical
grounds.

For Dolley life these days seemed to bring nothing but loss.

Loss of honor for a man she had once respected and admired.

Loss of her beloved mother.  Molly Payne had died at the home of her
youngest daughter, Mary, in Clarksburg, Virginia.

"It is with grief unutterable," John Jackson, Mary's husband, wrote
Madison in October 1807, "I communicate to you the painful intelligence
that ere you receive this our beloved and Most respected Mrs.  Payne
will be no more." Her illness had come on suddenly, a violent stroke. By
the time the news reached Washington the burial had already taken place.

Dolley's tears were shed in secret.  James was too worried by problems
of state to be burdened with her personal grief.  Soon it was 18o8, and
events were moving inexorably to a time of momentous decision. Jefferson
had refused a third term.  It was common knowledge that he wanted
Madison to be his successor.

No! Dolley protested silently, not this time because she feared her own
incapacity as helpmate.  For eight years she had been an understudy for
the role of First Lady.  But jemmyl His responsibilities as Secretary of
State had driven him to a sicklied time and again.  What would the
burden of complete responsibility for his country's welfare do to his
delicate constitution?  Only she knew the pain suppressed behind the
tight lips, the steady gaze.

"I shall not ask for it," she had heard him tell Jefferson, "certainly
not fight for it.  God knows I would rather go back with my dear wife to
Montpelier.  It is for the people to decide.  If they really want me-"

"They will," Jefferson had returned, "if they know what's good for the
country.  And of course you will do your duty."

Of course. Dolley sighed, even while smiling in apparent agreement.  He
would do his duty, even if it killed him.

James was too embroiled in affairs of state to be interested in the
coming election.  As repeatedly through the previous eight years, he was
laboring to keep the country out of armed conflict with one or the other
of the warring European nations.  In 18o7 France, perhaps borrowing a
leaf from England's book, had issued its notorious Milan Decree,
declaring that all ships paying a tax to the British government or
allowing themselves to be searched by British cruisers were "good
prize." Then in June of that same year had come the attack by the
British ship of war LeoVard on the American frigate Chesapeake, killing
three men and removing four alleged deserters-three of whom proved to be
United States citizens.  It had put the country in an uproar.  Congress,
at Jefferson's urging, had passed the Embargo Act of 18o7, intending to
deprive the belligerents of the supplies they needed.  New England
Federalists, seeing their commerce jeopardized, were bitter in their
attacks on Jefferson, and especially on Madison as the favored candidate
for the Democratic-Republican nomination.

James had meant it when he said he would not ask for the presidency. For
two months over the summer he tended his farms and harvested his crops
far from the raging political tempest.

Gratefully Dolley saw his eyes brighten, his pale cheeks tan, his jokes
become more spontaneous.  When it came time to return to Washington, she
knew they were ready.

By late November his election was assured.  As one historian was to
write later, "Madison's victory was an approving verdict on his work in
guarding America's welfare and safety in a world convulsed by warring
giants.  It was a proof of the people's ability to penetrate sham,
reject reiterated falsehoods, and measure a man by his personal
qualities and his record.  Known integrity broke the shaft of slander."

At Jefferson's last New Year's reception Dolley, radiant and vibrant as
always in a crowd, found herself beside the President.

"Do you know what I just heard somebody call you?" demanded Jefferson.

"No.  What?"

"The queen-elect."

"Oh-no l" She looked up at him in dismay.  What must he think of her! A
queenly Anathema to his democratic society! But his eyes were twinkling.
"Don't worry, my dear.  There are many kinds of queens, and they don't
all sit on thrones.  How about a queen of hearts?"

PART FIVE

The President's House

(1809-1817)

IT WAs March 4, 18o9.  To Thomas Jefferson's vast relief the country had
a new President, one he loved like a member of his own family.  He was
jubilant.  When someone commented on the contrast between his gaiety and
the carewom appearance of his successor, he replied, "Can you wonder at
it?  My shoulders have just been freed from a heavy burden, his just
laden with it.  I feel like a prisoner released from his chains."

Washington was in a gala mood for the inauguration.  Jeffersonians were
glad, because their leader's most intimate friend and disciple was
succeeding him.  Even Federalists rejoiced, because the embargo had been
loosened somewhat.  Under the terms of a new law, the Non-Intercourse
Act, trade would again flourish with Europe, except for France and
England.

Thousands lined Pennsylvania Avenue as Dolley rode to the sumptuous new
chamber of the House.  From her reserved seat she watched as a
bipartisan committee of Senators led the new President into the hall.
jeremy looked very small and vulnerable.

She drew a long breath as he rose to deliver his inaugural address.  Oh,
dear! He was actually pale and trembling, and she could hardly hear him.
But soon he gained confidence, and his words were audible.

" The present situation of the world is indeed without parallel," he
reminded the audience.  He wished to maintain neutrality and would seek
diplomatic negotiations rather than appeal to arms.

But-and here his voice penetrated to the farthest corner of the big
chamber-he was determined to exclude foreign intrigues from the country
and would continue to foster the independent spirit of a people too
proud to surrender their rights.

Dolley drew another long breath, this time in relief.  There was loud
and prolonged applause.  Chief Justice Marshall administered the oath,
guns sounded, and the ceremony was over.  Now it was back home to F
Street, where they would be holding open house this afternoon-her first
test as hostess in the role of First Lady.  That night there would be a
grand ball at Long's Hotel.

It was Margaret Smith who preserved the ball for future generations.
When she arrived, she recorded:

There were not above fifty persons in the room.  We were led to benches
at the upper fireplace.  .  .  .  Madison's march was played, and Mrs.
Madison led in by one of the managers.  She looked a queen.  She had on
a pale buff colored velvet, with a very long train, and beautiful pearl
necklace, earrings, and bracelets.  Her headdress was a turban of the
same colored velvet and white satin (from Paris) with two superb plumes,
the bird of paradise feathers.  It would be absolutely impossible for
any one to behave with more perfect propriety than she did.

Dolley, however, was not as confident as she seemed.  When one of the
managers presented her with a card to lead the first number, she was
unsure how to respond.  "But what shall I do with it?" she asked
helplessly.  "I do not dance."

The manager gave the card to Anna Cutts, who was standing at Dolley's
side.  The more youthful Anna, freed from Quaker inhibitions at an
earlier age, proceeded to take Dolley's place in the quadrille.

The room soon filled, becoming so crowded that people had to stand on
the benches to get a view of the scene. Dolley was almost pressed to
death, for spectators crowded around her, peering over one another's
shoulders to get a peep at her.  It became unbearably hot.  Still she
kept smiling, remembering all the names and making some appropriate
personal remark as she greeted each guest.  All the time, however, she
worried for jeremy and tried to get a glimpse of him.

Margaret Smith, who happened to be standing near him, was also
concerned, for he looked exhausted.  "I wish," she said, "that I had a
seat to offer you."

"wish so too," he replied wistfully.  When one of the managers of the
ball came to announce that supper was ready, he remarked unhappily to
Margaret, "I would much rather be in bed."

After the inaugural festivities Jefferson hastened to vacate the
President's House.  The Madisons moved in on March , to discover that it
needed a multitude of improvements and new finishings.  In a mellow mood
Congress had authorized the expenditure of twelve thousand dollars for
repairs and improvements and fourteen thousand dollars "for the
accommodation of the household." Already immersed in affairs of state,
Madison left the whole matter of improvements to Dolley and an
architect, Benjamin Latrobe.

If some had accused the new President of being weak and indecisive, they
were soon proved wrong.  Before he had been two weeks in office Madison
approached both belligerent nations, France and England, offering to
repeal the Non-Intercourse Act if Britain would repeal her
orders-in-council and if France would repeal her Milan Decree.  The
British ambassador, David Erskine, agreed.  The orders-in-council would
be withdrawn, he promised, on June io.  Madison's proclamation that
after that date trade with Britain would be resumed made him extremely
popular with Federalists as well as his own party.

Meanwhile Dolley was working with Latrobe to refurbish the President's
House.  There were many problems to tackle.  First they set to work on
the great East Room, which was scarcely more presentable than when
Abigail Adams had used it to hang her wet clothes.  Two handsome mirrors
and some beautiful hanging lunps were provided.  Curtains, chairs, and
sofas upholstered in yellow satin damask made the drawing room an
attractive center where Dolley would do much of her entertaining.  A
pianoforte and a guitar were purchased for musical interludes.

Call bells were installed, and thirty servants were hired.  One person
in particular became her indispensable helper.  jean Pierre Sioussat,
"French John," had been employed in the household of British minister
Merry.  When the latter moved away, Sioussat had preferred to remain in
Washington, and now he became a majordomo in the White House.  Yes, it
was being called that now-a much better term than the President's House,
certainly better than the President's Palace! At long last the White
House was ready.  Now for her first big reception.  What should it be
called?  A levee?  That had been Martha Washington's word, and Abigail
Adams had followed her example. Dolley's would be different, not stiff
and formal like theirs, but an occasion where people could be free to
enjoy themselves, with joking, light talk, and music.  An open house? Or
better still, why not a drawing room?  It was formally announced that on
Wednesday evening at eight o'clock on May 31, Mrs. Madison would be in
her drawing room to receive friends, and on every Wednesday after that
when she was in the city.  All who wished might come.  If only it would
be a good day! It wasn't.  Rain poured down, and the mudhole outside the
gate was a morass.  But the house was warm and bright, with fires
blazing on the hearths.  There were at least two hundred guests, the
women in low-cut gowns, plumes, jewels; the men in colored
coats-crimson, green, blue-and patent leather pumps.  Boots were banned
for evening occasions, since the mud on them might soil the ladies'
skirts.

It was with satisfaction that the Madisons left for Montpelier on JULY
20. Dolley had already hosted a: half dozen drawing rooms, as well as
several small dinners, all successful.  They had settled in living
quarters in the southwestern corner of the White House, and to her
delight Anna and her family would occupy apaffinents in the southeastern
part.

James too was feeling well satisfied with the first four months of his
administration.  On June io, in line with the agreement made with
Ambassador Erskine, restoration of trade with Britain had been
celebrated with great fanfare.  On that same day six hundred ships had
sailed for England.  Madison had every reason to believe that Napoleon
would reciprocate by repealing the Milan Decree.  For the moment
prospects for peace seemed good.

James became increasingly excited as they turned onto the long, curving
road leading up the hill to Montpelier.  All through the fall and winter
the carpenters and draftsmen had been working on repairs and additions
to the house.  A good start had been made, although it would be several
years before the job was completed.  One-story wings were being added on
each side of the mansion.  A beautiful "temple" was being built over the
sunken icehouse that kept cool drinks on hand for the many visitors. The
additional space would make possible a separate wing for Mother Madison
and her staff.

But the euphoria of vacation didn't last long.  The Madisons had been at
Montpelier for only a few -weeks when a messenger came from Washington
with the news that the British government had repudiated the agreement
made with Erskine.  Foreign Minister Canning had told the House of
Commons that Erskine had disobeyed his instructions.

"How!" fumed James, his hopes for settlement with England dashed.  In
fact, Erskine had grossly misrepresented the position of his government.
The British would withdraw their orders-incouncil only on three
conditions: that the United States reopen its harbors to British
warships, renounce all trade with enemies of England, and permit the
British navy to capture American vessels doing business with enemies of
England.  Madison could never agree to these conditions.  As one
biographer was to say of him later, "He was not a pacifist President who
stood aloof from decision.  He was an unsentimental bargainer in a
hard-boiled age."

"I have to return to Washington," he told Dolley bleakly.

Though Madison was in Washington only four days, he handled the
situation with courage and dispatch.  On August 9 he signed a
proclamation restoring all restrictions on trade with Britain.  His
fellow Republicans stood by his decision, as did the more moderate
Federalists.  But others poured abuse on him.  He had betrayed the
British government, they said.  He had played into the hands of that
despicable Napoleon! Erskine was recalled by his government and replaced
by a new ambassador, Copenhagen Jackson, so called because he had once
been prepared to blow up Copenhagen if it did not yield to his demands.
Noted for harsh treatment of neutrals, Jackson came with one object in
view, to spank this infant nation into submission.  He and his wife, a
Prussian baroness, arrived on September and checked in to Washington's
most expensive hotel to await the return of the Madisons.

On the first of October the new minister and his wife made their way to
the White House.  Jackson reported that he found Madison to be "a plain
and rather mean-looking little man." The baroness, on the other hand,
found to her amazement that she actually liked Dolley in spite of what
some Federalists had described as her "low origin." The Jacksons
concluded that Mrs. Madison must have been "a comely person when she
served out the liquors at her father's tavern in the state of Virginia."
Shades of Dolley's chaste childhood and Quaker ancestry! The new envoy
was happily surprised when he was invited to dinner at the White House.
Madison had decided not to follow Jefferson's stubborn credo on "that
foolish question of precedence." He conducted Mrs.  Jackson to the
table, while the envoy took Dolley. The cuisine and service were more
than could be expected of a boorish, primitive society.  Jackson
commented, -I do not know that I had ever more civility and attention
shown me."

But he found the President far less amenable at the conference table.
No, Madison would not yield to Foreign Minister Canning's conditions for
abrogation of the orders-in-council.  He would not acknowledge the right
of His Majesty's government to disavow the Erskine agreement.  And he
refused to compromise even when offered satisfaction over the affair of
the Chesapeake.

"Madison is as obstinate as a mule!" exclaimed the envoy.

ONE Wednesday evening in 1811 a newcomer to the capital made his way to
one of Dolley's famous drawing rooms.  Introduced to the hostess, his
eyes strayed to the book she held under one arm.  Of course, it was too
much to hope....  He was only a very young author....  No.  It was Don
Quixote she was holding.

"Oh! Mr.  Washington Irving!" She repeated the none eagerly,
sapphire-blue eyes agleam with excitement.  "Had I known you were
coming, I would have been carrying your fascinating Knickerbocker's
History of New York.  My husband and I have been enjoying it.  You have
such a wonderful sense of humor."

The guest was surprised and flattered, for he was a very new author
indeed.  It would be years before he was recognized as one of America's
foremost men of letters.  "Then you take time to read, madam, with all
the rest of your duties?"

Dolley laughed self-deprecatingly.  "Not much," she confessed.

"Just between you and me, I often carry a book in my hand.  It gives me
something not ungraceful to talk about, but it's my husband who is the
reader.  Oh, such dry, heavy tomes he reads Hundreds of them, and
remembers every word!"

As a matter of fact, she did a good deal of reading.  She especially
enjoyed the writings of Addison, Pope, Swift, and Scott; also
translations of the plays by Moliere with their shrewd satires on human
nature.

Washington Irving was more impressed with Dolley than with the
insignificant-looking little man with the sober, carewom features.  His
letter of January 13, 1811, written four days later, was hardly
complimentary to his country's President.

Mrs.  Madison is a fine, portly, buxom dame, who has a smile and a
pleasant word for everybody.  Her sisters, Mrs.  Cutts and Mrs.
Washington, are like the merry wives of Windsor; but as to jeremy
Madison-ah, poor jemmyl-he is but a withered little apple-john! Dolley's
success as a hostess could not be explained in terms of any premeditated
technique. It was merely the natural expression of her friendly, loving
nature. She was tactful because she was sensitive to people's needs,
vivacious because she loved life and wanted everybody to relish it as
she did. She remembered people's names because she was interested in
every person she met.  No one introduced to her ever required a second
introduction on meeting her again.  She was conciliatory because she was
distressed by any kind of dissension, and when an argument occurred, she
would often quietly leave the room for a few moments, returning to find
the hint taken and peace restored.

Somehow she always made people feel at ease.  At one of her drawing
rooms she saw a youth, obviously from the country, withdrawn into a
corner, tortured by embarrassment.  Greeting one person after another,
she drifted toward him.  In spite of her effort to be casual, his
embarrassment became overwhelming.

The saucer of the coffee cup he was holding dropped to the floor.

He tried to put the cup in his pocket without success.

"What a crowd!" Dolley observed lightly.  "One can't help being jostled,
can one?" She began asking about his family, where he ewne from.  Did he
have brothers and sisters?  He was soon talking to her eagerly, his
discomfort, even the broken saucer on the floor, forgotten.  Meanwhile a
servant had unobtrusively swept up the pieces and brought the guest
another cup of coffee.

Dolley rejoiced during these years at having many members of her family
near her.  Her cousin Edward Coles, son of her uncle John Coles, was
private secretary to Madison.  "One of the bestnatured and most
kindly-affectioned men it has ever been my fortune to know," a friend
described him.  A bachelor, Coles resisted all of Dolley's attempts at
matchmaking, while acting as invaluable assistant to both her and the
President.  He sat opposite her at most formal dinners to help her in
the conversation.

Also in the White House family were Anna, with her family, as well as
another sister, Lucy, whose husband, George Steptoe Washington, had
recently died after a long siege of tuberculosis.

In spite of her grief, Lucy was responding to the cheerful influence of
her sisters and, at least on the surface, was displaying her usual gay
and friendly manner.  Now in her mid-thirties, she was maturely gracious
and attractive and had received several offers of marriage, one
persistent suitor being Thomas Todd, associate justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court, from Kentucky.  He was thirteen years older than Lucy,
but could not have been more devoted.

Lucy, however, was reluctant to consider a second marriage after the
romantic happiness of her first, and Dolley, though an inveterate
matchmaker, did not urge her.  She remembered too well her own
reluctance to remarry after John's death.

Dolley's days in the White House followed a regular pattern.

She rose very early, then planned the day's activities with her faithful
French John Sioussat, who would send the house steward to the Georgetown
markets to make purchases.  She tried to keep accurate accounts of
expenditures and worried over the high prices.  A turkey cost
seventy-five cents, a side of mutton two dollars, a whole hog three
dollars.  Potatoes were forty cents a bushel.  So much food was consumed
in the White House that sometimes the marketing bill for a day amounted
to fifty dollars.

While the President's salary of twenty-five thousand dollars had seemed
princely, in reality it barely paid their expenses.

Afternoons were spent in returning calls and entertaining at the
informal or state dinners held late in the day.  Though French John
could have vied with the royal chefs of Europe in creating gourmet
dishes, the Madisons generally preferred to serve American viands.
Dolley tried to have the different sections of the country represented
on her menus.  There would be New England fish and clam chowders, crab
soups from the Carolinas, fried chicken from Maryland, Philadelphia
pepper pot, and, of course, smoked ham from Virginia.  Ice cream, which
had been made popular by Jefferson, was often served for dessert.

When the lighted candles were brought in, the ladies would retire to an
adjoining room while the men remained for additional wine and
conversation.  When James held his Cabinet meetings, Dolley also liked
to gather the wives for "dove parties," intimate little sessions with
conversation geared to feminine interests.

Often, after the social events of the day, when she retired to her
sitting room, she would remove all the finery and don once more the
familiar Quaker gray.  jeremy joined her here whenever possible, sure of
a bright story and a good laugh.

Montpelier also brought the Madisons some respite from political life.
That summer they could delight in the near completion of the new wings
on the mansion, increasing its spread to almost one hundred and sixty
feet.  But for Dolley no pleasure could outweigh her joy at having Payne
home for his vacation.  He had matured into a tall, handsome youth with
charming manners and a talent for admiration.  He was now at school in
Baltimore, but not yet ready for Princeton, Madison's alma mater.

"He's still so young." Dolley returned to the old excuse.  "Just give
him a little more time," she pleaded.

But James' lips tightened as he observed the youth haunting the stables,
dallying with the daughters of neighboring squires, partaking too
liberally of the contents of the wine cellar.

"He's nineteen," he replied briefly, remembering that at that age he was
crowding two years of college into one.  But he could not bear to quell
the proud radiance on Dolley's face.  He had never told her of the
additional payments he had sent the school bursar to defray certain
questionable expenses incurred by their easygoing and convivial son.

At the end of a too brief summer, they returned to Washington and a
political atmosphere fraught with uncertainty.  The whole nation
anxiously awaited Madison's annual message to Congress.

It was a mixture of force and conciliation.  Nature had made England and
America friends, was its theme, and "they will again be friends,
whenever the British government shall reciprocate to us our treatment of
her." But the country must be ready for countermeasures if such a change
in British policy did not take place.  France too was pursuing a policy
that might require retaliation.  Therefore he recommended an immediate
increase in the army, enlargement of military supplies, and
consideration of such provisions for the naval force "as may be
required."

It was clear that the President had enunciated a policy that would lead
to war if Britain did not repeal the orders-in-council.

The country was in upheaval.  There was new, young blood in Congress,
led by Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C.  Calhoun of South Carolina.
Speaker Clay, tall, raw-boned, powerful, was all for war, and his
supporters, three to one Democratic-Republicans in the House, were soon
dubbed the War Hawks.  The New England Federalists, of course, remained
staunchly pro-British.

For a time no New England Federalist would enter Madison's door, until,
as Dolley recorded, her drawing rooms were crowded with Republicans and
such a rallying of our party has alarmed them into a return."

Lucy's romantic dilemma was worrying Dolley almost as much as the
possibility of war.  Justice Todd was still a persistent suitor.

Was it because he was so much older that Lucy kept dillydallying?  But
look at jeremy and me, Dolley could not help reminding her; seventeen
years between us, and surely no marriage could be happier! At last Lucy
acted.  She rejected the judge's suit, sending him away to Kentucky
disconsolate.  Then suddenly she changed her mind, and sent a messenger
to bring him back.

On March 2o, 1812, Dolley wrote to Anna in Maine:

My beloved sister.  Before this reaches you, Lucy will be married to
judge Todd of Kentucky.  You are, I know, reconciled to her choice of a
man of the most estimable character.  Their home is now to be in
Lexington, but as a Supreme judge he is obliged to come here for two
months every winter.

But the war clouds were still overshadowing any sunshine of romance:

The world seems to be running mad, what with one thing and another....
The war business goes on slowly, but I fear it will be sure.  Where are
your husband's vessels?  and why does he not get them in?

The wedding took place on Sunday evening, March 29.  The next morning
the couple left for a week at Harewood, Lucy's former home, where they
would pick up her boys to drive to Pittsburgh, then travel by boat down
the Ohio River to Kentucky.

It was the first wedding to take place in the White House.

The war crisis was coming to a head.  On March 15 Speaker Clay had
requested "that the President recommend an embargo to last, say, thirty
days.  That a termination of the embargo be followed by " Having hope in
a British change of policy, Madison war.   ai recommended the embargo
and the bill was passed by Congress.

Dolley's emotions these days were both acute and ambivalent.

She agreed with James, of course, as to the indignities the country was
suffering.  But she could not forget the teachings of her Quaker
heritage.  Surely there were better ways than war and violence to settle
arguments between nations.  After all, countries were people.  If only
jeremy and the new British foreign minister, Lord Castlereagh, could sit
down together and talk things over, perhaps around her dinner table'

Unfortunately, that was never to be.  On June 4, 1812, the House voted
for war, 79 to 49- On June 17 the Senate concurred with the vote, 19 to
13- That evening British legate Augustus Foster went to Dolley's drawing
room.  The President, he noted, "looked ghastly pale-he made me three
bows-he was remarkably civil."

Commenting on the pallor, Foster observed that James "very naturally
felt all the responsibility he would incur."

On June 18 the declaration of war was signed by Madison.

It was one of the great ironies of history.  For on June 17, the very
day the Senate was completing its vote for war, Britain's
orders-in-council were suspended.  But it was too late.  By the time the
news reached America, emotions were running too high.

The war machinery rolled forward.

A cENTuRy and a half later, historians would still be arguing over the
wisdom of the War of 1802 and of the man on whose slender shoulders
rested the burdens of the Commander in Chief.

Was it "unnecessary, impolitic, untimely, rash"?  Was it the action of
bold young War Hawks who persuaded a reluctant President to declare war
in return for their backing of his reelection bid?  Or was it, as some
would say, America's "second war of independence," a prerequisite for
her final emergence as a respected and self-reliant member of the family
of nations?

Certainly no nation could have been less prepared for war nor faced more
unequal odds.  The country was like a puny but bold David challenging a
heavily armed Goliath.  Great Britain had a huge fleet, hundreds of
warships at its command.  The United States Navy possessed fewer than y
vessels, some of them in such bad condition that they were unseaworthy.
The country had only six thousand-plus regulars in its old regiments,
and only five thousand recruits had been raised.  Congress was slow in
authorizing a larger army.  The supporters as well as the opponents of
the war were unwilling to pay its costs.

Madison was beset by problems.  He had to choose his generals either
from among aging veterans of the Revolution or from young officers
without any war experience.  The first great source of danger was from
British troops controlling the Great Lakes and lower Canada, with tribes
of hostile Indians as their allies.  A Detroit campaign was being forced
on the government, and General William Hull, who had an unsurpassed
military record, was chosen to lead an army of twenty-five hundred into
Canada.

The drab, muted tones of that summer's canvas were streaked with one
bright splash of color.  In early August a large number of Indian
chiefs, escorted by General William Clark, superintendent of Indian
affairs in their area, arrived in Washington in full regalia: feathers,
tomahawks, and even war paint.  They represented the Sac, Fox, and Osage
tribes from the Missouri Territory.

Since the tribes were at war with one another, the superintendent
desired the President to act as their peacemaker.  He also thought the
tribes might be persuaded not to yield to further seduction by the
British army.

Dolley entertained twenty-nine of the Indian guests at dinner, together
with five interpreters and the whole Cabins% and later gave another
dinner for a large delegation of Sioux.

After one of these affairs Dolley had a disquieting experience.

When all the guests had presumably left and she was getting ready to
retire, she looked in her mirror and saw there reflected an Indian in
all his war paint, standing near the door.  Sol Her first panic
dissolved into calm reasoning.  Careful not to catch the intruder's eye,
she walked quietly into the next room, rang a bell, and returned to her
dressing table as if she had noticed nothing.

Presently a servant arrived, and together they somehow persuaded the
surprised and no doubt frightened visitor to depart. Dolley saw to it
that he was guided to his lodging place.

The Madisons were not able to leave for Montpelier until August 28 that
year, and even then they did not get far.  That evening they were
overtaken by a hard-riding horseman.  He brought bad news indeed.
General Hull had surrendered his entire army to the small British
regiment at Detroit.  He had not fired a shot.

"I must go back," James said tersely.

It was Dolley who put into words her husband's profound disgust and
dismay.  "Do you not tremble with resentment at the treacherous act?"
she wrote Edward Coles, who was in Philadelphia on sick leave.  "Yet we
must not judge the man until we are in possession of his reasons."

They soon were, and there was no disputing the facts.  Even the British
general was amazed at his easy victory.  "Twenty-five hundred troops
have this day surrendered," he reported jubilantly to his superior,
"without the sacrifice of a drop of British blood.  I had not more than
seven hundred troops including militia, and about six hundred Indians to
accomplish this service.  When I detail my good fortune Your Excellency
will be astonished."

General Hull would eventually be court-martialed, his excuse that
resistance was futile an obvious cloak for cowardice and inefficiency.
But immediately after the Detroit fiasco came the heartening news that
Captain Isaac Hull, William Hull's bolder nephew and commander of the
frigate Constitution, had captured, burned, and sunk the British frigate
Guerridre.  It was an amazing triumph! Nor was this the end of the good
news.  In October the eighteen-gun Wasp took as a prize the twenty-two
gun Frolic.  The puny little David's stones leveled at the powerful sea
Goliath were hitting their marks! Dolley's satisfactions these days were
not wholly from naval victories.  Payne had finished his courses at
Baltimore with more or less success.  Now, postponing entrance into
Princeton, he was serving as James' secretary in the absence of Edward
Coles.

Dolley was reveling not only in her son's daily presence but in his
charming personality, which was enabling him to take Washington society
by storm. If James found his new secretary's abilities to be less than
adequate, he suffered the inconveniences in silence.  The war was
causing Dolley enough worries these days.

Not for the most perfect of secretaries would he have dimmed the
radiance Payne's presence brought to her eyes.

And for Dolley, pleasure in her gay, handsome, if wayward, son
outweighed her worries. He was always planning little surprises to
intrigue her.  Once he brought back from a trip a cage containing a
huge, flamboyant macaw, which opened its broad beak and gave her a harsh
but friendly greeting.

The bird became her cherished pet and the delight of nieces and nephews
and neighborhood children who trooped into the house each day to watch
her feed it It was a bright harbinger of fun and beauty in a milieu that
was becoming increasingly ominous.

The election of.  812 was bitterly contested, the campaign vicious in
its innuendos.  Federalists and other opponents of "Mr. Madison's War"
supported the New Yorker DeWitt Clinton, and subjected Madison to every
possible calumny.  He was called "Napoleon's puppet,"

"base wretch,"

"coward,"

"weak, pitiful " New England openly the' atened civil war or, worse
creature.

yet, secession.

Dolley almost wished James would refuse to run, such heaven it would be
to retire to Montpelier!  But of course he would not do such a thing.
Whether as student or farther or President, he was not one to set his
hand to a plow and leave another to break his furrows.  He refused,
however, to take any part in the campaign, remaining silent, apparently
unmoved in the face of all the slanders.

Only Dolley knew how they hurt him.  The Electoral College vote, when
finally counted, would stand: Madison 128, Clinton 89.

During all the stress Dolley continued to conduct her drawing rooms and
dinners, welcoming friends and foes with equal cordiality.  But she
would have been astonished to learn that some historians would later say
that she saved the election for her husband.  How could anything she had
done possibly have changed the course of history?  She had merely seen
to it that people of every class and conviction had a chance to share
their conflicting views in an informal and, she hoped, friendly
atmosphere.  If this had led to understanding and compromise, that was
not her doing.  It was the natural result of people sitting down
together and getting one another's point of view.

The American navy continued its startling triumphs, and in late
November, Dolley set off with friends for a naval ball at Tomlinson's
Hotel in honor of the victorious captains.  They rode past brightly
illuminated houses and wildly cheering crowds, for that very afternoon a
news extra had announced that Captain Stephen Decatur of the frigate
United States had captured the British frigate Macedonian.  It was an
astounding victory, for the Macedoman was new, the largest frigate in
the British navy.  If America was joyous, Britain was scandalized.  "In
the name of God," demanded the London Times, "what was being done with a
naval strength between Halifax and the West Indies seven times as great
as the entire United States Navy?"

The ball was a triumph for Dolley as well as the captains.

During the evening, Lieutenant Hamilton, son of the Secretary of the
Navy, brought the dispatches telling of the victory to Madison, who had
remained at home to work.  From there Hamilton hastened to Tomlinson's
Hotel bearing the captured Macedonian's flag.  Assisted by captains
holding the four corners of the latter, he paraded it around the room to
the tune of "Yankee Doodle , then laid it at Dolley's feet.  The crowd
went wild.  Though she received the honor calmly, Dolley felt her cheeks
flaming, thereby eliciting a comment in a letter of one Mrs. William
Seaton.

"Mrs.  Madison," she wrote, "is said to rouge; but not evident to my
eyes, and I do not think it true, as I am well assured I saw her color
come and go at the naval ball when the flag of the Macedoman was
presented to her by young Hamilton."

New Year's Day, 1813- The White House was open to all, and even
Federalists came in droves. Dolley looked very queenly in a rose-colored
satin gown trimmed with ermine, and her turban-always a turban l Surely,
she thought, this new year holds more hope and promise of peace than the
old.

Shortly after the inauguration Emperor Alexander of Russia offered his
services to mediate a settlement between Great Britain and the United
States.  Madison appointed peace commissioners to go to Russia to act
with the American envoy there, John Quincy Adams.  Madison proposed
moderate terms for a settlement, chiefly security from impressments and
evacuation of all American territory still occupied by the British.
Albert Callatin, Secretary of the Treasury, was appointed as the best
possible man in finance and diplomacy.  In order to make it bipartisan,
James A.

Bayard, a Federalist, was chosen as the third member of the team.

Dolley rejoiced in these developments until James made a startling
proposal. "What would you say, my dear, if I were to make Payne an
attaches to, Gallatin?"

She gasped.  Her Payne crossing the ocean, that vast expanse fraught
with danger, to encounter who knew what evils on a strange continent
beset by war and chicanery! But what an opportunity for him!  Exposure
to all the culture, history, art of the Old World.  She knew what her
answer must be.

"Yes," she said calmly.  "It will be a fine thing for him."

Payne sailed with Gallatin in May, bound for St.  Petersburg with all
expenses paid by the Russian government, his vanity tickled by a
decoration conferred on him by the same.

"I suppose," commented James, "they think he's the nearest thing to an
American czarevitchl" Was this an inauspicious beginning, they both
wondered, for the process of growing up?

Payne's absence meant a new career for Dolley. Edward Coles was still on
sick leave. Dolley took over some of his secretarial work.  It was not
too difficult, consisting mostly of writing letters toNed Coles himself,
keeping him posted on developments in Washington.

And they were not encouraging.  That spring the British admiral Sir
George Cockbum began ravaging towns all along Chesapeake Bay, burning,
pillaging, carrying off hostages.  After destroying Hawed de Grace and
other towns above Annapolis, he was suddenly threatening to despoil
Washington.  He intended, he stated brashly, to "make his bow at Dolley
Madison's drawing room before burning the White House and other
government buildings."

"No danger," scoffed the Secretary of War, General John Armstrong.  "The
British have no land troops.  The city is perfectly safe."

But others, including Madison, were not so sure.  He sent two regiments
to Norfolk and ordered Governor Winder of Maryland to strengthen the
forces at Fort McHenry, in Baltimore.

Hearing of Cockbum's brutal depredations, Dolley felt history repeating
itself.  It was Tarleton the Butcher all over again, sweeping through
Virginia.  In vivid memory she crouched once more beside Isaac in the
hedge, watching the red tide sweep up the hill, heard the clatter of
horse's hoofs as the arrogant leader rode up the steps of Scotchtown.
But her calmness of mien betrayed no hint of her anguish.

She wrote Ned Coles on May 12:

If I could, I would describe to you the fears and alarms that circulate
around me.  For the week all the city has expected a visit from the
enemy....  We are making considerable efforts for defense and I keep the
old Tunisian sabre within reach.

That summer James became severely sick with malaria, and Dolley canceled
all her activities to nurse him.  Even a possible attack on Washington
paled into insignificance while his life seemed to hang in the balance.
And she was not the only one deeply concerned.  In June, French
Ambassador St-Furier wrote his government:

His death, in the circumstances in which the Republic is placed, would
be a veritable calamity.  Vice President Elbridge Gerry is a respectable
old man, but weak and worn out.  All good Americans pray for the
recovery of Mr.  Madison.

On July 2 Dolley wrote Edward Coles:

For the last three days his fever has been so slight as to permit him to
take bark every hour and with good effect.  It has been three weeks
since I have nursed him night and day.  Sometimes I despair; but now
that I see he will get well, I feel as if I should die myself from
fatigue.

It was August.  The attack on Washington still had not come, and the war
seemed to be at a stalemate.  So at last the Madisons were able to get
away to Montpelier.  James' health continued to improve, and on
September 23 a messenger came galloping up the driveway with the best
possible tonic.  The dispatch was from Master Commandant Oliver Perry,
who had engaged the British in battle on Lake Erie.  He had written, "It
has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a
signal victory over their enemies on this lake." The message would later
go down in history in simpler words: "We have met the enemy, and they
are ours."

This triumph, commented John Adams, would have been enough to revive Mr.
Madison had he been in the last stage of consumption.  The world had
seen nothing like it since the surrender of Lord Cornwallis.

Was it really the beginning of the end?  wondered Dolley, almost more
thankful for the healthy sparkle in jeremy's eyes than for the military
victory.  She had felt that this year of 1813 held hope and promise.
Surely this distressing war would be over before year's end! She could
not have been more wrong.

With the new year of 1814 a message "rather of a pacific character" from
Lord Castlereagh.  Though Britain had rejected the offer of Russian
mediation, she was suggesting direct negotiation.  Madison chose
G6teborg, Sweden, as the meeting place, but later the site would be
changed to Ghent, in Belgium.  The commission left Russia.  Now there
was nothing to do but wait.

Dolley anxiously scanned every letter and dispatch from Europe, as avid
for news of Payne as for news of the commission's activities.  It seemed
her son was making great progress socially, if not in other areas.  In
St. Petersburg he had been treated almost like royalty, a crown prince,
so to speak, in a country unused to the standards of democracy.  He was
invited to attend grand balls from which most Americans were excluded.
While his superior, Gallatin, sat in the gallery watching, Payne had
danced with ladies of the court at elegant parties.  When the commission
left for G6teborg, Payne went by way of Copenhagen.  Why?  Knowing her
son's yen for adventure, Dolley could only guess.

"I am distressed at Payne's leaving Mr.  Gallatin," she wrote Mrs.
Gallatin.  "What could have led him to do so?  Nothing but anxiety to
get home, I hope."

She hoped in vain.  Apparently he wanted to extend his social triumphs
to as many European spheres as possible.  But when she received word
from Mrs.  Gallatin that Payne had gone to Paris for three weeks, she
was mollified, because her precious Payne would be seeing France with
all its advantages of art and culture.

James sympathized with Dolley's concern over Payne, but he could do
little to allay her anxiety.  And he was burdened with far greater
worries.  The prospect of peace negotiations did not mean that the war
was over.  Indeed, the British had by now defeated Napoleon and were
more determined than ever to punish America.

Madison was struggling with new, untried young generals and a weak
Cabinet.  His Secretary of War, General Armstrong, was difficult and
perverse.  He vacillated in carrying out Madison's suggestions for the
protection of the eastern seaboard, especially of Washington.  Still,
James hesitated to replace him.  It would be like changing horses in the
middle of a tumultuous stream.

No news came from the peace commission.

"The more I see of the complexion of events in Europe," James commented
dubiously, "the less ground remains for sanguine expectations for the
peace commission." He was convinced that a more deadly phase of the war
was in prospect, one that might easily culminate in an attack on
Washington itself.  However, General Armstrong continued to scoff at the
idea.  And Navy Secretary Jones thought other places "more inviting to
the enemy." In August the war intensified as Madison had expected.
Britain's pacific offer of negotiation, so hopefully received, had been
empty words.  Grimly James contemplated the ultimatum delivered by the
British Parliament.  It was appalling.  The demands included new
boundaries with Canada, the banning of all trade between the United
States and the West Indies, and the exclusion of America from fishing on
the Grand Banks.  In addition the United States was to resign all claim
to the Spanish-owned Floridas and cede New Orleans to Britain.  The
arrival on August 17 Of a British fleet of warships, fifty-one vessels,
was evidence of grim purpose.  The fleet waited, ready and menacing, at
the mouth of the Patuxent River, just below Benedict Maryland.

Still Secretary Armstrong would not act.  "Oh, yes," he replied when
warned that the enemy's strength must mean serious attack.

"Oh, yes, they would not come with such a fleet without meaning to
strike somewhere, but they certainly will not come here.  What the devil
would they do here?" Baltimore, he believed, would be their goal.  It
was of much more consequence.

Finally, Madison, Secretary of State Monroe, and General William Winder
took matters into their own hands.  On August 2o Winder ordered two
Baltimore regiments to Washington.  Militia were sent to block the roads
to Benedict by felling trees.  But it was too late.  That evening
Madison received word that the British had taken Benedict.  Movement
against Washington seemed assured.  Yet even when Madison ordered that
all government papers be moved to safety, Armstrong observed that he
thought they were acting under unnecessary alarm.

Sunday, AuguSt 21.  Monroe, who had ridden out to investigate the
enemy's movements, reported that they were advancing both by road and in
barges up the river.  The marching columns were estimated at four
thousand, with one thousand more in the barges.

Washington was in turmoil.  People were pouring out of the city in every
conveyance.  What was to become of them? Dolley wondered.  She must not
bother James with questions or demands.  At least Anna was close by,
living in a house on F Street.  Though disaffections in New England had
caused Richard Cutts to lose his seat in Congress, Madison had appointed
him superintendent of military supplies.  Summoning her carriage and
taking only her maid Sukey with her, Dolley started for the Cuttses'
house.

The streets were clogged with carriages piled high with possessions of
fleeing inhabitants.  As her driver halted at the gate one vehicle
stopped just in front of them.  A woman, whom Dolley recognized as the
wife of one of james' bitterest opponents, stood up and loosened her
hair, which was long and beautiful.

"You!" the woman cried in a voice clearly audible above the commotion.
"See this hair of mine?  I would pray that I might part with it if it
could be used to hang Mr.  Madison!"

Her carriage moved on, and Dolley's driver was finally able to move
forward into F Street.  "It's all right," Dolley quieted the terrified
Sukey.  "She didn't mean it.  People say strange things when they're
frightened."

She found her sister packing.  "Richard insists that we leave," Anna
announced unhappily.  "I don't want to.  I can't bear to think of you
here without us.  But-"

"Of course you must go," agreed Dolley, hoping her dismay was not
evident.  "You must think of the children." Richard had arranged for
them to go to friends in Maryland.

Dolley returned home to find james gone for another conference with his
Cabinet.  The White House seemed empty and bereft of life.  Never had
she felt more lonely or vulnerable.

Monday, August 22.  A report arrived from Winder's headquarters.  The
enemy had entered Nottingham, halfway between Benedidt and Washington.
James turned to Dolley. "Tell me, my dear," he said anxiously, "do you
have the courage to stay here until I return tomorrow, or even the next
day?  I feel I must go and see what is happening."

Dolley drew a long breath.  "Of course," she returned calmly.

"I have no fear except for you and the fate of our country."

"Then take care of yourself." In his effort to stifle emotion his voice
sounded almost curt.  "And guard all the Cabinet papers, public and
private." There was no lack of emotion in his long, almost suffocating
embrace.  Then he was gone.

She went with him in thought to Battalion Old Fields, eighteen miles
from Washington, where Winder was stationed.  She knew the pressures he
was undergoing, and her heart ached for him.  He was a scholar, a
statesman, a man of peace, but certainly no military expert.  What irony
of fate for him to be thrust into the role of Commander in Chief I
Tuesday, AuguSt 23- Dolley received a note from James, somewhat allaying
her fears:

My dearest.  I have spent the forenoon among the troops who are in high
spirits and make a good appearance.  The reports as to the enemy have
varied every hour.  The last and truest information is that they are not
very strong, and are without cavalry or artillery, and of course they
are not in a condition to strike at Washington.

But a second, penciled note was far less hopeful. Dolley's mood changed
from hope to apprehension.  She wrote to her sister Lucy:

The last is alarming, because he desires that I should be ready at a
moment's warning to enter my carriage and leave the city; that the enemy
seemed stronger than had been reported, and that it might happen that
they would reach the city with the intention to destroy it....  I am
accordingly ready; I have pressed as many cabinet papers into trunks as
to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is
impossible to procure wagons for its transportation.  I am determined
not to go myself until I see Mr.  Madison safe, and he can accompany
me-as I hear of much hostility towards him.  Disaffection stalks around
us.

To Dolley's vast relief James came home that evening, but she saw little
of him.  He was making frantic last-minute attempts to defend the
capital.  Secretary of War Armstrong, forced at last to admit his
negligence, was doing his best to improve his reputation for history,
even predating an order to bring a regiment to Washington "with the
utmost despatch." At nine o'clock General Winder came to the White
House.  He had brought part of his poorly equipped army to the city and
was camping near the Navy Yard. His Baltimore brigade, already worn out
with marching, he had sent to Bladensburg.

Finally Dolley got her weary and distraught husband to bed.

He fell into a troubled sleep, while she lay taut and wide-awake beside
him, ears tensed for the sound of-what?  Guns?  Battle cries?  Screaming
shells?  But there was only the muffled beat of hoofs, the dull clatter
of wheels as more and more carriages bore their terrified exiles from
the city.  Did she sense that it was the last night they would ever
spend in the White House?

Wednesday, August 24.  The sun rose blazing like a red-hot coal,
presaging stagnant heat.  Before noon the thermometer would climb past
ninety.  When James embraced her before leaving again, she tried to
conceal her fear by not clinging to him.  Where was he going?  To
General Winder first, at his headquarters at the Navy Yard.  Then he
would probably go to Bladensburg, where the first attack was likely to
come.  His presence might at least give courage to the troops.  He hoped
to be back by three for the dinner to which the Cabinet had been
invited.  He smiled bleakly.

By that time, perhaps there would be good news.

As he rode away, a brave but defenseless figure haloed by a cloud of
dust, Dolley wondered if she would ever see him again.

She spent much of the morning watching through a spyglass from the
window of her sitting room.  There was little to be seen only the
conveyances relentlessly moving half hidden in dust, groups of soldiers
roving about haphazardly.  Toward noon she sat again at her desk to
chronicle the events for Lucy:

My friends and acquaintances are all gone, even Colonel C.

with his hundred men, who were stationed as a guard in this enclosure.
French John ...  offers to spike the cannon at the gates and lay a train
of powder which would blow up the British should they enter the house.
To the last proposition I positively object, without being able to make
him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.

The heat was stifling.  The long, gray high-necked Quaker dress that she
always wore in the morning clung to her body like a compress.  Even her
pet macaw in the cage above her desk was feeling the heat, or somehow
sensing the tension, for he was moving restlessly from perch to perch.

Suddenly he cocked his head as if listening, blue and yellow feathers
puffed.  Were his ears attuned to sounds she could not hear-guns,
perhaps?  She moved again to the window and flung it open.  Yes, she
could hear it, definitely the sound of cannons.

How far away would it be?  If six miles, that could mean fighting at
Bladensburg.

So ...  it had started.  As if she had heard a trumpet call, she was
roused to action.  Whatever happened, there were things to do.

In the dining room, Madison's fifteen-year-old mulatto servant, Paul
Jennings, was laying the places for dinner, as if it were an ordinary
day.  He had already brought up bottles of Madeira and other wines from
the cellar and placed them in the silver coolers.

But it was not an ordinary day.  Even if the cannons portended victory,
Dolley knew there would be no big company dinner.

'Take off most of the place settings, Paul," she ordered abruptly.

"Leave only enough for the President and any men he may bring with him.
And pack the best silver in bags."

Then everything seemed to be happening at once.  Mrs. George Campbell,
wife of the acting Secretary of the Treasury, arrived, bonnet awry and
out of breath.  "My dear Mrs.  Madison, you must not stay here.  I just
heard that the British will be here in two hours.  I have a carriage
outside.  Please, come with me."

Dolley thanked her for her concern, but she could not leave now.  She
was waiting to hear from her husband.  If the city was in danger, he
would come or at least let her know what to do.

Mrs.  Campbell's warning was followed by others.  Mayor James Blake and
their very good friend Charles Carroll called at the President's House
and urged Dolley to leave.  To her annoyance Carroll insisted on staying
until she followed his advice.  "Not until my husband returns," she told
him firmly, "or until I receive a message from him."

But she proceeded with preparations to depart.  French John had managed
to procure a wagon large enough to hold the boxes of papers, but there
was room for little more.  The silver, of course.

The house was so frill of treasures, things she and Latrobe had so
lovingly selected.  Ah, yes, those beautiful crimson velvet curtains in
the oval drawing room.  A woman's foolish whim, probably, but they would
take up little room, perhaps even protect the silver and papers.  She
told French John to take them down and pack them in the bags of
silverware-and the little French clock of cloisonnd, which she adored.
There was room for that too.

A clatter of hoofs sent her running to the nearest window.  It was James
Smith, a free black man who had accompanied the President that morning.
Seeing Dolley, he waved his hat.  "Clear out!  Clear out!" he cried.
"General Armstrong has ordered a retreat!" Without further explanation
he wheeled his horse and rode away, shouting the news as he went.

"Mrs.  Madison, I must insist.  .  ."

"Thank you, Colonel Carroll.  just a little longer-please."

Not until two messengers came, their horses sweating, their faces grimed
with dust, did the exigency finally penetrate.  They brought word from
James.  She must leave at once.  "Yes," she told Carroll, who was now
turning with impatience.

Still she hesitated.  Something tugged at her mind.  She wandered as if
by instinct into the state dining room.  Of course.  There it was on the
wall, the portrait of General -Washington, the fine one by Stuart that
the governn-the had purchased in 1800 He stood, the symbol of the
country's freedom, hand outstretched over a table bearing the
Constitution.  She knew that this painting must not be left for the
British to find, gloat over, perhaps desecrate.  She walked over to it
and seized the fire-arm in both hands.

But it was fastened to the wall and would not move.

Swiftly she gave orders to the faithful John Sioussat.  It would take
too long to unscrew the portrait from the wall.  And besides, the frame
was incredibly heavy.  He was to get Tom Magraw the gardener to help
him.  They must break the frame and lift out the canvas.

"My dear Mrs.  Madison!" Charles Carroll was frantic in his insistence.
"You must come.  Your carriage is waiting.  I can't vouch for your
safety if you wait longer."

"Yes, yes," she agreed.  "Just a few more minutes."

While the two men were removing the picture she returned to her sitting
room and, perversely, still hoping for James to return, sat down again
at her desk to continue her letter to Lucy.

A few minutes later she ran back to the dining room.  The picture was
out of its frame, lying on the floor.  Charles Carroll had been busy.
Going outside, he had found two men passing in a carriage, a Mr.  Jacob
Barker and a Mr.  Robert de Peyster, a Quaker banker who had helped the
government financially during the war.  They had agreed to take the
picture to safety.  Still hoping James would come, Dolley returned to
her letter:

It is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two
gentlemen from New York, for safe keeping.  And now, dear sister, I must
leave this house....  When I shall write you, or where I shall be
tomorrow, I cannot tell. Dolley.

Picking up the sheets of foolscap, she thrust them into her reticule.
Then, head held high, Charles Carroll guiding her, her little maid Sukey
following, she entered her waiting carriage.

French John Sioussat was the last to leave the house.  About to lock the
front door and hearing a raucous sound, he remembered Dolley's macaw.
Taking the cage, he ran with it to the residence of the French minister
Serurier, who lived nearby.  Returning, he locked the house and took the
key to the home of the Russian minister, knowing that both these
residences, protected by their countries' flags, would be immune to
attack.

Had Dolley waited a little longer, she would have realized her wish, for
in the wake of Winder's retreating rabble of an army rode the President,
dead-tired.  With him were Monroe and Attorney General Richard Rush.
They found the White House open, for locks were no more protection from
roaming looters than from a foreign enemy.  Madison and his companions
ed, took what refreshment they could find, then remounted their horses
and.

headed for Virginia.

Some hours later, about six, Admiral Cockbum, brash with triumph, rode
into the city with his victorious troops.  Their first objective was the
Capitol, still unfinished, its two magnificent wings connected by a long
section of unpainted wood.  The admiral climbed to the rostrum in the
House and conducted a mock trial, demanding, "Shall this harbor of
Yankee democracy be burned?

All for it say Aye!" The chorus was overwhelming.  Torches performed the
job, and the area was soon a blazing tinderbox.  The congressional
furniture, carpets, the precious books accumulated for the Library of
Congress, all were destroyed.  Then the company moved on, to the Navy
Yard, to the Treasury Building, setting fire to all the public buildings
in its way.

It was nearing eleven when a column preceded by torches approached the
White House.  Rumor had it that the soldiers found a table laid for a
sumptuous meal and partook of it with gusto.  The admiral, it was
reported, insisted on his troops' "sitting down and drinking jeremy's
health." He found a few trophies to take away: an old hat that belonged
to the President and a cushion off Dolley's chair.  Then the furniture
was piled up, the torches applied, and the house became another beacon
of flame.

Weeks later Dolley recounted her experiences of that August 24 to
Benjamin Latrobe's wife:

Two hours before the enemy entered the city, I left the house where you
and I had so often wandered together, and on that very day I sent out
the silver (nearly all)-the velvet curtains and Gen.  Washington's
picture, the cabinet papers, a few books, and the small clock-left
everything else, our own valuable stores of every description, a part of
my clothes, and all my servants' clothes, etc., etc., in short, it would
fatigue you to read the list of my losses, or an account of the general
dismay....  I confess that I was so unfeminine as to be free from fear,
and willing to remain in the Castle.  If I could have had a cannon
through every window, but alas! those who should have placed them there
fled before me, and my whole heart mourned for my country! The hours
that followed Dolley's escape on that fateful day became almost as
confused in her memory as the disparate accounts that would go down in
history.  Her refind retained them as pictures, disconnected, unrelated,
like the haphazard incidents in a dream....

Her horror on that first night, eyes fixed hour after hour on the angry
red glow in the sky.  Did she watch it dry-eyed, spellbound, through the
parted folds of an army tent, as some reported, or through the window of
a friend's house where she had managed to find shelter?  It does not
matter.  Surroundings were of little account when witnessing the end of
one's world.  All she really wanted to know was, Where was jeremy-and
was he safe?

Her kind reception, first by Charles Carroll at Bellevue, then at
Rokeby, the home of her good friend Matilda Lee Love above the Little
Falls of the Potomac ...  Then, at last-word from jeremy.

He was safe, and he wanted her to meet him at the tavern in Great Falls!
In fact, he had been traveling about all night, trying to find her....
No, she could not stop, even to spend the night.  He was waiting for
her.  She must go on....

On the road again, this time hopefully ...  The tavern, at last, a haven
after hours of slow travel over dirt roads so clogged with loaded wagons
and carnages that they could barely inch their way along.  Only
twenty-four hours since leaving home, yet it seemed a year!  Grateful,
deadly weary, going upstairs, only to hear the proprietor of the hostel,
discovering her identity, screaming after her, "Mis' Madison! If that's
you, get out!  Your husband has got mine fighting, and damn you, you
shall't stay in my house!" More outbursts from other women in the inn
who had also been driven from their homes, including some who had often
enjoyed the hospitality of her drawing room .  .  .  "Come, Sukey, we
must go on, find some other place.  We can't stay here."

The road again, this time into driving wind and rain, a storm on the
evening of August 25, 1814, such as had seldom visited that part of the
world.  Thunder crashed; trees were uprooted.  In the capital there were
winds of near tornado violence.

Arriving at another inn at last, Wiley's Tavern, and being permitted to
enter, drenched and bedraggled ...  where that night jeremy finally
found her.  But, though exhausted after almost three days in the saddle,
he had to leave again with his companions, and ride toward Baltimore to
rejoin whatever army there was left.  She was to remain at the tavern,
he had told her, until she heard from him.  The waiting became sheer
torment.

It was Saturday, August 27, when he wrote her from Maryland:

My dearest....  I have just received a line from Col.  Monroe, saying
that the enemy were out of Washington.  We shall accordingly set out
thither immediately.  You will of course take the same resolution.  I
know not where we are to hide our heads, but shall look for a place on
my arrival.

The enemy gone! Wonderful-but why?  Others would ask the same question
and pose a variety of answers.  Because of a superstitious fear aroused
by the terrible storm?  Because they had heard rumors of a vast buildup
of troops?  Or merely because they had accomplished all they had set out
to do?  At any rate, their retreat seemed too good to be true.

As her carriage approached the city Dolley felt mingled hope and
apprehensive.  Even at a distance she could see the buildings and, high
on its hill, the square, solid shape of the White House.

Its walls gleamed white in the sunlight.  Perhaps the devastation was
not so great, after all.  She would go there before trying to find other
shelter.

But as they drew closer Dolley's heart sank.  The devastation all around
her was calamitous.  Though most of the private houses were still
standing-the British had destroyed only public buildings-a pall of
desolation mantled everything.

Still, Dolley insisted upon continuing to the President's House.

As they drove into the grounds only sheer obstinacy kept her from
cowardly retreat.  The walls were there, yes, but blackened almost
beyond recognition.  Only the bright sunlight had made them look white
from a distance.  The windows, most of them broken grinned at her like
gaps in rotting teeth.  The roof was gone.

Silently she descended from the carriage and entered the doorless
opening.  The house was a shambles.  The rooms were gutted, the ceilings
cracked, the walls discolored by heat and flames.

Piles of ashes disclosed remnants-the lovely furniture, jeremy's
precious books.  It was all she could do to keep from weeping.  No,
tears were too mild a release.  She wanted to scream, to cry out in
indignation against this insult.  How could they! Dolley did not give
way to her emotions.  Returning to the carriage, she told her driver to
take her to Richard Cutts' house.

To her relief she found her brother-in-law there, though Anna and the
rest of the family had not returned.  jeremy also, she learned with
delight that he had been there and would soon return.

When he came, she did finally weep, but they were tears of joy.

The worst was over.  Whatever happened now, they could face it boldly,
courageously, as long as they were together.

WiTH shining eyes Dolley read the whole poem, reprinted in the National
Intelligencer:

0, say can you see, by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed
at the twilight's last gleaming...

It was beautifully And perhaps, she thought, she herself might take a
little credit for it.  Without her intervention james might never have
sent Francis Scott Key on that mission to rescue Dr. William Beanes.

William Beanes was a physician whose house in Maryland had been taken
over by the enemy as their headquarters.  The doctor had been promised
safety if he look no action against the British.

But when a spy accused him of helping to arrest some marauding soldiers,
Dr.  Beanes was dragged from his bed and made a prisoner.

After all pleas for his release had failed, Francis Scott Key, a
Georgetown lawyer, had asked the President's permission to seek the
doctor's release. Dolley suggested that her husband approve Key's
undertaking, and Madison had done so.

Francis Scott Key took with him letters from British prisoners in
Washington telling of their good treatment by the Americans.

Because of these letters, General Ross reluctantly agreed to free Dr.
Beanes but detained him and Key lest they disclose the British plan to
attack Fort McHenry.  From a nearby ship, Key watched the ensuing
battle.  Though Cockbum had claimed he could conquer the fort in two
hours, the bombardment continued for twenty-five hours.

"Is the flag still there?" questioned Dr.  Beanes eagerly as the dawn of
September.  4 began to break.  He was an old man and his eyes were dim.
"Can you see it?"

Key peered into the slowly lightening sky.  "Yes," he cried joyfully.
"It's still there!" Words began flooding his mind, and in the half-light
he wrote them down on the back of a letter he had in his pocket.  Later,
in a tavern in Baltimore, he revised them to fit a popular tune, "To
Anacreon in Heaven," little dreaming that a hundred and sixteen years
later both words and tune would become his country's national anthem.

It was no wonder the patriotic young Key strained his eyes in the dawn
of that September 14.  For if the flag had not been flying, it would
have meant the fall of Baltimore and possibly it disastrous turn of the
war.  Other victories were soon to follow.  From Commodore Thomas
Macdonough, in charge of naval operations on Lake Champlain, came news
of a battle that resulted in the capture of a frigate, a brig, and two
sloops of war.  jubilation swept over the capital.  It was a personal
triumph for Madison, for he had taken a decisive role in the building
and damning of the brig Eagle, which enabled Macdonough to win the
decisive victory.  Had the British won, the whole Hudson Valley would
have been open to their advance.

The last months of 1814 were rife with turbulence.  In Europe, the peace
commissioners, having traveled to the new site of negotiations in Ghent,
were struggling to reach fair terms with a Britain that was making
arrogant demands such as would be imposed on a defeated nation.  In
Washington, Congress, meeting in special session in temporary quarters,
was heatedly arguing over the capital's future.  Should it be rebuilt on
its present site or moved to some other city?  The House would
eventually vote 78 to 63 to repair the public buildings and keep
Washington the capital of the nation.  In New England, hard-line
Federalists were congregating at Hartford, secretly formulating
proposals that stopped just short of secession.

Meanwhile the Madisons had moved from Anna's home into a house called
the Octagon, where Dolley was attempting to restore a semblance of
normalcy to the official life of the devastated city.  The Octagon,
designed by William Thornton for the wealthy John Tayloe, was a gem of
architecture.  Built of brick instead of the prevailing sandstone, it
was fitted into a pie-shaped lot a block from the White House, hence its
unusual shape.  Though not strictly eight-sided unless one counted the
semicircular front as two sides, the aptness of its name was never
questioned.

On New Year's Day, 1815,- Dolley was ready for her first reception,
modest compared with those in the White House but equally splendid in
hospitality.  And soon that new year did indeed bring cause for
rejoicing.  On January 8 Andrew Jackson defeated the British forces at
New Orleans in an astounding victory. When the news reached Washington,
the city went wild with joy.  The engagement at New Orleans presented
one of the most amazing contrasts of losses in modern history-seven
hundred British killed, fourteen hundred wounded, but only seven
Americans killed and six wounded.  Jackson became a hero overnight.

Though the news of this defeat had not yet reached England, other
developments had softened Britain's imperious demands.

In October word of the defeats on Lake Champlain and at Baltimore had
arrived in London.  Moreover, England was becoming tired of fighting,
her citizens restive.  The mercantile interests were agitating because
of heavy ship losses.  On Christmas Eve, 1804, after weeks of
negotiation at Ghent, the peace commissioners had come to an agreement.
But nothing was sure until the evening of February 14, when James
Monroe, now Madison's Secretary of State, came to the door of the
Octagon.

"The treaty," Monroe said simply.  He held out a packet.

Dolley, standing beside her husband to greet the guest, saw James' lips
tighten, his.  shoulders stiffen.  After a leisurely exchange of
amenities the two men went upstairs to study the treaty in private.
Though there were other guests in the drawing room, Dolley did not
return to them, but paced the foyer.  She felt like a prisoner in the
dock waiting to hear the judge's sentence-death or life, war or peace.
What were the terms in that sealed packet?

At last there was motion on the stairs. Dolley stood still, her eyes
searching her husband's face as he came down.  She drew a long breath,
for he was smiling.

The terms of the Treaty of Ghent implied neither victory nor defeat for
either side.  As the National Intelligencer stated, "Its general
principle is a restitution and recognition of the rights and possessions
of each party as they stood before the war." Disputed boundaries would
be settled later by joint commissions.  No grievance was addressed, no
concession made.  The matter of impressment, a prime cause of the war,
was not mentioned, but with the end of war in Europe it had ceased to be
an issue.

The Prince Regent, acting for the ailing George III, had already
ratified the treaty.  Now, in the oval room above the foyer, surrounded
by his Cabinet, as well as Senators, Congressmen, and diplomats, the
President signed his name.  Twenty-four hours later the treaty was
unanimously ratified by the Senate.

And how would history assess the struggle that had just ended?

A futile, inconclusive conflict entered upon by a weak and timid
President?  Some would think so.  Yet more than a century later,
historian Irving Brant would write: "It was under the guiding hand of
President James Madison that the struggling young republic won an equal
position among the free nations of the world, and began its long climb
to leadership." The youthful nation had come of age.

So.  .  .  the war was over.  Washington was jubilant.  Along with
Dolley's joy over the end of the conflict was another satisfaction
almost as great.  Payne would be coming home with the peace
commissioners.  He had originally intended to be away for six months,
but they had stretched into two long years! There was plenty of activity
to help bridge the interval of impatient waiting.  John Tayloe wanted to
return to his own home.  So in June the Madisons packed up and moved
from the Octagon into a rented house at the juncture of Pennsylvania
Avenue and Nineteenth Street.  Here, as in the Octagon, Dolley had a
clear view of the wrecked President's House, which soon became in
reality as well as in reference a "white house"; for the sandstone
walls, though stoutly resistant to the fire, were so blackened that the
only remedy was to paint them white.  As the renovation progressed at a
snail's pace, with little to show for it except fresh paint and a few
replaced windows, Dolley despaired of ever living in it again.  And she
was right.  It would be years before the repairs were finally completed.

But never mind.  There were other joys-the ship Neptune had arrived at
Havre de Gmee, beginning home at last William Crawford, minister to
France, and some of the peace commissioners-but not Paynel Only his
baggage. Dolley was disconsolate.  Mr.  Gallatin had remained in Europe
to negotiate the commercial treaty, but surely Payne was no longer
needed.  And Crawford had no information except that Payne had missed
the boat.

Finally Gallatin, having concluded the commercial treaty satisfactorily
arrived in New York, and Payne was with him.  "You will find Todd in
good health," he wrote Madison, "but he has spent a longer time in
Europe and more money than I wished." It seemed Payne had run through
his expense allowance and borrowed heavily from Baring Brothers, a
London banking inn.

Madison sent a check for sixty-five hundred dollars, which included
seventeen percent interest, an amount that he could ill afford.  Though
he was not pleased, he forbore telling Dolley, unwilling to mar her
ecstasy in the presence of her tall, handsome, and exceedingly
Frenchified son, whose conversation dwelt on French viands, theaters,
and races rather than details of the political mission on which he had
been sent.  With one of his pursuits, however, even Madison could find
no fault.  He had commissioned his foster son to purchase some works of
art for Montpelier.  Payne's choices had been faultless. Both James and
Dolley were delighted with them.

Payne, who was now twenty-three, balked at going to Princeton.  What
could a university teach him that his superior experience had not
already encompassed?  Perhaps because Dolley was so happy at having him
home, Madison did not force the issue.

He would let Payne act as his secretary again for a time.

Dolley's days now were happily full.  One of her most pleasant tasks,
for it involved children, was helping to establish an orphanage for boys
and girls made destitute by the war.  She was elected the first
directress of its association, and she remained head of it as long as
she was First Lady.

Youths of both sexes were drawn to her like bright moths to a glowing
flame.  And she was an inveterate matchmaker.  Now, with Payne at home,
she had an even more vital personal interest.

Surely he would pick a wife soon from among the eligible young beauties
who frequented her drawing rooms.

But Payne showed no signs of settling down either to marriage or to
serious labor.  He did as little secretarial work as possible.

He was almost as popular in Washington as in Europe, and he cut the same
splendid figure, attending receptions, teas, and dinners, patronizing
the theater and the races, and, to Dolley's blissful ignorance,
indulging his propensity for gambling and intemperance.

Washington was in the mood for gaiety.  Peace had brought not only the
end of fighting but burgeoning prosperity.  Opposition to the
administration had almost vanished.  The Era of Good Feelings was
approaching.  The new commercial treaty was favorable.

The economy was booming.  The Federalist Party was dead, or at least
moribund, and the President had suddenly become almost as popular as his
wife had always been.

The last year of his second term sped by.  In March 1816 the
presidential caucus of the Democratic-Republican Party was held, with
the vote going to Secretary of State James Monroe.

Though Madison could easily have run for a third term, he adamantly
refused to do so.  George Washington had set the precedent.  Yes, and
Madison himself had fought in the Constitutional Convention against the
faction dangerously advocating a presidency for life, a sure threat to
democracy. Dolley was as pleased as James at the results of the caucus.
The choice of Monroe was an unmistakable confirmation of Madison's
administration.

And then it was summer.  .  .  .  Off to Montpelier for a long vacation,
foretaste of the simple but delightful life soon to come.

On the Fourth of July the Madisons held a huge dinner on the lawn, with
a great crowd of family and friends attending.  Not till later did they
learn that James was being toasted in Washington as "a ruler more
respected for his merit than his power, and greater in the simple
dignity of his virtues than the proudest monarch on his throne."

By October they were back in Washington again for the last time.
November passed, then December.  The election returns showed an
overwhelming victory for Monroe, who had carried every state except
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware.  If Madison had been the
candidate, asserted John Adams, he would have carried all New England.
Then, not long after Christmas, the first service was held in the newly
completed St.  John's Episcopal Church, just across the square from the
White House.

It was a beautiful building, designed in the form of a Greek cross.
Looking up at the stained-glass windows, Dolley thought it had been a
long journey from the stark little Cedar Creek meetinghouse-a whole
lifetime, in factly But never had she been more conscious of the Inner
Light.  Its presence, she had discovered, was not dependent on anything
external.  You could experience it dressed in crimson silk or Quaker
gray, sitting in a cushioned pew or on a hard bench-anytime, anywhere.

Inauguration Day dawned fair and mild that year of 1807, after a winter
of unbelievable cold and wind.  Monroe took his oath of office at noon
before Chief Justice Marshall, delivering his inaugural address in front
of the temporary hall of congress.

It was a month before the Madisons could finish packing and leave, a
month filled with balls, dinners, and other honors.  The overseer from
Montpelier, arriving in Washington with a train of wagons, was entrusted
with carrying all their personal possessions home by land.  They
themselves traveled by a new means of transportation, the steamboat.  We
are like the three wise men, who went home by another way, thought
Dolley.

"I accompanied him as far down the Potomac as AquiaCreek," recorded
James K.  Paulding, secretary of the navy board, "and if ever man
sincerely rejoiced in being freed from the cares of public life it was
him.  During the voyage he was as playful as a child; talked and joked
with everybody on board, and reminded me of a schoolboy on a long
vacation."

PART Six Montpelier

(1817-1837)

DOLLEY would have been content to spend the rest of her life at
Montpelier.  She felt no sense of loss, only relief and fulfillment.

Montpelier.  The very name set one's spirit soaring.  A castle, the
child Dolley had once called Scotchtown. A palace, people had liked to
call the President's House.  But for Montpelier, Dolley could find only
one word-heaven.

Her contentment was visible for all to see.  As her old friend Eliza
Collins Lee noted, the Madisons in retirement looked "like Adam and Eve
in Paradise." Dolley was as proud of the finished house as was James,
who had labored for years over it, adding wings at each end, and the
stately Palladian portico.  This was long and wide enough so that in
stormy weather he could walk his allotted number of miles for exercise,
Dolley usually by his side.  When children were there, it made a
wonderful place to run races or play hopscotch. Dolley was now
forty-nine, but she was still agile enough to give Anna's younger boys a
challenge.

When the Cuttses visited Montpelier that first summer of retirement,
Anna was expecting her seventh child and Richard had just been appointed
second comptroller of the treasury.  They were preparing to build a
permanent home in Washington. Dolley was thrilled.  Richard's shipping
business had suffered reverses during the War of 1812, and she had been
afraid he would be obliged to move his family permanently to Maine. With
assurance of employment in Washington, the Cutts family would be near
enough to visit frequently.  Together Anna and Dolley pored over plans
for the new house, which would have two stories, a big drawing room, and
a fine garden in back.  Of course Dolley had no idea what part this
house would play in her own life.

Anna's children had always seemed like her own, especially James Madison
Cutts, now twelve, and little Dolley Cutts, a replica of herself at six,
whom she liked to call Dolchd.  They were the namesakes she had never
been able to give to jeremy.

But she reveled in all the children, romping with them on the lawns and
helping them gather grapes and peaches in Mother Madison's big fruit
garden.

When the children had gone, the house seemed empty, although in reality
it was far from that.  Seldom a day passed but guests came
thronging-relatives, friends, strangers.  Someone would be watching
through the telescope on the front portico and the cry would go up.
"Horse coming!"

"Carriage!" And all within hearing distance would rush to the portico to
watch the progress of the visitors up the long, winding road from the
gate.  Everyone came-political acquaintances, foreign diplomats, old
friends from Washington.  All were received with lavish hospitality.

And why not? Dolley would have demurred with practical modesty.
Montpelier seemed designed for entertaining.  The dining room with its
polished mahogany table and huge sideboard was a fitting frame for the
great platters of food sent up from the basement kitchens.  The cook,
Pierre Boux, provided a French influence to the meals.  But Dolley also
served favorite dishes from her early years of homemaking, and even
prepared some with her own hands.  Guests exclaimed over her croquettes
finely chopped meat, seasoned with onion, mace, or nutmeg, coated with
crumbs and fried; her sour-cream ginger cake; her crab omelet made with
parsley and thyme.

Guests were treated to aesthetic as well as culinary fare.  Seated at
the great table, they could feast their eyes on walls hung with rare
engravings.  Conversation was more sparkling and stimulating than the
wines.  It roamed the gwnut of human concerns politics, literature, art,
philosophy, religion-and the genial host (old sobersides, Dolley had
once called him!) provided much of the spice and pungency that made it
sparkle.

Dolley exulted in jeremy's happiness even more than in her own.  At
sixty-six, the burdens of sixteen years sloughed off his shoulders, he
seemed years younger.  Visitors were surprised to discover that the
eminent statesman was also a vigorous and efficient
agriculturist-farmer, Madison called it.

Since the 1780s he had been studying scientific methods of agriculture,
accumulating an extensive library, importing plants and seeds from all
over the world.  Now, master of his five thousand acres, no longer
dependent on overseers to carry out his plans, he was in his element, as
absorbed in theories of land cultivation as in those of history and
government.  Thomas Jefferson, himself an agricultural innovator, humbly
styled Madison "the best farmer in the world."

Mother Madison was still at Montpelier, and she was still spry, erect,
mentally keen at nearly ninety.  She pursued her wellordered life in her
own apartments in one wing of the house, ate her meals cooked in her own
basement kitchen and served by her ancient servant, "Old Sawney," with
hands that shook far more than her own.  At two o'clock each day she
received callers, sitting in state on a couch in the center of her large
drawing room.

Though very different in personality and way of life, she and Dolley
lived in perfect harmony and sincere affection.  One of the qualities
that endeared "Graridmama" to Dolley was her love and tolerance of all
the children in the family, especially of Payne.

" Give him time," she would say, echoing Dolley's indulgent excuse for
the foster grandson whom she had seen grow from a charming cherub to an
equally charming but indolent youth.  "He will settle down."

Payne had accompanied them to Montpelier.  Here in the wholesome
countryside, Dolley was convinced, he would mature into the fine,
responsible manhood of which he was certainly capable.  When he showed
interest in Madison's plans for land development, both she and James
were delighted.  The plantation would be his someday.  He would soon
marry, thought Dolley, and bless her with armfuls of grandchildren.  But
as problems began to frustrate James' farm labors-first floods, then a
drought-Payne's interest in the land waned.  To Dolley's distress he
began absenting himself for many days at a time.  Where did he go?  To
Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia?

Then one day he came to her, fresh and alert, blue eyes alight with
purpose.  He had an idea.  He wanted land of his own.

Richard Chapman had one hundred and four acres he wanted to sell, just a
few miles from Montpelier.  Payne had seen silkworms being raised in
Europe.  Why not do the same here in America?

Look at the white mulberry tree next to Papa's Greek temple! It had
enough leaves to feed thousands of caterpillars! He would plant mulberry
trees, hundreds of them.  It would be easy, far more profitable than
corn and tobacco! He would become richly Dolley was oveloyed, James
skeptical.  He knew Payne's volatile enthusiasms-also his aversion to
hard labor.  But, he reasoned wryly, Payne was not the only one who
could gamble.

They examined the property.  Even its name was propitious, Toddsberth.
James approved, and Payne, who had a small income from his father's
estate, paid Chapman five hundred and forty dollars for the land.  Then,
before planting any mulberry trees, he sent to France for silk workers.
Meanwhile he continued his restless wanderings, returning home only
occasionally.

Unfortunately, Payne's venture into semiculture proved to be no more
productive than his other forms of gambling.  The expert workers arrived
from Europe.  Larvae were secured-and died.

The climate was not suited to silk production. Dolley sympathized with
him wholeheartedly.  Poor boyle He had tried so hard.

James, though sincerely regretful, regarded the failure less
sympathetically.  He had questioned his foster son's willingness to
apply himself to such a complicated and exacting business.

Payne accepted the result with his usual cheerfulness and applied
himself to other interests, most of them pursued in places offering more
opportunities for excitement than Toddsberth or Montpelier. Dolley
reconciled herself to his absences through hoping that somewhere he
would meet a fine girl who would tempt him to marry and settle down.  In
this hope she was destined for disappointment.  Payne never brought home
a bride.

And his whereabouts were often in doubt.  Though she never knew where to
send them or if they would ever reach him, her letters went out almost
as constantly as her loving thoughts and prayers.  "I am impatient to
hear from you, my dearest Payne," she wrote in April 1823.  "Had I known
where to direct this I should have written you before this; not that I
had anything to communicate, but for the pleasure of repeating how much
I love you, and to hear of your happiness."

And in December 1824:

I have received yours, my dearest Payne, of the 23 and 24 November and I
was impatient to answer them.  Mr.  Clay and two members of Congress
left us yesterday after passing 2 days.  Mr. C.  inquired affectionately
after you, as do all your old acquaintances whom I see-but my dear son
it seems to be the wonder of them all that you'd stay so long from us
I-and now I am ashamed to tell when asked, how long my only child has
been absent from the home of his mother!

Enclosed 30$ instead of the 2o$ which you mentioned, and though I am
sure it's insufficient for the journey, I am unable to add to the sum
today. I recently paid Holloway 200$ on your note with interest for 2
years.... The "occurrence" you allude to, I hope, is propicious and if
it were for your good, we might rejoice in your immediate union provided
it brought you speedily to our arms, who love with inexpressible
tenderness and constancy.  Your own Mother.

ADAN and Eve in paradise? Dolley smiled wryly.  Not if Eden was supposed
to be the state of unmitigated bliss depicted in the old story, that is,
until the serpent practiced his wiles.

In spite of James' enthusiasm, expertise, and hard labor the farm was
not prospering.  All over Virginia, plantation owners were struggling to
make ends meet.  Many were losing their lands.  During the first ten
years of his retirement there were nine crop failures, due to a
succession of hot, rainless summers broken only by disastrous downpours.
Plunging farm prices and stagnant overseas markets added to the
problems.

And then there was the nagging question of slavery.  Both James and
Dolley hated the institution, considering it not only a denial of
democracy but a grievous, unpardonable sin.  Yet, like Washington,
Jefferson, and other southerners who condemned it, they were caught in
its toils.  What could be done?  James could not countenance freeing his
slaves wholesale.  With the prejudice then existing, their condition
would be far worse.  Emancipation should be gradual, he believed, and
slaves should be returned to the continent of their origin.  In 1816 he
had helped to organize the American Colonization Society.  He had a plan
for financing universal emancipation: the government would raise money
by selling part of its western land and would then free the slaves and
send them to Liberia.

As for his own financial problems, James would have been able to solve
them in time except for a further complication.  Richard Cutts, who had
lost his shipping fortune because of the embargo he had supported in
Congress, had attempted to recoup his losses by speculation with twelve
thousand dollars, much of it loaned by Madison.  The venture failed.
Richard was sent to debtors' prison, only regaining his freedom by
declaring bankruptcy.  To be sure, many respectable people had endured
this ignominy-including Robert Morris, who had helped finance the
Revolution-but for Dolley, knowing Anna's sensitivity, it was an
unspeakable humiliation.  Even worse was the fear that her sister's
family would be left destitute.

"We must do something!" she mourned to James.

He agreed.  Despite the fact that he was himself financially straitened
he arranged to buy from Richard's creditors the house he had built on
President's-later Lafayette-Square.  Cutts promised to help meet the
mortgage payments out of his comptroller's salary.  At least his family
would have a place to live.  It would cost james between five and six
thousand dollars, ari amount he could ill afford.

As if one disaster were not enough, a bill came from a Baltimore shop
that had run up a large unpaid account with Payne during his school
years, another for a debt of five hundred dollars, which Payne had
incurred with a Washington lottery house.  James kept the news of these
delinquencies from Dolley and against his better judgment paid both
bills, as he had done many times before.  He could not risk the
irreparable hurt it would cause her if her son also went to debtors'
prison.

In spite of financial stresses and family worries James and Dolley
continued to make their usual trips to Monticello.  As always it was a
meeting of minds between the two past Presidents.  But the visit in
September of 182.5 brought sorrow as well as joy.  Jefferson, now a
frail eighty-two, was a shadow of the gigantic figure who had dominated
national politics for two generations.  Since a fall, in 1823 he had
lost the use of his right hand.

He could no longer hoist himself into the saddle, though he still
managed his daily ride by being lowered onto his horse from a higher
elevation.  Physical difficulties were not his only problem.

Like many Virginia planters, including Madison himself, he was nearly
bankrupt.

Jefferson was not at all despondent.  He was bent on living to celebrate
the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, his noblest achievement.  In fact, he had been invited to
go to Washington to take part in the celebration.

But Jefferson did not attend the festivities in Washington on Ju'Y 4,
1826.  He died that very day soon after noon.  Strangely enough, in
Quincy, Massachusetts, John Adams died only a few hours later.  As years
passed, the differences between the two leaders had become less marked,
and they had been in near complete agreement.  Flags were lowered to
half-mast, and the nation grieved.  And no wonder.  It was the end of an
era.  Junes Madison was now almost the sole survivor of the nation's
architects.

James and Dolley received the news of Jefferson's death too late to
attend his funeral. It did not matter, he told the grieving Dolley. They
had been together so constantly in life that they would remain so in
spirit.  James was the only individual beneficiary in Jefferson's will
other than relatives and freed slaves: "I give to my friend, James
Madison of Montpelier, my gold-mounted walking-staff of animal horn, as
a token of the cordial and affectionate friendship which for nearly now
an half century has united us in the same principles and pursuits of
what we have deemed for the greatest good of our country."

James accepted it gratefully and humbly, knowing that his friend had
intended it as a symbol.  A king's scepter passed to a beloved son?
Hardly.  Jefferson would turn over in his grave at the idea of royalty!
Better, a shepherd's rod.  Madison felt like a pygmy delegated to fill
the shoes of a giant.

IN 1829 there WAs A NEw President in the White House.  General Andrew
Jackson had swept to victory over John Quincy Adams, whose one term had
been plagued by sectional grievances.  Jackson was a populist President,
propelled into office by the burgeoning democratic west, by eastern
laborers just beginning to demand their rights, and by southerners who
were suffering from tariffs supported by the powerful industrial
interests of the north.  "Down with the aristocrats!" had been the
campaign rallying cry.  Jackson was the champion of the masses.

From Anna and others in Washington, Dolley heard of the raucous scene
following the inauguration.  Crowds had flowed into the city-farmers,
backwoodsmen, Irish immigrants-all the disgruntled proletariat who had
swept the new President into power. They poured into the White House
through windows as well as doors, upset trays of food, broke china and
glassware, overturned furniture, stood with their muddy boots on the
upholstered chairs to get a better look at "Old Hickory."

Madison had mixed feelings about the new President.  When Dolley
deplored the damage to the White House, he chuckled.

"My dear, have you forgotten the Great Cheese?  Remember, Jefferson also
was the people's President."

Though Madison agreed with many of Jackson's policies, he viewed with
dismay the practice of partisan appointments soon to be known as the
spoils system.  In 1829 hundreds of postmasters were turned out of
office.  Heads of departments, military officers, diplomats, clerks,
secretaries were replaced-and three public servants in the treasury
department, one of them Richard Cutts.

Dolley was devastated.  What would happen to her sister and the children
now that Richard had no job, no salary?  Would they be forced to leave
their home and Washington?

No, James assured her.  The house was mortgaged, yes, but he himself
would take over the monthly payments.  He did not tell her what an
increased financial burden it would be in his already straitened
circumstances.  There was soon another call on his purse.  In May 1830
Payne landed in debtors' prison.  It was a dreadful shock for Dolley,
who had no idea her son's problems had reached such depths.  Once again
Madison paid his debts.

Payne came home at last, on the Fourth of July, replete with repentance
and promises of future rectitude.  For Dolley it was a perfect summer,
with Anna and her children, Lucy, and her beloved Payne all together for
weeks at a time.  Even nature cooperated, for rains were plentiful and
the crops were good.  It was well that she had this halcyon summer.  It
was the last such perfect one she would enjoy for many years.

That fall James became involved in the last, and perhaps most important,
battle of his political life.  A group of southerners, outraged by
legislative measures that seemed to favor the industrial north, were
enunciating a doctrine of nullification, claiming that the states, not
the federal government, were all-powerful and could nullify any act of
the latter which they chose.  It was a dire threat to the Union,
implying the right of secession.  Shocked by the accusation that he and
Jefferson had countenanced such an interpretation of the Constitution,
Madison hastened to publish a long paper refuting both the claim and the
whole doctrine of nullification.

The idea that a Constitution which has been so fruitful of blessings,
and a Union admitted to be the only guardian of the peace, liberty, and
happiness of the people of the states comprising it, should be broken up
and scattered to the winds ...  is more painful than words can express.

All over the country his paper was hailed as the last word in the
argument.  But the long months of controversy took their toll.

Throughout 1831 James was so crippled with rheumatism that he was
confined to bed most of the time.  Still he kept writing, unable to move
his wrists, his fingertips holding a fine quill pen, twitching painfully
to form the letters'.  "In explanation of my microscopic writing," he
wrote Monroe, "I must remark that the older I grow the more my
stiffening fingers make smaller letters, as my feet take shorter steps."
In addition to the disabling rheumatism he had such a severe attack of a
bilious fever that he could hardly walk.

For eight months Dolley seldom left his side.  No more walking together
on the portico.  She soaked his poor swollen limbs in salt baths, then
wrapped them in bandages of oiled silk.  In spite of increasing weakness
in her eyes, she wrote reams of pages at his dictation, sometimes
letters, often notes on his Constitutional Convention records, which he
was working into final shape.  At times, during the winter, with his bed
drawn close to a window, she would sit beside him, a music box playing a
merry tune, and they would look out over the grounds to the snowcovered
foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

At last, to everyone's relief, the worst of his illness passed.  By
March 1832 Dolley was reporting that he looked nearly well, had a fine
appetite, and was in good spirits.

Dolley now had other worries, for Anna too had been having one bout of
sickness after another, starting with an attack of dropsy in the spring
of 1830- In August 1832 Dolley wrote:

Beloved sister.  Mrs.  Mason has just written to me to say that you are
a little better, and those dear daughters of mine, Mary and Dolley, whom
I shall ever feel are my own children, have often consoled me by their
letters....  Do, dear sister, strive to get well and strong for my sake
and your children's; what should we do without you?  Adieu, my dear,
ever and always, Your loving sister.

Two days later she received word of Anna's death.

Dolley was numb with grief.  Her little sister-child, Anna gone!
Dearest in all the world to her except her husband and son-almost her
other self I Of course she loved Lucy, but they had never been as close.
Suddenly Dolley seemed to age ten years.  Friends said that for the
first time she lost her bright cheerfulness.  Every task, even the
ministry to her beloved jeremy, was performed with effort rather than as
a joyful privilege.

Life went on, of course.  Days ...  months ...  years.  There were
pleasant intervals, some quite long stretches of time, when things were
almost normal.  James was remarkably well again.  He and Dolley were
able to take long, pleasant rides.  And to Dolley's great joy Payne was
at home for an extended period.  An outcropping of marble had been
discovered on his land at Toddsberth, and with the same exuberance that
had begotten the silkworm fiasco, he was exploring its possibilities. At
last he had found his purpose in life!  He would quarry the rock vein,
provided it proved deep enough,, and become richly Dolley joined in the
project wholeheartedly, tramping over the ground, securing rock samples,
washing them, exulting when some displayed the beautiful pink-white
luster of marble.  Surely now Payne, late-blooming Payne-he was past
forty-would set the down.  To Dolley's disappointment, however, there
was no wife in the offing for him, as rumors had occasionally indicated.

"As I told you," she wrote her niece Mary in March 1833, "I hear nothing
more of his liking the young lady report gave him for a wife, and I'm
sorry for that."

Unfortunately, events did not continue in this happy sequence.

Payne's interest in the strain of marble, which did not run as deep as
expected, waned, and he was off once more.  Then, in the summer of 1835,
James was again ill.  He was eighty-four years old, and time was taking
its inevitable toll.

Time.  It seemed to stand still that summer, as if the world, locked in
its prison of glaring sun and heat, waited for some disruption.  In
spite of the knot of fear deep down in her subconscious Dolley went
about her tasks as usual, entertaining guests, superintending the
household, nursing her patient.  James was able to walk only from his
bed to the little chamber at the rear of the dining room.  Here, there
was another bed, high-posted with a crimson damask canopy; a desk; and a
table where he took his meals.  In mental health he was as vigorous as
ever, and his sense of humor remained unimpaired.

"Oh!" he said once when a guest urged him not to try to talk in his
recumbent position.  "I always talk more easily when I lie."

It was not an unhappy summer.  Payne was nearby, embarked on another pet
scheme, putting up a strange concoction of buildings on his land at
Toddsberth, one of them an octagonal ballroom, as he called it, with
benches around its walls for prospective dancers.  It was to have
towers, he explained enthusiastically, on top.

Where the money was coming from for this project he did not disclose.
Dolley was so happy about his proximity and purposeful activity that
Madison forbore to inquire too deeply into the project.

At least he was not paying for it-yet.

Someday, he thought uneasily, Payne would be master of Montpelier.  He
had revised his will the preceding spring, leaving Dolley the land,
houses, his valuable papers-everything except a few legacies to be
derived from the sale of his Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention
of z 787.  The major part of the sale, of course, was to be included in
Dolley's inheritance.  The Notes, he reckoned, should be worth at least
fifty thousand dollars.

While James hated to think of the irresponsible Payne becoming his
eventual heir, he was adamant in his decision.  The boy had always been,
was, like his son, and he must remain so.  After much hesitation he made
one further decision.  He entrusted John Payne, Dolley's brother, with a
packet containing vouchers for all the payments he had made on Payne's
debts unknown to Dolley.

It would be delivered to her after his death.  Not that James wanted any
credit for the sacrifices he had made for their son!  But it might put
her on her guard, protect her from yielding to such importunities in the
future.

Autumn brought a brief reprieve.  Within Dolley's being, the knot of
fear seemed briefly to unwind, and all because jeremy seemed so much
improved.  But by November he was again scarcely able to walk across the
room.  It was the beginning of six months of grueling worry and
attendance when Dolley scarcely left his side.  Fortunately, she had
competent helpers.  Nelly Madison Willis, James' niece, and Dolley's
niece Anna Payne, the daughter of her brother, John, were with her much
of the time.

Weakness did not prevent Madison from working on the revision of the
precious Constitutional Convention papers.  The papers, he impressed on
Dolley, were sacred, more important than any other of their possessions.
They were the only lixng record of perhaps the most important event in
the history of their nation.

Also, he might have added, they were his most valuable legacy, her
assurance of future financial security.

"Yes-oh, yes!" agreed Dolley. She wrote at his dictation until her
fingers were cramped, her weak eyes watered and filmed until she could
hardly see.  Then, when reading time came, she chose passages in the
Bible that she knew by heart so he would not realize how overburdened
she was.

"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help."
How often they had repeated the words, sitting on the portico and
looking away to the encircling mountains.

Spring came, beautiful as usual, but somehow without the promise of
renewed life.  She brought armfuls of blossoms from the first flowering
trees into the house, filling James' room with their fragrance.  The
mulatto, Paul Jennings, still with Madison after all these years, lifted
him into a chair by the window so he could look out at the little Greek
temple he loved.

By June the tight knot of worry had become a hard core of despair. James
was slipping away, and Dolley could no longer hide her grief On the
morning of June 28 Paul Jennings came early, about six, to attend him.
Sukey brought in his breakfast. But he was unable to swallow.

"What is the matter, Uncle James?" asked Nelly Willis.

He smiled up at her, a hint of the old mischief in his eyes.

"Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."

As Paul Jennings later described it, "His head instantly dropped, and he
ceased breathing as quietly as the snuff of a candle goes out." James
Madison, Father of the Constitution, was dead at the age of eighty-five.

There was no time for tears, even if the hard core at the center of
Dolley's being had permitted their release.  With mechanical but
meticulous planning she arranged for the necessary ceremonies-the
funeral, the burial in the family cemetery half a mile south of the
house.

The whole nation grieved at its loss, not only of a revered former
President but of this last of its Founding Fathers.  Congress hastened
to pass condolatory resolutions, which came to Dolley in a letter from
President Jackson.  She replied:

I received, sir, in due time, your letter conveying to me the
resolutions Congress were pleased to adopt on the occasion of the death
of my beloved husband.  The high and just estimation of my husband by my
countrymen and friends, and their generous participation in the sorrow
occasioned by our irretrievable loss, are the only solace of which my
heart is susceptible on the departure of him, who had never lost sight
of that consistency, symmetry and beauty of character in all its
parts....  The best return I can make for the sympathy of my country is
to fulfill the sacred trust his confidence reposed in me, that of
placing before it and the world what his pen prepared for their use-a
legacy the importance of which is deeply impressed on my mind.  With
great respect, D.  P.  Madison.

The papers.  Her sacred trust.  Before the summer was over, she was
attempting to find a reputable publisher for James' Notes o Debates in
the Federal Convention.  She could not rest, could not even take time to
grieve, until she had fulfilled this obligation.

But summer passed ...  autumn ...  and still no offer had been made.
Finally she placed the matter before President Jackson, who on December
6 presented it for action to Congress.  And once more she waited ... and
waited.  It was three long months later, the day before another
President was to enter the White House, that Congress took action.  It
appropriated thirty thousand dollars for the first three volumes of the
papers.  When the bequests of Madison's will were taken care of, Dolley
would have only about nine thousand dollars left.  Also, there were five
more volumes that were equally important.  They too must find a forum.

Nevertheless, it was a beginning.  Now, suddenly, the years of worry
took their toll. Dolley became desperately ill.  At last the full weight
of her own sixty-nine years seemed to press down on her.  She spent
weeks in bed, while Anna and Nelly and Sukey tended her with faithful
solicitude.  But this too passed.  Doctors persuaded her to take some
weeks at White Sulphur Springs, and she returned able to resume
neglected duties.

It was well she was feeling stronger on the day that brother John placed
in her hands the packet which James had asked him to give her after his
death.  She opened it with trembling fingers and took out the thick
sheaf of papers.  What?  As she read, her eyes widened, her cheeks
flushed.  Vouchers.  Payments for debts, her son's debts, and payments
she had never known about.  Hastily she reckoned the amounts.  At least
forty thousand dollars in all, the price of so many fields James had
lost, so many worries over unpaid bills l How much he had loved her,
tried to spare her; yes, and had loved her-their son! Suddenly the tears
came, and she was weeping, freely, healingly, as she had not been able
to do since his death.  The hard core that had imprisoned her grief at
last dissolved.  As if such love as they had known could separate them,
even in deathly Tears.  And, being Dolley, she soon found them giving
way to laughter.  It came with a letter from her friend Margaret Smith
in Washington, bubbling, of course, with all the latest news and gossip.
As Dolley chuckled over doings in the capital she felt an idea take
shape. Why not?  Somehow Montpelier did not seem like home anymore
without jeremy. There was the house in Washington; it was part of her
inheritance. Richard Cutts was no longer using it, for he had left the
city.  She could leave Payne in charge of the plantation.  The
responsibility would be good for him.  After all, Montpelier would be
his someday.

Then all at once it was not just an idea, but a firm decision.  She ran
to find Anna, the niece that had taken that other Anna Payne's place not
only in name but in her affections.  The girl looked up from cutting
cloth for the slaves' winter garments, surprised at a hint of the old
sparkle in her aunt's eyes.

"My dear!" said Dolley, smiling.  "I have news for you, wonderful,
exciting news.  We're going to Washington!"

PART SEVEN

Lafayette Square

(1837-1849)

It was almost as if she had never been away, as if the twenty years of
her absence from the city had been a dream.

Washington, of course, had changed.  Houses had sprung up like mushrooms
where before there had been only marshland and woods.  Country lanes had
turned into decently paved streets.

The population had grown to more than forty thousand.  Still, much was
blessedly familiar.

Dolley liked her new house, small and simple compared with Montpelier.
Situated at the northeast corner of Lafayette Square, it was a cozy
two-story building of gray stucco with an attic and dormer windows that
looked out on the park.  She could get along very well with a minimum of
servants. Strict economy, she knew, must now be an essential rule of her
life.

It was relatives and friends who made the place seem like home.  Her
beloved nieces, Mary and Dolley Cutts, who were living nearby on
Fourteenth Street, were there to greet her.  And, to her amazement, her
coming was hailed all over the city as an event of social and political
importance.

Among the first visitors were former President John Quincy Adams, now a
Congressman, and his wife, Louisa.  After that, she was surrounded by
old friends.  Around the corner on H Street was Betsey Schuyler
Hamilton, widow of Alexander.  Then there was Mrs.  William Thornton,
who had been her next-door neighbor long ago.  There were the Henry
Clays, the Daniel Websters, and Margaret Smith.  All welcomed her back
with the same warmth she had been accorded twenty years before.  Soon
she was using the Congressional Directory to check her debts for calls.
She could not afford a carriage of her own, but she was swamped with
offers of private carriages in which to make her journeys.

The first invitation to the White House came soon after her arrival.
Dolley was apprehensive.  To revive memories of the house where she had
spent such triumphant and tragic years?  To see a stranger occupying
jeremy's place at the dinner table?  How would it make her feel?  But
she had more mundane worries.

What would she wear?  She had trunkfuls of gowns, all hopelessly
outdated.  Women were not wearing the Empire style anymore, and the
turbans she had made so fashionable were quite outmoded.

Then suddenly she had an idea.  There was the crimson velvet gown.  She
had had it made out of the curtains salvaged from the windows of the
oval drawing room on that fateful day of the fire.

Why not?  It would be a bit of droll irony, which jeremy would have
appreciated, taking the velvet back incognito to the place from which it
had made such an abrupt and ignominious departure.

"You look-regal," breathed Anna rapturously when her aunt appeared,
ready to leave, the crimson velvet altered to fit the increasingly buxom
figure.  "Just like a queen."

Queen Dolley! She smiled wryly.  Nobody had called her that for years,
and probably never would again.  She hoped not.  Somehow the words had
never seemed appropriate for the wife of the democratic James Madison.

She need not have worried about the revival of memories.

Mounting the steps of the new, twelve-columned North Portico, she might
have been entering a completely different building.

Dolley marveled at the Brussels carpets, the rich draperies, the marble
tables. And, she learned, most remarkable of all, running water had been
piped into the house.  No more sending servants to carry it from
Franklin Park half a mile away!

The new President also was no reminder of the past, for Martin Van Buren
had come to Washington as a Senator from New York in 1821, four years
after she had left.  Since then he had been Secretary of State, minister
to Great Britain, and Vice President.  Seated as guest of honor on his
right, Dolley could covertly appraise her host.  Little Magician, he was
dubbed, because of his almost uncanny ability to manipulate events to
suit his purposes.  But Dolley sensed that the suave ease of manner
masked a profound

uneasiness.  The wave of prosperity that had swept Van Buren into office
was ebbing.  And well she knew how blame for all ills soon focused on
the President! In 1812 it had been Mr.  Madison's War.  In 1837 it would
be Mr.  Van Buren's Panic.

"You have made this house a place of real beauty," she said with a warm
smile.  "I had heard that you are a connoisseur of things of fine taste,
and now I can well believe it."

"And I, my dear lady," he returned promptly, "have heard that you were
the most amiable and beloved hostess ever to grace this house, and now I
can well believe it."

Dolley detected a slight wistfulness in his voice.  And no wonder.  For
once again the White House had no hostess.  Like Jefferson, Van Buren
was a longtime widower, and his four sons were unmarried. Dolley's gaze
roamed the table, resting at last on the President's oldest son and
secretary, Abraham, a handsome young man who was the target of every
marriageable female in Washington.  A sudden gleam came into her eyes,
which jeremy would have recognized and called "that matchmaking glint."
And why not?

Wouldn't her niece Anna fit the role of hostess to perfection?

As had always been her custom, she prepared for guests on New Year's
Day, making refreshments for far more than she expected.

In fact, she wondered if anyone would come.  Again she was amazed-and
humbled.  Almost everyone who visited the White House-and that was
nearly all of Washington-came across the square to the little gray house
on the far corner.  She met the guests at the front door, Anna beside
her.  When Abraham Van Buren arrived with his brothers, Dolley was glad
that she had insisted on buying Anna a new rose-colored velvet dress,
cut in the latest style, with a high waist and low, square neck. Anna
was not beautiful.  Her charm was in her lively, loving nature, which
unfortunately revealed itself only in intimate associations.  At a time
like this she was reserved and tongue-tied.

"What did you think of the President's son, the handsomest one-Abraham,
I believe his name is?" Dolley questioned her casually in succeeding
weeks.  "It must be hard for all those boys, alone without a mother in
the White House.  Should we invite them to dinner, perhaps?"

Anna gave her a sly, knowing smile.  "Don't try," she said bluntly.  "He
isn't a bit interested in me or I in him.  And anyway"

So she gave her aunt an affectionate hug-"everything I want in life is
right here with you."

Dolley's sigh was one of relief as well as disappointment.  She could
not bear the thought of even brief separations from this dear adopted
daughter.  Not Anna.  Who, then?  She did not easily relinquish a
project.

There came a letter from one of her cousins in South Carolina, Angelica
Singleton, who was coming to Washington and hoped she could call on
Dolley while she was there. Dolley hastened to write and invite her to
be her guest.  Angelica happily accepted.

The minute she saw the girl, Dolley knew: this was the one.

She could see her greeting ambassadors and Congressmen in the East Room,
presiding at a faultlessly arranged table, conversing as knowledgeably
about politics with men as about food and dress with women.  Angelica
had attended a fashionable seminary in Philadelphia, had been to Europe.
And she was beautiful.

Wasting no time, Dolley sat down and wrote a note to the President.  A
relative visiting her was humbly desirous not only of meeting the chief
executive but of seeing the magic he had wrought in the house where her
cousin had once lived. If it would not be too great a favor ...  An
invitation to take tea with the President and his sons came by return
messenger.

Again Dolley knew the moment she saw them together.  In the following
weeks she had the satisfaction of seeing the courtship progress.  The
wedding of Abraham and Angelica was solemnized near the end of the year.
Unfortunately, Dolley's success at matchmaking was not without flaws.
True, Angelica was an impeccable hostess, presiding over the White House
with an elegance that Dolley knew she herself had never achieved.  A
honeymoon in Europe had given Angelica additional social polish-possibly
too much.  She was criticized for attempting to install European court
airs and customs.  Gossip scorned her for receiving guests seated in an
armchair on a raised dais, and for wearing a long-trained purple velvet
gown at some of her levees.

But most of Dolley's worries were more personal.  In spite of her
attempts at economy the nine thousand dollars remaining of the amount
paid by Congress was vanishing at an appalling rate.

Expenses for entertaining were an enormous drain, yet what could she do?
She could not bring disgrace on jeremy's memory

By the aged james Madison and his beloved Montpelier.

by being niggardly or reclusive.  Hospitality had always been a prime
tenet of their household.  Furthermore, the farms were not prospering.
Montpelier was costing far more than it produced.

She did not blame Payne.  It was a time of economic depression, and all
Virginia plantations were struggling for survival.  Brother-in-law
Richard and his son Madison Cutts, who acted as her advisers, were
urging her to sell Montpelier.  But the thought was horrifying.  It had
been such a part of jeremy's being that selling it would seem like a
desecration.  But something must be done.

No one seeing her during this period would have known that she was
getting desperate over her financial affairs.  She went on holding her
receptions, wearing her outmoded gowns with dignity and poise.  The name
of each guest was as ready on her lips at age seventy-five as at forty.

Still, she worried sometimes about the impression she left.

"What must people think of me!" she exclaimed to Anna one evening as the
two of them got dressed.  "Wearing clothes that are as out of date as
candles for lighting houses!  I can just hear what they must be calling
me-a frump, a laughingstock!"

Standing back, Anna gazed appreciatively at the gown Dolley was wearing
on this occasion.  She had long worn it at all state affairs and would
many times more.  It was black velvet with leg of-mutton sleeves, a
short waist, and the skirt in full gathers.  On her head was the
inevitable turban, this time of white satin covered with layers of
tulle.

"No," said Anna.  "People don't want you to change.  They like you just
the way you are.  You're like a beloved portrait, timeless, ageless.
Even young people wish they dared to imitate you.  I know.  I've heard
them talking."

Dolley gave her niece a suspicious glance, half expecting to see a sign
of mischief in the girl's eyes, for Anna loved her bit of fun.

But her eyes held no mischief.  They were clear and honest.

"Nonsense!" Dolley returned cheerfully.  "You're prejudiced, darling.
But of course it's really unimportant what people think."

Then, smiling roguishly at her reflection in the pier glass, she drew
herself up to her full height.  Well, since there was nothing she could
do about her dress, she might as well go on to the party and enjoy
herself I ON MAY 24,1844, Dolley was invited by Samuel F.  B.  Morse to
witness a test of his newly invented electric telegraph, a connection
for which had been set up between Baltimore and Washing Dolley in a
Matthew Brady daguerreotype of about 1848, and her home on Lafayette
Square. Dolley was active and popular until the end of her days-"a
national institution,"

said President Andrew Jackson.

ton.  In spite of the incredulous hoots of many of its members, the
House had voted to expend twenty-five thousand dollars for Morse's
experiment.  Inconceivable, many scoffed, that words could be
transmitted for forty miles over a little wire! At the Washington end
the tryout was to be held in the basement of the Capitol.  With sixteen
other persons Dolley stood waiting with breathless suspense to see the
experiment either succeed or fail.  Calmly Morse sent his message,
dictated by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the commissioner of patents,
Henry L.  Ellsworth: WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!

After a tense wait, the message was tapped back from Baltimore, loud and
clear: WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!

A silence fell, as electric as the impulse that brought the speeding
message!  Then the company burst into cheers.  Morse turned to Dolley.
"Mrs.  Madison, would you like to send a message?"

Dolley gasped.  What could she possibly say that would be worthy of this
historic occasion?  She looked helplessly up at Henry Clay, who was
standing beside her, but he only smiled encouragement.  Finally, common
sense came to her rescue.  After all, this was just another kind of
communication, like greeting a guest or inquiring after the health of a
friend.  And she had a cousin in Baltimore, wife of Congressman John
Wethered.

"Message from Mrs.  Madison," she said clearly.  "She sends her love to
Mrs.  Wethered." Not a bad message, certainly, one of love between two
persons, to follow that first tribute to divine power.

Personally, Dolley had little to celebrate that summer.  In July she
received a horrifying letter from her trusted slave Sarah, who kept her
informed about happenings at Montpelier:

My mistress: I don't like to send you bad news but the condition of all
of us is very bad.  The sheriff has taken us and says he will sell us at
next court unless something is done ...  to prevent it.  We are afraid
we shall be bought by what are called negro buyers and sent away from
our husbands and wives.  The sale is a fortnight from next Monday, but
perhaps you could make some bargain with somebody by which we could be
kept together.

"Well did Dolley know who was responsible for this situation?" James'
brother, William, who had always been intensely jealous of Payne's
status as the eventual heir of Montpelier.  He had recently brought suit
against the estate for a sum he claimed was due him from his father's
will, and he had threatened to have the slaves seized as surely.

That Payne had known of this development and had not told her was
indicated by a notation he had made in his diary on June 4: "I have
promised to meet Mr.  Fraser to give him a list of Negroes belonging to
Mrs.  Madison on Thursday, the 20th of June, for the purpose of a levy
in the case of Madison vs.  Madison."

Dolley was appalled.  See her beloved servants put on the auction block,
husbands separated from wives, mothers from children?  Sarah ...  Sukey
...  Paul Jennings....  She knew what she must do-not for herself.  She
would rather starve first.  But for her "people," who had served so
faithfully-yes, and for jeremy.  She could almost hear what he would
say: "Persons, my dear.  They are always more important than things."
But was there time?  Two weeks, Sarah had said, and letters did not
carry swiftly.

Dolley sat down immediately and wrote to Henry Moncure, of Richmond, to
whom she had sold a small portion of the Montpelier property some years
ago and who had offered to purchase the whole estate.  Yes, she would
sell it, and for the low price he had offered, provided that all the
slaves could be included without breaking up their families or
abandoning the aged ones.  She sent the letter off by special messenger,
commissioned to make utmost haste and to wait for an answer.  He carried
out his mission well.

By the time the two weeks were up, the deal had been consummated. Dolley
sent Moncure a deed to the estate on August 12, but he noted a keen
regret in her letter: "No one, I think, can appreciate my feeling of
grief and dismay at the necessity of transferring to another a beloved
home."

Bothered by this note of reluctance, Moncure wrote that he would cancel
the sale if she wished, even suggesting that he might make some
arrangements with her creditors so she could retain some part of
Montpelier.  But she refused.  All she asked was the ownership of the
family burial ground and the privilege of choosing some of the furniture
and a few of the slaves.

There.  It was done.  The servants were safe in their cabins.  The few
favorites she had chosen to keep were to go to Payne at Toddsberth.
True, Payne would never inherit Montpelier, her dearest wish, but she
had become reconciled to this eventuality.

He had never succeeded with the plantation, and now his interests were
mainly focused on Toddsberth.

Payne was given the power of attorney and handled the transfer of the
property.  He moved most of the valuable furniture to Toddsberth, all of
Dolley's books and papers, and the treasured works of art.  His building
operations proceeded at an even more grandiose scale, encouraged by
thettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt possible new source of
income, which, knowing his mother, he would have largely at his
disposal.tttttttttttttttttttttt

However, Moncure kept postponing payments, due to his dissatisfaction
with certain statements in the deed.

"The sale to Moncure I consider a most unfortunate one," Payne was
writing his mother in September, "and would certainly wish it done away
with for he is a source of more difficulty than could have been
apprehended." Unfortunate, he might have added, because the delay in
payment retarded some of his own most urgent plans.

It was Dolley who suffered most from the delay.  Aware that the sale had
been made, creditors closed in.  The Bank of the Metropolis urgently
demanded the payment of a loan.  Since there was already a lien on her
house, she offered to mortgage her furniture and personal effects. Never
had she felt more destitute.

Then, at last, a ray of light.  Late in that year of 1844 the Senate
authorized the purchase of the remainder of james' papers. Dolley's
spirits soared. Now, please God, the waiting would soon be over.

She had fulfilled her commission from jeremy, and, significant but of
less importance, her financial embarrassment would be relieved.  She
could pay her debts and have enough left over to carry on her public and
domestic life.

But time passed, and the House of Representatives failed to follow the
lead of the Senate.  She was now almost at the end of her resources.  It
was well she did not know that she would wait another four whole years
before action would finally be taken.

"THIS iS Where I came inly" she might have told herself as she dressed
for the inaugural ceremonies marking the end of one administration and
the beginning of another.  How many Presidents had there been?  Ten,
this retiring one would make, and she had known them all.  Washington
and his Martha had encouraged and blessed her marriage, in fact had been
family relations.  John Adams, Vice President when jeremy was in
Congress, had been their friend in spite of political differences.  She
had been hostess for Jefferson, First Lady for Madison, close friend of
fellow Virginian Monroe.  John Quincy Adams had been first to call on
her after her return to Washington and was still in Congress.  She had
welcomed Jackson back from his victory at New Orleans, found a glamorous
White House hostess for Van Buren.  She had seen William Henry Harrison,
the hero of Tippecanoe, swept into office, and for four years John Tyler
had been her neighbor and friend.

This new President was less known, not just to her but to most of the
nation.  "Who is James K.  Polk?" had been the satiric campaign slogan
of the Whigs.  Though Polk had been speaker of the House and governor of
Tennessee, as a presidential candidate he was a dark horse.  He had won
the election over the Whig Henry Clay because of the Democrats' popular
platform plank, annexation of Texas and Oregon.  The country was in an
expansionist mood, and all eyes were focused on the west.

It was a rainy day in March 1845- As John Quincy Adams remarked, the new
President delivered his address "to a large assemblage of umbrellas."
Dolley was under one of the umbrellas, attending the ceremony with
friends, and she was amazed when afterward President Polk walked across
Lafayette Square to greet her.  He had paid her a signal honor.  She
would have been, even more surprised could she have heard an exchange
between him and an acquaintance at the White House reception that day.

"I see Mrs.  Madison is here," the guest remarked.  "She has certainly
become a Washington institution."

"Sir," replied the President, "let me correct you.  As President Jackson
once said of her, she is a national institution."

THE country was in turmoil over the issue of further westward expansion.
To Dolley negotiations with Mexico for new U.S.

territory seemed like the War of 1812 all over again.  There were the
same drumbeats, the same uniformed lines outside her windows, the same
hot arguments.  But the names overheard in her drawing room were
different-Texas, Oregon, California.  The opponents whom she tried to
conciliate called themselves not Federalists and Republicans but Whigs
and Democrats.

Fortunately, when Congress declared war on Mexico in 1846, it did not
touch Dolley personally.  Mexico seemed even farther away than had
England in 1812, and she had more than enough to worry about with her
own problems.  Her debts were tremendous.

The deed to Montpelier, it seemed, was still in question.  But she could
not find out from Payne exactly what was delaying Moncure's payments for
the estate.  And when any money did come, it was barely enough to pay
the interest on her debts.  She refused to harbor suspicion, as Anna
did, that Payne's lavish building enterprise was progressing partly via
funds received from Moncure.

One day during this period she was surprised when Paul Jennings,
jeremy's faithful body servant, turned up in Washington.

He had been living at Toddsberth, presumably performing the same
services for Payne that he had for James. Dolley was delighted.  He
could give her news of her son! But Paul was stubbornly close-mouthed on
the subject.  It was only by persistent prodding that she got him to
admit the truth.  Paul had come to her because he did not like the way
things were going at Toddsberth, especially the selling of the slaves.
Perhaps-how did he know?-he might be next.

Dolley gasped.  "You-you mean-Payne has been selling-?"

Oh, yes, didn't she know?  He had sold several.  She must have been
told, for they were her slaves.  His eyes became probing.

Dolley was stunned.  Payne had sent her no reports, certainly no money,
from such sales.  She sat down immediately and wrote him, knowing,
however, that she would probably receive no answer.

Soon afterward Daniel Webster came to her with a startling request.  He
wanted to buy Paul Jennings.  He would pay him each month for his
services, so that in a short time he could purchase his freedom.

"H-" Dolley was so surprised that at first she could find no words.
"I-shall have to consult with Paul-"

"He and I have already talked about the matter," said Webster.

"In fact, it was he who-" He stopped, embarrassed.

And suddenly Dolley knew.  He and Paul had devised this scheme to help
relieve her dire financial stress.  She had tried not to let people
know, but this kindly, discerning neighbor had been long cognizant of
the truth.

Paul Jennings became Webster's property, serving him faithfully as once
he had cared for his beloved Madison ...  serving Dolley too, for he was
in a position to observe conditions in her house and report them to his
new master and mistress.  Sometimes, when he was sure Dolley and her
household were actually in need of food, a basket of groceries would
pass between the two kitchens, many times without Dolley's knowledge. It
was a way the neighbors could help without seeming to give charity.

Dolley's letters to Payne continued to express confidence in his ability
to solve their problems despite his delinquencies:

My dearest-It has been too long since I was cheered with a line from
you-What are you about that prevents your communicating with your
mother?  You are taking care of our mutual property of every sort, I
trust-and my confidence in you to restore it to me is not diminished by
the sad and tedious time in which I have been deprived of its use....
Anxious-Mother.

On September 24, 1847, she was writing:

I have borrowed as you must know to live since and before we parted
last, but I am now at a stand, until supplies come from you....  I have
nothing to convey away nor with which to benefit myself My eye rebels.
Adieu for this time.

Then, with the arrival of the new year.  .  .  came hope.  Congress was
considering again the purchase of jeremy's remaining papers.

And finally, on May 2o, 1848, her eightieth birthday, it happened.

One of her favorite nephews, Richard's grandson, young James Madison
Cutts, ran into the house, radiant, out of breath.

"It-passed!" he gasped.  "The motion.  Father sent me-from Congress to
tell you.  He said you'd want to know -quick.  It's good news, isn't it?
And-happy birthday, Auntie!"

She hugged him to her tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks.  "My
dear, thank you! You can't know what good news this isle" Twelve years
she had waited for it, longer than this shining-eyed boy so dear to her
had lived! It was a gala day, that May 20, With the house crowded with
visitors.  Congratulations began to pour in from all over the country.
Dolley had agreed to the terms of the bill sometime before.

Congress would pay her twenty-five thousand dollars for the documents.
It would not purchase them outright, but would set up a trust giving her
an annual income.  (This was a device, of course, engineered by her
friends, to keep the money out of the hands of her notoriously greedy
son.)  But five thousand dollars was made immediately available for her
to discharge her debts.  Seventy dollars of it went to redeem the silver
forks and spoons on which she had borrowed money.  Twenty more was spent
to reclaim a gold chain that she treasured.  And, oh, the relief in
being able to face the world, knowing that she owed no one a penny!

Payne was not pleased with the arrangement, and even considered suing
the trustees.  However, he was dissuaded at his mother's urgent request.
All seemed well at last. Dolley's debts were paid. The papers, jeremy's
bequest to future generations, would be preserved.

That fall saw the election of General Zachary Taylor as the twelfffi
President.  It also brought Dolley more freedom from financial worry
than she had known in years.  At last the problem of the deed that had
held up the settlement with Moncure was resolved.  Payments began to
come regularly.  An agreement had also been made to satisfy William
Madison's claim.

At President Polk's last reception, on February 7, 1849, Dolley, at
eighty, looked as young as the fifty-three-year-old President, and far
more animated.  Polk had burned himself out in securing territories that
made the country nearly as large as the whole of Europe. Dolley did not
wear her black velvet on this occasion.

Perhaps her freedom from dire poverty inspired a burst of extravagance,
or perhaps she sensed that the event marked for her the end of an era.
She had known eleven Presidents and had played in many of their
administrations a role that would remain unique in American history. The
incoming President was a stranger, and she welcomed the prospect of less
social involvement.  Indeed, she was feeling a little tired some of the
time these days.  But tonight's gala was certainly a climax for the
folks, and she wanted to do justice to it.  She wore a white satin gown,
its draping of sheerest tulle, and a turban of white satin.  She sat on
a raised platform with the First Lady, who, Dolley knew, wanted nothing
so much as to get her harassed husband away to their home in Tennessee.

That night President Polk recorded the evening's activities in his
diary.

Wednesday, 7th February, 1849.  All the parlours including the East Boom
were lighted up.  The Marine band of musicians occupied the outer hall.
Many hundreds of persons, ladies and gentlemen, attended.  It was what
would be called in the Society of Washington a very fashionable levee.
Towards the close of the evening I passed through the crowded rooms with
the venerable Mrs.  Madison on my arm....

"ARE you sure you are well, Auntie dear?" Anna was definitely worried
that July day.  "You don't seem like yourself."

"It must be the heat, darling.  I am just a little tired.  We all get
that way sometimes."

But not Dolley, Anna told herself.  She had never seen her ceaselessly
active and ebullient aunt like this before. Dolley appeared to have
something on her mind, something that worried her. "Oh, for my
counselor!" she mourned more than once.  Did it have some relation to
Payne's visit in June, wondered Anna, when they had been closeted for
such a long time?  He had been urging her, Anna suspected, to make a
will, But it did not really matter to Anna.  He should know that, will
or no will, he was his mother's legal heir.  Certainly she herself,
though considered an adopted daughter, had no claim and desired none.

Dolley had no wish to share the details of that June encounter with
anyone, least of all her beloved Anna.  In fact, it was because of Anna
that she now felt so disturbed.  What had she done! But Payne had been
so reasonable, so lovable, and so persuasive!

"You remember that at Father's request I helped him make a will." He had
come at last to the purpose of his visit.  "Everyone should do it, you
know, even people as young as I am."

Dolley sighed.  "I know, dear.  Madison Cutts has been suggesting-"

"There!  You see?  It's considered the proper thing, even though a
person may have years to live, as we all trust you have." He drew a
sheet of paper from his pocket.  "It just happens that I jotted down a
few notes which you might like to check.  I made it very simple."

Dolley took the paper.  Yes, he had made it simple indeed.

Everything, including all claim to the trust set up by Congress, was to
go to her son.

"I knew that was what you would want," he said beguilingly.

"Now why don't you let me find some witnesses, and we can finish it here
and now.  Then you will have no further worries."

"But-" Dolley protested.  Something did not seem quite right.

"Anna-"

"Of course," he reassured her.  "Anna will be taken care of.  I
understand your concern."

Dolley was scarcely aware of what happened next.  It all seemed vague.
Payne rounded up a couple of witnesses, and obediently she wrote her
name where he indicated.  So pleasant were the hours that followed, like
the old times?-when his presence had brought gaiety to the house, that
she almost forgot the uncertainty and worry which had accompanied his
visit.

As days passed, the worry persisted.  But what could she do?

"Oh, for my counselor!"

Then all at once she could hear his voice, quiet ' sane, reassuring.  "A
mistake, my dear, I have found, can often be corrected."

Of course.  How simple!  Her eyes brightened with purpose.

"Bring me some paper, dear, " she told Anna, " and a good quill.

Not one of those steel things, I can't bear them."

Relieved, Anna brought the writing utensils.  But Dolley had written
only a few words when she relinquished the quill.  "You do it, dear.  My
hands and eyes don't seem to get together."

Anna regarded with dismay the few shaky lines on the paper.

just three months ago Dolley's handwriting had been almost as even as a
calligrapher's script.  And Anna was even more dismayed when Dolley
began dictating her will.

Dutifully Anna wrote down the provisions.  Ten thousand dollars of the
amount appropriated by Congress was to go to her adopted daughter, Anna
Payne; another ten thousand to her son, John Payne Todd.  Everything
else-the Washington house, furniture, valuable paintings-was also to go
to her son.

"There!" Dolley leaned back, satisfied.  For weeks she had been
regretting the document she had signed under Payne's persuasion.  It had
not been fair to leave her dear Anna nothing.

"Now it must be made legal.  Get your cousin Madison to arrange it,
dear, and bring it here for me to sign."

On July 9 the will was properly executed and signed by Dolley and three
witnesses, including Eliza Collins Lee, who was in Washington. The two
friends spent hours together talking of old times, reverting naturally
to the thees and thus of their Quaker youth.  To Anna's relief Dolley
acted quite like her old self, except that all the rest of that day she
seemed to be Ii the past, recalling events of her childhood.

"Did I ever tell thee, Anna, about how I lost a pin shaped like a
butterfly?  It was only a cheap little bauble, but, oh, how I loved it!
I found another almost like it years afterward, and I bought it.

It's in my jewel case, I think.  If thee will go and find it, dear, I
would like to show thee."

Anna returned empty-handed, frustrated, almost angry at herself.  There
were so few things her aunt wanted these days.  Not to be able to
satisfy her, and with such a small request!

"My dear." Dolley smiled.  "Do not trouble thyself about it.

There is really nothing, nothing, in this world worth caring for.

Yes," she said thoughtfully, "that is what my mother once told me.

The next morning, Tuesday, Dolley was too weak to get up.  "I think I'll
just lie here for a little. Nothing to worry about, dear."

But of course they did worry, all her relatives and friends.

Many came to her bedside during the next two days.  She slept a great
deal, but sometimes she would awaken, and as one of her nieces later
remembered, she would "smile her long smile, put out her arms to embrace
those whom she loved and were near her, then gently relapse into rest."
That she was conscious of one missing face was evident from her
occasional murmurs, "My poor boy!  My poor boyle" Anna had sent a
messenger posthaste to Toddsberth, but so swiftly did the illness
progress that she had no hope of his arriving in time.

Dolley had never been one to postpone a commitment.  She did not now.
Presently, while Anna was reading to her from her favorite book of St.
John, she fell into an even deeper sleep and never regained
consciousness.  On Thursday, July 12, 1849, just two days after taking
to her bed, she was gone.  Apoplexy, the doctors pronounced it.  More
likely, felt Anna, it was just that she had lived her life to the full,
and was ready to go.

Guests crowded the little house all the rest of the week, as they had
done so many times during the past twelve years.  It was only a few
steps across the street to St.  John's Episcopal Church.  At the
services on Monday afternoon the church was filled.  All the noted men
and women of the city were there, come to do honor, not only to the wife
of a former President but to Queen Dolley, their beloved friend.

No President or general could have been followed by a more imposing
cortege than the one that accompanied her on the journey to the
Congressional Cemetery.  Payne Todd had requested that her body be
placed there temporarily, until it could be removed to the family plot,
where James was buried.  The procession, it was noted, was the largest
yet seen in the city.  Its order was impressive.  The family, the
President and his Cabinet, the diplomatic corps, members of the Senate
and House of Representatives, justices of the Supreme Court, officers of
the army and navy, the mayor of Washington, and, last but by no means
least in numbers, citizens and strangers.

It was over, this life that had spanned more than eighty years,
encompassed the terms of twelve Presidents, made an indelible impress on
the manners and culture of an emerging nation, influenced its political
history as few others would ever do, saved some of its most precious
treasures for future generations.  Of course there were many eulogies,
most of them extravagant and flowery after the style of the period.

Beloved by all who personally knew her, this venerable Lady closed her
long and well-spent life with the calm resignation which goodness of
heart combined with piety only can impart.

But no words could have expressed the love and admiration of the country
better than the simple statement of its twelfffi President, who had
known her for only a short time.

"What an extraordinary, great lady she was!" said Zachary Taylor.
"America will never know another like Mrs.  Madison."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Diminutive, energetic, a Down East accent and a wry, New England humor:
these are characteristics that strike a new acquaintance on meeting
Dorothy Clarke Wilson.  One would hardly guess that this plain-speaking
great-grandmother is also an internationally known playwright, novelist
and biographer.

Dolley Madison caught the author's attention as a subject because of the
crucial role she played in preserving her husband's writings.  "Of
course, she's well remembered in her own right," Mrs.  Wilson says. "But
without Dolley we'd know far less about the formation of this country.
That means a lot now, when we're about to celebrate the bicentennial of
the Constitution in 1987."

The eighty-two-year-old Mrs.  Wilson has her own fascinating story to
tell.

Like Dolley Madison, she has clearly been following an inner light all
her life.

She was born in Gardiner, Maine, the only child of a Baptist minister,
and as a girl she was plagued by a troublesome slammer.  Writing became
a compensating joy.  Her first poem was composed at age ten.  Later, in
high school and college she won prizes for her stories.

But it wasn't until after she married Elwin Wilson, a college classmate
and future Methodist minister, that her profession began to take shape.
In the mid-1920s she wrote a religious play for heir husband's
congregation.  An immediate success, it was followed by many more plays
and several highly acclaimed Biblical novels.  One of these, Prince of
Egypt, was the basis for Cecil B.  De Milled's great film The Ten
Commandments in 1956.  Since then she has turned her talents to
biographical novels. Dolley is the nineteenth!  And the once shy
stammerer has taught writing and delivered over a thousand lectures in
the United States, Great Britain, Mexico and Egypt.

"It has been a marvelous, exciting life," she says.  "And although I've
passed the milestone of fourscore years, I still feel that, as the poet
Robert Frost put it, I have 'miles to go before I sleep." After all, my
father lived to be ninety-six!"

Dorothy Clarke Wilson