.Have just finished the account of Adams' time in France trying to win French naval support for the Revolution. I'm absolutely charmed by his impressions of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Voltaire --and Benjamin Franklin, of course. It's also nice to hear a more balanced account of Adams, who tends to come off as an old prude in a lot of histories: which characterization, it turns out, is not really fair. He loved the French and France, adored the theater and opera, and both he and Abigail could roll with a bawdy remark or a double entendre when the occasion called for it.
Enjoyed this mordant observation of McCullough's, regarding the French Foreign Minister:
Vergennes found Adams' unquestioned integrity unsettling.Heh.
