Meanwhile Morris, instead of returning to America, was forced by his business affairs to prolong his stay abroad for several years. During this time he journeyed at intervals through England, the Netherlands, Germany, Prussia, and Austria. His European reputation was well established, and he was everywhere received gladly into the most distinguished society of the time. What made him especially welcome was his having now definitely taken sides with the anti-revolutionists in the great conflict of arms and opinions then raging through Europe; and his brilliancy, the boldness with which he had behaved as minister during the Terror, and the reputation given him by the French _emigrés_, all joined to cause him to be hailed with pleasure by the aristocratic party. It is really curious to see the consideration with which he was everywhere treated, although again a mere private individual, and the terms of intimacy on which he was admitted into the most exclusive social and diplomatic circles at the various courts. He thus became an intimate friend of many of the foremost people of the period. His political observation, however, became less trustworthy than heretofore; for he was undoubtedly soured by his removal, and the excesses of the revolutionists had excited such horror in his mind as to make him no longer an impartial judge. His forecasts and judgments on the military situation in particular, although occasionally right, were usually very wild. He fully appreciated Napoleon's utter unscrupulousness and marvelous mendacity; but to the end of his life he remained unwilling to do justice to the emperor's still more remarkable warlike genius, going so far, after the final Russian campaign, as to speak of old Kutusoff as his equal. Indeed, in spite of one or two exceptions,--notably his predicting almost the exact date of the retreat from Moscow,--his criticisms on Napoleon's military operations do not usually stand much above the rather ludicrous level recently reached by Count Tolstoï.
Morris was relieved by Monroe in August, 1794, and left Paris for Switzerland in October. He stopped at Coppet and spent a day with Madame de Staël, where there was a little French society that lived at her expense and was as gay as circumstances would permit. He had never been particularly impressed with the much vaunted society of the salon, and this small survival thereof certainly had no overpowering attraction for him, if we may judge by the entry in his diary: "The road to her house is up-hill and execrable, and I think I shall not again go thither." Mankind was still blind to the grand beauty of the Alps,--it must be remembered that the admiration of mountain scenery is, to the shame of our forefathers be it said, almost a growth of the present century,--and Morris took more interest in the Swiss population than in their surroundings. He wrote that in Switzerland the spirit of commerce had brought about a baseness of morals which nothing could cure but the same spirit carried still further:--"It teaches eventually fair dealing as the most profitable dealing. The first lesson of trade is, My son, get money. The second is, My son, get money, honestly if you can, but get money. The third is, My son, get money; but honestly, if you would get much money."