Let us now return to the whirlpool of society proper, as in those days known. The first presidential mansion, as is well known, was on Market Street, Philadelphia, and thither repaired the diplomats of foreign nations as well as our own statesmen and politicians,--the latter class already threatening to grow to unseemly proportions. Moreover, thither repaired most of the social leaders of their time, and the president's receptions, at which punch and cake were the staple refreshments, soon became at least as distinctly social as political in their aspects and influences. "The coteries of the Lady Presidentess" was the name bestowed by certain disgruntled persons on the frequenters of these functions, and there were murmurs as to lack of republican simplicity. Yet there was in the manner of these receptions little to call forth animadversion from the most uncompromising democrat; and the like functions of Mrs. Adams, less official but more social in character, were almost equally lacking in ornateness.
Still there was much gaiety in the Quaker City while it held its place as the seat of government. "I have not," writes Miss Mary Binney, a belle of this time, "one minute to spare from French, music, balls, and plays. Oh, dear, this dissipation will kill me! for you must know our social tea drinkings of _one or two friends_ is an assembly of two or three hundred souls."
The dissipation shocked some of the staider souls; and we find Mrs. Stoddert, in a letter to her niece, quoting her husband to the effect that "large towns are terrible places for young females." This was the pessimistic view of society which is always to the fore, whatever the existing conditions; but it seems to have had very little warrant at that time. The balls and "parties" brought together many of the leading beauties and wits of the day; and the Due de Rochefoucauld declared that "in the numerous assemblies of Philadelphia it is impossible to meet with what is called a plain woman." This assertion was somewhat hyperbolical; but among the famous Philadelphia beauties were Miss Sallie McKean, Mrs. William Bingham, Mrs. Samuel Blodgett, Mrs. James Allen and her daughters, and others hardly less notable; while from New York--by birth if not by actual residence--came such as Mrs. Ralph Izard and Mrs. Elbridge Gerry, and from further afield, Mrs. John Jay, who was once, while in Paris, mistaken by a French audience for the reigning queen, Marie Antoinette, and had no reason to be overflattered by the mistake, if we are to judge from the best portraits of the two beautiful women.