Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1180196
30 THE CAPITOL DOME D.C. Although John Quincy did not inform her about the Russia post until it was time to leave, she traveled with her husband to Russia in 1809 and stayed in St. Petersburg until 1815. To meet John Quincy in Paris while he was negotiating the Treaty of Ghent in 1814–15, Louisa Cather- ine and her son departed from St. Petersburg and traveled unaccompanied (for the most part) across Europe, a jour- ney made even more dangerous by the retreat of Napo- leon's armies across the continent and ubiquitous Euro- pean social customs which shunned women who traveled without their husbands. She reunited with her husband in 1815 in Paris and traveled with him to London in 1815, where they lived until they returned to the United States in 1817. 5 While living in Washington, D.C. for much of the next decade, Louisa Catherine entertained politicians, diplomats, and their wives during parties, balls, and din- ner receptions both at the Adamses' F Street house and the White House. When she and her husband returned to Washington in 1831, she continued to live at the F Street house, but entertained fewer people and less frequently. Where her husband increasingly took a stand in the House of Representatives for the freedom to debate slavery, Louisa started to think about the freedom of women. Upon her death in 1852, Congress adjourned for her funeral, attended by the president, heads of depart- ments, Members of Congress, and numerous citizens of Washington. 6 Remembering Their Writings Since John Quincy Adams's death in 1848, various his- torians and authors have transcribed selections of his diaries, stored at and fully digitized by the Massachusetts Historical Society's Adams Family Papers. Spanning from his first entries in 1779 through his final entries in 1848, he privately wrote about not only political and dip- lomatic affairs, but also his private and family life. Biog- raphers of Adams and other editors of his diaries suggest that Adams used the diary to improve himself, develop his political arguments, and transition between phases of his career. For Adams, the diary served "as a confes- sional, an aide—memoir, and a proving ground for his thoughts on everything from public policy to philoso- phy"—such as his evolution on slavery throughout this career. Whereas some historians who celebrate Adams's politics find much inspiration in the diary, others critical of his politics have dismissed the diaries and his antislav- ery politics as a cover for partisanship. Nevertheless, the diaries are useful for their summaries and commentaries on cabinet meetings, congressional debates, and conver- sations with prominent politicians. The diary illuminates not only Adams's political and intellectual development, but also his personality and character; the diary "allows us to know this guarded and taciturn man and to occupy his world." 7 Where biographers have covered comprehensively John Quincy's life and work, only in recent decades have they started looking fully at Louisa Catherine's life, her role in the family, and her relationship with national pol- itics. Overshadowed by the political prestige of her hus- band, father-in-law John Adams, mother-in-law Abigail Adams, and son Charles Francis Adams, Louisa Cath- erine Johnson Adams received minimal attention in her own lifetime. Historians likely have devoted min- imal attention to her because "she was contradic- tory…[ h]er character was quicksilver, and the roles she held were unofficial." She was "a first lady in a country that was not entirely her own….torn between cultural and familial ideals and strong instincts that she could not ignore." The titles of each of her memoirs suggests a struggle to define her own identity, the means through which she found her voice, one that was "vivid and pro- pulsive" rather than "sickly and delicate." Through these works, she likely intended to preserve her own voice and reputation against members of the Adams family (with whom she had tenuous relations as an outsider to the family) and for posterity. 8 Louisa Catherine wrote a diary while in Russia between October 1812 and February 1814 and again peri- odically after 1819. She infrequently wrote diaries from 1835 to 1841 and 1844 to 1849 in which she meditated on literature, religion, and philosophy. In addition to the diary journals, she wrote three memoirs between 1825 and 1840 about the period from her early life through her journey from St. Petersburg to Paris in 1815. The earliest is her "Record of a Life" (1825) which covers her child- hood through her arrival in Prussia. Her second memoir, "Narrative of a Journey from Russia to France" (1836) recounts her trip two decades earlier from St. Petersburg to Paris. In 1840 she started writing her third memoir, "The Adventures of a Nobody," while she was concerned about the dangers facing the family and the declining health of her husband. Using her husband's daily diary entries for details, she wrote about the period from her wedding through their time in St. Petersburg, a period that notably covers her early life in Washington. Many of the letters reflect her commentaries in the diaries and memoirs, but there are many others which provide more details and longer accounts than the diaries. While she