Gallatin has been blamed for "taking life awry and throwing away the advantages of education, social position, and natural intelligence," by his removal to the frontier, and his career compared with that of Hamilton and Dallas, who, like him, foreign born, rose to eminence in politics, and became secretaries of the treasury of the United States. But both of these were of English-speaking races. No foreigner of any other race ever obtained such distinction in American politics as Mr. Gallatin, and he only because he was the choice of a constituency, to every member of which he was personally known. It is questionable whether in any other condition of society he could have secured advancement by election--the true source of political power in all democracies. John Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice, recognized Gallatin's talent soon after his arrival in Richmond, offered him a place in his office without a fee, and assured him of future distinction in the profession of the law; but Patrick Henry was the more sagacious counselor; he advised Gallatin to go to the West, and predicted his success as a statesman. Modest as the beginning seemed in the country he had chosen, it was nevertheless a start in the right direction, as the future showed. It was in no sense a mistake.

Neither did the affairs of the wilderness wholly debar intercourse with the civilized world. Visiting Richmond every winter, he gradually extended the circle of his acquaintance, and increased his personal influence; he also occasionally passed a few weeks at Philadelphia. Two visits to Maine are recorded in his diary, but whether they were of pleasure merely does not appear. One was in 1788, in midwinter, by stage and sleigh. On this excursion he descended the Androscoggin and crossed Merrymeeting Bay on the ice, returning by the same route in a snowstorm, which concealed the banks on either side of the river, so that he governed his course by the direction of the wind. With the intellect of a prime minister he had the constitution of a pioneer. On one of these occasions he intended to visit his old friends and hosts, the Lesderniers, but the difficulty of finding a conveyance, and the rumor that the old gentleman was away from home, interfered with his purpose. He remembered their kindness, and later attempted to obtain pensions for them from the United States government.

But the time now arrived when the current of his domestic life was permanently diverted, and set in other channels. In May, 1789, he married Sophie Allegre, the daughter of William Allegre of a French Protestant family living at Richmond. The father was dead, and the mother took lodgers, of whom Gallatin was one. For more than a year he had addressed her and secured her affections. Her mother now refused her consent, and no choice was left to the young lovers but to marry without it. Little is known of this short but touching episode in Mr. Gallatin's life. The young lady was warmly attached to him, and the letter written to her mother asking forgiveness for her marriage is charmingly expressed and full of feeling. They passed a few happy months at Friendship Hill, when suddenly she died. From this time Mr. Gallatin lost all heart in the western venture, and his most earnest wish was to turn his back forever upon Fayette County. In his suffering he would have returned to Geneva to Mademoiselle Pictet, could he have sold his Virginia lands. But this had become impossible at any price, and he had no other pecuniary resource but the generosity of his family.

Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in France. The rights of man had been proclaimed on the Champ de Mars. All Europe was uneasy and alarmed, and nowhere offered a propitious field for peaceful labor. But Gallatin did not long need other distraction than he was to find at home.