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On August 24, 1814, the British torched the Capitol. Madison was a refugee in the hills, and his wife, Dolley, too, had to make a run for it. She hurriedly grabbed everything of value she could, including the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. Paul Jennings, a slave born on Madison's estate in 1799, wrote: "I was always with Mr. Madison till he died, and shaved him every other day for sixteen years. He was very neat, but never extravagant, in his clothes. He always dressed wholly in black‹coat, breeches, and silk stockings, with buckles in his shoes and breeches." Madison's nose was scarred from frostbite. He claimed it was a wound received in defense of his country. Chronic arthritis afflicted Madison from middle age onwards. In a letter to James Monroe, dated April 21, 1831, he wrote: "In explanation of my microscopic writing, I must remark that the older I grow the more my stiffening fingers make smaller letters, as my feet take shorter steps; the progress in both cases being, at the same time, more fatiguing as well as more slow." By his early eighties, Madison started to fade away. His vision and his hearing deteriorated, and he grew thinner and weaker. During his final illness, he refused the requests of friends to take stimulants in order to prolong his life until the Fourth of July. On his deathbed he said to his wife, "Nothing but a change of mind, my dear." Madison was found dead in his bedroom, sitting in front of his untouched breakfast tray. d. June 27, 1836 (Montpelier, Vermont), at 85, of old age. |