Jeffersons duties in France involved the negotiation of
commercial treaties with several European powers. Fortunately,
he was not alone in this difficult task, having been preceded by
elder statesmen John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, with whom Jefferson
now joined ranks. Because of the decentralized federal government under
the Articles of Confederation (See
the Articles of Confederation SparkNote), even this
most formidable American triumvirate could find little success
in their skillful negotiations.
Many European powers viewed the United States as a rebellious splinter
from the British Empire that was bound to fold before it ever prospered.
Such an opinion was in part supported by the fact that fully 85
percent of goods for sale or trade in the United States continued
to flow in from Britain. Nevertheless, Jefferson and company enjoyed
a significant victory in 1785 when they secured a treaty with Frederick
the Great of Prussia. This opened up the floodgates for further
talks among lesser European sovereignties, such as Denmark and
Tuscany.
Just over a year after arriving in Paris, Jefferson found
himself as the sole remaining United States minister to France.
Adams was given a new assignment in Britain, where an already
tense relationship was flagging. Franklin, approaching eighty,
had decided to retire after a long and illustrious decade in France.
Jefferson was quite mindful of his debt to Franklin. When asked
if he had been tabbed as Franklins replacement, Jefferson replied,
No, sir, I succeed him; no one can replace him.
Though modest in dress, Jefferson was impressive in deportment,
and quickly rose from an unknown diplomat to a much sought-after
member of Parisian society. Despite his financial constraints,
he eventually took up residence in a splendid villa on the Champs-Elysees,
complete with stables and an extensive garden featuring American
crops such as corn, sweet potatoes, and watermelons. He placed
his daughter Patsy in a convent school, and arranged French cooking
lessons for his slave James Hemings.
Even as social commitments occupied large spaces of Jeffersons time,
there were also diplomatic matters to attend to. An especial frustration
was found in the tyranny of the North African principalities such
as Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, who demanded exorbitant
tribute monies just as they endeavored to imprison American sailors.
While Jefferson saw this as an occasion to increase the naval
power of the United States, Congress remained reluctant to centralize
power in such an aggressive fashion. In time, Jefferson worked
out a treaty with Morocco to free several prisoners and suspend
all tribute demands. However, this success was not replicated
in discussions with the other North African powers, who continued
to plague the United States for decades.
To complicate matters, the British insurance firms insisted
on steep premiums for American freighters bound for the Mediterranean,
even after Jeffersons treaty with Morocco. And while Jefferson
eventually worked out a commercial treaty with France, Adams continued
to struggle in his efforts with Britain. Thinking to help Adams,
Jefferson traveled to London in the spring of 1786, but both men
were thoroughly spurned in their efforts to negotiate with King
George III. For Jefferson, the trip was salvaged by an extensive
tour of the English countryside, where he saw many of the most famous
state mansions and landscape gardens of the day. These visits
only served to reconfirm his commitment to the principles of classical
architecture.
Upon returning to France, Jefferson found his standing
much increased by the recent publication there of his Notes
on the State of Virginia and Statute of Virginia
for Religious Freedom, the latter only recently adopted
by the Virginia Assembly. Together, these two tracts secured Jeffersons
reputation as a leading Enlightenment thinker and reformer. Within
the cultural wealth of Paris, he did much to cultivate his celebrity,
embarking on projects ranging from a study of English prosody to
an investigation of the natural history of North America to a French
translation of his own Notes.
While right at home in the intellectual swirl of Paris,
Jefferson was at times less comfortable with the social milieu.
He professed to be scandalized by the lack of domestic morality
among French aristocrats, and was highly disdainful of the offhanded
manner with which many of his associates treated their liaisons.
But down through history, Jeffersons biographers have debated
as to whether his main objection was to a lack of decorum or a
lack of discretion.
Whether consummated or not, it is clear that while in
Paris Jefferson developed a romantic attachment to Maria Cosway,
a young English painter raised in Italy, and fully possessed of
the characteristic Mediterranean charms. Although unhappily married,
she was formally committed to her spouse. This arrangement did
much to frustrate the progress of what was clearly more than an
innocent, uncomplicated affection between her and Jefferson. Ultimately, after
an extended intimate association, the two were parted when Cosway
returned to England with her husband.
Many of Jeffersons more staid biographers have assumed
that Jefferson remained celibate during his final forty-five years.
Others have conceded the likelihood that his tryst with Cosway
was more than purely platonic. His lengthy love letter to her,
which later gained the title A Dialogue Between the Head and the
Heart, has been the study of much scrutiny and speculation. In
any event, Cosway was the last woman whom Jefferson made a public
show of ardor toward in his adult life.
To relieve the strain of his broken heart, Jefferson took
an invigorating tour around the south of France and throughout
Italy. While there, he studied classical Roman architecture on
site, and explored various agricultural methods throughout the
region. From his observations, he later contributed to the design
of Virginias new capital at Richmond, and brought many new farming
techniques to Monticello, including approaches to the cultivation
of almonds, olives, oranges, and rice, and the production of ice
cream and parmesan cheese.
Around the time that he returned to Paris, Jefferson was
reunited with his ten- year old daughter Polly, who had been brought
to Europe via London in the care of a teenage slave named Sally
Hemings. The daughter of John Wayles and Betty Hemings, Sally
Hemings was an attractive quadroon, and also the unacknowledged half-sister
of Jeffersons late wife Martha. She bore with her ample news from
Monticello, and was rewarded for her good tidings by being placed
in the care of a French tutor. Over the next several months, her
social polish increased in keeping with her wardrobe.
In 1787, Jefferson was re-elected to a second three-year
term as minister to France. Through correspondence with James
Madison, he was kept up to relative speed on the progress of the
Constitutional Convention, which was proceeding at Philadelphia
in that same year. Jefferson was of the conservative opinion that
a mere revision of the Articles of Confederation was necessary
in order to increase the role of the federal government. Others,
Madison most prominent among them, were for a complete overhaul,
the direction of which Jefferson observed with an aloof but vested
interest. He raised his loudest objections at the absence of a
Bill of Rights, which he did much to shape in conjunction with
Madison, and which stands beside the Constitution as a bedrock
of Americas present-day political system (See
the Constitution SparkNote).
Sensing an increasingly revolutionary drift in the Parisian
air, and wishing to remove his daughters from the influences of
convent schooling, Jefferson applied for a six-month leave of absence
in November 1788. His intention was to travel to America in order
to settle his affairs at Monticello and to place his daughters
in a comfortable and productive situation before returning to France
to resume his duties as minister there. But in the bureaucratic
backlog created by the Constitutional debates, Jeffersons request
was put off for nearly a year.
In the ensuing period, several explosive events unfurled.
The first involved Jeffersons eldest daughter Patsy, who threatened
to run away to a nunnery. While Jefferson was eventually able
to dissuade her from this course, such a traumatic episode must
have left a mark on their later relationship. The second controversy
involved James and Sally Hemings. By some source or other, the
siblings had learned that as slaves they could obtain their liberty
simply by electing to remain in France. As both of them had found
the process of integration a smooth one, such an opportunity was
doubtless appealing.
After some hard convincing, Jefferson was able to avert
the loss of two of his finest slaves, and the Hemings siblings
returned to Monticello with him. Many have speculated that this
was accomplished by means of a bargain involving the eventual emancipation of
various members of the Hemings family. In fact, many Hemings family
members were emancipated toward the end of Jeffersons life, and
several more were granted their freedom in Jeffersons will. Whether
these were the terms of the promise or not, James and Sally Hemings
were in tow when Jefferson returned to the United States in October
of 1789 along with the rest of his entourage.
Just prior to his departure, the long-standing tensions
that had enveloped Paris boiled over. The opening stages of the
French Revolution were sparked by the storming of the Bastille
on June 14, 1789. The bloody, convoluted push toward democracy
had begun. While Jefferson refused to support the mob mentality
of these early days, he stood behind the principles that sparked
the chaos.
Although Jefferson resolved to remain neutral in the midst
of the conflict, he found himself drawn to the cause of the Marquis
de Lafayette and others who had supported Americas push for independence
a few short years earlier. Upon request, he surreptitiously authored
a charter of rights to be presented to King Louis XVI, and he later
hosted a meeting of French revolutionary leaders to discuss plans
for the new republican government.
Back in the United States, news of the French Revolution
was met with grave concern. Although the New England and Tidewater aristocracies
welcomed the deposition of monarchs, they also clung dearly to
long-cherished ideals about social privilege and class distinction.
If the fall of a king was to be encouraged, the rise of the people
was not. Such patrician ideals were about to congeal under the
Presidency of George Washington. And while Jefferson would fill
an important role in the Washington administration, he would continue
to hold fast to his radical ideal of democracy, even in the face
of heated opposition.
