Global Presidents: Jefferson in Paris
As a member of the Continental Congress representing his home state of Virginia, thirty-three year old Thomas Jefferson was chosen to draft the Declaration of Independence in 1776. After Jefferson left Congress in 1776, he returned to Virginia and served in the legislature. He was elected as his state's governor from 1779 to 1781. Jefferson was the subject of an inquiry into his conduct during his last year in office. During General Benedict Arnold's 1781 invasion of Virginia, Jefferson escaped Richmond just ahead of the British forces, and the city was burned to the ground. General Charles Cornwallis that spring dispatched a cavalry force led by Banastre Tarleton to capture Jefferson and members of the Assembly at Monticello, but the Virginia militia thwarted the plan and Jefferson escaped to Poplar Forest, his plantation to the west. When the General Assembly reconvened in June 1781, it conducted an inquiry into Jefferson's actions. That body eventually concluded that Jefferson had acted with honor—but he was not re-elected.
Jefferson's wife Martha had suffered from ill health, including diabetes. Her frequent childbirth had adversely affected her health and had further weakened her. A few months after the birth of her last child, she died on September 6, 1782, at the age of 33 with Jefferson at her bedside. Jefferson took his wife's death very hard and many of his friends were concerned about how his grief had depressed him. During the brief private interval in his life following his governorship, Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia. In 1784, he was called into public service again, when Congress asked him to travel to France, first as trade commissioner and then as Benjamin Franklin's successor as minister.
Jefferson was sent by the Congress of the Confederation to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as ministers in Europe for negotiation of trade agreements with England, Spain, and France. Some believed that the assignment would distract the recently widowed Jefferson from the toll that his wife's death had taken on him, and that it would help to lift him from his depression. He left for France with his young daughter Patsy and two servants, the fourteen year-old Sally Hemings and her older brother James. They departed in July 1784, arriving in Paris the next month. When Jefferson arrived in Paris, French foreign minister Count de Vergennes said to him, "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear." Jefferson replied, "I succeed. No man can replace him." Franklin resigned as minister in March 1785 and left for home in July of that year.
Jefferson had Patsy educated at the Pentemont Abbey. In 1786, he met and fell in love with Maria Cosway, an accomplished—and married—Italian-English musician of 27. They saw each other frequently over a period of six weeks. It is said that when Martha Jefferson was dying, she had asked her husband to promise her that he would not remarry, as she did not wish to have her children raised by another mother. It is unclear how this promise may have affected Jefferson's decision not to continue his relationship with Marian Cosway. She later returned to Great Britain, but the two of them maintained a lifelong correspondence.
Jefferson sent for his youngest surviving child, nine-year-old Polly, in June 1787. While he was in Paris he had James Hemings, trained in French cuisine. According to Sally's son, Madison Hemings, the 16-year-old Sally and Jefferson began a sexual relationship in Paris, where she became pregnant. According to Madison's account, Hemings agreed to return to the United States only after Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age.
While in France, Jefferson became a regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War, and Jefferson used the Marquis's connections and influence to procure trade agreements between France and the United States. When the French Revolution began, Jefferson allowed his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Langeac, to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. Jefferson was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and he consulted with Lafayette while the Marquis drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. While in Paris, Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the "Wheel Cipher" in order to send messages in code. He wrote important communications using this code for the rest of his career.
Jefferson left Paris in September 1789. He planned to return in the near future, but his plans changed when President George Washington appointed him the country's first Secretary of State. This made further travel impractical. Soon after returning from France, Jefferson accepted Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State. Pressing issues at this time were the national debt and the permanent location of the capital. Jefferson opposed a national debt, preferring that each state retire its own, in contrast to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who desired consolidation of various states' debts by the federal government. Hamilton also had bold plans to establish the national credit and a national bank, but Jefferson strenuously opposed this and attempted to undermine his agenda. Jefferson was also an admirer of the French Revolution, despite the violence which resulted from it, while Hamilton was pro-British and anti-French. The feuding between the two men and the partisanship that resulted from their disagreements nearly led Washington to dismiss Jefferson from his cabinet. Jefferson later left the cabinet voluntarily. He and Washington never spoke again
Jefferson's time in France was the subject of a 1995 movie called Jefferson in Paris, which starred Nick Nolte as Jefferson, Greta Scacchi as Maria Cosway, Gwynneth Paltrow as Patsy Jefferson and Thandi Newton as Sally Hemings. In April of 2013,
potus_geeks did a series on Presidents in Movies. The post about this movie can be found here, and a You Tube video of a scene from the movie appears below.
Jefferson's wife Martha had suffered from ill health, including diabetes. Her frequent childbirth had adversely affected her health and had further weakened her. A few months after the birth of her last child, she died on September 6, 1782, at the age of 33 with Jefferson at her bedside. Jefferson took his wife's death very hard and many of his friends were concerned about how his grief had depressed him. During the brief private interval in his life following his governorship, Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia. In 1784, he was called into public service again, when Congress asked him to travel to France, first as trade commissioner and then as Benjamin Franklin's successor as minister.
Jefferson was sent by the Congress of the Confederation to join Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as ministers in Europe for negotiation of trade agreements with England, Spain, and France. Some believed that the assignment would distract the recently widowed Jefferson from the toll that his wife's death had taken on him, and that it would help to lift him from his depression. He left for France with his young daughter Patsy and two servants, the fourteen year-old Sally Hemings and her older brother James. They departed in July 1784, arriving in Paris the next month. When Jefferson arrived in Paris, French foreign minister Count de Vergennes said to him, "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear." Jefferson replied, "I succeed. No man can replace him." Franklin resigned as minister in March 1785 and left for home in July of that year.
Jefferson had Patsy educated at the Pentemont Abbey. In 1786, he met and fell in love with Maria Cosway, an accomplished—and married—Italian-English musician of 27. They saw each other frequently over a period of six weeks. It is said that when Martha Jefferson was dying, she had asked her husband to promise her that he would not remarry, as she did not wish to have her children raised by another mother. It is unclear how this promise may have affected Jefferson's decision not to continue his relationship with Marian Cosway. She later returned to Great Britain, but the two of them maintained a lifelong correspondence.
Jefferson sent for his youngest surviving child, nine-year-old Polly, in June 1787. While he was in Paris he had James Hemings, trained in French cuisine. According to Sally's son, Madison Hemings, the 16-year-old Sally and Jefferson began a sexual relationship in Paris, where she became pregnant. According to Madison's account, Hemings agreed to return to the United States only after Jefferson promised to free her children when they came of age.
While in France, Jefferson became a regular companion of the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War, and Jefferson used the Marquis's connections and influence to procure trade agreements between France and the United States. When the French Revolution began, Jefferson allowed his Paris residence, the Hôtel de Langeac, to be used for meetings by Lafayette and other republicans. Jefferson was in Paris during the storming of the Bastille and he consulted with Lafayette while the Marquis drafted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. While in Paris, Jefferson often found his mail opened by postmasters, so he invented his own enciphering device, the "Wheel Cipher" in order to send messages in code. He wrote important communications using this code for the rest of his career.
Jefferson left Paris in September 1789. He planned to return in the near future, but his plans changed when President George Washington appointed him the country's first Secretary of State. This made further travel impractical. Soon after returning from France, Jefferson accepted Washington's invitation to serve as Secretary of State. Pressing issues at this time were the national debt and the permanent location of the capital. Jefferson opposed a national debt, preferring that each state retire its own, in contrast to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who desired consolidation of various states' debts by the federal government. Hamilton also had bold plans to establish the national credit and a national bank, but Jefferson strenuously opposed this and attempted to undermine his agenda. Jefferson was also an admirer of the French Revolution, despite the violence which resulted from it, while Hamilton was pro-British and anti-French. The feuding between the two men and the partisanship that resulted from their disagreements nearly led Washington to dismiss Jefferson from his cabinet. Jefferson later left the cabinet voluntarily. He and Washington never spoke again
Jefferson's time in France was the subject of a 1995 movie called Jefferson in Paris, which starred Nick Nolte as Jefferson, Greta Scacchi as Maria Cosway, Gwynneth Paltrow as Patsy Jefferson and Thandi Newton as Sally Hemings. In April of 2013,
potus_geeks did a series on Presidents in Movies. The post about this movie can be found here, and a You Tube video of a scene from the movie appears below.