Thomas Jefferson, as the American Minister to the Court of Versailles, witnessed the opening chapters of the French Revolution in the late 1780s. In September 1789, he returned to the United States, but, assuming the position of Secretary of State, he continued his involvement in American foreign policy. The French Revolution, continuing into the 1790s, would have an ongoing effect on Jefferson's career.
Thomas Jefferson had been living abroad for four years when political unrest began to heighten in France. Throughout 1788, he watched events unfold and described the state of affairs with optimism, noting the bond between America its Revolutionary War ally, France: "the nation has been awaked by our revolution, they feel their strength, they are enlightened, their lights are spreading, and they will not retrograde."1 To James Madison, Jefferson expressed the cautious hope that the French were "advancing to a limited, moderate government, in which the people will have a good share."2
Acknowledging his support for the revolutionary cause, Jefferson's French friends — the aristocratic reformers — turned to him for advice. In the spring of 1789, the Marquis de Lafayette suggested that Jefferson outline his recommendations for them in written form. The latter accordingly drafted a "charter of rights" that might be issued by Louis XVI. The proposal — an accommodation among the king, the nobility, and "the commons" — was intended as an introductory step toward a constitutional monarchy;3 but nothing came of Jefferson's suggested compromise, a "lamentable error" from his point of view.4
Throughout the spring, Jefferson attended sessions of the Estates General and listened to the debates. "[T]hose of the Noblesse were impassioned and tempestuous," he remembered, and "the debates of the Commons were temperately rational and inflexibly firm."5 Early in July 1789, Lafayette presented the newly-formed "National Assembly" with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen — a document that he had produced with the help of his friend Jefferson.6 Events were moving at a rapid pace.
When French revolutionaries violently stormed the "Bastille" in mid-July, Jefferson was taken aback by the "astonishing train of events."7 By August, however, he was ready to defend the actions of the mob, noting that he had observed their behavior daily "with my own eyes in order to be satisfied of their objects, and declare to you that I saw so plainly the legitimacy of them." He was certain too that the French National Assembly had proceeded through adversity with "firmness and wisdom," and he maintained "the highest confidence" in the Assembly's ability to govern.8 Just as the revolutionaries were becoming more radical, Jefferson was becoming more radical as well.
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