CHAPTER XV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION:
THE EXPLOSION OF 1789You will see that these are materials for a superb edifice.
—THOMAS JEFFERSON TO THOMAS PAINE,
PARIS, JULY 1789
We shall return in three months.
—THE COUNT OF ARTOIS TO COUNT
ESTERHAZY, VALENCIENNES, JULY 1789
The figure of Philip Mazzei has been seen from time to time in these pages. A
cosmopolitan Italian, he had settled in 1773 in Virginia, where he was almost im-
mediately caught up in the movement against England. He had then returned to
Europe to solicit loans for the new state, talked at Florence with the future Em-
peror Leopold about the American constitutions, gone to Paris, written a book to
correct French misunderstandings of the United States, and while remaining in
Paris had become a kind of news agent for King Stanislas of Poland. In Paris, late
in 1788, he belonged to a group that included Jefferson, Lafayette, Condorcet,
Morellet, Dupont de Nemours, and the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. They often
met at one another’s houses, and naturally had a good deal to say about the Ameri-
can Revolution as a precedent to the crisis in France.
In this group, at this moment, at the height of what historians call the Aristo-
cratic Revolt, it was the American Jefferson who was the most conservative in his
ideas of what should be done. In his eyes, despotism was the main issue. In all the
careful and detailed reports he sent home on events in France, he had not yet even
used the word “privilege” or “privileged classes.” He thought the coming Estates
General should go slowly: “if they do not aim at too much they may begin a good