The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 15: March 1789 to November 1789

In Volume 15 Jefferson, a veteran of the councils of his own country's revolution, becomes an eyewitness of the opening events of the great upheaval in France in 1789.


The Archbishop of Bordeaux and his colleagues of the National Assembly ask Jefferson's aid and counsel in drafting a new constitution; he declines in July but gives a private dinner in August for Lafayette and the moderates who wish to form a coalition and thus avoid civil war. He is catapulted into the limelight by Mirabeau'...