- "From 1784 to 1789, 8 years after he signed with JOHN HANCOCK, president, the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson lived outside the United States. He was sent to Paris initially as a commissioner to help negotiate
commercial treaties; then in 1785 he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France ...
- During these years Jefferson followed events in the United States with understandable interest. He advised against any harsh punishment of those responsible for Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) in Massachusetts. He worried particularly that the new Constitution of the United States lacked a bill of rights and failed to limit the number of terms for the presidency. In France he witnessed the beginning of the French Revolution..." (Thomas Jefferson, http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/tjefferson.html)
- As his wife Martha had died in 1782, he was widower when he came to France; he met later in 1786 while he was in Paris Maria Cosway an artist as well as a musician, who was married Richard Cosway; they became very close and he wrote to her the famous letter "Dialogue Between My Head and My Heart".
- In 1787 (May 3rd till June 8th), as he was touring France, he stopped 5 days in Bordeaux from the 24th till the 28th of May. He was a great amateur of the wines produced in France, he helped to introduce Bordeaux wines in the White House.
- Later he became the third President of the United States, after George Washington and John Adams. He was President from 1801 till 1809, and under his presidency, in 1803, he had the opportunity to acquire the Louisiana Territory (download Shockwave) from Napoléon Bonaparte.
(Discovered in January 1682 by Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, aboard his ship "La Belle", after he had explored, (1671-1681), the Great Lakes and Midwest regions of the U.S., the Louisiana was claimed for France and Louis XIV in April, four months later, after the mouth of the Mississippi was discovered. At that time, the territory streched from the Rio Grande to the North East of Canada, and represented half of the continent)
- During these years Jefferson followed events in the United States with understandable interest. He advised against any harsh punishment of those responsible for Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) in Massachusetts. He worried particularly that the new Constitution of the United States lacked a bill of rights and failed to limit the number of terms for the presidency. In France he witnessed the beginning of the French Revolution..." (Thomas Jefferson, http://sc94.ameslab.gov/TOUR/tjefferson.html)
- In his travel diaries, Thomas Jefferson described what he was interested in: the landscapes, the quality of the soils, the vine raising, the wine making, and its selling price:
- In this diary, the prices are usually expressed in "Livre Tournois"
- Later he became such an expert in wines, that he advised famous people for purchasing wines, including his successor at the White House, President James Monroe.
- You may be interested in visiting the small city of Rochefort (1h45mn drive from Bordeaux by motorway) from where Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) embarked and sailed on March 21st 1780 to Boston. His mission was to announce to George Washington that the king of France, Louis the XVI, was going to support the American War of Independence. He also offered him his personal help.
People in Rochefort, had the idea of rebuilding the ship, the "Hermione", who carried Lafayette at that time, the way carpenters were working 220 years ago. The project is expected to last 10 years, from 1997 till 2007, and once the Hermione is ready, it will sail to the American coast on the steps of Lafayette.
They are lots of interesting things to see in Rochefort, among them, the "Corderie Royale" (located in the Arsenal) where the ropes used in the Atlantic Royal fleet were made, Pierre Loti's house, an amazing house. Loti was a French naval officer and a writer as well. Also some bird watching spots exist around Rochefort.- While you stay in Rochefort, and if you are interested in horticulture, don't forget to visit the Begonias conservatory; also superb as well as useless, in the middle of the sea, the Boyard military fort should trigger you interest.