Cosmopolitan Patriots: Americans in Paris in the Age of Revolution

Abstract

In this well-researched study, Philipp Ziesche examines mutually reinforcing republican beliefs in the United States and Frances in the 1790s, a period of waxing and waning affinity between the two countries. He focuses on Americans in Paris, giving particular attention to the American ministers Thomas Jefferson and Gouverneur Morris, and the later minister James Monroe. Although Jefferson and Morris differed in their opinions on the direction of the French Revolution, they remained reticent as ministers about expressing their views in public. Joel Barlow, serving as minister a few years later, continued this version of republican solidarity, while William Short later took a more skeptical view. Ziesche rightly provides many details on the cultural attractions of Paris. Americans raved about the opera, the theaters, the museums, the parks, and the way the city worked. At the opera, Americans often took boxes for six to twelve of their compatriots, and they did likewise at the theater on many occasions. Americans also sought to import cultural assets to the United States. Joseph Smith, later a resident of Philadelphia (and a figure not mentioned by Ziesche), exploited his access to confiscated art works to build his own collection of fine paintings. He brought works of art home to show his friends, although he had to put sheets over the risqué French paintings when his nieces came to visit. The artist John Trumbull also purchased confiscated art works at auctions and brought them back to the United States. He began a touring exhibit that later ended up at various American universities.