France

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat, second President; 1735—1826.
French playwright, spy, arms dealer, revolutionary; 1732—99.
Merchant, Continental congressman, diplomat to France; 1737—89.
French admiral, unsuccessful against British fleet at Newport; 1729—94.
Philadelphia printer, writer, scientist, inventor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat to France; 1706—90.
French sculptor who sometimes created his works from life-masks; 1741—1828.
Lawyer, diplomat, Continental congressman, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; 1745—1829.
Lawyer, architect, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, Virginia governor, diplomat, third President, founder of the University of Virginia; 1743—1826.
French aristocrat, Continental Army officer, like a son to Washington; 1757—1834.
Diplomat to France, Continental congressman; 1740—92.

C. Vann Woodward has written of Jefferson, It fell to the lot of one Virginian to define America. It was in his private life that Jefferson defined the relationship between blacks and whites in America, acting out in the most specific sense the psychosexual dilemma of the whole nation. Other great men in history have loved unlettered women, among them Rousseau and Goethe, each of whom lived for years with virtually illiterate mistresses and then in the end married them. But Jefferson’s dilemma was peculiarly American. So savage were the penalties of this kind of love in the New World that he could neither admit it nor defend it without fear of social ostracism, and he had to keep up an elaborate pretense that it did not exist. He could not openly, and perhaps even privately admit his paternity to Sally’s children.

Fawn M. Brodie
Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974)