Thanks for this succinct summary of the Sloan lecture that I was all too
vaguely trying to recall!  You're surely right, though, that some of the
boxes TJ brought back from France weren't "outfit" purchases: some contained
the books he'd bought there, which transformed his library from the very
good to the superb, and justified its becoming the foundation of the Library
of Congress.

Best wishes --

-- Jurretta

On Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:51:17 -0500, David Konig <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>I think that we must rely on Herbert Sloan's explanation of TJ's Paris
>buying spree to understand these purchases.  As I understand Sloan, all
>purchases made by the U.S. minister for the legation in Paris were paid
>for by the American government, as part of the practice of "outfitting"
>the residence.  TJ did not spend any of his own money on these.  This is
>no longer the case, but at the time the minister had to establish an
>entire staff and to furnish the legation (not yet "embassy") with
>everything, and the government paid for it.  What misleads us, however,
>is the (now incomprehensible) fact that these purchases became the
>property of the minister on his return to the US (hence, the huge cargo
>of boxes, tho' perhaps not all were "outfit" purchases).   In any event,
>what TJ purchased paled by comparison with what the French aristocracy
>was accustomed to.  That should not not be the proper comparison, of
>course, but it is proper to compare what TJ purchased to what his
>successor, Gouverneur Morris, splurged on:  Morris went way beyond what
>TJ bought.
>    I am indebted to Prof. Sloan for clarifying this misunderstood
>matter when he lectured at Monticello.  There he pointed out that our
>understanding of the matter also suffers from the fact that so many of
>these purchases remained together at Monticello for all of us to see and
>wonder at, while those of other diplomats were scattered among
>descendants.  (This lecture was cited by a previous response to this
>question, and is available at the ICJS website.  I urge anyone
>interested in TJ and his "debts" to consult it.)
>
>--
>David Thomas Konig
>Professor of History and Law
>Washington University in St. Louis
>1 Brookings Drive
>Campus Box 1062
>St. Louis, MO 63130
>Phone: 314-935-5459
>