I'm glad that my posting (below) seems to have made it to daylight, as 
it never reached my inbox.  In any event, Sloan's book is a "must" for 
understanding Jefferson, and IMHO one of the most important books 
written on the subject in recent years.
--david

Jurretta J. Heckscher wrote:
> 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
>>
>>     

-- 
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