Description
Book SynopsisThe relationship between Thomas Jefferson and William Short, the eldest son of an established Virginia family and relative of Martha Jefferson, began as a patron-protégé arrangement conventional for the era. Jefferson encouraged Short''s legal career and gave him his first legal work. Thus began a bond of forty years that that both men characterized in paternal and filial terms and that sheds considerable light on the enigmatic Founding Father.In the aftermath of Jefferson''s precipitous flight from Monticello, Short underwrote substantial short-term loans to him. Jefferson took the younger man to France as his private secretary in 1784 but, quickly concluding that his moral well-being and political judgment were at risk, he urged Short to return to America and settle down. Short, however, wished to pursue a foreign service career and a long affair with a French aristocrat. Jefferson wanted Short to embrace a Virginia way of looking at the world, even buying him a farm near Monticello.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments A Note on Translation and Nomenclature Introduction: An Unfulfilled Patriarch Chapter 1: Springs Set in Motion: Establishing Separate Lives in France Chapter 2: Living in a Woman's Country: Jefferson and Short's Reflections on French Culture Chapter 3: "A Poor Dry Business": William Short's Diplomatic Career Chapter 4: The Earth Half Desolated: Reckoning with Terror Chapter 5: "You are my husband": Rosalie de La Rochefoucauld and William Short Chapter 6: Money, Slaves, and Land: Jefferson's Ties to William Short Chapter 7: A Serpent's Tooth: William Short's Later Life Relationship with Jefferson Epilogue: Jefferson's Hopes, and Short's Fears Notes Index
