Thomas Paine / Touthomme

Thomas Paine

On arriving in Paris, Thomas Paine had intended to meet with Edmund Burke to discuss their differences on the appraisal of the French Revolution. While waiting for Burke to arrive and certain he would, Paine was invited by a French journalist to give an analysis of his thoughts as they opposed those of Burke. Monsieur Touthomme Partout is about to interview Paine. (Note to reader: I have tried to use as much as possible, the words of Thomas Paine in these exchanges.)

M. Touthomme: Mr. Paine, is it true that you left England just before you were to be arrested by the British authorities? 

Thomas Paine: (smiles at the question but does not hesitate to answer) It may very well be so; however I cannot answer with any certainty. I have often been accused of walking around with my head in the clouds or of standing still with my head in the sand. However it was, I did not see anyone pursuing me.

Touthomme: Why did you dedicate your new book to President Washington? Would it not have been more appropriate to address your thoughts to a person of authority in France?

Paine: Indeed you are correct but who would you suggest as a person of authority with sufficient assurance of life remaining to have the time to read my work?

Touthomme: I see that my task will not be an easy one. Could you tell me what made you think that Mr. Burke would be receptive to your book The Rights of Man?

Paine: From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue in that opinion than to change it.

Touthomme:  Did anything occur to make you change that opinion?

Paine: At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a short time before to inform him how matters were going. Soon after this I saw his advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to publish: As the attack was to be made in a language but little studied, and less understood in France, and as everything suffers in translation, I promised some of the friends of the Revolution in that country that whenever Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant misrepresentations which Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet contains; and that while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution, and the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the world.

(Mr. Paine to himself) We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr. Burke’s book has the appearance of being written as instruction to the French nation; but if I may permit myself the use of an extravagant metaphor, suited to the extravagance of the case, it is darkness attempting to illuminate light.

Touthomme: So you were disappointed in Mr. Burke’s position?

Paine: I had formed other expectations. I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more have existence in the world, and that some other mode might

be found out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the neighborhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honesty about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The

people of America had been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time characterized the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually shown to the Americans the falsehood of those

prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than between America and France.

Touthomme: What then did you achieve during your visit to France in 1787?

Paine: When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the Archbishop of Toulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched policy of two nations, like England and France, continually worrying each other, to no other end than that of a mutual increase of burdens and taxes. 

That I might be assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our opinions into writing and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I should see among the people of England, any disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be authorized to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France? 

Touthomme: And was this letter answered? 

Paine: He answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not for himself only, but for the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was declared to be written. I put this letter into the, hands of Mr. Burke almost three years ago, and left it with him, where it still remains; hoping, and at the same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of him, that he would find some opportunity of making good use of it, for the purpose of removing those errors and prejudices which two neighboring nations, from the want of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both. When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies.

Touthomme: In your opinion, Mr. Burke did the opposite of what you expected him to do, not seek common sentiments but to excite the viciousness of adversity.

Paine: Indeed. That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable. With respect to a paragraph in this work alluding to Mr. Burke’s having a pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at least two months; and as a person is often the last to hear what concerns him the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke may have an opportunity of contradicting the rumor, if he thinks proper.

Touthomme: Those being your comments in the preface meant for English-speaking

readers, what comments had you provided for the French?

Paine: The astonishment which the French Revolution has caused throughout Europe should be considered from two different points of view: first as it affects foreign peoples, secondly as it affects their governments. The cause of the French people is that of all Europe, or rather of the whole world; but the governments of all those countries are by no means favorable to it. It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments; especially not the English people with its government. 

Touthomme: How then would you describe the thinking of your countrymen?

Paine: The government of England is no friend of the revolution of France. Of this we have sufficient proofs in the thanks given by that weak and witless person, the Elector of Hanover, sometimes called the King of England, to Mr. Burke for the insults heaped on it in his book, and in the malevolent comments of the English Minister, Pitt, in his speeches in Parliament. In spite of the professions of sincerest friendship found in the official correspondence of the English government with that of France, its conduct gives the lie to all its declarations, and shows us clearly that it is not a court to be trusted, but an insane court, plunging in all the quarrels and intrigues of Europe, in quest of a war to satisfy its folly and countenance its extravagance.

Touthomme: So much for your preface, can you speak to the body of The Rights of Man?

Paine: Of course I can but I will not. I suggest you purchase a copy and read it for yourself. Thank you Monsieur Touthomme Partout.


The Rights of Man was published in two parts. Part I, Paine describes Louis XVI as a new Constitutional Monarch, willing to make as many sacrifices as necessary to come to terms to the needs of his people. Paine, the optimist did not fully understand the determination of Louis and Marie Antoinette who merely mouthed the position of the revolutionaries. By the time Paine was to start Part II, the king had tried to escape and Paine saw the true character of the monarchs. His focus changed. The only legitimate form of government, he wrote, was a democratic republic.