On Tuesday, August 25, 1789, Lafayette asked Jefferson to “break every engagement to give us a dinner tomorrow, Wednesday.52 We shall be some members of the National Assembly—eight of us whom I want to [coalesce] as being the only means to prevent a total dissolution and a civil war.” The next day the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, written by Lafayette.53 This central document of the French Revolution had been influenced by the Declaration of Independence, and Jefferson had counseled Lafayette during its drafting.
