Readers who are familiar with Thomas Jefferson may not recognize the man pictured in the pages of this colorful "magazine." Not only is the picture different, the picture itself is different. Thomas Jefferson's Enlightenment - Paris 1785 is a new kind of history-non-fiction narrative. It does not describe what Jefferson did in France. It takes the reader along as Jefferson does it. Everyone knows that no man is a hero to his valet. The reader comes to know during eight fascinating divertissements the Jefferson his valet would have seen-a man, not a monument. While accompanying Jefferson and Pierre Cabanis on a series of excursions through Paris in the summer of 1785, the reader sees how a real person reacted to real events. Jefferson learned things during these outings that allowed him to become a political leader after he returned home. With Cabanis' help, he grasped the French concept of Progress and came to see himself as its agent. This prepared him for the contest that lay ahead. Within a year of his return, he teamed up with his Virginia neighbor, James Madison, and laid the foundations for a political party that would compete for power in America's first national campaign. The political loner who drafted the Declaration of Independence was no more. His place had by an ambitious political man who aimed to become the President of the United States of America.