Having left wife and children in the U.S., how did Wolfe Tone spend those seven months in Paris, after this initial introduction to the city by Du Petit Thouars? If his diaries are anything to go by, he balanced his time between listlessness, increasing impecuniousness, battles with French officialdom and visits to the opera and theatre. He also visited the Louvre, newly converted into the Museum Central des Arts, and spent time browsing among book stalls.

Near Hôtel des Etrangers on r. de Vivienne

After having contacted the U.S. ambassador, James Munroe, the foreign ministry and a couple of local United Irishmen (most notably Nicholas Madgett, who worked as a translator at the foreign ministry), Tone seems to have had plenty of time to frequent the opera. But Tone quickly grew lonely. From February 18 to February 20, 1796, he notes that he “dined alone every day”. By mid-March, many entries in his diary begin with the word “blank”. On March 16, for example, he writes: “Blank! Dined alone in the Champs-Elysées." The following day, the one-line entry reads “Patrick’s Day. Dined alone in the Champs Elysées. Sad! Sad!” And the day after, “Blank – theatre in the evening.”

Menu from Restaurant de Beauvilliers             copied by Wolfe Tone in his diary

On July 6, he notes that he is down to his last two louis. But help was as hand: after much dilly-dallying, the French finally found him a military commission as chef de brigade, and at the end of July they provided him with three month’s advance pay. He left for Brest shortly afterwards and partook in General Lazare Hoche’s hapless Bantry Bay expedition in December 1796. In 2012, the original 
version of the proclamation that Wolfe Tone intended to make once he landed in Bantry Bay was found by a historian in a deplorable condition and gathering dust in the military archives in Vincennes. Tone writes: "We come amongst you not as enemies to invade...not to reduce you to a state of dependence upon France, but to break the chains which have so long bound you in subjection to England, and to raise you from the abject state of a province to the rule and dignity of a free nation." Ya, right......

Tone made it back to Paris a chastened man on January 13, 1797. His mission had failed, he was short of cash, he had nowhere he could call home and the trunk containing his possessions did not turn up until the end of February. With the Paris Irish he had nothing in common, finding them “sad, vulgar wretches, and I have been used to rather better company in all respects”. He spent his first days back in Paris unhappily chez Mme. Boivert. For another short period, he stayed at the Hôtel des Etats-Unis in the rue de Tournon (6^th arrondissement) near the Luxembourg gardens, before moving to the rue de Clery (2^nd arrondissement), back on the Right Bank of the Seine. But by the end of March, Tone had left Paris again to join General Hoche’s army on the Rhine.

Site of cul-de-sac de Notre-Dame-des-Champs

By this time, his wife and family had arrived in Europe from the United States. In Paris, they first stayed with an Irish colonel called Henry Shee in Nanterre, then moved to 139, cul-de-sac de Notre-Dames-des-Champs (street no longer exists, situated in present-day 6^th arrondissement). But after falling out with the landlady, they moved to no. 29, rue des Batailles in the Chaillot district on the Right Bank (street no longer exists, situated in present-day 16^th arrondissement).

After some time in Holland wistfully preparing for another Irish expedition, Tone was back in Paris in October 1797 and met Napoleon for the first time two months later. On March 25, 1798, Wolfe Tone received orders to join the Armée de l’Angleterre in Rouen. Just over six months later, the ship that was meant to disembark him in Lough Swilly was apprehended by the Royal Navy. Tone died of self-inflicted injuries in prison on November 18th, 1798. After his death, Tone’s family is recorded as living at 751, rue Plumet in the modern-day 15^th arrondissement. The French government granted Tone’s widow an annual pension of FF1,200, increased to FF2,400 in 1811. His son, William, trained at the Imperial Cavalry School in Saint Germain outside Paris, and won the Légion d’Honneur for his courage during the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. He, like his mother, supported Napoleon during the 100 Days, which perhaps explains why they both left France for the U.S. in 1816.

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