Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont - Aftermath

Aftermath

In the end, the political ideals that Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont cherished came back to haunt him. The huge financial support he had elicited from King Louis XVI for the American Revolutionary War led to massive debts that would bankrupt the government of France. When a drought caused a deep famine in 1788, there was no money available from the French Treasury, as had been done in the past, to subsidize the cost of flour for bread to prevent mass starvation. As a result of France's generosity and Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont's love of America, he inadvertently helped pave the way for the French Revolution, in 1789, that dramatically impacted on his own finances, resulting in the new French Revolutionary government seizing his assets including his beloved Chateau at Chaumont-sur-Loire.

Without the help of Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont and France, the United States of America would almost certainly not have won their independence. When the British invaded American in 1812, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray Jr. and the government of France also worked to help America during the War of 1812.