Jefferson in Paris

Thomas Jefferson, played by Nick Nolte, accepts the post of United States ambassador to pre-revolutionary France, where he struggles to adjust to life under the aristocracy. He becomes smitten with Maria Cosway, an Anglo-Italian painter and musician, but his attentions are diverted when his daughter Patsy visits from Virginia with her attractive slave, Sally Hemings. Meanwhile, Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave with ties to his late wife, becomes complicated and eventually leads to his promise to free her and her children upon his death.