IV.

French Career

In France Paine was elected a deputy to the National Convention, and he generally voted with the Girondins. By favouring the exile, rather than the execution, of King Louis XVI, however, he offended Maximilien de Robespierre, the leader of the radical faction, and he was imprisoned for 11 months until Robespierre's downfall in 1794; he then regained his National Convention seat. That year Part I of his book The Age of Reason was published; Part II appeared in 1795 and a portion of Part III in 1807. Although it favours deism while opposing both atheism and Christianity, the book gained him a reputation as an atheist and alienated most of his old friends. Paine eventually became disgusted with French politics and concentrated on the study of finance until 1802, when he returned to the United States in a ship placed at his disposal by President Thomas Jefferson. He died in New York on June 8, 1809, having been largely shunned or ignored during his final years.