Jim Parsons Who Do You Think You Are? USA

In tribute to his late father, actor Jim Parsons is investigating his paternal ancestry.

I think I've got some sort of French connection.

He explores the lives of two ancestors

and uncovers remarkable triumphs...

HE GASPS Oh, I love this!

..a great tragedy...

He was literally walking through versions of hell.

..in the lives of men who left indelible marks on history.

This is really beyond anything I would have ever expected.

Classically trained actor Jim Parsons has found success

in roles on both Broadway and the big screen.

But it was his breakout role on the megahit sitcom The Big Bang Theory

that catapulted him to stardom,

earning him two Emmys and a Golden Globe.

Jim divides his time between Los Angeles and New York, where

he recently filmed an adaptation of the play The Normal Heart.

I grew up in Spring, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston, Texas.

And looking back, I had a really great childhood.

My parents, Judy and Milton,

really put me in a good starting place to come from as an adult.

I first started acting in first grade.

Then from elementary into junior high into high school.

Then I ended up going to grad school and continuing studying theatre.

I think my dad's response to me wanting to get into theatre,

join the circus, as it were, his positive response to it was,

"What have I put in this work to provide for my son for

"if the thing he wants to try doing, we squash?"

My father was extremely loyal, very hard-working.

His family and his friends were extremely important to him,

he would literally do anything for us.

He passed away in 2001, it was from a car accident.

He was 52 and I was 28.

With him being gone, it's been quite a comfort to think and feel

that he's sort of still along for the journey.

I think my father would be intensely interested in this, you know,

finding out what it is you come from is fascinating.

And that's important, you know. You are the sum of your parts.

Because family was so important to my father,

I'd really like to do this for him, in honour of his memory.

I know so little about my family in general, as far as history goes.

The only thing that I've ever been curious about

is I know of no other artists in the family.

That would be interesting to me.

Somebody did tell me something about my family being French,

and I don't know who, but the only reason I believe it is because I know

that there's some connection through Louisiana, but I don't know who.

I think it's time to start collecting the stories.

Jim has invited his mother Judy to meet him in New York

to review his father's family history.

Judy has brought some photos and documents to look at.

-I did bring some things that I thought...

-Yes.

-..might help on your dad's side of the family.

-Yes.

Do you know who this is?

-OK. I've seen this picture, Daddy's

-grandma? Yes.

My great-grandmother.

-And her name was Jeanne Hacker.

-Mm-hm.

I have something else that I'm not sure that you've seen before,

because I didn't until I really started trying to bring some

things for you, and this is Jeanne Hacker's death certificate.

Oh, wow!

See her birthdate.

Oh, yeah, January 24th, 1882, born in New Orleans.

Mother - Adele Drouet. Is that French, Drouet?

-I think so.

-Right, it must be.

Mm-hmm.

-Well, what did I tell you?

-I know!

Wow, father's name, Charles Hacker, Charles and Adele.

Jim has just confirmed a connection to Louisiana, which is where

his paternal great-grandmother, Jeanne Hacker, was born.

Her parents were Charles Hacker and Adele Drouet,

Jim's great-great-grandparents.

-Look at this.

-That's Adele.

This is Adele. This is a picture of her when she was older.

Wow!

-And look, look how old she lived to be.

-Oh, 90.

-Yeah.

-We got good blood.

-Yeah.

-Well, I do, this wasn't your side, was it?

-Isn't that remarkable?

-Good luck to yourself, yeah. That's incredible.

-Right.

-Is that in Louisiana?

-Oh, I think so.

So I think we have to go to New Orleans.

I hope you have a wonderful journey.

-Thank you very much, I love you.

-I love you.

Now that Jim has proof of his Louisiana roots,

he's heading to New Orleans.

I am thrilled to be here, it's really nice to have that confirmed.

I came through Texas by way of the beautiful city of New Orleans,

so whether this leads to France, I'm pretty happy already.

To help him investigate his great-great-grandparents

Charles Hacker and Adele Drouet, Jim has contacted genealogist

Judy Riffel at the Louisiana Historical Center.

Very good to meet you too, thank you so much for meeting me.

My pleasure.

-I'm following through my father's father's side.

-OK.

I think I've got some sort of French connection.

I recognize the name Hacker as being a French name even though it

-doesn't sound like a French name.

-Hacker is French too?

Hacker is a French name, and, of course, Drouet,

-or "Drou-ey", sounds like a French name as well.

-Right, right.

So you may have two French lines to research.

Unbelievable! Where do I go from here?

Let's do a little digging and see what we can find out.

Sometimes it's easier to go through the male line,

so let's start by looking at the census records for Charles Hacker.

All right, so we put in "lived in, Louisiana."

-And then we search.

-All right.

OK, Charles P Hacker, residence Iberville, Louisiana.

Birthdate, 1850.

-1850, there it is, there's Hacker.

-OK.

Hacker, Hacker, Hacker. OK.

HE GASPS Oh, I love this!

There's Charles, who is my great-great-grandfather.

He was five months old when this was taken,

-and up at the top it says JB Hacker, who is 40.

-Correct.

So that would be Charles' father, so this is... Oh, wow.

So he's a doctor. That's fascinating.

It's rare to have a physician, a white collar person in that area

-at that time period, Iberville Parish.

-Iberville.

It was a very rural area,

-and he was probably the only local doctor that they had.

-Wow!

I come from helpful people, good, good, OK.

And then the Louisiana next to that signifies...?

-Where he's born.

-Where he's born?

-Correct.

So even JB was born in, we've gone back another generation

-and he was born in Louisiana.

-Yes.

OK, so what do I, where do I go from here?

You could look into Dr JB Hacker, and speak to someone who's familiar

with 19th century Louisiana history.

I can do a little more digging

and see if can find some more information on Adele Drouet.

Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

-My pleasure.

-This is very, very exciting.

I'm nowhere near a doctor but it's nice to know that I'm related to one.

That really surprises me

that we run at least three generations deep in Louisiana.

I grew up in Texas, all of our family that I know of grew up in Texas.

I had no idea there was a part of the family

that was really entrenched here.

So I'm going to continue tracing things

through my three times great-grandfather JB Hacker.

I think it's very interesting this idea

of being in a physician in this rural area.

How all-encompassing is that, what level of surgery did he do or not do?

I just, I have no concept of that.

Jim is heading to Tulane University in New Orleans

to meet Jeanette Keith, a specialist in 19th century Louisiana history.

Jeanette has been looking into Jim's three times great-grandfather,

JB Hacker's medical practice.

I've got some documents here that I think maybe will take

-your search a little bit further.

-OK.

We will get this big book out and we're going to look at page 46.

-Aren't you scared to touch this?

-Yes. OK?

Ooh, the smell, it smells like my grandma's house.

This is a list of graduates from the Medical College of Louisiana.

-OK.

-Here we are in the Hs.

Hall, Hale...

I see "acker" without an H, so I'm assuming that's where we want to be.

"Jno. B." So... OK, so that's JB.

That is an abbreviation for John or Jonathan.

-Oh.

-OK?

In the state of Louisiana, year graduated, 1842,

so that makes him 32.

Number of graduate, 55.

Mm-hm. He was the 55th graduate in the history of the school.

-Of the school?

-Yeah, yeah.

Now, this is the best... One of the best medical schools

if not THE best medical school in the South,

-so it's a new thing, OK?

-Wow.

And I do want to kind of emphasise this -

your ancestor did not have to do this to make a living.

There were people that just hung out a shingle

and said, "I'm the doctor."

-Some still do. I feel certain about this!

-Yeah, probably.

This school was opened by a group of young doctors

who wanted to change that.

Because American medical practice in the 19th century

did not have an established qualification process,

many pharmacists and drug peddlers called themselves doctors

but became known as quacks.

They commonly gave useless medical advice and hawked

sometimes dangerous products

made from ingredients such as opium,

sulphuric acid or just coloured water,

and touted them as cure-alls.

In an effort to legitimise and professionalise medicine,

the Medical College of Louisiana, just the second of its kind

in the Deep South, was established in 1834, eight years prior

to JB Hacker's graduation.

These are the people who are going to be founders of the medical

-profession as we have it today.

-OK.

-And we have turned over to this other page here.

-Yes.

Hacker, JB. Other degrees, public offices, honours, etc.

"V.X.U.O." Middle, I'm assuming - "Mdl"?

No. Not at all. What is it?

This is actually the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal.

-He wrote an article.

-Oh.

-OK?

-So he was published.

-He was published.

-Wow.

-OK?

-So the New Orleans...

-New Orleans Medical Journal.

And we will open this up to page 868 and 869.

-And what year is this?

-1854.

OK, so 1854 - so that... From the census... 40, 50...

-So he's 44 when he's written this.

-Mm-hm.

Yellow Fever in Plaquemine, Parish of Iberville

by JB Hacker, MD.

"An epidemic yellow fever prevailed in this town..."

HE GASPS

Your ancestor here was in the middle of the yellow fever epidemic

-of 1853, and it killed about 8,000 people in New Orleans alone.

-Oh!

"In the majority of cases that came under my observation,

"the fever began with a chill of greater or less severity,

"followed by violent headache, pain in the back

"and abdominal extremities."

So he's going to tell exactly what happened through the epidemic?

He's going to describe it,

-he's providing information for the medical profession.

-Mm-hm.

"When black vomit supervened it was generally on the fourth day." Wow.

"Haemorrhage from the gums, bowels, nose, etc, were frequent

"accompaniments, and generally happened on the third or fourth day."

Good grief. He was literally walking through versions of hell

-where he was going.

-Yeah.

-It's horrifying.

-It is horrifying.

-Absolutely horrifying.

They were still trying to figure out how it's contracted exactly.

-Yeah. We know that yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes.

-Right.

But they do not know that, and no-one knows that

until the early 20th century.

Wow. This is very reminiscent of, like, the things you

read about in the 1980s with HIV and everything.

The courage of a doctor to deal with anything when you don't know

how it's travelling, and you put yourself in the room with patients...

You know, that's a real commitment, certainly, to your chosen work,

but it's also, I think, a real commitment to your...

humanity in general, and maybe that's...

-The best of science always does that, actually.

-We can hope.

You would hope, you would hope.

Now, do you have more, that takes us even further with him?

-Yeah. Yes, we do.

-Of course you do. SHE LAUGHS

We're going to use a database that shows us newspapers.

-Oh.

-So...

-OK.

HE GASPS I love this.

-And the date range - he was born in 1810?

-That's right.

-OK.

-And then let's just make it 1900.

-Louisiana?

-Louisiana, yeah.

"The Loss Of The Steamer Gipsy."

"Eight Or Ten Lives Lost."

"At 3½ o'clock yesterday morning,

"the fire broke out,

"it originated in the wood on the boiler deck

"between the chimneys,

"and immediately spread

"with fearful rapidity."

-Hm.

-Yeah.

-I'll be damned.

"A telegraphic dispatch which we have received confirms the report

"of the sacrifice of Dr Hacker of Plaquemines,

"with his nephew, a lad of some 13 years of age, and his daughter."

Oh, so he died in this?

Yeah.

We just figured out who he was and now he's gone.

1854.

-So this is... This is the same year as the journal.

-Yeah. Yeah.

-When he's 44.

-Yeah.

That's only four years older than I am right now.

Mm-hm.

It's hard to hear of putting so much work and all these things

and all this advancement made, and to have it end, you know,

-both suddenly but so soon, you know?

-Mm-hm.

He couldn't have been more in the prime of his working,

-and that happens, you know?

-Mm-hm.

I am curious, how did this happen, how did this specific steamer...?

They really don't go into that.

So that's what I'm going to do next, I'm going to find out how this

-fire started and find out what killed him.

-Mm-hm.

-Thank you.

-It's been a pleasure.

'JB Hacker was very impressive to me. The efforts he was making,

'the progress he was making, the good he was doing,'

and - bam! - it's finished.

'And he's one of those people that when they're gone,

'you have to sit back and wonder,'

"What else would you have done?"

Even though I'm tracing my specific family, it's connecting me

to people and places that reach beyond that.

Jim has arranged to meet Robert Gudmestad,

an expert on 19th-century Mississippi steamboats,

on board the Natchez.

Robert has been looking into the fire aboard the Gipsy

that claimed the life of Jim's ancestor.

Well, we are on the Natchez, and the Natchez

is a rough approximation of what a steamboat would have looked like

in the 1850s. The difference with this steamboat to one that

-your great-great-great-grandfather would have travelled on...

-Right.

..is that those steamboats were made almost completely out of wood.

-Oh.

-And would have been fuelled by fire.

-But come on -

it's amazing that they all didn't burn up, if they were made of wood!

-Well, there's something I'd like to show you.

-OK.

This is a steamboat.

It's the Gipsy.

-Was this done before the accident?

-This was painted in 1853.

-So, the year before the accident.

-The year before the accident.

That's amazing.

OK, this is what I find so curious about the fact that he was on it,

-and he was on it with his nephew and his daughter.

-Sure.

Were they there...for pleasure?

This would have been the normal way to travel,

and they were probably,

in Louisiana in the 1850s, the fastest way to travel.

So what do we know about the very specifics of the Gipsy's perish,

if you will?

On a steamboat like the Gipsy, you have the boiler room and the...

-Oh, yeah.

-..furnaces in the middle of the boat

-and so you can actually see...

-The burning...

-Yeah.

Someone opened the door to the boiler room,

apparently that was a very, very windy evening

and there was a gust of wind that came through the boiler room

and it carried some of the flame out of the boiler room onto the deck,

so the boat catches on fire.

Your great-great-great-grandfather

would have been very close above the boilers,

-because that's where the men's cabin was.

-Oh.

-And so he was

in his cabin, perhaps did not hear the commotion.

The fire apparently was a huge fire. It spread to the bank.

-Unbelievable.

-To the landing, yeah.

-It's tragic all the way around.

-Yeah.

Let me show you one more thing.

All right, so this is the Southern Sentinel. Plaquemine.

This would have been your great-great-great-grandfather's...

-..Local paper?

-His hometown newspaper.

OK, and this is almost two weeks after the accident.

"The Late Dr Hacker.

"At a meeting of the Cannoniers..."

What are the Cannoniers?

It was a civic organisation. It was like the Kiwanis or the Elks.

Thank you. That's helpful. "In the death of the late Dr JB Hacker,

"the community lost a kind, dutiful and exemplary citizen

"devoted to its interests, a skilful and well-beloved physician,

"highly benevolent and industrious in the discharge of his duties.

"The members of said Cannoniers, as a mark of respect

"for our late commanding officer and regret for his unfortunate death,

"wear Black Crape, in the usual form, on our left arms for 30 days."

Wow.

I mean, that's like when you see people on the sport fields

-or whatever, these days.

-Right.

-Well, this is amazing, this outpouring, for his death.

-Yeah.

It's really touching to see the reach that JB Hacker had.

This is sad, I know, but it really reminded me

of going to my father's funeral.

The amount of people that showed up that I had never heard of

or seen before was sort of jaw-dropping to me,

and the reach that he had with his life, to affect other lives,

was really touching, and it was really surprising,

and I had the exact same feeling today,

and I think, too, you feel a real sense of pride,

and to have that feeling again

from so long ago... And this is on my father's side of the family,

and... Are these the kind of qualities that are passed down

through a family?

I don't know the answer to that,

but it's not a far reach to say that they are.

JB Hacker's life ended unexpectedly,

but Jim is still determined to explore the French roots

in his family. He is meeting genealogist Judy Riffel

at the Louisiana Historical Center for a second time.

He wants to see if she's uncovered evidence of French ancestry

on either the Hacker or the Drouet lines.

Well, I did try to trace Dr Hacker's line back to France,

but unfortunately, he got lost in the document trail.

-He did?

-But I did have more luck with Adele Drouet.

You're kidding!

And I did prepare a pedigree chart for you.

Oh.

There's Adele.

OK, and so Adele's mother was Anais.

Right, Anais Trouard.

Trouard. OK, and now we're going through Anais' side,

to her parents, so these are my four-time...

-Four-times...

-..great-grandparents.

-Yes.

-Pros-PER.

-Or Pro-SPER.

-Prosper Trouard and Eliza Delery,

and he was born in La Rochelle,

-France, so there you go.

-There you go.

There's a relative born in France.

OK, and then we go through my four-times great-grandfather's side

up to his parents.

Alexandre... I must sound like a fool. Alexandre Louis Trouard.

-And he was born in March of 1761 in Paris, France.

-Yes.

-The heart of it all, I would say.

-Yes.

-Wow.

OK, so if I want to extend this journey, I need to get to France,

-don't I?

-Yes.

I would suggest you go to the French National Archives in Paris.

Well, Judy, I really can't thank you enough. This has been so exciting.

-Bon voyage.

-Bon voyage to you. Thank you so much.

-Good luck.

'For years, I'd heard that we were French,

'and I didn't know what that meant. To see definitive proof

'that we're actually going to go trace now,'

it's fascinating, and it puts it into a whole other context.

I've got these two new people now - Alexandre and Prosper Trouard.

I love the idea of getting to travel to France now with these ancestors,

and get, hopefully, some sort of full book on what they were doing,

what they were like.

I'm very excited.

Jim has come to Paris to visit the French National Archives.

He's meeting Professor Drew Armstrong,

a specialist in 18th-century French history.

Drew has been searching through the archives for any information

about Jim's French ancestors Prosper and Alexandre Louis Trouard.

I haven't been able to find anything substantial on Prosper Trouard.

-OK.

-However, for Alexandre Louis Trouard,

I have found some documentation that starts to open up

a vision into his life.

OK, beautiful.

The first piece is the baptismal record of Alexandre Louis Trouard.

OK.

-So we have a translation.

-You have a translation? Beautiful, OK.

So, "Baptism on Monday the 16th of March 1761

"of Alexandre Louis..." OK, my five-times great-grandfather...

"..son of Louis Francois Trouard..." OK - there's a new name.

So Louis Francois Trouard would...

he's my six-times great-grandfather?

That's correct, yes.

"Architect to the King..."

So...Louis Francois Trouard

is an architect to the King - the literal King?

That is correct, yes.

-Really?

-Yes.

He is the architect to Louis XV.

To Louis XV?

Louis XV, precisely.

Wow.

OK, "Godfather, Louis Trouard, marble supplier to the King..."

So, Louis Trouard - who is that?

Louis Trouard is your seven-times great-grandfather.

My seven times great-grandfather.

He's the father of Louis Francois Trouard, architect of the King.

Jim has discovered that not only was his six-times great-grandfather,

Louis Francois Trouard, architect to King Louis XV,

but his father, Louis Trouard, was marble supplier to the King.

So all of Alexandre's family

basically worked for the King?

It looks like that, doesn't it? Absolutely.

It does look like that, yeah.

But Louis Trouard is a middle-class person, not an aristocrat.

Oh, he's not? Not as noble a job as what he...

his son ended up in, but it was a very good job.

It was a very, very good position. As opposed to his son,

Louis Francois, who is being groomed as a professional.

Huh.

So a complete transition from one generation to the next generation.

Louis Trouard essentially positioned his son,

Louis Francois, in THE most elite artistic circles in France.

Wow.

Well, how does one ever become an architect to the King?

I mean, I can't imagine that's easy, or a common thing to do.

It was neither easy nor common, and that's the whole point.

So, this is an 18th century register, and what this is here

is a transcription of an official document

concerning Louis Francois Trouard -

-this is your six-times great-grandfather.

-OK.

September 1754.

-And this is the translation of that?

-This is the translation.

"Acting on the report submitted to us of the great aptitude

"of Mr Louis Francois Trouard of Paris, about 25 years of age,

"in the art of architecture he has practised through study

"under Mr Loriot, professor of the Royal Academy of Architecture,

"in which he won the first prize last year, 1753, we have chosen

"and named him to be one of the boarding students sponsored

"by the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

"established for service to His Majesty in Rome..."

So he was scholarshipped to go to Rome.

He was scholarshipped, absolutely.

In the hope, although not necessarily for sure, that he

would one day work for the King.

Indeed, that is a strong implication.

Winning that prize, the Grand Prix de Rome,

-this is when his career is absolutely made.

-Yeah.

-It sounds like it.

-It's extremely uncommon to have this opportunity.

Wow.

So what does he do after Rome?

How does he continue this trajectory?

So, he's in Rome from 1754 to 1757,

and then he travels back.

One document that I found that helps to give a sense

of how he's cultivating his supporters is this letter.

This is 1769, so we're...

Wait - let me see something real quick. He was 25 in 1754.

So... This is 1769, so he's 40.

Ah, so am I.

"It is with pleasure, Sir, that I announce that the King has

"elected you to fulfil in the second class of his Academy of Architecture

"the place made vacant by the death of Mr Pluyette."

-Yes.

-Wow.

He becomes a member of an organisation

called the Royal Academy of Architecture -

an elite, learned, scholarly body.

There were 32 seats, divided into two classes - 16 seats per class.

And you had to wait for someone to die in order for a vacancy

to open up, and then...

It's like looking for real estate in New York.

"I do not doubt that this new favour by His Majesty

"shall prove for you further reason for zeal in His service."

Oh. I mean, really, it's his acceptance letter.

In 1769 he is catapulted into the Academy, yeah.

It's the greatest honour you could achieve. That's the most

significant function of the Academy, you are honoured by the King.

Unbelievable.

It's the Supreme Court of architects.

It might as well be the Supreme Court of architects, yes.

Wow. That's amazing.

This is a distinct and forever thing, exactly.

And he was obviously extremely good at his job,

and devoted to it and talented at it.

Would he live in the palace?

In fact, Trouard has an apartment, not in the Chateau at Versailles,

not in the residence proper, but in a building adjacent to it.

-Really?

-So if you're interested in continuing to expand

your understanding of Louis Francois Trouard's work

and career, and get a feel for the period that he lived at

Versailles, I think the best thing would be to actually travel there.

So I'm going to Versailles?

Indeed.

I've said "wow" a lot but I mean it. It's a sincere "wow".

Excellent.

Thank you very, very much for this. I appreciate it.

You know, it's funny. We had to go back to the 1700s, but - damn it -

we found somebody in the arts, really,

which is very exciting, but, you know,

it's just very appropriate

that we've been going through my father's side of the story.

Clearly, my father was a man much like Louis Francois' father was.

I'm on no Academy to the King, but

my father did find a way to allow me to do exactly what I wanted to do.

I've always said without that, I wouldn't be doing this right now.

I loved school, I loved being in the educational environment,

and to find Louis Francois, who went through, essentially,

grad school in Rome, and we had... Before we him, we found JB,

who went to school when he need not have gone to school,

to further his career at that point.

I think it gets to a point where it's more than a coincidence

that this is my blood relation.

Jim has come to Versailles to visit the Chapelle de la Providence.

He's meeting Ambrogio Caiani,

a specialist in 18th-century French architecture and history.

-Ambrogio?

-Yes, indeed.

-Hi. Hey. I'm Jim.

-Hello, Jim. How are you?

Very good to meet you, and thank you

so much for meeting me here in Versailles.

I was just dying to know if I could learn any more about

my six-time great-grandfather, Louis Francois Trouard,

the projects he had worked on and how his career went.

Well, I certainly think we can help you with that.

This church is one of his masterpieces.

This is?

Yes.

Wow.

This is quite beautiful.

It's very elegant and it's very classy-looking,

but at the same time there's... It seems very inviting.

So he's doing this, Trouard is doing this,

while working still within the monarch?

Yes, indeed. Trouard reaches the highest point in his career in 1787

when he is made a Premier, an Architect of the King First Class.

By now, Trouard is 60.

It's quite an achievement, because, as I think we all know,

France is heading towards

rather choppy or stormy seas at this time, and Trouard's nomination

as Architect First Class to the King

is only two years before the beginning of the French Revolution.

Right.

The French Revolution erupted in response

to the lower and middle classes' demands

for social and economic equality, but the seeds of were sown

decades earlier during the so-called Age of Enlightenment.

A new intellectual movement promoted reason over tradition

and superstition, inspiring French citizens to fight for their rights

in the 1789 Revolution.

After several years of violent upheaval, the monarchy

was abolished, Louis XVI was beheaded, and some 40,000 people

were executed, striking fear into the hearts of royal architects

like Louis Francois Trouard.

Now, architects have a pretty difficult time.

Four are executed, 25 are put in prison.

Why were they executing architects?

It was for the old-fashioned reason of corruption,

and they were too, perhaps, compromised with the old regime.

Sure.

Architects who worked more in the tradition of the French court

created spaces which were much more ornate, much more decorated,

very much for the private pleasure of the aristocracy,

and they had ended up under...

The hot blade is the euphemism for the guillotine.

So there is the possibility at least that my ancestor

could have been executed?

Indeed, but Trouard doesn't have the track record of the other

architects who were executed.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

He really was one of the key figures in the redesign of churches

-in the Age of Enlightenment.

-How fascinating.

So what happens to Trouard as an architect of the King

once the revolution starts?

The key question is, "What was your past like?"

"What did you do before the revolution?"

-Right.

-And, "What did you do to support it?"

Trouard seems to have been quite friendly

with some pretty liberal and radical thinkers of his age.

-Really?

-One of the more interesting figures that he definitely knows was

somebody called Father or the Abbe Raynal, who was a member

of the Enlightenment. Raynal was so radical in the 18th century

-that he actually said that slavery was an awful thing.

-Wow.

And your grandfather was a deeply intimate friend with him,

because we know that Raynal, from the late '70s until the early '80s,

lived in Trouard's house in Paris.

You're kidding!

I found a document which is rather interesting on all of this,

and I'm just going to go and grab...this book.

We have some of his correspondence.

So have a look here, Jim, at page 221.

221.

OK. I see Raynal's name, and I see it again.

A bunch of French I can't read...

Monsieur Trouard.

John Adams.

What's going on here?

This needs interpretation, and perhaps the translation

-might help you a bit.

-Thank you.

"Letter from Raynal to Franklin, 2nd February 1779."

It's just ten years before the French Revolution.

"On Thursday 4th of this month, around 11 in the morning,

"a very pleasant gathering of friends are to have Russian tea

"at Father Raynal's home.

"Mr Franklin is beseeched by all of the party

"to honour this breakfast with his presence."

Is that, like, Benjamin Franklin?

-Yes, quite.

-No! Really?

-Yeah.

That is unbelievable.

"I ask the same favour of Mr Adams in Paris,

"February 2nd... the House of Mr Trouard."

-Is that saying that they all stayed there?

-Yes indeed.

So, wait a minute... So Benjamin Franklin, Raynal and John Adams

were in the house of Mr Trouard.

Wow. Is this just a nice little brunch to have,

or would there be some sort of reason for them to gather?

Well, I suspect that Franklin and Adams would have been,

in particular, interested in Raynal's ideas

-about slavery and the colonies.

-Really?

Franklin being a man of the Enlightenment.

These people were eating-and-drinking buddies.

One of the few ways in which we can tell who was a member

of the Enlightenment or not

is where they went and ate, and in whose house they frequented.

Wow.

And your ancestor knew some of the greatest thinkers of the day.

Wow!

Until I talked to you, all I found out about him was

the way his career went, which was mostly shown to me

through that he was associated with the King, and now to hear

that, obviously, there's some sort of leaning or way of thinking

on his part that obviously isn't in camp with this regime.

Indeed. He seems to have survived the revolution pretty unscathed.

Oh, that's good.

And that he dies in 1804.

-Oh, really?

-Mm-hm.

So his behaviour and his actions and the way he worked and led his life

must have been in a way that didn't let people believe he had been

corrupt, or serving too fervently, at least, people or a regime

that had been oppressive. They didn't feel he was part of that.

Yeah, exactly.

Now, do you suspect that Trouard himself ever visited America?

"I don't know" is the honest answer.

-Right.

-But his children certainly do.

Oh, is that true?

Alexandre Louis, his eldest son, was also a talented architect

who'd also won the Prix de Rome.

Oh, really?

Yeah. We know that Alexandre Louis took a radical step

of going to the French colonies, and spent some time in Saint-Domingue,

or, as it is known now, Haiti.

-Oh, his son did?

-Yeah.

-OK.

And then Alexandre Louis'

younger brother transferred to Louisiana, and I think this

brings us back to your American connection quite nicely,

-to the very founding.

-Oh, without a doubt.

It's kind of an unbelievable way to tie back in to America.

This is really beyond anything I would have ever expected.

-An absolute pleasure, Jim.

-Thank you. It was good to meet you.

A pleasure.

'I think that, in both the case of Hacker and Trouard...'

..it's really the hard-working aspect of them

that my father would most identify with.

It just was a constant devotion to getting the job done

as best you could, and that's just something that my father

passed down to me.

(Wow.)

You know, and then again, with Louis Francois, and how important,

obviously, it was for his own father to help him realise this dream

of being an architect and helping him get that done,

and not just get that done, but finding a way

to help him get that done at the highest level possible.

That was just not surprising to hear - that that was

part of my father's side of the family, and when I was young

and I knew no different, I didn't really take note of it,

but it's been much later in life that you look back, not only with

gratitude, but with a more, almost...

I don't know what I would have done,

I really don't know what I would have become without my father.

But I have this suspicion that without that kind of love,

I feel like I would have been a much less happy individual,

and that's what's behind me for generations.