Beginning of the French Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic, and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies, and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution.

Declaration of Independence, 1776
http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/269/

The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), was deeply influenced by the European Enlightenment. He spent many years in Paris and was just as much at home among European intellectuals as he was on his plantation in Virginia. Although a slaveholder, Jefferson wrote eloquently about freedom for the colonists. Even though it was not an official part of the U.S. Constitution, promulgated years later, the Declaration of Independence captures many of the chief ideals of the American revolutionaries and demonstrates the depth of their belief in "unalienable rights."

Reflection
The French Revolution is intimately tied to the efforts of Americans to become independent of Great Britain. The US Constitution was ratified in 1787, two years before the French Revolution.  Thomas Jefferson was in France at the time of the French Revolution and was an eye witness to what went on there. The people of both countries were interested in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity but went about it in different ways. The French put their trust in human enlightenment. Americans put our trust in God. crsr