would imagin it scarce fit to beare anything.." On the cause of its increasing costliness, he stated, "thanks to the rich English who sent orders that it was to be got for them at any price". The German philosopher Hegel was also enchanted with the wine of Pontac, though it is unknown if his orders were for other de Pontac wines of Saint-Estèphe. With the death of François-Auguste de Pontac, François-Joseph de Fumel, a nephew by marriage, inherited two-thirds of Haut-Brion with a third coming to Louis-Arnaud Le Comte, Lord Captal of Latresne. The de Fumel family also at one point owned Château Margaux. In 1787, Thomas Jefferson, then American minister to France, came to Bordeaux. On May 25 he visited to Haut-Brion, describing the terroir, "The soil of Haut-Brion, which I examined in great detail, is made up of sand, in which there is near as much round gravel or small stone and a very little loam like the soils of the Médoc". His notes placed Haut-Brion among the four estates of first quality, with the entry, "3. Haut-Brion, two-thirds of which belong to the Count de Fumel who sold the harvest to a merchant called Barton. The other third belongs to the Count of Toulouse; in all, the château produces 75 barrels." Haut-Brion became the first recorded first growth wine to be imported to the United States, when Jefferson purchased six cases during the travels and had them sent back to his estate in Virginia., as stated in his letter to his brother-in-law Francis Eppes on May 26, 1787: "(...) I cannot deny myself the pleasure of asking you to participate of a parcel of wine I have been chusing for myself. I do it the rather as it will furnish you a specimen of what is the very best Bourdeaux wine. It is of the vineyard of Obrion, one of the four established as the very best, and it is of the vintage of 1784 (...)." As a consequence of the French Revolution, in July 1794 Joseph de Fumel was guillotined, and his holdings were divided. Posthumously, de Fumel's nephews obtained a pardon for him as well as the restitution of the confiscated property, but they left France. In 1801, they sold Haut-Brion to Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, owner of Haut-Brion for three years. A less prosperous period followed between 1804 and 1836 under successive ownership of