Fifty thousand copies of the "Rights of Man" were quickly sold, and it obtained a large number of readers in America, and was translated into French.

The total sales were estimated at 200,000 in 1793.

Paine followed it up with Part II.

while he was an elected member of the National Convention in Paris, and in 1792, when a cheap edition of the "Rights of Man" was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence convicted and outlawed.
Part I.of the "Rights of Man," while relying on the popular "sovereignty" fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition of representative government.

It showed that government by democracy--i.e.
by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies--must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity.