 As a liberal and progressive thinker, Hofmann supported the use of German instead of Latin in University lectures and in church.Eventually he became disillusioned with the pace of the reforms in Mainz and welcomed the French Revolution from the start.As Hofmann declared his support of the ideas of the French Revolution openly in his lectures, he was soon spied on by the increasingly reactionary Mainz authorities, who had outlawed all criticism of state and religion on 10 September 1792.