From Thomas Jefferson to St. John de Crèvecoeur, 8 December 1786
To St. John de Crèvecoeur
Friday Dec. 8.
Dear Sir
Having this moment finished reading the New York papers, I send them to you. As soon as you are done with them I shall be glad to receive them again, as Mr. Short has not read them. Mr. and Mrs. Marmontel come to take a dinner with me the day after tomorrow. (Sunday.) I wish the good Countess D’Houdetot may be disengaged for that day and would be so friendly as to come also. We dine at three o’clock. I do not ask you, because a person (Mr. P. M.) will come with Monsr. Marmontel, who is I believe disagreeable to you. Nevertheless of this you are the best judge; you know I shall be happy to see you if the party will be agreeable to you. Will you be so good as to make the proposition to the Countess and to send me her answer? Bon soir, your’s affectionately,
Th: Jefferson
RC (Louis Saint-John de Crèvecoeur, Montesquieu-sur-Losse, France, 1947); in margin in an unidentified hand: “traduit.” No year appears in the date, but 1786 is the only year in which 8 Dec. fell on Friday while TJ was in France.
Mr. P.M. was evidently Philip Mazzei, who was in Paris at this time and who was a friend of Marmontel; he and Crèvecoeur were not friendly to each other (see Howard C. Rice, Jr., Le Cultivateur Américain, Paris, 1933, p. 200–1; Mazzei, Memoirs, p. 297–9).