To Benjamin Franklin from La Rochefoucauld, [5 March? 1778]
From La Rochefoucauld
AL: American Philosophical Society
Mercredi matin [March 5?, 17789]
Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld fait bien des complimens à Monsieur franklyn, en lui envoiant la nouvelle traduction sur laquelle il a bien voulu lui promettre de jetter les yeux; il le prie de vouloir bien la lui renvoier lorsqu’il aura eu la bonté de l’examiner et de la corriger: il le prie aussi de vouloir bien, si par hasard il avoit eu quelques nouvelles, les lui mander.
Le texte de la traduction est Remembrancer Vol. II, page 321.
9. The translation mentioned in the last line was the English text of BF’s “Rules by Which a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One” (above, XX, 389–99.) The Duke’s rendering of this into French was, we assume, what appeared in the Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique, IX, part 1, cahier XXXVIII, lxxxviii–cix, dated March 9 and published soon thereafter. If so, this note was written well before the middle of March, BF and Deane had arranged on the 3rd to breakfast with the Duke the next day; we suspect that BF then promised to look over the translation, and that La Rochefoucauld forwarded it the following morning.