To Benjamin Franklin from Jean-Paul Marat, 22 August 1779
From Jean-Paul Marat
AL: The Philip H. and A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation (Philadelphia, 1955)
Ce 22 Aoûst 79.
Le D. Marat a l’honneur de faire ses complimens à Monsieur le Docteur Franklin, et le prévient qu’il rassemble, mardi 24 du courant, Messieurs Les Commissaires qui se rendront sur les neuf heures et demi du matin, et dineront chez lui.2
M. Marat seroit très aise que Monsieur Franklin voulût augmenter le nombre de la bonne compagnie. Il se flatte de lui faire voir de nouvelles Expériences intérressantes et curieuses.3
Notation: Le D. Marat 22. aout 1779.
2. On June 19, acting through one of its members, Marat presented the Académie des sciences with a copy of his Découvertes sur le feu … (Procèsverbaux, XCVIII, 200). The Jour. de Paris on July 17 announced the publication of that 38-page brochure. Marat also wrote a letter to the Académie announcing that he was pursuing his research. The commission that had reported on his first series of experiments (see XXIX, 105–6) was re-appointed for the new ones which dealt with light and were meant to invalidate Newton’s optical theories on color; see Roger Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution: The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666–1803 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1971), pp. 150–1. A very laudatory comment on Marat’s 116 experiments appeared in the Aug. 4 issue of the Jour. de Paris and the Oct. 25 issue praised his microscope solaire.
3. Marat sent BF a note on Aug. 23 to tell him that the meeting had been postponed to Thursday [Aug. 26]. APS.