To Thomas Jefferson from Rochambeau, 29 January 1787
From Rochambeau
Paris ce 29. Janvier
Le Cte. de Rochambeau est au desespoir de ne pouvoir se rendre à l’invitation de Monsieur Jefferson pour le vendredi 2. de ce mois.1 Il doit être ce jour là à Versailles pour la ceremonie de l’ordre du Saint Esprit. Il a l’honneur de lui faire mille tendres complimens, et de lui faire part que sa belle fille vient d’accoucher heureusement d’un garçon.
RC (PU); addressed in part: “à la Bassein de Chaillot, à Paris”; without date, but obviously written in 1787 since that was the only year in which Feb. 2 fell on a Friday during the period of TJ’s stay in France. Also, it was in 1787 that Rochambeau’s only grandson was born (Jean-Edmond Weelen, Rochambeau Father and Son, New York, 1936, p. 182, 183). TJ’s invitation to which this is a reply has not been found.
1. Thus in MS, an error for “du mois prochain.”