To George Washington from La Luzerne, 20 December 1784
From La Luzerne
Paris December 20th 1784.
Sir.
Mr de Chateaufort, Consul of France for the State of So. Carolina, intends, on his Journey from Newyorck to Charlestown, to wait upon Your Excellency and to present You this letter.1 Permit me to recommend him to your attention. He is quite a stranger in America, but he belongs to a nation for whom You have always shewn the greatest partiality, and his personal merit will, I doubt not, render him worthy of your notice. Permit me to thanck You beforehand for the Kind reception you will be pleased to honor him with.
Since my arrival in France I have had the honor to address to Your Excellency several letters and I hope that at least one of them is come to your hand.2 I shall therefore only repeat here that I shall always be happy in an opportunity to convince you of the respectful and inviolable attachment with which I have the honor to be Sir Your Excellency’s Most obedient and very humble Servant,
le che. de la Luzerne
LS, DLC:GW.
1. Louis XVI’s appointment of the chevalier d’Aristay de Châteaufort to the post of consul for the Carolinas and Georgia is dated 25 April 1784. GW wrote Châteaufort on 15 June 1785 to say he would take “great pleasure in seeing you at this Seat on your way to Charleston,” but Châteaufort was unable to visit Mount Vernon (see GW to Viomenil, 5 Sept. 1785). He had arrived in New York on 30 Mar. and sailed from Philadelphia on about 1 June, landing at Charleston after eighteen days at sea. Châteaufort was probably the grandson of Gen. Pierre de Boyseau who became the marquis de Châteaufort in 1728.
2. The only letter from La Luzerne written after his return to France in the summer which has been found is that of 12 September.