Benjamin Franklin Papers
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Franklin and John Adams to Monsieur and Madame de Lafreté, 9 May 1778

Franklin and John Adams to Monsieur and Madame de Lafreté

AL:4 American Philosophical Society

Passy May 9. [1778]

Messrs. Franklins and M. Adams are extremely sorry that they were not at home when M. and Mad. de la Freté did them the Honour of calling at Passy. They are engag’d to morrow5 and every day next Week: but if it should be convenient to M. and Made. de la Freté, they will do themselves the Honour of dining at Suréne on Monday the 18th. Instant,6 which is the first Day they have free of Engagements. They wish to hear of happy Success in the Inoculation.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

4In BF’s hand.

5They were having a group of Americans to dine with them at Passy. The party spent the afternoon walking in the Bois de Boulogne, BF surrounded by a bevy of ladies; “both old and young were ready to eat him up”: Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 3d ser., LIV (1920–21), 104. The company then called at Bagatelle, the new country house of the comte d’Artois, where they encountered the Lafretés. Butterfield, John Adams Diary, IV, 95.

6This time the dinner took place, in what Adams called spacious surroundings: ibid., p. 102. The Lafretés on the 24th invited him and BF to dine and go with them to see a house in Neuilly or, failing that, to meet them there in the evening. APS. Their house in Suresnes was immediately across the Seine from the Bois, and the ferry cost the guests 16 l.t.: WTF’s accounts (above, XXIII, 19), entry of May 18.

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