To Benjamin Franklin from the Abbé André Morellet, [20 October? 1780]
From the Abbé André Morellet
L:2 American Philosophical Society
[October 20, 1780?]3
L’abbé Morellet Supplie Monsieur franklin de lui faire dire S’il Sait quelque chose d’un officier Suisse nommé Mr. Bedault4 qui a quitté il y a quelques années le Service de hongrie pour passer à celui du Congrès, a été pris par les anglois, a trouvé le moyen de Se Sauver, est revenu à Paris, à passé en Amérique avec Mr. de la fayette et a été récemment promu au grade de Lieutenant colonel. Le bruit de Sa mort S’est répandu, mais on n’en a que des avis vagues et indirects. On voudroit Savoir ce qu’il est devenu.5
Notation: Morellet
2. In the hand of his secretary, Poullard.
3. The day on which Morellet wrote to Ostervald and Bosset de Luze, the Neuchâtel publishers, apologizing for not having answered several of their letters. The editors of the Morellet edition suppose that in one of these unanswered letters, no longer extant, Ostervald and de Luze had requested Morellet to look into rumors of Charles-Frédéric Bedaulx’s death, and that on the same day Morellet replied to them he wrote to BF about Bedaulx: Dorothy Medlin, Jean-Claude David, and Paul LeClerc, eds., Lettres d’André Morellet (3 vols., Oxford, 1991–96), I, 436–7, 438n.
4. Who had died in Charleston during the winter of 1779–80: XXIII, 39–40.
5. The young man’s family also sought news of him through other channels. On Nov. 1, A.-A.-J. Feutry wrote to WTF on behalf of Bedaulx’s parents. APS. On Dec. 5, Ostervald requested Morellet, presumably on behalf of the family, to ask BF for any information on Bedaulx’s death. A copy of this letter is preserved at the Bibliothèque publique et universitaire of Neuchâtel and was kindly communicated to us by Dorothy Medlin. On April 28, 1781, his uncle, J.H. Bedaulx, Major-General in the Dutch Service, sought help from Dumas who forwarded a translation of the uncle’s letter to Congress: Wharton, Diplomatic Correspondence, IV, 390–1.