To Benjamin Franklin from Chalut and Arnoux, 17 December 1782
From Chalut and Arnoux
AL:5 American Philosophical Society
paris mardi 17 Xbre 1782
Nous assurons notre respectable ami de notre estime et de notre amitié et nous lui envoyons un exemplaire de l’ouvrage que M. l’abbé de Mably6 vient de donner au public. L’auteur en fait hommage au patriarche de la raison et de la liberté.7
Il nous tarde d’aller Celebrer le retour de la paix et l’independence de l’amerique avec notre ami. Nous faisons des voeux pour cet heureux moment.
Les amitiés des abbés de chalut et arnoux au cher petit fils.
5. In the hand of Arnoux.
6. BF had met Mably years earlier, through the abbé Chalut, and owned many of his works: XXVI, 504; XXVII, 388.
7. Mably was offering to BF his De la manière d’écrire l’histoire (Paris, 1783), which was approved for release (receiving its privilège du roi) on Dec. 7, 1782. A highly opinionated and controversial book, it covered all aspects of writing history, from the requisite scholarly preparation to points of style that would keep a work from being flat and lifeless. For Mably the primary purpose of history was to inspire a love of virtue. In his view the works of most Enlightenment historians lacked the clear sense of moral purpose he found in those of the ancient Greek and Roman historians. Some contemporary reviews of De la manière ridiculed Mably’s summary judgment of Voltaire that for all his erudition “[il] ne voyait pas au bout de son nez” (De la manière, p. 40): Tourneux, Correspondance littéraire, XIII, 225–9 (December, 1782); Jour. de Paris, Feb. 17, 1783.
On Dec. 19, and again on Jan. 5, JA dined with Mably in the company of Chalut and others. Mably discussed with JA his plan to write on the American constitutions; this led to an exchange of letters and the publication of Mably’s Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Etats-Unis d’Amérique (Paris, 1784): Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams … (10 vols., Boston, 1850–6), V, 491–2; Butterfield, John Adams Diary, III, 97, 101–2.