To Benjamin Franklin from the Marquise de Mirabeau, with Franklin’s Note for a Reply, 1 January 1785
From the Marquise de Mirabeau,1 with Franklin’s Note for a Reply
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Ce 1 janvier 1785
Permestes monsieur que je me rappelle dans lhonneur de votre souvenir et que je vous renouve le dans le commencement de lanné les voeux que je fait pour vous cest une hommage qui vous est due a tant de titres par a venerattion que vous vous attires de tout ce qui vous connoit et que je vous rand avec empressement.
Oserais je vous demander une grace pour un homme a talent et honnete qui sappelle bourgoin honnete homme agé de 25 ans imprimeur en taille douce et habille qui desireroit passé chez les insurgen2 que vous vouliez bien lui accorder votre protection pour passé; ma réconnoissance esgallera le respectueux attachement avec lequels jai lhonneur detre monsieur votre tres humble et tres obbeissante servante
VASSAN MARQUISE DE MIRABEAU
rue neuve des maturin chausée dantin numero 30
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur le docteur franclin pleinipotencie / et ministre en son hotel / A passi
Endorsed: That if he can pay for his Passage, and obtain a Passport from this Government, he may easily pass into America by the Pacquet Boat from L’Orient and I will at her desire recommend him to be employ’d. That I have no means in my Power of sending People to America.
Notation: Mirabeau la Mse. De. 1er. Janvr. 1785.
1. Marie-Geneviève de Vassan married Victor Riquetti, marquis de Mirabeau, in 1743. After 1762 the couple no longer lived together; they officially separated in 1781: Georges Fray, Mirabeau: l’homme privé (Paris, 2009), pp. 34–6, 39–40. BF had known her husband since 1767 (XXIV, 335n) and recently collaborated with their son Honoré-Gabriel; see Le Veillard’s letter of Sept. 5.
2. Perhaps the same Bourgoin who would sail from Le Havre to New York in September, 1787, carrying TJ’s private letters and dispatches as well as recommendations of him that TJ wrote to Francis Hopkinson and BF. (The latter is missing.) TJ called this young man “a worthy and ingenious artist, skilled in drawing and engraving.” Le Veillard also sent BF a letter by Bourgoin, but BF wrote that it was not delivered: Jefferson Papers, XII, 140, 162, 167, 179–80, 439; Le Veillard to BF, April 1, 1788 (APS); BF to Le Veillard, Oct. 24, 1788, in Smyth, Writings, IX, 673.