To Benjamin Franklin from Balthazar-Georges Sage, [before 27 January 1781]
From Balthazar-Georges Sage
ALS: American Philosophical Society
[before January 27, 1781]6
Monsieur
Je me proposois d’aller faire hommage de Cet exemplaire de l’art d’essayer L’or et Largent que je viens de publier, mais mon tems est si occupé par mon Cours public, et par La guerre Litteraire que j’ai a soutenir Contre des personnes qui ont pour troupes auxiliaires, Lintrigue et passablement de mauvaise foi, qu’il ne me reste pas un Moment de libre.7 J’ai prié Mr Stinski professeur de physique à prague, qui desiroit avoir Lhonneur de vous voir, d’avoir La bonte de se charger de ce pacquet, que je vous prie d’agreer.
Recevez Monsieur les assurances du Respect avec Lequel je suis votre serviteur
SAGE
6. When François Steinsky delivered to BF the book that Sage mentions here; see BF’s entry in Steinsky’s autograph book, Jan. 27, where the professor from Prague is identified. Sage signed Steinsky’s autograph book on Jan. 10, but the controversy he mentions in this letter did not begin until the following week.
7. Sage, a popular speaker whom the Académie des sciences reluctantly admitted to membership in 1770 because he had impressed the King, was never regarded as a capable chemist. With the unauthorized publication of L’Art d’essayer l’or et l’argent, he antagonized the scientific community by claiming to have produced gold from ashes, thereby challenging the well-tested methods employed by the assayers of gold and silver. On Jan. 19, in the midst of the controversy, Sage gave an “unpublicized” (and unreproducable) demonstration to an audience of six hundred admirers. Condorcet refuted him in the Journal de Paris. See Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, XVII, 29–31, 33–4; Jour. de Paris, Jan. 21, 24, 26, 1780; Dictionary of Scientific Biography.