To Benjamin Franklin from the Chevalier de Chadirac, with Franklin’s Note for a Reply, 1 July 1784
From the Chevalier de Chadirac,9 with Franklin’s Note for a Reply
LS: American Philosophical Society
Paris le 1er Juillet 1784.
Monsieur
Attaché au Service de France, j’ay eu L’avantage de Consacrer mes jours à la défense des côtes de votre pays dans cette derniere guerre; je me suis trouvé à tous les Combats qu’essuia L’hermione Commandée par M Delatouche, entr’autres à celui qu’elle Soutint contre l’Iris, où j’eus Le malheur de perdre le bras droit. Arrivé à Paris depuis peu, je n’ai rien de plus a cœur que d’avoir des preuves de mes Services; et je suis on ne peut pas plus jaloux d’obtenir La croix de Cincinatus: Si cette recompense militaire depend de vous, vôtre justice me la fait esperer, Sinon, veuilléz avoir La bonté, Monsieur de m’informer, dans vôtre reponse, a qui il faut S’adresser pour cet objet.1
J’ay L’honneur d’être avec le plus profond respect Monsieur Votre très humble et très obéissant Serviteur
DE CHADIRAC
Enseigne de vaissx à l’hôtel de gaston
rue traversiere St honoré
M. Franklin
Endorsed: Answer. That the Order of Cincinnatus is established only by private Agreement among the Officers, and not by Authority of the American Government. That I have therefore no Concern in it whatsoever. That M. de la Fayette acted for that Society when here, but he is gone & and I have not heard that there is any other left in his Place.—2 With Complimts. &c3
Notation: Chadirac 1er. Juillet 1784.—
9. Pierre-Victor-Laurent, chevalier de Chadirac, sailed to America in Ternay’s squadron as an auxiliary officer in 1780. From May to July, 1780, the Hermione, under the command of La Touche-Tréville (XXVII, 78n), cruised along the coast of Massachusetts to defend American ships against English privateers. The battle Chadirac mentions, between the Hermione and the British frigate Iris, took place on June 7, 1780, off Long Island: XXXIII, 12n; Robert Kalbach and Jean-Luc Gireaud, L’Hermione, frégate des lumières (Paris, 2004), pp. 83–99, 136–7. He was wounded again in combat on July 21, 1781: Ludovic de Contenson, La Société des Cincinnati de France et la guerre d’Amérique, 1778–1783 (Paris, 1934), p. 153; Christian de La Jonquière, Les Marins français sous Louis XVI: Guerre d’indépendance américaine (Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, 1996), p. 56.
1. Chadirac appears to have become a member of the Cincinnati after his promotion to lieutenant de vaisseau in 1786: Contenson, Société des Cincinnati de France, p. 153; La Jonquière, Les Marins français sous Louis XVI, p. 56.
2. Lafayette was in charge of examining claims for membership from French soldiers who had served with the Continental Army. (Rochambeau and d’Estaing reviewed applications from those who had served with the French forces.) At the meeting of the French chapter on July 4, Lafayette was elected president for life. He never assumed the office, possibly because, following GW’s example, he had come to oppose the society’s principle of hereditary membership. D’Estaing assumed the presidency of the French chapter, but Lafayette remained active in evaluating membership applications: Minor Myers, Jr., Liberty without Anarchy: a History of the Society of the Cincinnati (Charlottesville, 1983), pp. 149, 155–8.
3. On July 8 the haberdasher P. B. Graft wrote to WTF (a regular customer of his: XLI, 386n) to ask where he could obtain a drawing of the insignia of the Cincinnati. This was a commission from a friend in Switzerland, which Graft had been unable to fulfill in Paris. On July 10 Graft thanked WTF “for the very obliging trouble He has taken Relating the order of the Cincinati.” Both letters are at the APS.