Thomas Jefferson Papers
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To Thomas Jefferson from Louise d’Egremont Brongniart, 11 October 1802

From Louise d’Egremont Brongniart

le 11 8bre 1802

Mme Brongniart est extrêmement reconnaissante des souhaits que monsieur Le president a la bonté de former pour le succès de son voyage. Elle s’empressera à son arrivée de remettre elle même à Mr Livingston la lettre de monsieur Le president dont elle se charge avec le plus grand plaisir.

EDITORS’ TRANSLATION

11 Oct. 1802

Madame Brongniart is extremely grateful for the president’s kind wishes for the success of her journey. She is happy to take care of the president’s letter and will hasten to deliver it personally to Mr. Livingston on her arrival.

RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as received the same day as written and so recorded in SJL.

Louise d’Egremont Brongniart (b. 1744) was the mother of Émilie Brongniart Pichon. At the time of her marriage to Alexandre Théodore Brongniart in 1767, she owned an apothecary shop in Paris. In the spring of 1793, when her husband, unable to obtain architectural commissions in Paris, moved to Bordeaux to design a theater, she remained in Paris with Émilie, their youngest child, keeping up their household and the family’s social routines in the metropolis through the Terror and until Théodore returned in 1795. During his absence she lobbied the Convention to exclude him and other artists from a decree against people who had gone to Bordeaux seeking a more moderate political climate. In May 1802, anxious to see Émilie and Louis André Pichon, Madame Brongniart embarked on a visit to the United States. Her husband, who supplemented his architectural income with a government position as inspector general of buildings and with nonarchitectural design work, did not accompany her on the journey. In 1828, Émilie Pichon reported to a friend in the United States that her mother was in good health and living with the Pichons in Paris (Louis de Launay, Une grande famille de savants: Les Brongniart [Paris, 1940], 19–20, illus. facing 26; Jacques Silvestre de Sacy, Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart, 1739–1813, Sa Vie—Son Œuvre [Paris, 1940], 89–91, 94–6, 106–8, 128, 133–5; Dictionnaire description begins Dictionnaire de biographie française, Paris, 1933–, 19 vols. description ends , 7:420; La Revue du Louvre, 24 [1974], 105; Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, ed. Gaillard Hunt [New York, 1906], 218).

LA LETTRE: TJ to Robert R. Livingston, 10 Oct. Madame Brongniart also took a letter from Madison to Livingston. She had brought dispatches from Livingston when she traveled to the United States during the spring (Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser. description begins William T. Hutchinson, Robert A. Rutland, J. C. A. Stagg, and others, eds., The Papers of James Madison, Chicago and Charlottesville, 1962–, 33 vols. Sec. of State Ser., 1986–, 9 vols.; Pres. Ser., 1984–, 6 vols.; Ret. Ser., 2009–, 1 vol. description ends , 4:204, 278; Livingston to TJ, 4 May 1802).

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