To Benjamin Franklin from the Chevalier d’Anmours, 17 January 1777
From the Chevalier d’Anmours1
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Bordeaux Jnry 17. 1777.
Sir
Madam La Marquise de Saineville, has Sent me, inclos’d in one of her letters, another, which at her Recommandation, and that of Mr. l’abbé Raynal, you were So good to write in my favour to Mr. Moris, your friend in Philadelphia.2Your Réputation, Sir, makes me acquainted with its Value, and that Value Engages my most Sinceres Sentiments of Gratitude. Accept my thanks for it, and my offers of Service in a Contry where I intend to pass some time; and where I should think my Self exceedingly happy, were it in my power to give you a Proof of the high Sentiments of veneration and Respect with which I am, sir your most humble and most obedient servant
Le Ch[evalie]r d’anmours
Mr. B. franklin in Paris.
Addressed: À Monsieur, / Monsieur Franklin / à Paris.
Notation: D’Anmoeurs
1. Charles-François-Adrien Le Paulmier d’Anmours (1742–1807) had spent some years in England and America and returned home in 1773. Through the Chevalier de La Luzerne, a relative, he made contact with Vergennes in September, 1776, gave him several memoranda on American affairs, and was eventually authorized to go to Philadelphia as an unofficial observer. He subsequently became a French consul, and lived out his life in the United States. See the sketch of him (in which his name is misspelled) in the Md. Hist. Mag., V (1910), 38–45; Kathryn Sullivan, Maryland and France, 1774–1789 (Philadelphia, 1936), pp. 39–45.
2. The marquise de Gérente de Senneville (or, as she spelled herself, Jarente de Sainneville) was a relative of d’Anmours, the daughter of the marquis de Senas et d’Orgeval, and the wife of the baron de Senneville, lieutenant de vaisseau; see her letter below, April 30, and Dictionnaire de la noblesse, IX, 163. BF had been in indirect touch with Raynal, the well known philosophe, in 1773 (above, XX, 448); the phrasing suggests that he had recently been in more direct contact. The letter to Robert Morris has disappeared.