To Benjamin Franklin from Louis d’Ussieux, [before 19 March 1781]
From Louis d’Ussieux9
Printed invitation: American Philosophical Society
[before March 19, 1781]
T∴ C∴ F∴1
L∴R∴L∴2 des Neuf Sœurs, Est convoquée pour le Lundi 19 du 1er. mois D∴ L∴ D∴ L∴ V∴ L∴ 5781.3 à onze heures précises. Les FF∴4 DE Sauvigny, Dezedes & Morel5 prêteront le serment d’Affiliation. On fera la distribution des Jettons à midi un quart sonnant. Les FF∴ qui arriveront passé cette heure, n’y auront plus de droit. Cet article est de rigueur. Les Lectures par les FF∴ Cadet DE Veau, Guillaumot, Grouvel, Chevalier DE Cubieres & Marquis DE LA Salle6 commenceront à midi & demi. A deux heures précises le Concert; à trois le Banquet.
Vous êtes priés d’y venir augmenter les douceurs de l’union fraternelle.
Je suis par les N∴ C∴ D∴ V∴ M∴
V∴ T∴ H∴ & affectionné Frere
D’ussieux,
2d Secrétaire D∴ L∴ R∴ L∴ Des Neuf-Sœurs.
Si vous ne pouvez pas assister au Banquet, vous en donnerez avis au Secrétaire deux jours avant l’Assemblée, sous peine de l’amende imposée par les Réglemens.
L’adresse ordinaire de la Loge est à M. de La Dixmerie, Maison de M. Valleyre, Imprimeur-Libraire, rue de la vieille Bouclerie.7
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur Le Docteur / franklin / A Passy
9. D’Ussieux’s term as second secretary began in the spring of 1780, during the second and last year of BF’s vénéralat: XXXII, 331n.
1. Très Cher Frère.
2. La Respectable Loge.
3. De L’année De La Vraie Lumière 5781. The masonic year began on March 1.
4. Frères.
5. Measures taken at the July 3, 1780, meeting “pour Suppléer à la Négligence des ff. musiciens” (XXXIII, 17) may have resulted in the affiliation of two of these brothers. Edme-Louis Billardon de Sauvigny (1736–1812), chevalier de St. Louis, royal censor for belles lettres and history, and for the bureau de législation dramatique, was himself a writer of tragedies and comic operas. He and Alexandre Dezède (Desaides) (c. 1740–1792), a composer who specialized in the pastoral, collaborated on several comic operas. The Théâtre Italien and the Académie royale de musique produced several of Dezède’s comic operas between 1772 and the Revolution: Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, XV, 147–8, 157–8; Jour. de Paris for May 4, 1780; Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens; DBF; Louis Amiable, Une Loge maçonnique d’avant 1789 … (Paris, 1897), pp. 264, 349.
Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens lists Morel as a member of the lodge in 1781, but does not identify him.
6. Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux became a member in 1781: Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens.
Charles-Axel Guillaumot (1730–1807), architect and sculptor, was a member of the Académie royale d’architecture and intendant général of royal buildings and gardens. A month after this meeting Métra names him as an author of a pamphlet praising Piccini’s operas over those of Gluck: Correspondance secrète, XI, 223. See also Michel Gallet, Paris Domestic Architecture of the 18th Century (James C. Palmes, trans., London, 1972), p. 164; Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens.
Philippe-Antoine Grouvelle (1757–1806) had been secretary to Chamfort, a man of letters and member of the Neuf Soeurs, and inherited from him the post of secrétaire des commandements du prince de Condé. He too was a writer and by this time had written an opera, Les Prunes: Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens; Amiable, Une Loge maçonnique d’avant 1789 …, pp. 297–8, 299–300, 311–12; DBF.
Michel Cubières de Palmezeaux (1752–1820), écuyer to the comtesse d’Artois and a friend of Voltaire, d’Alembert, and Buffon, was a playwright and poet: Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens; DBF.
Adrien-Nicolas-Piedefer, marquis de La Salle d’Offémont (1735–1818), who succeeded BF as vénérable in May, served as an officer in the cavalry during the Seven Years’ War and returned to his military career off and on during his life. He was also a writer of novels and plays, including Chacun a sa folie, presented by the Comédiens Italiens the day after this assembly of the Neuf Soeurs: Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, XVII, 101; Jour. de Paris for March 21, 1781; Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens; Nouvelle biographie.
7. Jean-Baptiste-Paul Valleyre l’aîné had been a member of the lodge since 1778: Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens.
During the months covered by this volume WTF, and presumably BF, received an invitation for Feb. 19, to a concert and banquet, to be preceded by readings by Court de Gébelin, Le Changeux (XXXI, 372n), Grouvelle, Cadet de Vaux, and Charles-Georges-Thomas Garnier (1746–1795), avocat en Parlement: Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens.
BF also received an invitation for April 23, announcing a concert and banquet, with readings by Cadet de Vaux, Court de Gébelin, Sauvigny, and Charles-Etienne Gaucher (1740–1804), engraver and literary man (XXXIII, xxvii): Le Bihan, Francs-maçons parisiens.