RC (Andre deCoppet, New York, 1949); endorsed. PrC (DLC). Your friend Mr. Trumbul is here: The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, ed. Theodore Sizer (New Haven, 1953), an accurate and well-annotated edition of Trumbull’s Autobiography, Reminiscences and Letters (New Haven, 1841), presents an excellent account of TJ’s relations with Trumbull at this period: “Mr. Jefferson… had a taste for the fine arts, and highly approved my intention of preparing myself for the accomplishment of a national work. He encouraged me to persevere in this pursuit, and kindly invited me to come to Paris, to see and study the fine works there, and to make his house my home, during my stay.—I now availed myself of this invitation, and went to his house, at the Grille de Chaillot, where I was most kindly received by him. My two paintings, the first fruits of my national enterprise, met his warm approbation, and during my visit, I began the composition of the Declaration of Independence, with the assistance of his information and advice” (Sizer, Autobiography, p. 92–3; see illustration in this volume). On Sunday 6 Aug., Trumbull had gone “with Mr. Jefferson and others to see the ceremony of crowning the rosière of Sarennes, a village near St. Cloud, four miles from Chaillot” (Trumbull gives the date as “Sunday, August 5th,” but it is evident that here and elsewhere in editing his Paris diary for publication he erred in assigning dates to the days of the week); the party evidently did not include Trumbull’s friends the Richard Cosways, for TJ’s Account Book shows that he bought only three “tickets to Suresne,” one of them doubtless being for Short. TJ may have been present on Monday, 7 Aug., when Trumbull “Went with M. and Madame Houdon, to the salon on the Boulevards, to see his little Diana in marble”; he was almost certainly present on Thursday the 10th when Trumbull “Went to the Luxembourg palace with Mr. and Mrs. Cosway” and others; he evidently was not with Trumbull when the latter “Went to Versailles with Mr. and Mrs. Cosway, MM. D’Hancharville, Poggi, Bulfinch, Coffin, &c.” The last expedition was on Sunday the 13th (the 12th by Trumbull’s dating), and on Monday the 14th Trumbull “Dined, in company with Mr. Jefferson, at the Abbés Chassi [Chalut] and Arnout [Arnoux] in Passy; a jour maigre, or fast day, but the luxury of the table in soups, fish and fruits, truly characteristic of the opulent clergy of the times. After dinner visited Madame De Corny” (same, p. 98–9, 107, 118). Unhappily, Trumbull suffered the loss of one or two sheets of his diary toward the close of Aug. Under date of 19 Aug. (i.e., 20 Aug.) he wrote late in life: “I distinctly recollect, however, that this time was occupied with the same industry in examining and reviewing whatever relates to the arts, and that Mr. Jefferson joined our party almost daily; and here commenced his acquaintance with Mrs. Cosway, of whom very respectful mention is made in his published correspondence” (same, p. 120). A violent criticism of chastellux’s voiages: This was Brissot de Warville’s Examen critique des “Voyages dans l’Amérique septentrionale de M. le Marquis de Chatellux”; ou lettre à M. le Marquis de Chatellux dans lequel on réfute principalement ses opinions sur les Quakers, sur les Nègres, sur le peuple et sur l’homme, which had appeared in July (C. Perroud, J.-P. Brissot, Correspondance et Papiers, Paris, 1911, p. 90; although this title, like some others by Brissot de Warville, bears the imprint “Londres,” it was in fact printed in Paris—a device made necessary by the radical nature of the writings of the young philosophe. At the conclusion of 135 pages of criticism of Chastellux’ Voyages, Brissot declared that there was no Frenchman nor American who would not derive pleasure from re-reading “les portraits de Washington, du savant M. Jefferson, et de ce jeune et brave François que vous caractérisez si bien comme l’espérance de notre Nation, spes altera Romæ, dont le nom sera cité à jamais à côté de celui de son père, de son ami Washington, dans les Annales des Etats-Unis”—a tribute that Lafayette must have read with pleasure (see Lafayette to TJ, 30 Aug. 1786). The public papers continue to say favourable and just things of your poem:The issue of Mercure de France for 5 Aug. 1786 contained a tribute to Chastellux’ translation of “un Poëme d’un Officier Américain, qui peut disputer de verve et de beautés avec les meilleures pièces de vers Angloises” (p. 40).