Francois André Michaux to Thomas Jefferson, 10 August 1810
From François André Michaux
Paris ce 10 aout 1810
Monsieur
Dans la lettre que j’ai eu l’honneur de vous écrire peu de tems après mon arrivée en France, je vous exprimais toute ma reconnoissce pour la faveur Signalée, que vous m’accordâtes en facilitant mon retour en Europe, avec touts mes Collections. C’est le résultat de cette bienveillce1 de votre part, qui fait que je suis dès apresent dans la possibilité de vous adrésser le Commenct de mon travail Sur les grands végétaux de l’Amérique septle et notament des Etats Unis. Je désire sinceremt Monsieur, que cet ouvrage se trouve être digne de votre suffrage et surtout si vous pensés qu’il puisse contribuer à l’instruction des agriculteurs et des ouvriers en bois, classes d’Hommes si Utiles et si nombreuse dans2 votre paÿs. Pour rendre cet ouvrage plus populaire j’ai pensé qu’il serait avantageux de remplacer dans l’edition américaine, tous les noms botaniques par les noms Vulgaires, changement que j’ai fait dans l’Exemplaire que jenvoÿe à Monsr S. Bradford Libraire à Philadelphie et sur lequel sera faite la traduction; je lui envoÿe également, de Paris, les planches coloriées pour etre adapteés a cette même édition. si, au contraire, aucun libraire dans les Etats Unis ne jugent pas a propos de faire cette traduction, l’Edition francaise, sera par suite suspendue, après avoir fait l’histoire des Noyers, et J’aurai a regretter que les tems malheux dans lesquels nous vivons se soient opposés a une entreprise qui aurait peut3 etre de quelque utilité et contribuer aux agréments de la vie champetre en amerique.
F. Andre Michaux
Editors’ Translation
Paris 10 August 1810
Sir
In the letter I had the honor to write you shortly after my arrival in France, I expressed my gratitude for the considerable favor you did me by facilitating my return to Europe with all my collections. Thanks to your kindness, I am now able to send you the beginning of my work on the large plants of North America, and especially those of the United States. I sincerely hope, Sir, that this work merits your approval and above all that you will think it might contribute to the education of farmers and woodsmen, classes of men so useful and numerous in your country. To make this work more popular I thought it might be advantageous to replace all the botanical designations with common names in the American edition, changes that I have marked in the copy I am sending to Mr. S. Bradford, a Philadelphia bookseller, for the translation. I am also sending him, from Paris, the colored plates to be used in this same edition. If, on the contrary, no bookseller in the United States finds it worthwhile to translate it, the French edition will be suspended after the completion of the history of walnut trees, and I will regret that the unhappy times in which we live are opposed to an enterprise that could have been of some use, and might have contributed to making rural life in America more pleasant.
F. Andre Michaux
RC (MoSHi: TJC-BC); dateline adjacent to closing; endorsed by TJ as received 20 Jan. 1811 and so recorded in SJL. Translation by Dr. Genevieve Moene. Enclosure: Michaux, Histoire des arbres forestiers de l’Amerique septentrionale (Paris, 1810–13; no. 1083), pt. 1.
François André Michaux (1770–1855), botanist, was the son of the eminent naturalist André Michaux. He obtained a medical degree in his native France and ventured as far north as Canada, as far south as Florida, and as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee during visits to America, 1785–90, 1801–03, and 1806–08. Michaux met the most prominent American botanists during his travels and published several works on botany and forestry. Having become acquainted with TJ, John Vaughan, Caspar Wistar, and other officers, Michaux secured election to the American Philosophical Society in 1809 and eventually left it a significant bequest. He spent much of his later life administering the Harcourt estate in Normandy, where he established France’s first public arboretum in 1851 (; ; , 28:221–2; Henry Savage and Elizabeth Savage, André and François André Michaux [1986]; Michaux to TJ, 6 July 1806, 27 May 1808, TJ to Michaux, 12 July 1806, 15 Aug. 1808, and Caspar Wistar to TJ, 2 June 1808 [DLC]; , Minutes, 21 Apr. 1809 [MS in PPAmP]).
The letter Michaux wrote TJ shortly after his arrival en france in November 1808 is not recorded in SJL and has not been found. Samuel bradford never published an American edition of the Histoire des arbres forestiers, Michaux’s most important work, but the author later had it translated into English and printed as The North American Sylva: or A Description of the Forest Trees of the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia, 3 vols. (Paris, 1817–19; , 5, 6 [nos. 171, 278]).
1. Manuscript: “bienveeillce.”
2. Manuscript: “dans dans.”
3. Manuscript: “put.”
Index Entries
- botany; books on search
- botany; scholars of search
- Bradford, Samuel Fisher search
- French language; letters in, from; F. A. Michaux search
- Histoire des arbres forestiers de l’Amerique septentrionale (F. A. Michaux) search
- Michaux, François André; Histoire des arbres forestiers de l’Amerique septentrionale search
- Michaux, François André; identified search
- Michaux, François André; letters from search
- Michaux, François André; letters from accounted for search
- Michaux, François André; North American Sylva search
- plants; books on search
- The North American Sylva (Michaux) search
- trees; walnut search
- walnut trees search