To Benjamin Franklin from Lafayette, [21 February 1779]
From Lafayette
AL: American Philosophical Society
Sunday Morning [February 21, 1779]2
I had promis’d myself, my good friend, that I would have the pleasure of embracing You this Morning—but they Write me from Versailles that I must be at the King’s Levee Before seeing any Body of the Royal family, and that Levee I understand to be at 11: Clock—in our kingly Countries we have a foolish law Call’d Etiquette that any one tho a Sensible man, must absolutely follow—I will see the Minister, and to morrow morning I’ll have the pleasure to tell you what is the Matter at Versailles. Adieu
Notation: LaFayette
2. The first Sunday after Lafayette’s apology to Louis XVI and release from confinement: see his letter of Feb. 13–14. On the evening of the 20th Lafayette had met with JA (Idzerda, Lafayette Papers, II, 234), but he probably saw BF, then afflicted with gout, only briefly, if at all.