To Benjamin Franklin from Pierre-Isaac Poissonnier, 13 February 1782
From Pierre-Isaac Poissonnier4
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Ce 13 fever. 1782.
J’ay lhonneur d’Envoyer a monsieur Francklin l’invitation du College Royal au discours que j’y dois prononcer;5 j’y joins la mienne en Particulier pour qu’il veuille bien m’honorer de sa présence; je luy renouvelle, En attendant, les assurances du plus parfait et du plus respectueux attachement
Poissonnier
Notation: Poissonier, Paris 13. Fevr. 1782.
4. Poissonnier (XXVII, 559), dean of the Collège royal, had ceased teaching in 1778: Charles C. Gillispie, Science and Polity in France at the End of the Old Regime (Princeton, 1980), pp. 134–5.
5. This speech, delivered on Feb. 18 in honor of the dauphin’s birth, traced the Progress of the sciences in France since the time of Francis I, founder of the Collège royal. According to the Feb. 23 report in the Jour. De Paris, the speech was well attended and much applauded.