To Benjamin Franklin from Jean-Jacques Bachelier, 1 March 1784
From Jean-Jacques Bachelier3
Printed invitation with MS insertions: American Philosophical Society
A Paris, ce ier Mars 1784.
Monsieur
Vous êtes invité de la part de Monsieur le Lieutenant général de Police, et du Bureau d’Administration de l’Ecole royale gratuite de Dessin, d’honorer de votre présence la distribution des grands Prix et Maîtrises, qui se fera aux Tuileries, Cour des Princes, Galerie de la Reine, le 8. du present à 5. heures précises.4
Je suis avec respect, Monsieur Votre très-humble et très-obéissant Serviteur,
Bachelier
3. Painter and director of the Ecole royale gratuite de dessin, which he founded in 1766. The school received support from various members of the royal family and a wide range of benefactors throughout France: Ulrich Leben, Object Design in the Age of Enlightenment: the History of the Royal Free Drawing School in Paris, trans. Sharon Grevet (Los Angeles, 2004), pp. 47, 53–4. In 1777 BF and Bachelier had discussed a proposal for establishing a school for the arts and crafts as well as manufactures in the United States: XXIII, 619; XXIV, 143n; DBF.
4. Lenoir, the lieutenant general of police, was president of the school’s administrative board: Almanach royal for 1784, p. 525. The ceremony was described in the Jour. de Paris of March 11, where Bachelier’s address was published and the names of the grand prize winners announced.