To Thomas Jefferson from Lafayette, 20 April 1805
From Lafayette
Auteuïl 30h Germinal 20h April 1805
My dear friend
Here I am With my Son and daughter in law Who is Going to increase our family. Her father is to Stand God father to the child and if He is a Boy We intend taking the liberty to Give Him Your Name—You Have No Greater Admirers in the World than My two friends Tracy and Cabanis Who live Quietly in this Village, Going Now and then to an Insignificant Senate and Employing their time in philosophical pursuits. Tracy Has Given a New Edition of His ideology Which He is Happy to See through me presented to You—Besides this offering of the Author I inclose a short Extract from a long dissertation by dupuis—This abridgement Has been Made by tracy—But He drew only a few Copies and from Motives of deference to His Mother did not put His Name to it—I thought this little Work Might for Some Moments Entertain You. I am With the Most Affectionate Respect Your Grateful friend
Lafayette
Dupl (DLC); at head of text: “duplicate”; endorsed by TJ as received 6 July and so recorded in SJL. Enclosures: (1) Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, Éléments d’idéologie, Première partie . . . Seconde édition (Paris, 1804), with inscription on half title page, “presenté a Mr. Jefferson par l’auteur” ( No. 1239). (2) [Destutt de Tracy], Analyse raisonnée de l’origine de tous les cultes, ou religion universelle (Paris, 1804), an abridged version of Origine de tous les cultes by Charles François Dupuis and first published in 1796 ( No. 1296).
increase our family: George Washington Lafayette and his wife, Françoise Émilie Lafayette, the daughter of Destutt de Tracy, were expecting their second child. A daughter, Charlotte Mathilde du Motier de Lafayette, was born on 7 May (Arnaud Chaffanjon, La Fayette et sa descendance [Paris, 1976], 171).
French physician and medical writer Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis lived in Auteuil and served in the Sénat (Vol. 38:525n).