To Benjamin Franklin from ——— Sutaine de Bourez[?], 16 May 1778: résumé
From ——— Sutaine de Bourez[?]7
ALS: American Philosophical Society
<Paris, May 16, 1778, in French: When I paid you my respects in Passy several days ago, you asked for a memorandum about what is due me from the estate of my nephew, Du Coudray. I am asking only for the papers that I am told were in a particular trunk; I have the best right to them because we often worked closely together. His other effects belong to his brothers and are not my concern. If this trunk can be found and set aside, I wish you would send it to M. Gribeauval, who will accept and forward it.8>
7. “Bourez” is our guess at an almost indecipherable name, presumably of his estate. He had been captain in the Cambrésis regiment (a cavalryman, according to his subsequent letter discussed below) and an aide-de-camp to Lieut.-Gen. the marquis de la Châtre; he received the cross of St.Louis in 1763: Mazas, Ordre de Saint-Louis, I, 574. BF endorsed the letter “Concerning du Coudray.”
8. For Gribeauval see above, XXII, 462 n. Sutaine saw BF again later in the year on the same matter, and was told that the papers would probably arrive in January. On July 28, 1779 (misdated 1769), he wrote from an address near Epernay, in Champagne, to ask that any news might be sent to Gribeauval. He himself, he added, was in his vineyards in the most famous part of the wine district, and as a grower would gladly be of service. APS.