To Benjamin Franklin from Duvivier, 27 May 1780
From Duvivier
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Paris ce 27 may 1780
Monsieur
Les Medailles que Vous m’avez demandées sont frappées; jattends les noms des personnes que vous devez m’envoier pour les faire graver comme nous en sommes convenus,8 et je vous prierois en meme temps en visitant ces memes papiers de prendre un parti sur les autres médailles a Graver. La belle saison m’excite a vous faire cette demande.
Jai lhonneur d’estre tres respectueusement Monsieur, de Votre Excellence Le tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur
B DuVivier
Addressed: a Son Excellence / Son Excellence Monsieur / Franklin Ministre des Etats / unis d’amerique près le Roy / de france / a Passy
Notation: Duvivier Paris 27 may 1780.
8. BF and Duvivier had evidently discussed using the die cast for Fleury’s medal to produce the two other Stony Point commemorative medals for Wayne and Stewart (XXX, 416n). This would require reingraving only the names and mottos. BF was concerned about the medals’ expense and, as he explained to Huntington in his letter of May 31 (below), he was in the process of trying to locate a less costly engraver.
BF never answered the present letter. On June 18 Duvivier wrote again, this time to WTF, asking whether BF had forgotten about Fleury’s medal having been completed. Would WTF please write out the names to be engraved on the next medals, once the letters were erased, and ask his grandfather about the other medals that Congress had commissioned? On June 20, in response to a now-missing reply, he wrote again to WTF: he has only struck medals in silver and bronze, not knowing that BF also needed one in gold. (Fleury requested an extra medal in gold in a letter published above, at the end of March.) He will strike a gold medal, erase the letters as requested, and deliver the items “un de ces matins.” APS. Duvivier exhibited Fleury’s medal in the Salon of 1781, where it was praised by a reviewer: Bachaumont, Mémoires secrets, XIX, 323.