To Benjamin Franklin from the Abbé Jarry, [c. 29 January 1782]
From the Abbé Jarry
ALS: American Philosophical Society
[c. January 29, 1782]9
à ce philosophe divin,
protée ingenieux qui Scait Et peut tout faire:
pour qui dans la Nature il n’est plus de mystere,
Et qui Suivant les pas d’un généreux Romain,
affranchit Son pays du joug de l’angleterre;
& pour tout dire en un mot: à Franklin.
L’abbé Jarrÿ
Etud. en physique au College mont-aigu.
9. Dated on the basis of the enclosure: eleven printed pages of verse comprising two compositions and bearing Le Noir’s permission to print dated Jan. 29. The first piece was a 17-strophe ode on the birth of the dauphin. This was followed by four and a half pages of irregularly rhymed decasyllables in praise of Marie-Antoinette. Jarry wrote, at the top of page one, “Franklino, Naturæ indagatori & libertatis vindici” (To Franklin, follower of nature and upholder of liberty). On the last page, where the anonymous poet is described as a nineteen-year-old student and author of an epitaph for Maurepas published in the Mercure de France of December, 1781, Jarry signed his name.