Benjamin Franklin Papers

To Benjamin Franklin from Octavie Guichard Durey de Meinières, 31 August 1783

From Octavie Guichard Durey de Meinières9

ALS: American Philosophical Society

aux Pavillons de chaillot Ce 31 aoust 1783

Illustrioux Legislator of your Country, I Would be Very obliged to you, if you Would and Could give me, the book, of the Constitution, translated by M. de la Rochefoucault. Some body told me, that it is not Sold. I Should be lofty1 to have it of your hand, and gratefull to you for your Kindness, my dear Neighbour, loved and revered by your most humble Servant

Guichard DE Meinieres

Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur franklin / ministre plénipotenciaire des états / unis de l’amérique / a Passy

Notation: De mainieres.

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

9A spirited member of Mme Helvétius’ circle and former translator of English works: XXXII, 297–8. For a study of some of her earlier correspondence see Marie-Laure Girou Swiderski, “De la ‘gazette’ au ‘commerce des âmes’: les lettres de la présidente de Meinières à la marquise de Lénoncourt,” in Femmes en toutes lettres: les épistolières du XVIIIe siècle, ed. Marie-France Silver and Marie-Laure Girou Swiderski, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2000), no. 4, pp. 119–39, 254–6.

1By which she means proud (fière).

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