To Benjamin Franklin from Nicolas Léger Moutard, with Franklin’s Note for a Reply, 2 September 1784
From Nicolas Léger Moutard,3 with Franklin’s Note for a Reply
AL: American Philosophical Society
Paris Le 2 7bre 1784
Moutard a L’honneur d’assurer M. franklin de son respect et a celui de lui faire hommage de 12 Exemplaire des Rapports sur le magnetisme de L’edition in 8°./.4
M franklin
Addressed: A Monsieur / Monsieur franklin / A Passy
Endorsed: Present my Compliments thankful Acknowledgements & Acceptance of the Favour &c5
Notation: Moutard 2 Sept. 1784.—
3. For this Parisian printer-bookseller, currently the publisher for the Académie royale des sciences, see Jean-Dominique Mellot and Elisabeth Queval, Répertoire d’imprimeurs/libraires, XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1997). BF had patronized Moutard since at least 1780: XXXII, 4.
4. The reports by the two royal commissions to investigate animal magnetism, submitted to the king in mid-August, had been issued in quarto editions c. Aug. 21 by the Imprimerie royale: XLII, 478. Moutard reprinted both in octavo. (Copies of the quarto and octavo editions that BF owned are at the Hist. Soc. of Pa.) For the two commissions see, in particular, XLII, 184–90, 475–80. The report of the Academy/Faculty commission, headed by BF, is summarized in XXLII, 480–93; the Society of Medicine commission’s report is cited on pp. 475–6n.
5. On Sept. 12, L’Air de Lamotte wrote a polite acknowledgment on BF’s behalf, of which an unsigned press copy survives (APS).