From Dominique Lefebvre Delagrange
ALS: American Philosophical Society
<Brancourt, near St. Quentin, February 19, 1778, in French:
An honest family begs your help in its shameful poverty. I
must support my wife and five children on an income of 400
l.t., and have only twelve sous a day for food; as for clothes,
we are almost naked. My curé will confirm this. The farmers
general helped me out six months ago, but I dare not ask them
again. You are my only hope for paying the baker, who refuses
me bread; we have lived for two days on potatoes and
carrots and a bit of salt. My wife and two of the children have
been ill for three weeks, and I cannot help them. You will see
from the enclosed memorandum that I have been unlucky since
early youth, not from fault of mine but because fortune has
broken me on its wheel.>
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