You are too kind, my illustrious doctor, for thinking of me in this way; the observations that you sent me are truly interesting. I am completely ashamed that your good wishes for me arrived before those which I had wanted to offer you, for a long life at the summit of your glory, where you have arrived—there is nothing else to wish for you. The rigor of the season, and a troubled stomach and health, prevented me from going to see you since the beginning of the year, and before that I was so busy that it was impossible, but I hope to make it up at the first opportunity. I still have your letter from M. Banks which I will have the honor of bringing back to you.

Argant, a young man whom I had the honor of introducing to you last autumn, and who is currently in London, reports that in the midst of all that he is seeing and hearing, it seems that the English do not attach a great importance to the discovery of balloons, and that they will probably not spend much time perfecting them. However, I recently received a letter from a doctor friend of mine, an intelligent man who lives in Liverpool and who tells me that there is talk of nothing but balloons. He said that the Philosophical Society of Manchester of which he is a member, sent up a globe, with a 10-foot diameter I think, which went more than 40 miles in the air before falling. As for the continent, I don't know if you have heard, my illustrious doctor, that the balloon in Lyon, 100 feet tall and 100 feet in diameter, will not be ready to leave until the 10th of this month. At least this is what a friend of mine tells me, who is to be carried in it. The way he talks about it deserves to be quoted: The balloon cannot be ready until the 10th; do not expect us therefore until the 14th, as if these gentlemen had the wind's promise to carry them here directly. Moreover, this aerial voyage will be crowded, for there will be at least five of them in the machine. The throng is indeed there to embark, but many are called, few are chosen. You know, my illustrious doctor, that the Academy has been ordered by the government to work on perfecting the balloons and that it has named a committee to work particularly on this project. As I am a member, this has made me think more at length about ways of steering them, and the possibility seems to me as proven as that of protecting building from lightning seemed proven to me, when I read your sublime idea on the ways to achieve this. There is more: I made a calculation with a friend of mine, showing that a balloon of the same dimensions as that of MM. Charles and Robert, filled with the same flammable air and carrying two men, produces only as much resistance to the desired movement as the amount of resistance which these two men can by give it by their actions: a movement of 3600 fathoms? per hour. But I will tell you more about this tomorrow morning, my illustrious doctor, when I am planning to have the honor of seeing you around eleven-thirty. Until then please accept all my most sincere wishes for your health and longevity, and the assurances of all the sentiments of attachment which I have devoted to you for life