I received, my illustrious doctor, the different packages which you did me the honor of sending: 1. The package which had been sent to me via M. le Chevalier Pelletier, containing the letter which you did my brother the honor of writing, about navigation, 2. The package which I received via M. Grand, containing not only a similar letter but another which you had written to M. Ingenhou[s]z on the causes of smoke in chimneys and your essay on a new stove which burns charcoal and consumes all its smoke. I gave my brother his letter and I delivered M. Ingenhou[s]z's letter. My brother was enchanted by the honor you did him and he has asked me to give you all his thanks. In order to let him enjoy it sooner, I have already translated your letter almost entirely, and as it contains many excellent things, you can well imagine that we are eager to let the public enjoy it. But please, if it is still possible, change the name of Alphonsus which you have given him in your transactions. He has never gone by this name, being baptized Julien David, and the name Alphonsus comes from a doctor at the Paris Faculty of Medicine that neither he nor I care to resemble in any way.

I am going to spend some time in the country at M. de Malesherbes, where I will translate your essay on stoves, so that it will be promptly published, and I will not forget to send it to M. Le Noir and M. Cadet. Something quite strange has happened at M. de Malesherbes' castle, where I am going. A lightning bolt struck his pigeon-house where it killed more than three hundred pigeons; but the strange thing is that all the pigeons were on their feet in their holes as if looking around in the pigeon-house, and yet they were all dead, even though standing like this. This observation was told me by M. de Malesherbes.

I await with great impatience the letter that you promised me, my illustrious doctor, as well as your Transactions. We are on vacation at the moment, as you know, and I don't think there is any news in the sciences that might interest you. We have not done any balloon experiments in this country since the one by M. Têtu about which I told you in my last letter. MM. Alban and Vallet did not conduct any this year in Javelle. There is no one but Blanchard who upholds the honor of the discovery. You will see in the English newspapers that there has been another tragic balloon accident in Newcastle, where a young man died in an accident while filling it, when the task was almost completed.

Our chemists are quite baffled at the moment, attempting to determine the phenomena of the decomposition of water in the different chemical operations where this element plays a role and a constitutive part. Adieu, my illustrious doctor, I hear that your health is still holding up very well, and how could this be otherwise? To all the sincere sentiments of the attachment which I have devoted to you for life