I have received the packet that you were so good as to send me via Monsieur Stanley, who has not left me his address at all; I have been unable to learn it from anyone else. This packet contained the Philosophical Transactions of Philadelphia, the life of Monsieur Collinson, and the last two pieces that you published in the public papers; and I read everything with the greatest pleasure. I like the gay tone in which you mock your [“great matters”]: “jesting is often stronger and more effective than severity in cutting to the heart of great matters” (ridiculum acri fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res). I was extremely pleased with Monsieur Collinson’s reflections on rural life and the occupations of gardening, which seem more than any other occupation to be in harmony with integrity and candor. I consider myself well advised by Messieurs Otto and Morgan to cultivate some Coronasolis [“sunflowers”], in order to extract the oil from their seeds. The machine of Monsieur W. Henry, although it did not appear to me to be very clearly described, seemed to be very ingenious. Monsieur de Réaumur has informed the public of a somewhat analogous idea, suggested to him by Monsieur le Prince de Conti regarding his ovens for chicks. On the same topic, I await the description of your new stove with all the more impatience, given that around the end of winter, along with one or two friends, I plan to resume the project of hatching out eggs and raising chickens economically, without the help of setting hens. If you have ever speculated on this subject, I beg you to let me know your reflections.

If there is any criticism of your work, I have yet to be informed of it. The work is very well spoken of everywhere; the periodical papers have given it the highest praise. Nevertheless the sales have not sofar been in accord with all this; it is true that the period of the Court fêtes after the holiday season is a very unfavorable circumstance.

If I have given my address as the Ecoles de Médecine, it is not because I have changed my place of residence; it is because Bedeau of that faculty, who resides there and who is my bookbinder, undertook all the details of the printing, and was not permitted to have his name put on the frontispiece. Thus his house is my elected place of residence, just as it is common, when one has cases in court, to elect the house of one’s advocate as one’s place of residence, so that any notifications that one receives on the subject may reach the advocate first of all. As for the street, it is not called “de la boucherie” [“of the butcher’s shop”], but “de la bûcherie,” a word that is presumably derived from bûcher [“woodshed”], and that word derived in turn from bûche or busche [“log”]. The street could have been named after the firewood yards, where logs are heaped up in great piles; there are a great many such yards on this side of the river, but today they are located a little further away, because they are gradually moved back as the city’s area expands.

I was very happy to make the acquaintance of Monsieur Fromond, but he spent far too little time here. I brought him one copy of your works for himself and another copy that he was so good as to undertake to deliver to Father Beccaria. I sent one to the philosophical society of Rotterdam, carried by a chaplain of the Holland embassy (Monsieur de la Broue), and one to the royal society of Gottingue, carried by Monsieur Zanoni. We must hope that it will not take Monsieur Pickering any longer to arrive with the copies that he undertook with such good grace to deliver to you.

Certain discussions that I had to endure, on the part of the engraver and his printer who does chisel engravings on copper, prevented me from sending the twelve portraits, that individual people are asking you for, any earlier; but at last I have had fifty new ones produced, and I will have the twelve in question sent off tomorrow, along with the six copies of the work that you would also like to have. I will send them quite simply by means of the ordinary coaches, without waiting or searching for any more opportunities to have them delivered, seeing that they make a large enough packet for the freight services. I have addressed the packet to Monsieur Audibert du Pont at Calais, a dealer who will immediately dispatch it to you in London.

Monsieur Dalibard is very pleased with his mirror, although it is much more expensive than the ones in this country. He sends you greetings and thanks. When you do me the honor of sending something by the post in future, it will reach me carriage paid, should you wish to take the trouble of putting your letter in a first envelope addressed to me, and closing it with a very small amount of wax and no seal; then adding all the papers and pamphlets you please to this letter, and covering the packet with a crosswise band of paper, one or two inches wide, closed with no seal and a little wax, and marked for Monsieur Zanoni; finally, enclosing the entire bundle in an outer envelope with your seal, and addressing it to Monseigneur, Monseigneur le Duc d’Aiguillon, Peer of France, and Minister of State at Versailles. If the packet proved too bulky, it would be a good idea to divide it and make two successive shipments, although a packet of eight to ten printed sheets could pass in this way without any difficulty.

On the thirteenth of this month, at the public reconvocation of the Academy of Sciences, Monsieur Le Roy read a paper on conductors that are designed to protect buildings; I would have made it my duty to send you a detailed account of it, if he had not told me that he would pass it on to you. He claims that Monsieur Wilson was not the only person to support conductors made without points; in that case I was in error about this.

I saw Monsieur le Marquis de Courtenvaux, and dined with him last Monday, when we drank to your health. He has a magnificent electrical machine, with which I plan to attempt some experiments over the course of next week. I will not fail to inform you of their success, if it is worthwhile to do so. There are nonetheless indications that the results will not be immediate, because several sessions and perhaps even various preparations could be necessary, and one cannot always make the workmen go as fast as one would like; you must know this just as well or even better than anyone else. Moreover, I may not yet be entirely sure of everything that I will have to ask them to do.

I hope that the extract of the old Pennsylvania almanac will not only receive acclaim here, but will also be of profit; may God grant it. Mademoiselle Biheron, Mademoiselle Basseporte, and my wife have asked me to give you many kind regards. Not a single one of these women is well; they are three useless invalids, but invalids who are very attached to you. I am very afraid that you will hardly find this convenient!

As for myself, I am well, thank God, and so much so that I would have crossed the ocean to go and see you this winter, if my wife had been in a condition that permitted of my leaving her. If her health grows stronger, we will make the trip together next year, if she is willing to have faith in me. I have the honor to be, with a tender and inviolable attachment, Monsieur and dear friend, your very humble and very obedient servant