ROCHAMBEAU (Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, 1725-1809, French Marshal, Comte, General in the American Revolution)

Autograph letter signed to  Antoine-François de FOURCROY,  (1755-1809), as "Director General of Public Instruction" (from 1802), addressed to him at the "Jardin des Plantes" where he was Professor of Chemistry, in French with translation, recommending "Monsieur Thibault, professor at the Lycée of Bourges" as "Professor of Belles Lettres presently vacant at the said Lycée", whom he knew "in this capacity at the former École Centrale at Vendôme", signing himself "the old octogenarian Rochambeau, late Marshal of France, Grand Officer of the Légion d'Honneur", with a note signed 'F' by Fourcroy, "Has he been put forward for this place?", short notes in other hands, 1 side 4to, autograph address and postmark on conjugate leaf, Rochambeau, near Vendôme, 30th Frimaire Year 13 [21st December With a collector's label from "Collectione Conradi Adolphi Baronis de Malzen"

Rochambeau took 6,000 French troops to America in 1779 and placed himself at Washington's disposal. With Lafayette he secured the famous British surrender at Yorktown in 1780.
Nicolas Thibault, 1769-1832, was Professor of Latin at Bourges 1805-1809, and was later Proviseur of his old college, St. Louis-le-Grand in Paris, 1820-1824, and an Inspector for the French Academy 1824-1830.
Fourcroy was appointed Professor of Chemistry by Buffon at the Jardin des Plantes in 1784, where he promoted Lavoisier's ideas. After the revolution he became president of the Jacobins, a member of the Committee for Public Safety, and of the Conseil des Anciens, but left the latter in 1797. He helped found the École Polytechnique, and took a leading part in establishing primary and secondary schools and providing for scientific instruction. However, he was passed over for the post of Grand Master of the University of France by Napoleon, who created him a count in his last year, but called him a 'révolutionnaire mal repenti'.

Item Date:  0

Stock No:  17793      £950

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