FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Letter 15.
[Letter written after the death of her husband Jean-Baptiste Florian, on 26 September
1811, by and from Marguerite Marie Le Det de Segrais, in New Orleans, to Mr. Cheriot,
in New York]
December 1811
[In the manuscript “Fuite d'un suspect” (Flight of a Suspect), there the copy of a draft of
this letter in French, it was addressed to Lodge of New Orleans named “Loge des
chevaliers du Temple” (Lodge Knight of the Temple). In other words, the Masons.
Hughes de Boiry states and the translator of Flight of a Suspect state that it is clear from
the phrases used that Jean-Baptiste was a Mason.]
To Mr. Cheriot
Merchant
New York
Monsieur,
I can only be deeply flattered by the regrets expressed by the respectable Masonic Society
to which he, for whom I justly weep, had the honor to belong. And although the sad
situation in which I now find myself numbs my faculties, and leaves me scarcely master
of myself, it seems to me that the grief which crushes me will find some comfort in
rendering justice to his qualities, and in making them known. But, Monsieur, the more
keenly I feel, the less capable I am of fulfilling the task which you assign me. I will
nevertheless make an effort, and although my heart suffers in recalling the events so close
to it, I will give them as fast as I can.
[Marguerite now gives the biography of her late husband.]
Born at St. Malo, the oldest son of Monsieur Jolly, Seigneur de la Terre de Pontcadeuc 96
and a noble Breton, he received the best education. At a very early age he finished the
necessary studies to enter into the military engineering corps, to which he had first been
destined, but as he demonstrated superior talents, his father, and above all his
grandfather, M. La Fontaine le Bonhomme, wished to have him follow a diplomatic
career, and for this purpose he studied law at Rennes [capital of Brittany].
I believe that he had not taken all his degrees, when the Revolution came and crushed his
hopes, after the last session of the Etats [financial assembly or overseers of the finances
of Brittany; surpressed in the Revolution] in our province, in which he showed his way of
thinking, he was obliged to leave for England, from when he returned only to form
96 Note that her husband is not referred to as the “Count” de Pontcadeuc, but as the “Lord of the Land of
Pontcadeuc,” a lesser title, which was not considered part of the noble class, but above the gentry.
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