FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Letter 2.
St. Servan, at the Citoyennes Baré, Basse Roulais – Number 131 [France]
February 7, 1802
[Letter to Jean-Baptiste Florian and his wife Marguerette Marie Le Det de Segrais,
apparently from the uncle of Jean Baptiste, Francois Vincent Jolly (4 March 1728—29
January 1814), priest and missionary.]
I arrived here, my dear nephew, a few days ago, coming from Portugal where I sat out the
Tempest. I found your poor father in a state of great suffering. <strong>The</strong> shocks he has
received have ruined his health. H received the letter from your dear wife ______ which
gave him much pleasure; he also received the ______ dated the 22 nd of October 180[?].
<strong>The</strong>se are the only letters he has received from you for a long time. In reading your
letter, he was quite surprised to see that you do not speak about the 1200 ___ he told you
to draw upon him.
<strong>The</strong> citizen Forson come one evening, one time, but he was in such a state of suffering
that he was unable to speak to him.
Your father desires you, my dear nephew, that you draw on him for two thousand pounds,
helping him to complete them with 800 _____, which added to the 1200 which he told
you to draw upon him, are the 2000 remaining of the 8000 pounds which you have
always claimed he owed you.
Since Fauchette and Felicite, your two sisters, harry him constantly, saying that they have
lost on their assignats 37 and that they are owing you. Your father begs you to settle this
affair, and my sister and I will help him by quieting his mind, for it is high time that his
children stop tormenting him and let him die in peace.
It is to you, my dear niece, that I now address myself, for you and your four little girls are
very dear to us, and we desire very ardently to see you here. In your letter, which came
to my brother without any date on it, you state that your husband had drawn a letter de
change [letter of exchange; similar to a bank cheque] of 1200 ____ on his account, which
was not _________. That is why your husband must draw on him _____ in duplicate, the
first one will become, needless to say, the one for 1200 which your husband was obliged
to draw, on the letter de change which he will draw will be good only for two thousand
pounds.
We are lodging, my brother and I, with the Citoyennes [Revolutionary term for women]
Bare, where we board, and where we are living very peacefully, which is just right for old
men. We embrace you very tenderly and we love you with all our hearts.
37 <strong>The</strong> translator has inserted a note here that this is “paper money issued during the Revolution.”
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