Marie Jacinthe de Botidoux to Martha Jefferson (Randolph)
| [ca. 1789] |
votre jour mon cher neveu, sera le mien, pourvu que j’aye le plaissir de vous voir C’est tout ce qu’il me faut. mr. balbastre est déjà parti je ne puis faire votre commission que demain, je n’y manquerai pas. mde dorgemont vous embrasse et vous remercie de votre souvenir. elle aura le plaissir de se rendre à votre invitation ainsi que vos enfants qui vous embrassent de tout leur Coeur. il en est demême de votre tante qui est toute à vous.
editors’ translation
| [ca. 1789] |
Your day, my dear nephew, will be mine, as long as I have the pleasure to see you. It is all I need. Mr. Balbastre has already gone. I cannot do what you asked me until tomorrow. I will not fail to do so. Mde d’Orgemont kisses you and thanks you for remembering her. She will honor your invitation with pleasure, as well as your children who kiss you with all their heart. The same is true for your aunt, who is all yours.
Claude balbastre, the composer and organist at Notre-Dame, was also an instructor at the Abbaye Royale de Panthémont, where Martha Jefferson (Randolph) and her sister Maria Jefferson (Eppes) were among his pupils (Martha Jefferson (Randolph) to Thomas Jefferson, 8 Mch. 1787 [MHi]; James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826 [1997], 1:732–3; Helen Cripe, Thomas Jefferson and Music [2009], 32-3).