Beschreibung:

ROCHAMBEAU, JEAN BAPTISTE DONATIEN DE VIMEUR, Count . Letter signed ("le Cte de Rochambeau") to Marshall Choisy, Paris, 31 October 1783. 1 page with integral address leaf with original wax seal (small loss), 8vo, 198 x 157 mm. (7¾ x 6 in.), small tear to address page not affecting text, small tear along crease , in French. ROCHAMBEAU AND THE FRENCH MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI. General Rochambeau, one of seven high-ranking French men offered honorary memberships in the newly founded Society, writes to Marshall Choisy to invite him to his home to organize the French branch of the Society. The organization had been founded by Henry Knox and other Continental officers on 13 May in New York "to perpetuate...as well the remembrance of ths vast event [the Revolution], as the mutual friendships formed", as stated in its constitution. Named after Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, who left his farm twice to save Rome (458 and 439 B.C.), and returned to agriculture once the threat had passed, the French veterans participation was approved by the King himself. The first meeting took place at Rochambeau's Paris residence on 7 January 1784, during which Rochambeau read a letter of Washington to himself. A copy of that letter, translated into French and written in the same secretary's hand, accompanies the letter of Rochambeau (Washington's letter is dated Rockhill, New Jersey, 29 October 1783.) See M. Myers, Jr. Liberty without Anarchy: A History of the Society of the Cincinnati , pp.146-149. (2)