The Vie de M ^r. Turgot. 8vo. Broche. price 4.10. , was purchased by Jefferson from Froullé on June 27, 1787. No details of edition or date are given, but it seems probable that the reference is to the recently published book by Condorcet here described. It is listed without price on Jefferson’s undated catalogue. Several editions or issues of Condorcet’s work appeared in 1786, and it is not possible to know which was in the Jefferson collection. The copy collated is one of two issues in the Library of Congress.

In a letter to C. W. F. Dumas, United States Consul at the Hague, dated from Paris, September 22, 1786, Jefferson wrote: “ I thank you for the copy of Turgot’s life, & will forward those directed to M ^r. Jay, D ^r. Franklin & M ^r. Morris . . . ”

Marie Jean-Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, 1743-1794, French savant and revolutionary, repudiated his aristocratic background and identified himself with the encyclopédistes. In his Avertissement to the life of Turgot, of whose physiocratic doctrines he was a follower, Condorcet mentions that the mémoires sur la vie de M. Turgot, qui ont paru en 1783 [i.e. those of Dupont above] auroient dû sans doute m’empêcher d’écrire, but explains that he has approached the matter from un point de vue différent.

Jefferson’s copy was purchased for him at his request by William Short in Paris. In a letter to the latter from New York, May 27, 1790, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . send me if you please the records of the Bastile which they had begun to publish . . .”

Short obtained the 9 livraisons from Goldsmith at 1/16 each, 16.4 in all, paid on August 2, 1790.

Jefferson was present at the fall of the Bastille and wrote an account of it in his autobiography, and in letters to his friends.

This source book for the history of the Bastille and its prisoners has been variously ascribed to Charpentier, and to Louis Pierre Manuel (born in 1751, beheaded in 1793), the author of La Police devoilée . According to Tourneux neither of these was the compiler of the work. Tourneux’ number 12398a, the edition in 9 livraisons, is dated 1790, and not 1789-90 as this copy. His no. 12398 is an edition of 1789 of which he knew of one copy only. Each livraison has a notice to the effect that the proceeds were destined au soulagement des hommes blessés au siége de la Bastille, aux veuves & aux enfans de ceux qui y ont péri, ou qui sont morts des suites de leurs blessures .

The book contains interesting source material for the affair of the Diamond Necklace, see chapter 23.