Jérôme Lalande, Diary of a Trip to England 1763
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Jérôme Lalande, Diary of a Trip to England 1763 Translated from the original manuscript by Richard Watkins And including: Two biographies of Lalande by Hélène Monod-Cassidy and Richard Watkins, and a study of the structure of the diary by Richard Watkins Kingston, Tasmania, Australia Published by Richard Watkins 2002, 2014 Diary of a Trip to England 1763 © Copyright 2002, 2014 Richard Watkins Translated from: Voyage en Angleterre Mazarine Library, Paris, number 4345 Jerome Lalande, Journal d’un voyage en Angleterre 1763 Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century No 184 The Voltaire Foundation, 1980. (with permission of The Voltaire Foundation) Un astronome-philosophe, Jérôme Lalande Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century No 56 The Voltaire Foundation, 1967. (with permission of The Voltaire Foundation) ii Diary of a Trip to England 1763 Contents Preface to the Translation .................................iv Diary of a Trip to England ................................. 1 The diary ........................................... 1 March 1763 ...................................... 1 April 1763 ...................................... 11 May 1763 ....................................... 21 June 1763 ...................................... 32 The Notes ......................................... 36 Anecdotes ....................................... 36 Journals ....................................... 38 Books .......................................... 38 Financial ....................................... 39 Population ...................................... 43 London ......................................... 44 Miscellaneous ................................... 44 Measurements ................................... 45 Addresses ....................................... 48 Diary of a trip to England - manuscript order ................ 51 Introduction ....................................... 51 Sheet summary ..................................... 51 The diary .......................................... 55 Annotated table of contents .......................... 141 Postscript ............................................ 143 An astronomer-philosopher, Jérôme Lalande ............ 143 An Assessment of Lalande ........................... 152 Structure of the diary ............................... 157 The missing page numbers. 160 Reasons for page removal ............................ 162 Bibliography ...................................... 164 iii Diary of a Trip to England 1763 Preface to the Translation In addition to translating the diary and Monod-Cassidy’s notes, I have added a postscript in three parts. This book contains two separate translations of Jerome Lalande’s Journal d’un Voyage en Angleterre 1763. First, I have included a translation of Un astronome-philosophe, Jérôme Lalande by Hélène Monod-Cassidy, which gives a biography of Lalande. The preface to her transcript is a shortened version of this paper and omits some points which I feel The first translation is a readable, coherent text. I saw no reason to retain are worthy of inclusion. Again Monod-Cassidy’s footnotes are prefixed byM. Lalande’s spelling and grammar and I have freely translated his French, altering the wording to suit reasonably good English and omitting some unintelligible or repetitive sentences. I have also re-arranged entries, the notes in particular, to Second, I give my own assessment of Lalande and his diary; I found Monod-Cassidy bring related material together. The only significant omission is Lalande’s table of to be rather uncritical, failing to draw conclusions about the diary and the man. contents, which depends on the pagination of the manuscript; but it appears in the second translation. Third, I examine the physical structure of the diary. There is a problem with the pages that Monod-Cassidy described as “missing, probably an error of pagination” This first version of the diary is based on the transcript produced and annotated and it is important to know if pages could have been removed by Lalande and, if so, by Hélène Monod-Cassidy for the Voltaire Foundation. It includes her copious which ones. Some additional information on the pagination will be found in Richard footnotes clarifying names and events, complemented by some additional notes Watkins, Berthoud, Harrison and Lalande: a near myth, NAWCC Bulletin, No. 359, provided by myself. I have retained Monod-Cassidy’s footnote numbering, prefixed December 2005, pages 733-743. Also available from www.watkinsr.id.au/ by M to distinguish them from my own. Her transcript has a few errors and omits some of the diary, and this translation corrects these. Also, her transcript has some This 2014 edition is the same as the 2002 edition except for some minor changes. errors in the order of the text. These have been corrected and, as a result, some of Also the footnote numbering has changed, because a few notes have been deleted, her footnotes are now out of order. causing gaps, and others added. Owing to the stupidities of Microsoft Word I had to recreate the book using Adobe InDesign. As a result the pagination has also The second translation has the same structure and organisation as the original changed. In addition, I have provided wide left and top margins so that the book can manuscript. Except for a few places where typographical limitations and the be printed double-sided and bound by the short left margin or the long top margin. change of language affect it, the text is paginated exactly as the original and all illustrations are included. Thus all intelligible words, including deletions, have As this is an electronic text it can easily be changed. I am happy to receive been retained. suggestions for improving it. It is inevitable that even the best translator will render some parts in a manner I would like to thank the Voltaire Foundation, for granting me permission to include which others will disagree with. As very few people read both a translation and Monod-Cassidy’s notes and her biography of Lalande; and Patrick Latour of the its source, and perforce rely entirely upon the translator’s skill, I have included Bibliotheque Mazarine. additional notes with the second translation. These explain many of my choices and pinpoint some of the text which is open to other interpretations. Also, where Lalande’s text is obscure or ambiguous I have chosen what I feel to be a sensible Richard Watkins interpretation and supplied the original French for comparison. There are at least www.watkinsr.id.au three interesting cases where I am sure Lalande has used English words. The [email protected] text makes sense if I assumed Lalande had been told something and had trouble converting the statement into written French, inserting English terms for things he did not understand. iv Diary of a Trip to England 1763 Diary of a Trip to England I went to see the tapestry workshopM2 of which Mr Charron, farmer general, is the contractor; Mr Trudaine superintendent; Mr Dumont, the Parisian director; and 1 M1 Annotated Mr Deshays the painter after Mr Boucher.M3 There is a foreman who is paid every The diary week. There are about forty workmen. It takes eighteen months to make a hanging. A piece three ells high by two and half long is worth 600 livres.4 There is a picture by Mr Bardon,M4 Jason fighting the bulls of Hespérides, which March 1763 was not finished. The design is drawn from the Gobelins. Friday 4th March. In Beauvais I went to see Mr Borel, lieutenant general, Rue du Prévôt; I saw the I departed Paris at 8:45, Friday March 4th 1763. I passed through St Denis, St cathedral which is eight hundred years old; and the town hall, which is very new, Brice, Poncelle. I dined in Moisselles at 2:00. on the main square, the Promenade du Rempart. I paid 25 livres for my place to Boulogne and 8 livres for 6 pieces of luggage1a, and Sunday 6th March. 2 I gave 6 livres 10 sols more for Calais. I arrived in Beaumont at 5:30, passing Left at 5:30 and arrived in Oudeuil at 9:45 - three hours on the worst road, a bad through Nointel. small inn, bad bread. Poix is six leagues from Oudeuil. Saturday 5th March. I left Oudeuil at midday. At 1:00, HauteEpine, a long, very narrow thatched I left at 6:00 and passed through Chambly, Puiseaux, Mared’Ovillers, St Genevieve village; at 3:00, Hamel where I saw the chains of Mr de CrêquiM5 who, being and Noailles; I arrived in Blainville at 10:45. Departed at 3:00; arrived in Beauvais taken by Saracens and being consecrated in Our Lady of Hamel, was transported at 5:00. miraculously from the earth. The women wear petticoats on their heads.5 While leaving Blainville I saw the thirty-first milestone. I saw the thirty-second At 6:45 Poix, landholding of Mr de Noailles,M6 a large borough. Six leagues to after 25 minutes.3 There are three other intermediate ones. Amiens. The bad road has lasted from Beauvais and will continue tomorrow until dinner time, until Airaines. 1 The footnotes prefixedM are by Helene Monod-Cassidy and are taken from Jerome Lalande, Journal d’un voyage en Angleterre 1763, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century No 184, The Voltaire Foundation, 1980 (with permission of The Voltaire Foundation). Page numbers prefixed byW are pages in this book, and page numbers without a prefix are pages in the diary. M2 In Lille, one of the secondary tapestry workshops directed by Jean de Melter who succeeded his son-in-law Guillaume Warniers. His widow ran the workshops until M1 The manuscript of Voyage en Angleterre is in the Mazarine Library under the number 1778. 4345. Professor