Charles Bossut (1730-1814), geometrician,... - Lot 14 - Conan Belleville Hôtel d'Ainay

Charles Bossut (1730-1814), geometrician, member of the Academy of Sciences (1768), contributor to the Encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert. L.A.S. to the citizen Dupin. Paris, 19 brumaire en 2 [Nov. 9, 1793]. 2 pp. ½ in-folio. Patriotic letter. He sends to his correspondent the information requested. "My work for the Corps of Engineers is perfectly known to you, citizen, you know that I have trained subjects for forty-three years, with a zeal and success of which there are few examples. This attracted enemies and raised slanders against him, "but on the strength of my conscience and my public notoriety, which attests that I have always fulfilled my duties with integrity, I complain about no one". These problems do not surprise him, because he knows that freedom is stormy: "My unalterable patriotism is based on very old philosophical principles", which sometimes exposed him to great dangers under the Ancien Régime: it has been more than 40 years since reason and the study of history "have shown me that the Republican government is the best of all: I will die with these feelings".