Diary of John Michael O'Connor's Voyage To, [and] Residence [and] Travels in France

Résumé du livre

Consists of an autograph manuscript diary of John Michael O'Connor during his period of study in France. The diary starts in New York on May 27, 1818, where O'Connor set sail to France aboard the ship Adonis, his arrival at Rouen, and travel to Paris. It provides an account of the voyage, his failing health, fellow passengers, the amount of money he was carrying, and of books he read during the journey. O'Connor writes about his visits to the American Ambassador Albert Gallatin; Col. Beaufort; General Baron Boucher, the governor of the Polytechnique School; Mr. Barnet; U.S. Consul at Havre, France; General Bonnet, the Marquis de Marbot; the Marquis de Lafayette; and General Joseph Rogniat; and about the 4th of July celebrations by the Americans in Paris attended by Lafayette. O'Connor writes about the Louvre museum, the annual session of the Academy of Belles Letteres at the Ecole des beaux-arts, about purchasing books, maps and atlases for himself and for the Treasury Department, about a plot by the Count D'Ambray and the Viconte de Chateaubriand to dethrone the King; sending a copy of his "Translation" to Gallatin; about his studying math and algebra at the Ecole Polytechnique; and about his accounts and expenditures while in France. The last entry in the diary is dated August 20, 1820, while O'Connor was still at Metz.