Louis François Augier d’Angerville is approaching Linnaeus since he is confident that Linnaeus is interested in all that belongs to botany. He also hopes that Linnaeus can understand that d’Angerville wants to have the best mentor available for his studies, especially as he has studied several of Linnaeus’s works with great pleasure.
d’Angerville had become interested in botany even before Linnaeus’s works began to appear, and he is still interested. d’Angerville had at first followed Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and learned several species. Then, the surgeons Antoine Dufay and Jean Moyencourt, also keen botanists both of them, had helped d’Angerville to arrange a small garden in Rouen after Tournefort’s system, and d’Angerville had worked at that for a long time. The garden eventually became very nice, and Bernard de Jussieu had visited it several times and made contributions to it. It had become part of the new university at Rouen.
Rouen is a famous town, best known for commerce, but it had been considered appropriate to make it more active in science and humanities as well. With the approval of the King [Louis XV], an academy had been established little more than two years earlier, [d’Angerville refers to the Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Rouen], and it grows day by day. An able man by the name of Simon, a doctor of medicine and famous for several works, has come to the town, and he will be appointed demonstrator of the garden next year, with the intention of following Linnaeus’s system.
However, this means that the garden has to be rearranged, and the Tournefort system that d’Angerville has worked at for so long has to be abandoned. It will be hard work, and they will perhaps not apply all the levels of Linnaeus’s system, especially as Linnaeus has not yet assigned names to all the plants that they have. Linnaeus’s system will supply a firm basis for the work.
To help them in their work, d’Angerville has translated Linnaeus’s Fundamenta botanicaBibliotheca botanica, [a second edition was published in 1747, Bibliotheca botanica. Editio nova], Classes plantarum seu systemata plantarum[a reprint of that work was reprinted in 1747] and Critica botanica [this translation does not seem to have been published]. d’Angerville implores Linnaeus to continue and to give such additional information for other parts of the science as well. If that were to be done, there would be nothing to be wanted in the theory of botany.
d’Angerville admits that he addresses Linnaeus like a close friend, although generally he is timid. However, his desire to learn, and advice from Sven Rinman, had made him bold. Rinman had promised to introduce d’Angerville to Linnaeus. d’Angerville hopes that Linnaeus will find him worthy of an answer and will send him seeds of the elegant plant that carries Linnaeus’s name. If d’Angerville had that in his garden, it would be like seeing Linnaeus himself there. In return, d’Angerville is ready to send anything that grows in his area, but all ground does not produce all kinds of plants. d’Angerville will be a humble and obedient servant.
P.S. d’Angerville gives in French the formula to be used as address on replies.