Bernard de JUSSIEU (1699-1777), botanist. Autograph letter signed [to François-Alexis Fresnel, sieur Dugage (1722-1785)]. 2 pp. in-4. No place or date [circa 1775-1777]. Wear resulting in a small hole in the text and small cut in the margin. Rare letter decorated with plant prints (which probably accompanied it), addressed to the husband of Élisabeth DUGAGE DE POMMEREUL (1733-1782), one of the very first women botanists, who herborized at the Jardin du Roi [she attended the classes of Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu and André Thouin, head gardener at the Jardin du roi, enlisted her help to count and identify the grasses growing in the garden beds of the École de botanique; she tried to work out a classification reconciling Tournefort's system with that of Linnaeus; Linnaeus the younger named a plant in her honour, Pommereulla cornucopiae]. "A thousand and one thanks, Sir, for your kind letter and the good news it contains: it could not have come at a better time and you will not be mistaken in thinking that we were all deeply worried about your health and that of Madame Dugage; the state of weakness in which we had seen her here increased our fears. We did not know what to make of your silence [...]. Our interest in the two travellers is too strong for anyone to doubt our joy at receiving your letter. Why did you keep it so short? It would have cost you so little to make our pleasure last a few minutes longer; I thought you had promised me details of your journey and I was counting on that. Your kind companion, whom our ladies hold in the highest esteem, will probably have been obliged to take very short days, since you stayed so long to catch this temperate climate of which you give me such a beautiful description [...]. I have just written to the eldest doctor in the rue des Bernardins. I tell him at length about you and Madame Dugage; I tell him that this sweet patient absolutely wants a divorce from her ills, that since she has been living in Bières, her health seems to want to recover there in spite of all those who condemned her along the way. Such good news will give him infinite pleasure, I have no doubt, as he has asked me for it several times [...]. I would also like to point out to him that Madame Dugage has not lost sight of natural history and that she has bought a gentle and elegant horse to ride around a country she is delighted with and where she is in the best of health. Our ladies are all doing wonderfully, and they are very grateful to you and to Madame Dugage: they regret that her health did not allow her to stay longer in Lyon. They hope that she will make a full recovery and ask her to accept a thousand kind regards on their behalf. The abbot, Mr Pallier d'américain, my nephew De Senevrier and I add our respects [...]".