Diary of John Quincy Adams, volume 1
1782-02-20
In the forenoon Mr. Wolff came to pay a visit to Mr. D. In the afternoon I went with Mr. Artaud to a booksellers and bought Cicero's catilinaries French and Latin,1 and to the academy to get an almanack. In the evening Mr. Rimbert came to pay Mr. D. a visit.
This is undoubtedly Phillippiques de Demosthene, et Catilinaires
de Ciceron . . ., transl. Pierre Joseph Thoulier, l'Abbé d'Olivet, Paris, 1771, now
in MQA with JQA's bookplate.
JQA apparently used Olivet's French translation of the Catilinaries to
compare it with his own, begun on 30 Jan.
(above). In a partial, undated translation of the first oration (M/JQA/44, Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 239), he wrote
out Olivet's translation and footnotes (from Olivet's version, p. 209–214) on even-numbered
pages, writing on the odd-numbered pages a fair copy of his own French translation begun on
30 Jan. (M/JQA/45, same, Reel No. 240).