Diary of John Adams, volume 2
1778-08-18
Went to Paris, with the Abbees Chalut and Arnaut. Went to see the 319Church of St. Roche, the Splendor and Magnificence of which, is very striking to me.1
There I saw the Monument of the famous Mesnager. The Pomp of these Churches, I think exceeds the Magnificence of the Royal Palaces.
Mr. Challut says that the Rent of this Church is Eighty thousand Livres a Year, barely the Rent of the Pews and Chairs, and perhaps the Cellars. Out of this they maintain the officers of the Church, and the Servants and Labourers that attend it, and the organist &c.—but what becomes of the Remainder he did not say.
A contemporary description of St. Roch will be found in Thiery, Almanac du voyageur à Paris
, 1784, p. 544–549.
1778-08-30
This Evening had the English Gazette extraordinary, containing Extracts from Letters from Ld. How and Gen. Clinton—the first containing an account of the Arrival of the Toulon Fleet, and anchoring without Sandy Hook—the other, a Relation of the Action of the 28. June in the Jerseys. There are Letters in London, as M. J. Wharton1 says, as late as the 14. July.
Elements of Spanish Grammar by Del Pino, and Dictionary of the Same.2
Joseph Wharton of Philadelphia, who, according to his own testimony in an autobiographical letter written years later, had been supplying confidential information from London to Dr. Bancroft in Paris, and had fled to Paris this very month to avoid arrest by the British (Joseph Wharton to JA, 4 June 1798, Adams Papers).
This note cannot be dated. In the MS it follows the entry of 30 Aug. quite closely and is in turn followed by a half-page interval of space preceding the entry of 7 October.