Don des vaisseaux

The programme raised 13 million livres from provinces, cities, institutions and private individuals, which were used to build 18 ships of the line for the French navy, including two first-rates, Ville de Paris and Bretagne.

[citation needed] On 26 November 1761, de La Roche-Aymon gave a speech before the delegates of the Estates of Languedoc, encouraging them to offer to His Majesty a ship of the line of 74 pieces of artillery and provide by this endeavour... a demonstration of what subjects can and must do who are truly worthy of the best of masters...

[note 1][1]The delegates obliged, and the example was followed the next year by the estates of Brittany, Burgundy, Artois and Flanders, the cities of Paris, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Marseille along with several private institutions and individuals such as the six corps de marchands and ferme générale.

[citation needed] Not only did the Provinces offer, in this occasion, distinguished marks of unusual zeal, but M. de Choiseul has told me that he received daily letters from individuals who volunteered money.

Amongst others, there was the case of a simple gentleman from Champagne, whose name he sadly did not recall, and who stated that as he was not a rich man and had children, he was not really in any position to make a donation; but that, as they were still young, he could dispense with a thousand pounds that he had saved and that he sent them to him to be used in the service of the King.