CHAMPOLLION Jean-François Lettre à M. le Duc de Blacas d’Aulps, premier gentilhomme de la chambre, pair de France, etc. sur le nouveau système hiéroglyphique de MM. Spohn et Seyffarth.

Intriguing paper, addressed to Champollion’s sponsor the Duke of Blacas, in which the young linguist reveals the mistakes committed by his fellow researchers Seyffarth and Spohn.

According to the Frenchman, the authors should have worked on the originals (“ils s’abandonnent à des illusions que l’étude des monumens originaux pouvait seule dissiper”) and compares their system of interpration to the obsolete method used centuries ago by the jesuit scientist Athanasius Kircher.

“How was the impecunious Champollion le jeune to travel there [to Italy] and study [ancient texts]? The solution came in a chance meeting in Paris over some fragments of papyri with the Duke of Blacas, one of Louis XVIII’s most influential ministers, that developed into a warm friendship. Such an affinity between the ultra-royalist Blacas and the former Republican and Bonapartist Champollion might seem unlikely, but Blacas was also an ardent Egyptophile, so the two men found much in common… Blacas used his influence to persuade Louis XVIII to provide partial support for Champollion’s research tour of Italy. The rest Blacas paid from his own pocket” (J. Thompson. Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, vol. I, p. 124).