In 1790, President Washington ordered two Diplomatic medals to be struck and presented, one to the Marquis de la Luzerne, French Minister to the United States, and the other to his successor, the Count de Moustier. In Paris, in 1874, I made application to the present heads of those families, the Count de Vibray[14] and the Marquis de Moustier,[15] for information concerning these medals; but no trace of the object of my search could be found among their family papers. [Footnote 14: The Count de Vibray is the representative in the female line of the de la Luzerne family, which is extinct in the male line.] [Footnote 15: The Marquis de Moustier is the great-grandson of the Count de Moustier.] About this time, Mr. Charles I. Bushnell, of New York city, kindly sent me plaster casts of an obverse and of a reverse, in which I at once recognized the Diplomatic medal, but neither bore the signature of Dupré. Nevertheless, I had a plate engraved from them, hoping by its aid to find the original. I then turned once more to M. Gatteaux, the son of M. Nicolas (p. xxx) Marie Gatteaux, who had shown me, in 1868, in his house in the Rue de Lille, Paris, the wax model of the obverse of the medal of General Gates, and the designs for those of General Wayne and Major Stewart, but, the house having been burnt during the reign of the Commune in 1871, he could furnish no information, and I was as far as ever from discovering the original of this piece. In 1876 I showed to M. Augustin Dumont, the celebrated sculptor,[16] and the godson of Augustin Dupré, the plate engraved from the plaster casts, and from him I learned that M. Narcisse Dupré, the son of Augustin, was still living in the south of France, at Montpellier. M. Dumont had given to M. Ponscarme, his pupil, now professor in the École des Beaux-Arts, the _maquettes_, or lead proofs, of many of Dupré's works. A few days later, M. Ponscarme showed me a _maquette_ of the obverse of the Diplomatic medal, and at last M. Narcisse Dupré sent me a photograph of the reverse. I thus obtained proof of the correctness of the engraved plate. [Footnote 16: Among his most noted works is the bronze statue of the Emperor Napoleon I., placed by Napoleon III. on the column in the Place Vendôme, Paris, which was overthrown by the Communists. The statue has since been replaced on the reconstructed column. M. Dumont, who is a professor in the École des Beaux-Arts, is a member of the Institute, Commander of the Legion of Honor, etc.]