  “The carriage was a miserable one,” Franklin wrote of the trip from Auray to the French town of Nantes, where the Reprisal would have brought them had it not been for the two prizes. “With tired horses, the evening dark, scarce a traveler but ourselves on the road; and, to make it more comfortable, the driver stopped near a wood we were to pass through, to tell us that a gang of eighteen robbers infested that wood who but two weeks ago had murdered some travelers on that very spot.” The Nantes townspeople were expecting the celebrated American and were waiting to greet him as he descended from his carriage. Instead of a curled and powdered wig, he wore a fur cap over his thin gray straight hair, which he had adopted on shipboard for reasons of comfort. His costume was of brown homespun worsted, with white stockings and buckled shoes. He wore spectacles, because at seventy vanity was less important to him than seeing clearly. He carried a plain crabtree cane, such as any man could have cut for himself. “A primitive!” people exclaimed. His simple attire delighted them all. For his few days in Nantes he stayed with a commercial agent, Monsieur Gruet. A string of visitors appeared afternoon and evenings to pay their respects. He spoke little, knowing his French was imperfect, and his silence made him seem all the wiser. Everyone was filled with admiration. The women of the town paid him their greatest tribute in a Coiffure À la Franklin, dressing their hair in a high curly mass to resemble his fur cap. His welcome at Nantes was only a preview of what attended him in Paris. His printer, Barbeu Dubourg, had prepared the populace by distributing circulars about his visit. For two days before his arrival, he was the sole subject of conversation in Paris cafÉs. Wherever he went, admiring citizens surrounded him, remarking on the simplicity of his costume and his unaffected manners. Silas Deane, who had received no such attention on his arrival, was amazed. But then, Deane had little love for the French people, had made no effort to learn their language, and was obviously unhappy in this foreign environment. From Deane, Franklin learned of a plan already under way to help America. A dummy exporting house had been set up under the name of Hortalez and Company, to which the French and Spanish governments had each contributed a million livres. (The livre is replaced by the franc in modern French currency.) When Deane had reached Paris a few months before, authorized to buy supplies, Foreign Minister Vergennes had promptly sent him to the head of Hortalez, a dashing adventurer named Caron de Beaumarchais (who would later become known for his librettos of The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of SÉville). The company was now arranging to send arms and ammunition, uniforms, everything the colonies needed. Since this was Deane’s project, Franklin did not interfere. Later, when Americans found they were receiving inferior goods from Hortalez, when Congress was billed for what they were told was a gift, when Beaumarchais unaccountably became wealthy, and even Deane was accused of dishonesty, he may have wished that he had kept a closer check. For the moment, he had plenty of other work to do. Silas Deane as well as Arthur Lee, the third commissioner, both gave him advice on how to conduct himself. Deane, a blunt and tactless man, was all for forcing the issue with France. Arthur Lee, who had an intriguing nature, advocated a devious approach. Franklin listened attentively to both of them and went his own way. On December 28, he and Deane were received at Versailles by Vergennes, of whom Franklin had already heard so much. As usual, he wore his brown worsted suit and his head was bare, with no wig to hide his gray locks. Though he did little more than transmit expressions of good will and gratitude from his country, the suave and polished French diplomat summed him up as a great and good man. Henceforth, whenever possible, Vergennes avoided dealing with any American other than Benjamin Franklin. The next night he attended a soiree held by Madame la Marquise du Deffand. Her guests were the most important personages in Europe. The Marquise was known to be strongly pro-British. Everyone expected that Monsieur Franklin from Philadelphia would be put in his place. How could he compete in this brilliant company? He was much too clever to try. All evening he sat quietly smiling, waiting for others to do the talking, listening with interest to everything that was said, even by the ladies. The company was enchanted. They had believed all Americans to be bold and rude-mannered and self-assertive. This Monsieur Franklin, who dressed like a Quaker, was a sage, a patriarch! They had never known anyone like him. From then on, the aristocracy gave him their adoration, as did the scientific world and the common people. A few days later there was a gift of two million livres, not connected with the funds at Hortalez, presented for the American cause in the name of the French King. Franklin had, without resort to bullying or conniving, scored his first victory in French diplomacy. For fear of British retaliation, Vergennes dared not openly sponsor him. Privately he was doing all in his power to convince Louis XVI that the American rebellion, even though against another king, should be supported to the hilt. This was not easy, for the French ruler was not yet ready to show more than a token interest in the Americans. Franklin understood Vergennes’ position and did not press him for what he had really come to get, an open alliance. His most important task, from Vergennes’ viewpoint, was to win French public opinion to his side. This he did without half trying. His popularity mounted daily. For the French he was a man of reason, like their Voltaire, and an advocate of the equality of man and the virtues of rustic living, like their philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. They saw him as the man who had singlehandedly fomented the American Revolution, a rumor carefully nourished by the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont. He was given credit for the Declaration of Independence and the Pennsylvania Constitution. Not knowing yet of Thomas Paine, people took it for granted that he was the author of that marvelous pamphlet “Common Sense,” which was reprinted in French with the omission of its attacks on royalty. They admired him alike for his scientific achievements and for “The Way of Wealth,” the proverbs of Poor Richard as cited by Father Abraham, which they praised to the skies as “sublime morality.” It became the fashion of every home to have an engraving of him above the mantel. Medallions with his image in enamel adorned the lids of snuffboxes, and tiny ones were even set in rings, selling in incredible numbers. In time his portrait was reproduced on watches, clocks, vases, dishes, handkerchiefs, pocket knives. There were paintings of him without end, and busts in marble, bronze and plaster. “These,” Franklin wrote to his daughter Sally, “with the pictures, busts, and prints (of which copies upon copies are spread everywhere), have made your father’s face as well known as that of the moon.” The first of March he moved from the Paris hotel where he and his grandsons had been staying to Passy, a beautiful spot half a mile from Paris, less a village than a group of villas set amidst forests and vineyards. Their house was on the great estate of Le Ray de Chaumont, an ardent partisan of the United States, who refused to accept rent from his distinguished guest. The grounds of the Chaumont estate were laid out in formal gardens around an octagonal pond, with alleys of linden trees. Often Franklin and his grandsons ate at the lavish Chaumont table, or had their meals sent from the Chaumont kitchen for a minimum charge. When he gave a large dinner party in his own quarters, everything would be sent over by the Chaumont staff. He had his own servants, including a coachman, and kept a carriage and a pair of horses. Benjamin Bache went to boarding school in the village, coming home for Sunday. Temple acted as his secretary. The British, who had spies everywhere, were well aware of the reason for his presence in France. Vainly did British Ambassador Lord Stormont try to belittle him or his country. He could not match Franklin’s wit. Once Franklin learned that Stormont was spreading a rumor that 4,000 Americans had been lost in a battle and their general killed. “Truth is one thing. Stormont is another,” he commented dryly. In Parisian slang, the verb “to Stormont” became a synonym for “to lie.” In truth, with the exception of Washington’s victory over the Hessians at Trenton, the Christmas of 1776, news from America was discouraging. Franklin refused to show any sign of worry. “Ça ira,”—“it will go on”—he would say to anyone who asked how the American Revolution was faring. In the years of France’s own revolution, Franklin’s famous Ça ira became the catchword of a popular war song. Some time that summer, or so it is said, Franklin passed a night at the same inn as Edward Gibbon, author of Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Franklin sent up a note requesting the pleasure of his company. Gibbon answered that though he admired Franklin as a philosopher he could not, as a loyal English subject, converse with a Rebel. Franklin promptly sent him a second note. He had the greatest respect for the historian, he wrote, and when Gibbon decided to write the Rise and Fall of the British Empire, he would be happy to supply all the needed data. The revolt in America had enormous glamour for innumerable European officers who were eager to offer their services, for money, for the thrill of adventure, and perhaps less often because they believed in the American cause. Franklin was besieged with their requests for him to recommend them to the American army. “My perpetual torment,” he called them:
Only partly in jest, he composed a form letter:
Temple later claimed that he actually used this letter on occasion, though it has never been proved. There was, however, one officer whom Franklin recommended to George Washington without ever having met. This was the nineteen-year-old Marquis de Lafayette, an ardent youth set on revenging a father killed by the English. “He is exceedingly beloved,” he wrote Washington early in August after Lafayette had already left France, “and everybody’s good wishes attend him; we cannot but hope he may meet with such a reception as will make the country and his expedition agreeable to him.” Another valuable recruit Franklin sent to America was the former Prussian officer Baron von Steuben, whose rigid training of American troops at Valley Forge raised morale at a moment when it had sunk to a new low. In England, he still had friends in high places. Lord Rockingham was praising his courage in crossing the Atlantic, risking capture and being brought to an “implacable tribunal.” Charles James Fox, a member of Lord North’s cabinet, was quoting to his fellow cabinet members Franklin’s remark that England’s war on America would be as costly and useless as the Crusades. While to George III he had become “that insidious man from Philadelphia,” Sir John Pringle, now president of the Royal Society, supported him in one of the few comic episodes of wartime. During Franklin’s stay in England, he had given advice on installing lightning rods on St. Paul’s Cathedral and other important buildings. One member of the Royal Society, Benjamin Wilson, an artist who had painted Franklin’s portrait, argued that blunt lightning rods would be more effective than pointed ones, but he had been over-ruled. The battle between “the sharps and the flats” raged briefly and then subsided. It was revived when the war was under way by George III, who felt that since pointed lightning rods had been invented by a Rebel, they must certainly be subversive. He ordered that the rods on his palace and throughout the United Kingdom be replaced by the blunt type and commanded Sir John Pringle to back him. Sir John boldly retorted that the laws of nature were not changeable at royal pleasure. He was thereupon informed that the royal authority did not believe that a man of his views should occupy the presidency of the Royal Society. Sir John, loyal to Franklin to the end, promptly resigned. As for Franklin, he remained an objective observer: “I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions,” he wrote in October 1777. “I leave them to take their chances in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper, and disturb one’s quiet.” In November a visitor to Passy informed him that General Howe had taken Philadelphia. (Congress had fled to York, Pennsylvania, which became temporarily the capital of the United States.) Calm and smiling, Franklin countered, “I beg your pardon, sir. Philadelphia has taken Howe.” Inwardly, he was gravely concerned. His daughter and her family, his home, those he loved, and everything he owned was in Philadelphia. But he could not afford to let his anxiety show. He considered at this time telling Vergennes that unless America could count on a French alliance, they would have to make terms with England, but decided the threat might boomerang and force the French to abandon them. Best wait until the news was better. It so happened he had not long to wait. On December 4, a messenger from Boston arrived at Passy, to announce that General John Burgoyne, whom the British had sent to Canada to lead an army to invade the colonies from the north, had been defeated at Saratoga. Beaumarchais, who was present when this news came, drove off to Paris so recklessly that his carriage upset and his arm was broken. Franklin and his two commissioners promptly drew up a dispatch for Vergennes. Two days later Conrad-Alexandre GÉrard of the foreign office arrived at Passy with Vergennes’ congratulations—and a request that the Americans renew their proposal for an alliance. Franklin drafted the proposal on December 7 and Temple delivered it the next day. On the 12th, the commissioners met secretly with Vergennes. Franklin hoped the matter could be settled there and then but the French minister said France could not agree to an alliance without Spain. It took three weeks for a courier to make the trip and bring back an answer from Spain. It was negative. Temporarily negotiations were at a standstill. In the meantime England had sent an envoy named Paul Wentworth to parley with the Americans. He passed himself off as a stock speculator though he was actually chief of the British espionage. Silas Deane saw him several times. Wentworth told him that the British ministry was ready to return to the imperial status of before 1763, suggested a general armistice with all British troops withdrawn except those on the New York islands, and added, insinuatingly, that any Americans who helped to bring about an understanding would be rewarded with wealth and titles and high administrative posts. Franklin knew about Wentworth but refused to see him until January 6, a week after the news of Spain’s rejection of the alliance. That day he conferred two hours with Wentworth, devoting the whole time to a recital of England’s crimes against America. After that he and Wentworth had dinner with Silas Deane and his assistant Edward Bancroft (who was also an English spy). The results of this dinner were exactly what Franklin anticipated. It was duly reported to Vergennes, who could only judge that negotiations for a reconciliation between England and America were under way, which was the last thing in the world he wanted. The very next day the French King’s council voted formally on a treaty and an alliance with the United States of America. The signing of the treaty took place on Friday, February 7, 1778, at the office of the ministry for foreign affairs in the Hotel de Lautrec, Paris. For this all important occasion Franklin donned an old costume, somewhat old-fashioned and rather too tight for him, of figured Manchester velvet. Someone asked him why. “To get it a little revenge,” Franklin said. “I wore this coat on the day Wedderburn abused me.” The ceremony was simple. GÉrard signed first, then Franklin, after which Arthur Lee and Silas Deane added their names. A magnificent diplomatic campaign had been won. On March 20, Louis XVI avowed the treaty by receiving the three commissioners in his private quarters at Versailles. Franklin wore a brown velvet suit, white hose, and carried a white hat under his arm. He had neither wig nor sword, and his spectacles were on his nose. The courtiers claimed they had never seen anything so striking as this “republican simplicity.” To the commissioners, the King said, “Firmly assure Congress of my friendship. I hope that this will be for the good of the two nations.” Franklin responded for his fellow envoys. “Your Majesty may count on the gratitude of Congress and its faithful observance of the pledges it now takes.” That evening Vergennes gave a great dinner in their honor at Versailles. Later they made a call on the royal family. The charming and beautiful Marie Antoinette, who was at her gambling table, insisted that Franklin stand by her, and talked to him in between making her bids at exceedingly high stakes. It was certainly the first time in history that the son of an American candlemaker kept company with a queen. |
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