On behalf of the French Republic, with feelings of gratitude, I receive
the gift offered to my country, this masterful portrait of Franklin,
which a law of Congress ordered to be made, and which is signed with the
name, twice famous, of Saint-Gaudens.
Everything in such a present powerfully appeals to a French heart. It
represents a man ever venerated and admired in my country--the
scientist, the philosopher, the inventor, the leader of men, the one who
gave to France her first notion of what true Americans really were.
"When you were in France," Chastellux wrote to Franklin, "there was no
need to praise the Americans. We had only to say: Look; here is their
representative."
The gift is offered in this town of Philadelphia where there exists a
hall the very name of which is dear to every American and every French
heart--the Hall of Independence--and at a gathering of a society founded
"for promoting useful knowledge," which has remained true to its
principle, worthy of its founder, and which numbers many whose fame is
equally great on both sides of the ocean.
I receive it at the hands of one of the best servants of the state which
this country ever produced, no less admired at the head of her diplomacy
now than he was lately at the head of her army, one of those rare men
who prove the right man, whatever be the place. You have listened to his
words, and you will agree with me when I say that I shall have two
golden gifts to forward to my government: the medal and Secretary Root's
speech.
The work of art offered by America to France will be sent to Paris to be
harbored in that unique museum, her Museum of Medals, where her history
is, so to say, written in gold and bronze, from the fifteenth century up
to now, without any ruler, any great event, being omitted. Some of the
American past is also written there--that period so glorious when French
and American history were the same history, when first rose a nation
that has never since ceased to rise.
There, awaiting your gift, are preserved medals struck in France at the
very time of the events, in honor of Washington, to commemorate the
relief of Boston in 1776; a medal of John Paul Jones in honor of his
naval campaign of 1779; another medal representing G. Washington, and
one representing General Howard, to commemorate the battle of Cowpens in
1781; one to celebrate the peace of 1783 and the freedom of the thirteen
States; one of Lafayette; one of Suffren, who fought so valiantly on
distant seas for the same cause as Washington; one, lastly, of Franklin
himself, dated 1784, bearing the famous inscription composed in honor of
the great man by Turgot: "Eripuit cælo fulmen, sceptrumque
tyrannis."[249]
My earnest hope is that one of the next medals to be struck and added
to the series will be one to commemorate the resurrection of that great
city which now, at this present hour, agonizes by the shores of the
Pacific. The disaster of San Francisco has awakened a feeling of deepest
grief in every French heart, and a feeling of admiration, too, for the
manliness displayed by the population during this awful trial. So that
what will be commemorated will not be only the American nation's sorrow,
but her unfailing heroism and energy.
Now your gift will be added to the collection in Paris; it will be there
in its proper place. The thousands who visit this museum will be
reminded by it that the ties happily formed long ago are neither broken
nor distended, and they will contemplate with a veneration equal to that
of their ancestors the features of one whom Mirabeau justly called one
of the heroes of mankind.
* * * * *
The Franklin ceremony had occurred at the time of the San Francisco
catastrophe, at a moment when, communication having been cut, anxiety
was intense.
I had spoken without instructions, but the French Government took their
representative's words to the letter. The medal was ordered, and was for
Bottée, the artist, a former recipient of the "Grand Prix de Rome," a
work of love. It shows on one side the city rising from its ruins,
surrounded with emblems of recovered youth and prosperity. On the other
side the image of the French Republic is seen offering from over the sea
a twig of laurel to America.
One single copy in gold was struck, and the presentation took place in
rebuilt San Francisco, in 1909, the medal being received by the
statesman and poet, the translator of the sonnets of Heredia, Edward
Robeson Taylor, then mayor of the city.