IN FRANCE WITH FRANKLIN
Jack shipped in the packet Mercury, of seventy tons, under Captain
Simeon Sampson, one of America's ablest naval commanders. She had been
built for rapid sailing and when, the second day out, they saw a
British frigate bearing down upon her they wore ship and easily ran
away from their enemy. Their first landing was at St. Martin on the
Isle de Rhé. They crossed the island on mules, being greeted with the
cry:
"_Voilà les braves Bostones_!"
In France the word _Bostone_ meant American revolutionist. At the
ferry they embarked on a long gabbone for La Rochelle. There the young
man enjoyed his first repose on a French _lit_ built up of sundry
layers of feather beds. He declares in his diary that he felt the need
of a ladder to reach its snowy summit of white linen. He writes a
whole page on the sense of comfort and the dreamless and refreshing
sleep which he had found in that bed. The like of it he had not known
since he had been a fighting man.
In the morning he set out in a heavy vehicle of two wheels, drawn by
three horses. Its postillion in frizzed and powdered hair, under a
cocked hat, with a long queue on his back and in great boots, hooped
with iron, rode a lively little _bidet_. Such was the French
stagecoach of those days, its running gear having been planned with an
eye to economy, since vehicles were taxed according to the number of
their wheels. The diary informs one that when the traveler stopped for
food at an inn, he was expected to furnish his own knife. The highways
were patrolled, night and day, by armed horsemen and robberies were
unknown. The vineyards were not walled or fenced. All travelers had a
license to help themselves to as much fruit as they might wish to eat
when it was on the vines.
They arrived at Chantenay on a cold rainy evening. They were settled
in their rooms, happy that they had protection from the weather, when
their landlord went from room to room informing them that they would
have to move on.
"Why?" Jack ventured to inquire.
"Because a _seigneur_ has arrived."
"A _seigneur_!" Jack exclaimed.
"_Oui_, Monsieur. He is a very great man."
"But suppose we refuse to go," said Jack.
"Then, Monsieur, I shall detain your horses. It is a law of _le grand
monarque_."
There was no dodging it. The coach and horses came back to the inn
door. The passengers went out into the dark, rainy night to plod along
in the mud, another six miles or so, that the seigneur and his suite
could enjoy that comfort the weary travelers had been forced to leave.
Such was the power of privilege with which the great Louis had saddled
his kingdom.
They proceeded to Ancenis, Angers and Breux. From the latter city the
road to Versailles was paved with flat blocks of stone. There were
swarms of beggars in every village and city crying out, with hands
extended, as the coach passed them:
"_La charité, au nom de Dieu_!"
"France is in no healthy condition when this is possible," the young
man wrote.
If he met a priest carrying a Bon Dieu in a silver vase every one
called out, "_Aux genoux_!" and then the beholder had to kneel, even if
the mud were ankle deep. So on a wet day one's knees were apt to be as
muddy as his feet.
The last stage from Versailles to Paris was called the post royale.
There the postillion had to be dressed like a gentleman. It was a
magnificent avenue, crowded every afternoon by the wealth and beauty of
the kingdom, in gorgeously painted coaches, and lighted at night by
great lamps, with double reflectors, over its center. They came upon
it in the morning on their way to the capital. There were few people
traveling at that hour. Suddenly ahead they saw a cloud of dust. The
stage stopped. On came a band of horsemen riding at a wild gallop.
They were the King's couriers.
"Clear the way," they shouted. "The King's hunt is coming."
All travelers, hearing this command, made quickly for the sidings,
there to draw rein and dismount. The deer came in sight, running for
its life, the King close behind with all his train, the hounds in full
cry. Near Jack the deer bounded over a hedge and took a new direction.
His Majesty--a short, stout man with blue eyes and aquiline nose,
wearing a lace cocked hat and brown velvet coatee and high boots with
spurs--dismounted not twenty feet from the stage-coach, saying with
great animation:
"_Vite! Donnez moi un cheval frais_."
Instantly remounting, he bounded over the hedge, followed by his train.
2
A letter from Jack presents all this color of the journey and avers
that he reached the house of Franklin in Passy about two o'clock in the
afternoon of a pleasant May day. The savant greeted his young friend
with an affectionate embrace.
"Sturdy son of my beloved country, you bring me joy and a new problem,"
he said.
"What is the problem?" Jack inquired.
"That of moving Margaret across the channel. I have a double task now.
I must secure the happiness of America and of Jack Irons."
He read the despatches and then the Doctor and the young man set out in
a coach for the palace of Vergennes, the Prime Minister. Colonel Irons
was filled with astonishment at the tokens of veneration for the
white-haired man which he witnessed in the streets of Paris.
"The person of the King could not have attracted more respectful
attention," he writes. "A crowd gathered about the coach when we were
leaving it and every man stood with uncovered head as we passed on our
way to the palace door. In the crowd there was much whispered praise
of '_Le grand savant_.' I did not understand this until I met, in the
office of the Compte de Vergennes, the eloquent Senator Gabriel Honore
Riquetti de Mirabeau. What an impressive name! Yet I think he
deserves it. He has the eye of Mars and the hair of Samson and the
tongue of an angel, I am told. In our talk, I assured him that in
Philadelphia Franklin came and went and was less observed than the town
crier.
"'But your people seem to adore him,' I said.
"'As if he were a god,' Mirabeau answered. 'Yes, it is true and it is
right. Has he not, like Jove, hurled the lightning of heaven in his
right hand? Is he not an unpunished Prometheus? Is he not breaking
the scepter of a tyrant?'
"Going back to his home where in the kindness of his heart he had asked
me to live, he endeavored, modestly, to explain the evidences of high
regard which were being showered upon him.
"'It happens that my understanding and small control of a mysterious
and violent force of nature has appealed to the imagination of these
people,' he said, 'I am the only man who has used thunderbolts for his
playthings. Then, too, I am speaking for a new world to an old one.
Just at present I am the voice of Human Liberty. I represent the
hunger of the spirit of man. It is very strong here. You have not
traveled so far in France without seeing thousands of beggars. They
are everywhere. But you do not know that when a child comes in a poor
family, the father and mother go to prison _pour mois de nourrice_. It
is a pity that the poor can not keep their children at home. This old
kingdom is a muttering Vesuvius, growing hotter, year by year, with
discontent. You will presently hear its voices.'"
[Illustration: Ben Franklin]
There was a dinner that evening at Franklin's house, at which the
Marquis de Mirabeau, M. Turgot, the Madame de Brillon, the Abbé Raynal
and the Compte and Comptesse d' Haudetot, Colonel Irons and three other
American gentlemen were present. The Madame de Brillon was first to
arrive. She entered with a careless, jaunty air and ran to meet
Franklin and caught his hand and gave him a double kiss on each cheek
and one on his forehead and called him "papa."
"At table she sat between me and Doctor Franklin," Jack writes. "She
frequently locked her hand in the Doctor's and smiled sweetly as she
looked into his eyes. I wonder what the poor, simple, hard-working
Deborah Franklin would have thought of these familiarities. Yet here,
I am told, no one thinks ill of that kind of thing. The best women of
France seem to treat their favorites with like tokens of regard. Now
and then she spread her arms across the backs of our chairs, as if she
would have us feel that her affection was wide enough for both.
"She assured me that all the women of France were in love with _le
grand savant_.
"Franklin, hearing the compliment, remarked: 'It is because they pity
my age and infirmities. First we pity, then embrace, as the great Mr.
Pope has written.'
"'We think it a compliment that the greatest intellect in the world is
willing to allow itself to be, in a way, captured by the charms of
women,' Madame Brillon declared.
"'My beautiful friend! You are too generous,' the Doctor continued
with a laugh. 'If the greatest man were really to come to Paris and
lose his heart, I should know where to find it.'
"The Doctor speaks an imperfect and rather broken French, but these
people seem to find it all the more interesting on that account.
Probably to them it is like the English which we have heard in America
from the lips of certain Frenchmen. How fortunate it is that I learned
to speak the language of France in my boyhood!
"From the silver-tongued Mirabeau I got further knowledge of Franklin,
with which I, his friend and fellow countryman, should have been
acquainted, save that the sacrifices of the patriot are as common as
mother's milk and cause little comment among us. The great orator was
expected to display his talents, if there were any excuse for it,
wherever he might be, so the ladies set up a demand for a toast. He
spoke of Franklin, 'The Thrifty Prodigal,' saying;
"'He saves only to give. There never was such a squanderer of his own
immeasurable riches. For his great inventions and discoveries he has
never received a penny. Twice he has put his personal fortune at the
disposal of his country. Once when he paid the farmers for their
horses and wagons to transport supplies for the army of Braddock, and
again when he offered to pay for the tea which was thrown into Boston
Harbor.'
"The great man turned to me and added:
"'I have learned of these things, not from him, but from others who
know the truth, and we love him in France because we are aware that he
is working for Human Liberty and not for himself or for any greedy
despot in the 'west.'
"It is all so true, yet in America nothing has been said of this.
"As the dinner proceeded the Abbé Raynal asked the Doctor if it was
true that there were signs of degeneracy in the average male American.
"'Let the facts before us be my answer," said Franklin. "There are at
this table four Frenchmen and four Americans. Let these gentlemen
stand up."
"The Frenchmen were undersized, the Abbé himself being a mere shrimp of
a man. The Americans, Carmichael, Harmer, Humphries and myself, were
big men, the shortest being six feet tall. The contrast raised a laugh
among the ladies. Then said Franklin in his kindest tones:
"'My dear Abbé, I am aware that manhood is not a matter of feet and
inches. I only assure you that these are average Americans and that
they are pretty well filled with brain and spirit.'
"The Abbé spoke of a certain printed story on which he had based his
judgment.
"Franklin laughed and answered: 'I know that is a fable, because I
wrote it myself one day, long ago, when we were short of news.'"
The guests having departed, Franklin asked the young man to sit down
for a talk by the fireside. The Doctor spoke of the women of France,
saying:
"'You will not understand them or me unless you remind yourself that we
are in Europe and that it is the eighteenth century. Here the clocks
are lagging. Time moves slowly. With the poor it stands still. They
know not the thing we call progress.'
"'Those who have money seem to be very busy having fun,' I said.
"'There is no morning to their day,' he went on. 'Their dawn is
noontime. Our kind of people have had longer days and have used them
wisely. So we have pushed on ahead of this European caravan. Our
fathers in New England made a great discovery.'
"'What was it?' I asked.
"'That righteousness was not a joke; that Christianity was not a solemn
plaything for one day in the week, but a real, practical, working
proposition for every day in the year; that the main support of the
structure is industry; that its most vital commandment is this, 'six
days shalt thou labor'; that no amount of wealth can excuse a man from
this duty. Every one worked. There was no idleness and therefore
little poverty. The days were all for labor and the nights for rest.
The wheels of progress were greased and moving.'
"'And our love of learning helped to push them along,' I suggested.
"'True. Our people have been mostly like you and me,' he went on. 'We
long for knowledge of the truth. We build schools and libraries and
colleges. We have pushed on out of the eighteenth century into a new
time. There you were born. Now you have stepped a hundred years
backward into Europe. You are astonished, and this brings me to my
point. Here I am with a great task on my hands. It is to enlist the
sympathy and help of France. I must take things, not as I could wish
them to be, but as I find them. At this court women are all powerful.
It has long been a maxim here that a diplomatist must stand well with
the ladies. Even though he is venerable, he must be gallant, and I do
not use the word in a shady sense. The ladies are not so bad as you
would think them. They are playthings. To them, life is not as we
know it, filled with realities. It is a beautiful drama of rich
costumes and painted scenes and ingenious words, all set in the
atmosphere of romance. The players only pretend to believe each other.
In the salon I am one of these players. I have to be.'
"'Mirabeau seemed to mean what he said,' was my answer.
"'Yes. He is one of those who often speak from the heart. All these
players love the note of sincerity when they hear it. In the salon it
is out of key, but away from the ladies the men are often living and
not playing. Mirabeau, Condorcet, Turgot and others have heard the
call of Human Liberty. Often they come to this house and speak out
with a strong candor.'
"'I suppose that this great drama of despotism in France will end in a
tragedy whose climax will consume the stage and half the players,' I
ventured to say.
"'That is a theme, Jack, on which you and I must be silent,' Franklin
answered. 'We must hold our mouths as with a bridle.'
"For a moment he sat looking sadly into the glowing coals on the grate.
Franklin loved to talk, but no one could better keep his own counsel.
"'At heart I am no revolutionist,' he said presently. 'I believe in
purifying--not in breaking down. I would to God that I could have
convinced the British of their error. Mainly I am with the prophet who
says:
"'"Stand in the old ways. View the ancient paths. Consider them well
and be not among those who are given to change."'
"I sat for a moment thinking of the cruelties I had witnessed, and
asking myself if it had been really worth while. Franklin interrupted
my thoughts.
"'I wish we could discover a plan which would induce and compel nations
to settle their differences without cutting each other's throats. When
will human wisdom be sufficient to see the advantage of this?'
"He told me the thrilling details of his success in France; how he had
won the kingdom for an ally and secured loans and the help of a fleet
and army then on the sea.
"'And you will not be surprised to learn that the British have been
sounding me to see if we would be base enough to abandon our ally,' he
laughed.
"In a moment he added:
"'Come, it is late and you must write a letter to the heart of England
before you lie down to rest.'
"Often thereafter he spoke of Margaret as 'the heart of England.'"