‘Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phœboque sagittas.’”[246]
Here is the earliest notice of this verse, authenticating its origin.
Nothing further is said of the “Anti-Lucretius”; for in that day it was
familiar to every lettered person. But I shall speak of it before I
close.
Only a few days later the verse appears in the correspondence of Madame
D’Épinay, whose intimate relations with Baron Grimm--the subject of
curiosity and scandal--will explain her early knowledge of it. She
records it in a letter to the very remarkable Italian Abbé Galiani,
under date of May 3, 1778. And she proceeds to give a translation in
French verse, which she says “D’Alembert made the other morning on
waking.”[247] Galiani, who was himself a master of Latin versification,
and followed closely the fortunes of America, must have enjoyed the
tribute. In a letter written shortly afterwards, he enters into all the
grandeur of the occasion. “You have,” says he, “at this hour decided
the greatest revolution of the globe,--the question whether America
shall rule Europe, or Europe shall continue to rule America. I would
wager in favor of America.”[248] In these words the Neapolitan said as
much as Turgot.
I cannot quote Galiani without adding that nobody saw America with
more prophetic eye than this inspired Pulcinello of Naples. As far
back as May 18, 1776, several weeks even before the Declaration of
Independence, and much longer before it was known in Europe, he wrote:
“The epoch is come for the total fall of Europe and for transmigration
to America.… Do not, then, buy your house in the Chaussée d’Antin, but
at Philadelphia. The misfortune for me is that there are no abbeys in
America.”[249] Once a favorite in the very circle where Franklin was
welcomed, he left Paris for Italy before the arrival of the negotiator,
so that he knew the tribute only through a faithful correspondence.
Shortly afterwards the verse appears in a different scene. It had
reached the _salons_ of Madame Doublet, whence it was transferred to
the “Mémoires Secrets” of Bachaumont, under date of June 8, 1778, as “a
very beautiful verse, quite proper to characterize M. Franklin and to
serve as an inscription for his portrait.”[250] These Memoirs, as is
well known, are the record of news and town-talk gathered in the circle
of that venerable Egeria of gossip;[251] and here is evidence of the
publicity this welcome had promptly obtained.
The verse was now fairly launched. War was flagrant between France and
Great Britain. No longer was there any reason why the new alliance
between France and the United States should not be placed under the
auspices of genius, and why the same hand that had snatched the
lightning from the skies should not have the fame of snatching the
sceptre from King George the Third. The time for free speech had come.
It was no longer “blasphemous.”
It will be observed that these records of this verse fail to mention
the immediate author. Was he unknown at the time? or did the fact
that he was recently a Cabinet Minister induce him to hide behind
a mask? Turgot was a master of epigram,--as witness the terrible
lines on Frederick of Prussia;[252] but he was very prudent in
conduct. “Nobody,” said Voltaire, “so skilful to launch the shaft
without showing the hand.” There is a letter from no less a person
than D’Alembert, which reveals something of the “filing” which the
verse underwent, and something of the persons consulted. Unhappily,
the letter is without date; nor does it appear to whom it was
addressed, except that the “_cher confrère_” seems to imply that
it was to a brother of the Academy. This letter is found in a work
now known to have been the compilation of the Marquis Gaëtan de la
Rochefoucauld,[253] entitled “Mémoires de Condorcet sur la Révolution
Française, extraits de sa Correspondance et de celles de ses Amis,” and
is introduced by the following words from the Marquis:--
“It is known how Franklin was fêted when he came to Paris,
because he was the representative of a republic. The
philosophers, especially, received him with enthusiasm. It may
be said, among other things, that D’Alembert lost his sleep;
and we are going to prove it by a letter which he wrote, while
racking his brain to versify in honor of Franklin.”