“FRIDAY MORNING.
“MY DEAR COLLEAGUE,-- … You are acquainted with the Franklin
verse,--
‘Eripuit cœlo fulmen, _mox sceptra_ tyrannis.’
You should surely cause it to be put in the Paris paper, if it
is not there already.
“I am inclined to agree with La Harpe that _sceptrumque_ is
better: first, because _mox sceptra_ is a little hard, and then
because _mox_, according to the dictionary of Gesner, who
adduces examples, signifies equally _statim_ or _deinde_, which
makes an ambiguity, _mox eripuit_ or _mox eripiet_.
“Be that as it may, here is how I have attempted to translate
this verse for the portrait of Franklin:--
‘Tu vois le sage courageux
Dont l’heureux et mâle génie
Arracha le tonnerre aux dieux
Et le sceptre à la tyrannie.’
If you find these verses sufficiently tolerable, so that people
will not laugh at me, you can have them put into the Paris
paper, even with my name. I shall honor myself in rendering
this homage to Franklin, but on condition once more that you
find the verses _printable_. As I make little pretension on
account of them, I shall be perfectly content, if you reject
them as bad.
“The third verse might be put, _A ravi le tonnerre aux cieux_
or _aux dieux_. I should prefer the other; but you shall
choose.”[254]
From this letter it appears that the critical judgment of La Harpe,
confirmed by D’Alembert, sided for _sceptrumque_ as better than _mox
sceptra_.
The verse of Turgot was not alone in its testimony. An incident
precisely contemporaneous shows how completely France had fallen under
the fascination of the American cause. Voltaire, the acknowledged chief
of French literature in the brilliant eighteenth century, after many
years of busy exile at Ferney, in the neighborhood of Geneva, where he
had wielded his far-reaching sceptre, was induced in old age to visit
Paris once again before he died. He left his Swiss retreat on the 6th
of February, 1778, the very day on which Franklin signed the alliance
with France, and, after a journey which resembled the progress of
a sovereign, reached Paris on the 10th of February. He was at once
surrounded by the homage of all most illustrious in literature and
science, while the Theatre, grateful for his contributions, vied with
the Academy. There were two characters on whom the patriarch, as he was
fondly called, lavished a homage of his own. He had already addressed
to Turgot a most remarkable epistle in verse, the mood of which may be
seen in its title, “Épître à un Homme”; but on seeing the discarded
statesman, who had been so true to benevolent ideas, he came forward
to meet him, saying, with his whole soul, “Let me kiss the hand which
signed the salvation of the people.” The scene with Franklin was more
touching still. Voltaire began in English, which he had spoken early in
life, but, having lost the habit, soon changed to French, saying that
he “could not resist the desire of speaking for one moment the language
of Franklin.” The latter had brought with him his grandson, for whom
he asked a benediction. “God and Liberty,” said Voltaire, putting his
hands upon the head of the child; “this is the only benediction proper
for the grandson of Franklin.” A few weeks afterward, at a public
session of the Academy, they were placed side by side, when, amidst
the applause of the enlightened company, the two old men rose and
embraced. The political triumphs of Franklin and the dramatic triumphs
of Voltaire caused the exclamation, “Solon and Sophocles embrace!” It
was more than this. It was France and America embracing beneath the
benediction of “God and Liberty.” Only a month later Voltaire died. But
the alliance with France had received new assurance, and the cause of
American independence an immutable impulse.
Turgot did not live to enjoy the final triumph to which he had given
such remarkable expression. He died March 20, 1781, several months
before that “crowning mercy,” the capture of Cornwallis, and nearly two
years before the Provisional Articles of Peace, by which the Colonies
were recognized as free and independent States. But his attachment to
Franklin was one of the enjoyments of his latter years.[255] Besides
the verse to which so much reference has been made, there is an
interesting incident attesting the communion of ideas between them,
if not the direct influence of Turgot. Captain Cook, the eminent
navigator, who “steered Britain’s oak into a world unknown,” was in
distant seas on a voyage of discovery. Such an enterprise naturally
interested Franklin, and, in the spirit of a refined humanity, he
sought to save it from the chances of war. Accordingly, he issued a
passport, addressed “To all captains and commanders of armed ships
acting by commission from the Congress of the United States of America,
now in war with Great Britain,” where, after setting forth the nature
of the voyage of the English navigator, he proceeded to say: “This
is most earnestly to recommend to every one of you, that, in case
the said ship, which is now expected to be soon in the European seas
on her return, should happen to fall into your hands, you would
not consider her as an enemy, nor suffer any plunder to be made of
the effects contained in her, nor obstruct her immediate return to
England by detaining her or sending her into any other part of Europe
or to America, but that you would treat the said Captain Cook and
his people with all civility and kindness, affording them, as common
friends to mankind, all the assistance in your power which they may
happen to stand in need of.”[256] This document bears date March 10,
1779. But Turgot had anticipated Franklin. At the first menace of
war he had submitted a memoir to the French Government, on which it
was ordered that Captain Cook should not be treated as an enemy, but
as a benefactor of all European nations.[257] Here was a triumph of
Civilization by which we, too, have been gainers; for such an example
is universal and immortal in influence.
There is yet another circumstance which should be mentioned as
revealing an identity of sympathies in these two eminent persons. Each
sought to marry Madame Helvétius: Turgot early in life, while she was
still Mademoiselle Ligniville, belonging to a family of twenty-one
children, from a château in Lorraine, and a niece of Madame de
Graffigny, author of the “Peruvian Letters”; Franklin in his old age,
while a welcome guest in the intellectual company which this widowed
lady continued to gather about her at Auteuil, in the neighborhood of
Paris, and not far from his own house at Passy. Throughout his stay in
France he continued in unbroken relations with this circle, dining with
it very often, and adding much to its gayety, while Madame Helvétius,
with her friends, dined with him once a week. It was with tears in
his eyes that he parted from her, whom he never expected to see again
in this life; and on reaching his American home he addressed her in
words of touching tenderness: “I stretch out my arms towards you,
notwithstanding the immensity of the seas which separate us, while I
wait the heavenly kiss which I firmly trust one day to give you.”[258]
In the permanent group about Madame Helvétius were Cabanis and
Morellet, both living for many years under her hospitable roof. To
the former we are indebted for the interesting extract last quoted.
The intimacy with Franklin is attested in other ways. Nobody who has
visited the Imperial[259] Library at Paris can forget his very pleasant
autograph note in French concerning Madame Helvétius, exhibited in
the same case with an autograph note of Henry the Fourth to Gabrielle
d’Estrées.
Another glimpse is furnished by Mrs. Adams, who, in her family
correspondence, reports a scene at the house of Franklin. “The
Doctor entered at one door, she [Madame Helvétius] at the other;
upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the hand, ‘Hélas,
Franklin!’--then gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek,
and another upon his forehead.… She carried on the chief of the
conversation at dinner, frequently locking her hand into the Doctor’s.”
Franklin spoke of her as “a genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from
affectation or stiffness of behavior, and one of the best women in the
world.”[260] Madame Helvétius died at Auteuil, August 12, 1800, aged
eighty-one, and, according to her desire, was buried in her garden. A
few years later the same house became the home of Benjamin Thompson,
Count Rumford, who died there, and was buried in the neighboring
cemetery.
But the story of the verse is not yet finished. And here it mingles
with the history of Franklin in Paris, constituting an episode of the
American Revolution. The verse was written for a portrait. And now
that the costly first step had been taken, the portrait of Franklin
was seen everywhere,--in painting, in sculpture, and in engraving. I
have counted in the superb collection of the Bibliothèque Impériale,
at Paris, forty-seven engraved heads of him. At the royal exhibition
of pictures the republican portrait found place, and the name of
Franklin was printed at length in the catalogue,--a circumstance which
did not pass unobserved at the time; for the “Espion Anglais,” in
recording it, treats it as “announcing that he began to come out of
his obscurity.”[261] The same curious authority, describing a festival
at Marseilles, says, under date of March 20, 1779, “I was struck, on
entering the hall, to observe a crowd of portraits representing the
insurgents; but that of M. Franklin especially drew my attention, on
account of the device, ‘_Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis_.’
This was inscribed recently, and _every one admired the sublime
truth_.”[262] Thus completely was France, not merely in its social
centre, where fashion gives the law, but in its distant borders,
pledged to the cause of which Franklin was the representative.
As in halls of science and popular resorts, so was our Plenipotentiary
even in the palace of princes. The biographer of the Prince de
Condé dwells with admiration upon the illustrious character, who,
during the great debate and the negotiations that ensued, had
fixed the regards of Paris, of Versailles, of the whole kingdom
indeed,--although in simple and farmer-like exterior, so unlike those
gilded plenipotentiaries to whom France was accustomed,--and he
recounts, most sympathetically, that the Prince, after an interview
of two hours, declared that “Franklin appeared to him above even
his reputation.”[263] And here we encounter again the unwilling
testimony of Capefigue, who says that he was followed everywhere,
taking possession of “hearts and minds,” and that “his picture, in his
simple Quaker dress, was suspended at the hearth of the poor and in
the boudoir of the fashionable,”[264]--all of which is in harmony with
the more sympathetic record of Lacretelle, who says that “portraits
of Franklin were to be seen everywhere, with this inscription, _which
the Court itself found just and sublime_, ‘_Eripuit cœlo fulmen,
sceptrumque tyrannis_.’”[265]
Fragonard, the King’s painter, united in this adulation. A French
paper describes the artist as displaying his utmost efforts “in an
elegant picture dedicated to the genius of Franklin, who is represented
with one hand opposing the ægis of Minerva to the thunderbolt, which
he first knew how to fix by his conductors, and with the other
commanding the God of War to fight against Avarice and Tyranny,
whilst America, nobly reclining upon him, and holding in her hand the
fasces, true emblem of the union of the American States, looks down
with tranquillity on her defeated enemies.” It is then said, that
“the painter, in this picture, most beautifully expressed the idea of
the Latin verse which has been so justly applied to M. Franklin.” The
enthusiastic journalist, not content with the picture and the verse,
proceeded to claim him as of French ancestry. “Franklin appears rather
to be of French than of English origin. It is certain that the name of
Franklin, or Franquelin, is very common in Picardy, especially in the
districts of Vimeux and Ponthieu. It is very probable that one of the
Doctor’s ancestors was an inhabitant of this country, and went over to
England with the fleet of Jean de Biencourt, or that which was fitted
out by the nobility of this province.”[266] The story of Homer seems
revived.
The tribute of Madame d’Houdetot was most peculiar. This lady, one of
the riddles of French society in the eighteenth century, whom Rousseau
depicted in a passage of surpassing fervor and made the inspiration of
his “Nouvelle Éloïse,” received Franklin at her château, near Paris, in
a brilliant circle, with banquet and verses in his honor. The famous
guest, at his arrival, and then at dinner, with every glass of wine
was saluted by a new verse, the whole ending with the ascription of
Turgot.[267] Whether to admire or pity the philosopher on this occasion
is the question.
In the minds of Frenchmen Franklin was associated always with this
verse; but such association was no common fame. The Marquis de
Chastellux, while on board the French frigate in the Chesapeake Bay,
on which he was about to leave, after those travels which did so much
to make our country known in Europe, addressed a communication to
Professor Madison, of Virginia, on the fine arts in America, where he
recommends for all the great towns a portrait of Franklin, “with the
Latin verse inscribed in France below his portrait.”[268] Thus, while
teaching our fathers the homage due to the great citizen, the generous
Frenchman did not forget the testimony of his countryman.
French invention stopped not with Turgot. Other verses were pitched on
the same key. An engraving of Franklin by Chevillet, after a portrait
by Duplessis, has this tribute:--
“Honneur du Nouveau Monde et de l’Humanité,
Ce Sage aimable et vrai les guide et les éclaire;
Comme un autre Mentor, il cache à l’œil vulgaire,
Sous les traits d’un mortel, une Divinité.”
Under another engraving, by F. N. Martinet, where Franklin is seated in
a chair, are these lines:--
“Il a ravi le feu des cieux,
Il fait fleurir les arts en des climats sauvages;
L’Amérique le place à la tête des sages,
La Grèce l’auroit mis au nombre de ses Dieux.”
It was at Court, even in the palatial precincts of Versailles, that
the portrait and its famous inscription had their most remarkable
experience. Of this there is authentic account in the Memoirs of Marie
Antoinette by her attendant, Madame Campan. This feminine chronicler
relates that Franklin appeared at court in the dress of an American
farmer. His flat hair without powder, his round hat, his coat of brown
cloth contrasted with the bespangled and embroidered dresses, the
powdered and perfumed coiffures of the courtiers. The novelty charmed
the lively imagination of the French ladies. Elegant _fêtes_ were given
to the man who was said to unite in himself the renown of one of the
greatest of natural philosophers with “those patriotic virtues which
had made him embrace the noble part of Apostle of Liberty.” Madame
Campan records that she assisted at one of these _fêtes_, where the
most beautiful among three hundred ladies was designated to place a
crown of laurel upon the white head of the American philosopher, and
two kisses upon the cheeks of the old man. Even in the palace, at the
exposition of the Sèvres porcelain, the medallion of Franklin, with the
legend, “_Eripuit cœlo_,” etc., was sold directly under the eyes of the
King. Madame Campan adds, however, that the King avoided expressing
himself on this enthusiasm, which, “without doubt, his sound sense
led him to blame.” But an incident, called “a pleasantry,” which has
remained quite unknown, goes beyond speech in explaining the secret
sentiments of Louis the Sixteenth. The Comtesse Diane de Polignac,
devoted to Marie Antoinette, shared warmly the “infatuation” with
regard to Franklin. The King observed it. But here the story shall
be told in the language of the eminent lady who records it: “Il fit
faire à la manufacture de Sèvres un vase de nuit, au fond duquel était
placé le médaillon avec la légende _si fort en vogue_, et l’envoya en
présent d’étrennes à la Comtesse Diane.”[269] Such was the exceptional
treatment of Franklin, and of the inscription in his honor which was
“so much in vogue.” Giving to this incident its natural interpretation,
it is impossible to resist the conclusion, that the French people, and
not the King, sanctioned American independence.
The conduct of the Queen on this occasion is not recorded, although
we are told by the same communicative chronicler, who had been her
Majesty’s companion, that she did not hesitate to express herself more
openly than the King on the part taken by France in favor of American
independence, to which she was constantly opposed. A letter from Marie
Antoinette, addressed to Madame de Polignac, under date of April 9,
1787, declares unavailing regret in memorable words: “The time of
illusions is past, and to-day we pay dear on account of our infatuation
and enthusiasm for the American War.”[270] Evidently, Marie Antoinette,
like her brother Joseph, thought that her “business was to be a
royalist.”
But the name of Franklin triumphed in France. So long as his residence
continued there he was received with honor; and when, after the
achievement of independence, and the final fulfilment of all that
was declared in the verse of Turgot, he undertook to return home,
the Queen--who had looked with so little favor upon the cause he
so grandly represented--sent a litter to receive his sick body and
carry him gently to the sea. As the great Revolution began to show
itself, his name was hailed with new honor; and this was natural; for
the French Revolution was an outbreak of the spirit that had risen
to welcome him. In snatching the sceptre from a tyrant he had given
a lesson to France. His death, when at last it occurred, was the
occasion of a magnificent eulogy from Mirabeau, who, borrowing the
idea of Turgot, exclaimed from the tribune of the National Assembly,
“Antiquity would have raised altars to the powerful genius, who, to
the benefit of mankind, embracing in his thought both heaven and
earth, _could subdue lightning and tyrants_.” On his motion, France
went into mourning for Franklin.[271] His bust became a favorite
ornament, and, during the festival of Liberty, it was carried, with the
busts of Sidney, Rousseau, and Voltaire, before the people to receive
their veneration.[272] A little later, the eminent medical character,
Cabanis, who had lived in intimate association with Franklin, added
his testimony, saying, that the enfranchisement of the United States
was in many respects his work, and that the Revolution, the most
important to the happiness of men which had then been accomplished on
earth, united with one of the most brilliant discoveries of physical
science to consecrate his memory; and he concludes by quoting the verse
of Turgot.[273] Long afterwards, his last surviving companion in the
cheerful circle of Madame Helvétius, still loyal to the idea of Turgot,
hailed him as “that great man who placed his country in the number of
independent states, and made one of the most important discoveries of
the age.”[274]
* * * * *
It is time to look at this verse in its literary relations, from which
I have been diverted by its commanding import as a political event;
but this naturally enhances the interest in its origin.
The poem which furnished the prototype of the famous verse was
“Anti-Lucretius, sive de Deo et Natura,” by the Cardinal Melchior de
Polignac. Its author was of that patrician house associated so closely
with Marie Antoinette in the earlier Revolution, and with Charles the
Tenth in the later Revolution, having its cradle in the mountains of
Auvergne, near the cradle of Lafayette, and its present tomb in the
historic cemetery of Picpus, near the tomb of Lafayette, so that these
two great names, representing opposite ideas, begin and end side by
side. He was not merely author, but statesman and diplomatist also,
under Louis the Fourteenth and Fifteenth. Through his diplomacy a
French prince was elected King of Poland. He represented France at
the Peace of Utrecht, where he bore himself very proudly towards the
Dutch. By the nomination of the Pretender, at that time in France,
he obtained the hat of a cardinal. At Rome he was a favorite, and
also at Versailles, with some interruptions. His personal appearance,
his distinguished manners, his genius, and his accomplishments, all
commended him. Literary honors were superadded to political and
ecclesiastical. He succeeded to the chair of Bossuet at the Academy.
But he was not without the vicissitudes of political life. Falling into
disgrace at court, he was banished to the abbacy of Bonport. There the
lettered Prince of the Church occupied himself with a refutation of
Lucretius, in Latin verse.
The origin of the poem is not without interest. Meeting Bayle
in Holland, the Frenchman found the indefatigable skeptic most
persistently citing Lucretius, in whose elaborate verse the atheistic
materialism of Epicurus is developed and exalted. Others had answered
the philosopher directly; but the indignant Christian was moved to
answer the poet through whom the dangerous system was proclaimed. His
poem was, therefore, a vindication of God and religion, in direct
response to a master-poem of antiquity in which these are assailed. The
attempt was lofty, especially when the champion adopted the language
of Lucretius. Perhaps no writer of Latin verse since the admired
Sannazaro, found equal success. Even before its publication, in 1747,
it was read at court, and was admired in the princely circle of Sceaux.
It appeared in elegant editions, was translated into French prose
by Bougainville, and into French verse by Jeanty-Laurans, also most
successfully into Italian verse by Ricci. At the latter part of the
last century, when Franklin reached Paris, it was hardly less known
in literary circles than a volume of Grote’s History in our own day.
Voltaire, the contemporary arbiter of literary fame, regarding the
author only on the side of literature, said of him, in his “Temple du
Goût”:--
“Le Cardinal, oracle de la France,
…
Réunissant Virgile avec Platon,
_Vengeur du Ciel et vainqueur de Lucrèce_.”[275]
The last line of this remarkable eulogy has a movement and balance not
unlike the Latin verse of Turgot, or that which suggested it in the
poem of Polignac; but the praise it so pointedly offers attests the
fame of the author. Nor was this praise limited to the “fine frenzy”
of verse. The “Anti-Lucretius” was gravely pronounced the “rival of
one of the greatest poems of ancient Rome,”--“with verses as flowing
as Ovid, sometimes approaching the elegant simplicity of Horace and
sometimes the nobleness of Virgil,”--and then again, with a philosophy
and a poetry combined which “would not be disavowed either by Descartes
or by Virgil.”[276]
Turning now to the poem itself, we see how completely the verse of
Turgot finds its prototype. Epicurus is indignantly described as
denying to the gods all power, and declaring man independent, so as
to act for himself; and here the poet says: “Assailing the thundering
temples of heaven, _he snatched the lightning from Jove and the
arrows from Apollo_, and, liberating the human race, bade it dare all
things”:--
“Cœli et tonitralia templa lacessens,
_Eripuit fulmenque Jovi, Phœboque sagittas_;
Et mortale manumittens genus, omnia jussit
Audere.”[277]
To deny the power of God, and to declare independence of His commands,
which the poet here holds up to judgment, is very unlike the life of
Franklin, all whose service was in obedience to God’s laws, whether in
snatching the lightning from the skies or the sceptre from tyrants;
and yet it is evident that the verse picturing Epicurus in his impiety
suggested the image of the American plenipotentiary in his double
labors of science and statesmanship.
The present story will not be complete without further reference to
the poem of Antiquity supposed to have suggested the verse of Turgot,
and which doubtless did suggest the verse of the “Anti-Lucretius.”
Manilius is a poet little known. It is difficult to say when he lived
or what he was. He is sometimes imagined to have lived under Augustus,
and sometimes under Theodosius. He is sometimes imagined to have been
a Roman slave, and sometimes a Roman senator. His poem, under the name
of “Astronomicon,” is a treatise on astronomy in verse, recounting
the origin of the material universe, exhibiting the relations of the
heavenly bodies, and vindicating this ancient science. While describing
the growth of knowledge, gradually mastering Nature, the poet says,--
“Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, viresque tonandi.”[278]
The meaning of this line is seen in the context, which, for plainness
as well as curiosity, I quote from a metrical version of the first
book, entitled “The Sphere of Marcus Manilius made an English Poem, by
Edward Sherburne, Esquire,” and dedicated to Charles the Second:--
“Nor put they to their curious search an end,
Till reason had scaled heaven, thence viewed this round,
And Nature latent in its causes found:
Why thunder does the suffering clouds assail;
Why winter’s snow’s more soft than summer’s hail;
Whence earthquakes come, and subterranean fires;
Why showers descend; what force the wind inspires:
From error thus she wondering minds uncharmed,
_Unsceptred Jove, the Thunderer disarmed_.”
Enough has been said on the question of origin; but there is yet one
other aspect of the story.
The verse was hardly divulged when it became the occasion of various
efforts in the way of translation. Turgot had already done it into
French; so had D’Alembert. M. Nogaret wrote to Franklin, inclosing an
attempted translation, and says in his letter: “The French have done
their best to translate this Latin verse, where justice is done you
in so few words. They have appeared as jealous of transporting this
eulogy into their language as they are of possessing you. But nobody
has succeeded, and I think nobody will succeed.” He then quotes a
translation which he thinks defective, although it appeared in the
“Almanach des Muses” as the best:--
“Cet homme que tu vois, sublime en tous les tems,
Dérobe aux dieux la foudre et le sceptre aux tyrans.”[279]
To this communication Dr. Franklin made the following reply.
“PASSY, 8 March, 1781.
“SIR,--I received the letter you have done me the honor of
writing to me the 2d instant, wherein, after overwhelming me
with a flood of compliments, which I can never hope to merit,
you request my opinion of your translation of a Latin verse
that has been applied to me. If I were, which I really am not,
sufficiently skilled in your excellent language to be a proper
judge of its poesy, the supposition of my being the subject
must restrain me from giving any opinion on that line, except
that it ascribes too much to me, especially in what relates
to the tyrant,--the Revolution having been the work of many
able and brave men, wherein it is sufficient honor for me, if
I am allowed a small share. I am much obliged by the favorable
sentiments you are pleased to entertain of me.…
“With regard, I have the honor to be, Sir, &c.,
“B. FRANKLIN.”[280]
In acknowledgment, M. Nogaret says: “Paris is pleased with the
translation of your ‘_Eripuit_,’ and your portrait, as I had foreseen,
makes the fortune of the engraver.”[281] But it does not appear to
which translation he refers.