There were many determined to find out, the mission of his 1776 voyage, after all ,only a couple months earlier Franklin put his signature to the Declaration of Independence ; had he been captured at sea he would have been hanged in London.
The British Ambassador to France made that clear, at first mention of Franklin’s unexpected arrival.
The British Ambassador also loudly regretted that some English frigate had not met and dispensed with him on the high seas.
To the Englishman’s mind the 70-year-old American—widely referred to as “the chief of the rebels” or as “General Franklin”was dangerous.
The ambassador was not alone in his surprise at hearing the famous American washed up on French shores.
Franklin , previously had written John Hancock , he would “avoid a public character”, keeping a low profile of sorts , until thinking it prudent first to know if the [French] court is ready and willing to receive ministers, from congress.
However, Franklin met with an electrifying welcome.
Mainly due to his lightening – defying, scientific work, he was the best-known American in the world -although, no one could say with any authority exactly what he was doing in France.
The theories were endless. Franklin came for his health, the climate of France being gentler than that of America.
Maybe, he had come to supply his grandsons with a European education or to see his works published.
It was equally asserted that Franklin had sailed as a fugitive, having quarreled with Congress; in order to protest his countrymen’s decision to reconcile with England.
Just as sinister, to discuss a commercial treaty with France; to sue for peace with the British.
Perhaps the most mundane, to secure his bank account or the almost unthinkable, to ensure that future American generations would be “Frenchified” !
The Portuguese ambassador reported on Franklin’s plans to retire to a Swiss chateau with his immense fortune.
The Saxon ambassador stubbornly refused to believe that “the chief of the rebels” could conceivably even be in France at all.
According to the Sardinian envoy, Franklin had fled America with his family and fortune, having deluded his countrymen with the false promise of a foreign mission.
Everyone waited breathlessly for the great man to divulge his plans.
The plans not being divulged, were perfectly simple.
Congress had declared independence in large part so as to attract a foreign partner in the American rebellion.
For a long time that assembly discussed which should come first, requests for foreign assistance or the formal break with Great Britain.
The best orator in Congress argued that a declaration of independence was the necessary step for securing aid; in that light the document was drafted as an SOS.
In l776 the colonies were without munitions, money, credit, common cause. They knew, however, who their friends were, or at least who England’s enemies were.
France was steadily at the top of that list and, in fact—unbeknownst to Franklin, or any American—the had been studying an American revolt far longer than the colonies had even considered one.
Striking at an established power through the Achilles heel of her far-off colonies was standard operating procedure at the time.
It is vital to remember that in the 18th-century hallways of power—which is to say in the European Courts—most Frenchmen had trouble locating the Americas on the globe.
It was equally possible that one thought the America’s bordered Turkey or were part of India.
The average Frenchman was even uncertain as to which language was spoken there and it was not unusual for a French volunteer to expect to be greeted on arrival in the New World by panthers.
Franklin served from 1776 to 1778 on a commission to France charged with the critical task of gaining French support for American Independence.
French aristocrats and intellectuals embraced Franklin as the personification of the New World Enlightenment.
His hotel seemingly became a mail drop for unsolicited advice, but although it was unsolicited, it was sound.
An anonymous source, advised him to never sign any document not written in English. Another, charted for him exactly how information leaks and information would get back to the British ambassador.
One alert individual also offered information enlightenment on affairs how they were, to trust only professionals, how those before him had been reckless, who would be opposed to anything to menace Britain and above all , if he spent all his time entertain his wealth of invitations, he would eat well, but not secure a cent for Congress.
He must be on guard against false flatterers. The final suggestion – be relentless!
via GIPHY
With the passing of the months of 1777 the popularity of Franklin grew ever greater ; his little house became a shrine for pilgrimages ; morning, noon, and night coaches rolled down the road to it, all Paris (as usual) flocking to see the new Robes a la Franklin were the only wear ; bonnets, materials, all were named after him ;and, as a final extinguishing blow to the pretensions of England, whist was tabooed and a new game, le Boston, played in its stead.
As early as February 1777, Franklin experienced these rather unsatisfying tributes.
He wrote on 8 February : ” Here the ladies are civil ; they call us les insurgents, a character that usually pleases them ; and methinks all the women who smart, or have smarted, under the tyranny of a bad husband ought to be fixed in revolution principles and act accordingly.
” The ladies were indeed very civil.
The Duc de Lauzun said : ” All the prettiest ladies of the Court and of the town go to solicit the favor of embracing him ; and he lends himself very gallantly to their desire.”
It is not recorded what Franklin thought of these gratifying scenes, which doubtless left the same impression upon him as similar evidences of affection had done upon Walpole, who says gravely : ” The Marechales de Luxembourg and Mirepoix came to Paris to see me ; the Duchesse de la Valiere embraced me.
I am smeared with red like my own crest the Saracen, and, in short, have been so kissed on both cheeks that had they been as large as Madame de Virri’s they would have lost leather.”
But rouge, even when administered by the prettiest ladies at Court, was not what Franklin had come to France to seek ; and the Court still hesitated.
To receive Franklin would be equivalent to open hostilities ; and Louis (or, rather, his Government) was not prepared for this.
Louis himself had no sympathy with wild enthusiasms ; nor with the evidence of such that took the form of wearing Benjamin Franklin’s portrait in clay medallions, or in miniatures, on lids of snuff-boxes, in rings, in bracelets, and on everything susceptible of being painted.
It was a very usual form of adoration for the latest hero.
Joseph II had not shown any more enthusiasm than his brother-in-law, although they did not meet ; and Joseph’s well-known expression, ” mon metier a mot est d’etre royaliste” forbade any feeling for those engaged in the overthrow of sovereignty.
Marie Antoinette, ” the daughter of the Caesars,” with all her quick sympathy for those oppressed, her intense admiration of all courage, her pride in any great and daring deed, recognised the danger to the principle of monarchy in the wild support given to les insurgens ; and she feared the spread of Republican doctrines in a nation unaccustomed to self-control and rendered incapable of self-government by six centuries of despotism.
The French people, however, declared war months before the Government took that step ; and to judge by the gazettes and the talk in assemblies, war might have been in open progress by the middle of 1777.
The discontent in the army grew every day more pronounced ; pay was uncertain and poor at best. It was true that the army had been paid in the reign of Louis XV. ; but to raise the sum necessary to wipe off arrears the king had to suspend payment of the billets and revenues were dwindling.
Benjamin Franklin at Versailles, saw the apotheosis of Voltaire.
” Irtne ” was to be produced at the Comedie Franchise on April ; and Paris prepared a reception of ” the new Apollo ” which was worthy of the occasion — and the date.
By way of preparation, Voltaire dressed for the first time since his arrival, doffed the nightcap on 28 March, and appeared in public in a huge brown un powdered wig of the reign of Louis XIV, in which his little shriveled head disappeared, showing only eyes ” brilliant as carbuncles,” gleaming like those of a wild cat in a bush.
The anonymously written Mémoires Secrets reported Franklin’s return to France, making note of his unusual appearance, stating: “He has a beautiful physiognomy, some hair, and a fur cap, which he constantly wears on his head.”
The effect of his sartorial heresy was by no means lost on Franklin, more radical in his dress than in his demeanor.
The plumed headdresses that were the order of the day in December inevitably yielded to the coiffure a la Franklin, in which an imitation of the fur cap he wore instead of a wig. Franklin often wore his hat indoors, which was unusual for the time.
Rumors did exist of Ben Franklin attempting to acquire a fashionable French wig, but his stubbornly large head , did not fit the French dimensions.
Franklin sarcastically noted the absurdity of fitting a head to a wig, instead of the other way around. Newspapers at the time noted, it had to be a large head for such a great man.
He was at once received with popular favor, and greeted with acclamation as the “ Apostle of Liberty ” ; but such titles were cheap and meant nothing without the support of the King, and Franklin had need of all his diplomacy to win his way to practical aid, although this way had been well laid by the efforts of Silas Deane.
Still, Franklin became the mode in 1777 ; the ever-sensitive coiffures showed the weight of his personality — at least upon the outside of heads — and a coiffure aux insurgent, with ingenious allegories of the struggle between Britain and America, showed the extent to which the French were prepared to carry their convictions.
His popularity and diplomatic skill—along with the first American battlefield success at Saratoga—convinced France to recognize American independence and conclude an alliance with the thirteen states in 1778.
Franklin presented his credentials to the French court in 1779, becoming the first American Minister (the eighteenth century American equivalent of Ambassador) to be received by a foreign government and Franklin’s home, just outside Paris, became the center of American diplomacy in Europe.
When Thomas Jefferson succeeded Franklin in 1785, French Foreign Minister Vergennes asked: “It is you who replace Dr. Franklin?”
Jefferson replied, “No one can replace him, Sir; I am only his successor.”
