Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed Volume I Part 30

All the same, the letters from Franklin to Madame Brillon are painful reading. Like not a little else in his life, they tend to confirm the impression that upright, courageous, public-spirited, benevolent, loving and faithful in friends.h.i.+p as he was, on the sensual side of his nature he was lamentably callous to the moral laws and conventions and the personal and social refinements which legitimize and dignify the physical intercourse of the s.e.xes. The pinchbeck glitter, the deceitful vacuity of his moral regimen and _Art of Virtue_, a.s.sume an additional meaning, when we see him mumbling the cheek of Madame Brillon, and month after month and year after year writing to her in strains of natural or affected concupiscence. It was things of this sort which have a.s.sisted in strengthening the feeling, not uncommon, that Franklin's _Art of Virtue_ was a purely counterfeit thing, and the moralist himself an untrustworthy guide to righteous conduct.

In a letter to M. de Veillard, Franklin after his return to America from France referred to the Brillon family as "that beloved family." Restored to his home surroundings, he forgot his French lines, and was again as soberly American as ever in thought and speech. Who would recognize the lover of Madame Brillon in this russet picture that he paints of himself in his eighty-third year in a letter to her?

You have given me Pleasure by informing me of the Welfare and present agreable Circ.u.mstances of yourself and Children; and I am persuaded that your Friends.h.i.+p for me will render a similar Account of my Situation pleasing to you. I am in a Country where I have the happiness of being universally respected and beloved, of which three successive annual Elections to the Chief Magistracy, in which Elections the Representatives of the People in a.s.sembly and the Supreme Court join'd and were unanimous, is the strongest Proof; this is a Place of Profit as well as of Honour; and my Friends chearfully a.s.sist in making the Business as easy to me as possible.

After a word more with regard to the dwelling and the dutiful family, so often mentioned in his twilight letters, he concludes in this manner:

My Rents and Incomes are amply sufficient for all my present Occasions; and if no unexpected Misfortunes happen during the time I have to live, I shall leave a handsome Estate to be divided among my Relatives. As to my Health, it continues the same, or rather better than when I left Pa.s.sy; but being now in my 83rd year, I do not expect to continue much longer a Sojourner in this world, and begin to promise myself much Gratification of my Curiosity in soon visiting some other.

In this letter, Franklin was looking forward, we hardly need say, to a very different world from the one where Madame Brillon was to be the second Mrs.

Franklin, and they were to eat together apples of Paradise roasted with b.u.t.ter and nutmeg. And it is only just to the memory of Madame Brillon to recall the genuine words, so unlike the tenor of her former letters to Franklin, in which she bade him farewell, when he was leaving the sh.o.r.es of France:

I had so full a heart yesterday in leaving you that I feared for you and myself a grief-stricken moment which could only add to the pain which our separation causes me, without proving to you further the tender and unalterable affection that I have vowed to you for always. Every day of my life I shall recall that a great man, a sage, was willing to be my friend; my wishes will follow him everywhere; my heart will regret him incessantly; incessantly I shall say I pa.s.sed eight years with Doctor Franklin; they have flown, and I shall see him no more! Nothing in the world could console me for this loss, except the thought of the peace and happiness that you are about to find in the bosom of your family.

It was to the Comtesse d'Houdetot of Rousseau's _Confessions_, however, that Franklin was indebted for his social apotheosis in France. In a letter to her after his return to America, he calls her "ma chere & toujours--amiable Amie," and declares that the memory of her friends.h.i.+p and of the happy hours that he had pa.s.sed in her sweet society at Sanois, had often caused him to regret the distance which made it impossible for them to ever meet again. In her letters to him, after his return to America, she seeks in such words as "homage," "veneration" and "religious tenderness" to express the feelings with which he had inspired her. In these letters, there are also references to the _fete champetre_ which she gave in his honor at her country seat at Sanois on the 12th day of April, in the year 1781, and which was one of the celebrated events of the time. When it was announced that Franklin's carriage was approaching the chateau, the Countess and a distinguished retinue of her relations set out on foot to meet him. At a distance of about half a mile from the chateau, they came upon him, and gathered around the doors of his carriage, and escorted it to the grounds of the chateau, where the Countess herself a.s.sisted Franklin to alight. "The venerable sage," said a contemporary account, "with his gray hairs flowing down upon his shoulders, his staff in his hand, the spectacles of wisdom on his nose, was the perfect picture of true philosophy and virtue." As soon as Franklin had descended from the carriage, the whole company grouped themselves around him, and the Countess declaimed, with proper emphasis we may be sure, these lines:

"Soul of heroes and wise men, Oh, Liberty! First boon of the G.o.ds!

Alas! It is too remotely that we pay thee our vows; It is only with sighs that we render homage To the man who made happy his fellow-citizens."

All then wended their way through the gardens of the Countess to the chateau, where they were soon seated at a n.o.ble feast. With the first gla.s.s of wine, a soft air was played, and the Countess and her relations rose to their feet, and sang in chorus these lines, which they repeated in chorus after every succeeding gla.s.s of wine:

"Of Benjamin let us celebrate the renown, Let us sing the good that he has done to mortals; In America he will have altars, And at Sanois we drink to his fame."

When the time for the second gla.s.s of wine came, the Countess sang this quatrain:

"He gives back to human nature its rights, To free it he would first enlighten it, And virtue to make itself adored, a.s.sumed the form of Benjamin."

And at the third gla.s.s, the Vicomte d'Houdetot sang these words:

"William Tell was brave but savage, More highly our dear Benjamin I prize, While shaping the destiny of America, At meat he laughs just as does your true sage."

And at the fourth gla.s.s, the Vicomtesse d'Houdetot sang these words:

"I say, live Philadelphia, too!

Freedom has its allurement for me; In that country, I would gladly dwell, Though neither ball nor comedy is there."

And at the fifth gla.s.s, Madame de Pernan sang these words:

"All our children shall learn of their mothers, To love, to trust, and to bless you; You teach that which may reunite All the sons of men in the arms of one father."

And at the sixth gla.s.s, the aged Comte de Tressan sang these words:

"Live Sanois! 'Tis my Philadelphia.

When I see here its dear law-giver; I grow young again in the heart of delight, And I laugh, and I drink and list to Sophie."

And at the seventh gla.s.s, the Comte d'Apche sang these lines, in which some violence was done to the facts of English History, and the French Revolution was foreshadowed:

"To uphold that sacred charter Which Edward accorded to the English, I feel that there is no French Knight Who does not desire to use his sword."

And so quatrain preceded gla.s.s and chorus followed quatrain until every member of the eulogistic company had sung his or her song. The banqueters then rose from the table, and the Countess, followed by her relations, conducted Franklin to an arbor in her gardens, where he was presented with a Virginia locust by her gardener, which he was asked to honor the family by planting with his own hands. When he had done so, the Countess declaimed some additional lines, which were afterwards inscribed upon a marble pillar, erected near the tree:

"Sacred tree, lasting monument Of the sojourn deigned to be made here by a sage, Of these gardens henceforth the pride, Receive here the just homage Of our vows and of our incense; And may you for all the ages, Forever respected by time, Live as long as his name, his laws and his deeds."

On their way back to the chateau, the concourse was met by a band which played an accompaniment, while the Countess and her kinsfolk sang this song:

"May this tree, planted by his benevolent hand, Lifting up its new-born trunk, Above the sterile elm, By its odoriferous flower, Make fragrant all this happy hamlet.

The lightning will lack power to strike it, And will respect its summit and its branches, 'Twas Franklin who, by his prosperous labors, Taught us to direct or to extinguish that, While he was destroying other evils, Still more for the earth's sake to be pitied."

This over, all returned to the chateau where they were engaged for some time in agreeable conversation. In the late afternoon, Franklin was conducted by the Countess and the rest to his carriage, and, when he was seated, they gathered about the open door of the vehicle, and the Countess addressed her departing guest in these words:

"Legislator of one world, and benefactor of two!

For all time mankind will owe thee its tribute, And it is but my part that I here discharge Of the debt that is thy due from all the ages."

The door of the carriage was then closed, and Franklin returned to Paris duly deified but as invincibly sensible as ever.

Another French woman with whom Franklin was on terms of familiar affection was the wife of his friend, Jean Baptiste Le Roy. His endearing term for her was _pet.i.te femme de poche_ (little pocket wife), and, in a letter after his return to Philadelphia, she a.s.sured him that, as long as his _pet.i.te femme de poche_ had the breath of life, she would love him.

On one occasion, when he was in France, she wrote to him, asking him to dine with her on Wednesday, and saying that she would experience great pleasure in seeing and embracing him. a.s.suredly, he replied, he would not fail her. He found too much pleasure in seeing her, and in hearing her speak, and too much happiness, when he held her in his arms, to forget an invitation so precious.

In another letter to her, after his return to America--the letter which drew forth her declaration that her love for him would last as long as her breath--he told her that she was very courageous to ascend so high in a balloon, and very good, when she was so near heaven, not to think of quitting her friends, and remaining with the angels. Compet.i.tion might well have shunned an effort to answer such a flourish as that in kind, but a lady, who had been up in a balloon among the angels, was not the person to lack courage for any experiment. She only regretted, she said, that the balloon could not go very far, for, if it had been but able to carry her to him, she _would have been_ among the angels, and would have given him proofs of the respect and esteem for him, ineffaceably engraved upon her heart. Sad to relate, in the same letter she tells Franklin that her husband had proved hopelessly recreant to every principle of honor and good feeling. We say, "sad to relate," not for general reasons only, but because Franklin, when he had heard in 1772 that Le Roy was well and happily married, had felicitated him on the event, and repeated his oft-a.s.serted statement that matrimony is the natural condition of man; though he omitted this time his usual comparison of celibacy with the odd half of a pair of scissors. The estrangement between his little pocket wife and her husband, however, did not affect his feeling of devoted friends.h.i.+p for Jean Baptiste Le Roy. Some two years and five months later, when the wild Walpurgis night of the French Revolution was setting in, he wrote to Le Roy to find out why he had been so long silent. "It is now more than a year," he said, "since I have heard from my dear friend Le Roy. What can be the reason? Are you still living? Or have the mob of Paris mistaken the head of a monopolizer of knowledge, for a monopolizer of corn, and paraded it about the streets upon a pole?" The fact that Le Roy, who was a physicist of great reputation, was a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Society, led Franklin in one of his letters to address him as his "Dear double _Confrere_." Le Roy's three brothers, Pierre, Charles and David were also friends of Franklin. Indeed, in a letter to Jean Baptiste, Franklin spoke of David, to whom he addressed his valuable paper ent.i.tled _Maritime Observations_, as "our common Brother."

Other friends.h.i.+ps formed by Franklin with women in France were those with Madame Lavoisier, Madame de Forbach and Mademoiselle Flainville. Madame Lavoisier was first the wife of the famous chemist of that name, and, after he was guillotined, during the French Revolution, the wife of the equally famous Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. She painted a portrait of Franklin, and sent it to him at Philadelphia.

It is allowed by those, who have seen it [he wrote to her], to have great merit as a picture in every respect; but what particularly endears it to me is the hand that drew it. Our English enemies, when they were in possession of this city (Philadelphia) and my house, made a prisoner of my portrait, and carried it off with them, leaving that of its companion, my wife, by itself, a kind of widow. You have replaced the husband, and the lady seems to smile as well pleased.

So his Eurydice, as soon as the enchantments of the French sorceress lost their power, was re-united to him after all.

Among his French friends, Madame de Forbach, the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Deux-Ponts, was conspicuous for the number of the presents that she made to him. Among others, was the fine crab-tree walking stick, surmounted with a gold head, wrought in the form of a cap of liberty, which he bequeathed to Was.h.i.+ngton. Other gifts of hers are alluded to in a letter from Franklin to her, acknowledging the receipt of a pair of scissors.

It is true [he said] that I can now neither walk abroad nor write at home without having something that may remind me of your Goodness towards me; you might have added, that I can neither play at Chess nor drink Tea without the same sensation: but these had slipt your Memory. There are People who forget the Benefits they receive, Mad'e de Forbach only those she bestows.

His only letter to Mademoiselle Flainville is addressed to "ma chere enfant," and is signed "Your loving Papa." It helps, along with innumerable other kindred sc.r.a.ps of evidence, to prove how infirm is the train of reasoning which seeks to establish a parental tie between Franklin and anyone simply upon the strength of his epistolary a.s.sumption of fatherhood.

He might as well be charged with polygamy because he addressed so many persons as "my wife" or "ma femme." This letter also has its interest, as exemplifying the natural manner in which he awaited the sedan chair that was to bear him away from his fleshly tenement. "I have been hara.s.sed with Illness this last Summer," he told her, "am grown old, near 83, and find myself very infirm, so that I expect to be soon call'd for."

This is far from being a complete list of the French women with whom Franklin was on terms of affectionate intimacy. To go no further, we know that Madame Brillon, in addition to writing to him on one occasion, "Give this evening to my amiable rival, Madame Helvetius, kiss her for yourself and for me," granted him on another a power of attorney to kiss for her until her return, whenever he saw them, her two neighbors, Le Veillard, and her pretty neighbor, Caillot.

The truth is that Franklin had a host of friends of both s.e.xes in France.

When Thomas Paine visited that country, after the return of Franklin to America, he wrote to the latter that he found his friends in France "very numerous and very affectionate"; and we can readily believe it. Among them were Buffon, Condorcet, Lafayette, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Lavoisier, Chastellux, Grand, Dupont, Dubourg and Le Veillard.

To Buffon, the great naturalist, Franklin was drawn by common scientific sympathies. Like Franklin, he became a sufferer from the stone, and one of the results was a letter in which the former, in reply to an inquiry from him as to how he obtained relief from the malady, stated that his remedy was to take, on going to bed, "the Bigness of a Pigeon's Egg of Jelly of Blackberries"; which, in the eyes of modern medical science was, as a palliative, hardly more effective than a bread pill.

With Condorcet, the philosopher, Franklin was intimate enough to call him, and to be called by him, "My dear and ill.u.s.trious Confrere"; and it was he, it is worthy of mention, who happily termed Franklin "the modern Prometheus."

For Lafayette, that winning figure, forever fixed in the American memory, despite his visit to America in old age, in immortal youth and freshness, like the young lover and the happy boughs on Keats's Grecian Urn, Franklin had a feeling not unlike that of Was.h.i.+ngton. In referring to the expedition against England, in which Temple Franklin was to have accompanied Lafayette, Franklin said in a letter to the latter, "I flatter myself, too, that he might possibly catch from you some Tincture of those engaging Manners that make you so much the Delight of all that know you." In another letter, he observed in reply to the statement by Lafayette that the writer had had enemies in America, "You are luckier, for I think you have none here, nor anywhere." When it became his duty to deliver to Lafayette the figured sword presented to the latter by Congress, he performed the office, though ill-health compelled him to delegate the actual delivery of the gift to his grandson, in the apt and pointed language which never failed him upon such occasions. "By the help," he said, "of the exquisite Artists France affords, I find it easy to express everything but the Sense we have of your Worth and our Obligations to you. For this, Figures and even Words are found insufficient." Through all his letters to Lafayette there is a continuous suggestion of cordial attachment to both him and his wife. When Lafayette wrote to him that Madame de Lafayette had just given birth to a daughter, and that he was thinking of naming her Virginia, he replied, "In naming your Children I think you do well to begin with the most antient State. And as we cannot have too many of so good a Race I hope you & Mme de la Fayette will go thro the Thirteen." This letter was written at Pa.s.sy.

In a later letter to Lafayette, written at Philadelphia, he concluded by saying, "You will allow an old friend of four-score to say he _loves_ your wife, when he adds, and children, and prays G.o.d to bless them all."

For the Duc de la Rochefoucauld he entertained the highest respect as well as a cordial feeling of friends.h.i.+p. "The good Duke," he terms him in a letter to Dr. Price. And it was to the judgment of the Duke and M. le Veillard in France, as it was to that of Vaughan and Dr. Price in England, as we shall see, that he left the important question as to whether any of the _Autobiography_ should be published, and, if so, how much. Among the many tributes paid to his memory, was a paper on his life and character read by the Duke before the Society of 1789. One of the Duke's services to America was that of translating into French, at the request of Franklin, for European circulation all the const.i.tutions of the American States.