In the Days of Poor Richard

by Irving Bacheller

CHAPTER XXV

THE PAGEANT

Jack began to assist Franklin in his correspondence and in the many business details connected with his mission.

"I have never seen a man with a like capacity for work," the young officer writes. "Every day he is conferring with Vergennes or other representatives of the King, or with the ministers of Spain, Holland and Great Britain. The greatest intellect in the kingdom is naturally in great request. To-day, after many hours of negotiation with the Spanish minister, in came M. Dubourg, the most distinguished physician in Europe.

"'Mon chère mâitre,' he said. 'I have a most difficult case and as you know more about the human body than any man of my acquaintance I wish to confer with you.'

"Yesterday, Doctor Ingenhauz, physician to the Emperor of Austria, came to consult him regarding the vaccination of the royal family of France.

"In the evening, M. Robespierre, a slim, dark-skinned, studious young attorney from Arras, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, came for information regarding lightning rods, he having doubts of their legality. While they were talking, M. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, another physician, arrived. He was looking for advice regarding a proposed new method of capital punishment, and wished to know if, in the Doctor's opinion, a painless death could be produced by quickly severing the head from the body. Next morning, M. Jourdan, with hair and beard as red as the flank of my bay mare and a loud voice, came soon after breakfast, to sell us mules by the ship load.

"So you see that even I, living in his home and seeing him almost every hour of the day, have little chance to talk with him. Last night we met M. Voltaire--dramatist and historian--now in the evening of his days. We were at the Academy, where we had gone to hear an essay by D'Alembert. Franklin and Voltaire--a very thin old gentleman of eighty-four, with piercing black eyes--sat side by side on the platform. The audience demanded that the two great men should come forward and salute each other. They arose and advanced and shook hands.

"'A la Française,' the crowd demanded.

"So the two white-haired men embraced and kissed each other amidst loud applause.

"We are up at sunrise and at breakfast, for half an hour or so, I have him to myself. Then we take a little walk in the palace grounds of M. le Ray de Chaumont, Chief Forester of the kingdom, which adjoins us. To the Count's generosity Franklin is indebted for the house we live in. The Doctor loves to have me with him in the early morning. He says breakfasting alone is the most triste of all occupations.

"'I think that the words of Demosthenes could not have been more sought than yours,' I said to him at breakfast this morning.

"He laughed as he answered: 'Demosthenes said that the first point in speaking was action. Probably he meant the action which preceded the address--a course of it which had impressed people with the integrity and understanding of the speaker. For years I have had what Doctor Johnson would call 'a wise and noble curiosity' about nature and have had some success in gratifying it. Then, too, I have tried to order my life so that no man could say that Ben Franklin had intentionally done him a wrong. So I suppose that my words are entitled to a degree of respect--a far more limited degree than the French are good enough to accord them.'

"As we were leaving the table he said: 'Jack, I have an idea worthy of Demosthenes. My friend, David Hartley of London, who still has hope of peace by negotiation, wishes to come over and confer with me. I shall tell him that he may come if he will bring with him the Lady Hare and her daughter.'

"'More thrilling words were never spoken by Demosthenes,' I answered. 'But how about Jones and his Bonne Homme Richard? He is now a terror to the British coasts. They would fear destruction.'

"'I shall ask Jones to let them alone,' he said. 'They can come under a special flag.'

"Commodore Jones did not appear again in Paris until October, when he came to Passy to report upon a famous battle.

"I was eager to meet this terror of the coasts. His impudent courage and sheer audacity had astonished the world. The wonder was that men were willing to join him in such dare devil enterprises.

"I had imagined that Jones would be a tall, gaunt, swarthy, raw-boned, swearing man of the sea. He was a sleek, silent, modest little man, with delicate hands and features. He wished to be alone with the Doctor, and so I did not hear their talk. I know that he needed money and that Franklin, having no funds, provided the sea fighter from his own purse.

"Commodore Jones had brought with him a cartload of mail from captured British ships. In it were letters to me from Margaret.

"'Now you are near me and yet there is an impassable gulf between us,' she wrote. 'We hear that the seas are overrun with pirates and that no ship is safe. Our vessels are being fired upon and sunk. I would not mind being captured by a good Yankee captain, if it were carefully done. But cannons are so noisy and impolite! I have a lot of British pluck in me, but I fear that you would not like to marry a girl who limped because she had been shot in the war. And, just think of the possible effect on my disposition. So before we start Doctor Franklin will have to promise not to fire his cannons at us.'

"I showed the letter to Franklin and he laughed and said:

"'They will be treated tenderly. The Commodore will convoy them across the channel. I shall assure Hartley of that in a letter which will go forward today.'

"Anxious days are upon us. Our money in America has become almost worthless and we are in extreme need of funds to pay and equip the army. We are daily expecting a loan from the King of three million livres. But Vergennes has made it clear to us that the government of France is itself in rather desperate straits. The loan has been approved, but the treasury is waiting upon certain taxes not yet collected. The moment the money is available the Prime Minister will inform us of the fact.

"On a fine autumn day we drove with the Prince of Condé in his great coach, ornamented with costly paintings, to spend a day at his country seat in Chantilly. The palace was surrounded by an artificial canal; the gardens beautified with ponds and streams and islands and cascades and grottos and labyrinths, the latter adorned with graceful sculptures. His stables were lined with polished woods; their windows covered with soft silk curtains. Of such a refinement of luxury I had never dreamed. Having seen at least a thousand beggars on the way, I was saddened by these rich, lavish details of a prince's self-indulgence.

"On the wish of our host, Franklin had taken with him a part of his electrical apparatus, with which he amused a large company of the friends of the great Seigneur in his palace grounds. Spirits were fired by a spark sent from one pond to another with no conductor but the water of a stream. The fowls for dinner were slain by electrical shocks and cooked over a fire kindled by a current from an electrical bottle. At the table the success of America was toasted in electrified bumpers with an accompaniment of guns fired by an electrical battery.

"A poet had written a Chanson à Boire to Franklin, which was read and merrily applauded at the dinner--one stanza of which ran as follows:

"'Tout, en fondant un empire, Vous le voyez boire et rire Le verre en main Chantons notre Benjamin.'

"To illustrate the honest candor with which often he speaks, even in the presence of Frenchmen who are near the throne, I quote a few words from his brief address to the Prince and his friends;

"'A good part of my life I have worked with my hands. If Your Grace will allow me to say so, I wish to see in France a deeper regard for the man who works with his hands--the man who supplies food. He really furnishes the standard of all value. The value of everything depends on the labor given to the making of it. If the labor in producing a bushel of wheat is the same as that consumed in the production of an ounce of silver, their value is the same.

"'The food maker also supplies a country with its population. By 1900 he will have given to America a hundred million people and a power and prosperity beyond our reckoning. Frugality and Industry are the most fruitful of parents, especially where they are respected. When luxury and the cost of living have increased, people have become more cautious about marriage and populations have begun to dwindle.'

"The Bourbon Prince, a serious-minded man, felt the truth of all this and was at pains to come to my venerable friend and heartily express his appreciation.

"'We know that we are in a bad way, but we know not how to get out of it,' he said.

"The Princess, who sat near us at table, asked the Doctor for information about the American woman.

"'"She riseth while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens,"' he quoted. 'She is apt to be more industrious than her husband. She works all day and often a part of the night. She is weaver, knitter, spinner, tailor, cook, washerwoman, teacher, doctor, nurse. While she is awake her hands are never idle, and their most important work is that of slowly building up the manhood of America. Ours is to be largely a mother-made land.'

"'Mon Dieu! I should think she would be cross with so much to do,' said the Princess.

"'Often she is a little cross,' Franklin answered. 'My friend, James Otis of Massachusetts, complained of the fish one day at dinner when there was company at the table. Mrs. Otis frankly expressed her opinion of his bad manners. He was temperamental and himself a bit overworked. He made no answer, but in the grace which followed the meal he said:

"'"O Lord, we thank Thee that we have been able to finish this dinner without getting slapped."

"'But I would ask Your Highness to believe that our men are mostly easier to get along with. They do not often complain of the food. They are more likely to praise it.'

"On our way back to Paris the Doctor said to me:

"'The great error of Europe is entailment--entailed estates, entailed pride, entailed luxury, entailed conceit. A boy who inherits honor will rarely honor himself. I like the method of China, where honor ascends, but does not descend. It goes back to his parents who taught him his virtues. It can do no harm to his parents, but it can easily ruin him and his children. I regard humility as one of the greatest virtues.'"

2

"That evening our near neighbors, Le Compte de Chaumont and M. LeVilleard, came to announce that a dinner and ball in honor of Franklin would occur at the palace of Compte de Chaumont less than a week later.

"'My good friends,' said the philosopher, 'I value these honors which are so graciously offered me, but I am old and have much work to do. I need rest more than I need the honors.'

"'It is one of the penalties of being a great savant that people wish to see and know him,' said the Count. 'The most distinguished people in France will be among those who do you honor. I think, if you can recall a talk we had some weeks ago, you will wish to be present.'

"'Oh, then, you have heard from the Hornet.'

"'I have a letter here which you may read at your convenience.'

"'My dear friend, be pleased to receive my apologies and my hearty thanks,' said Franklin. 'Not even the gout could keep me away.'

"Next day I received a formal invitation to the dinner and ball. I told the Doctor that in view of the work to be done, I would decline the invitation. He begged me not to do it and insisted that he was counting upon me to represent the valor and chivalry of the New World; that as I had grown into the exact stature of Washington and was so familiar with his manners and able to imitate them in conversation, he wished me to assume the costume of our Commander-in-Chief. He did me the honor to say:

"'There is no other man whom it would be safe to trust in such an exalted role. I wish, as a favor to me, you would see what can be done at the costumer's and let me have a look at you.'

"I did as he wished. The result was an astonishing likeness. I dressed as I had seen the great man in the field. I wore a wig slightly tinged with gray, a blue coat, buff waistcoat and sash and sword and the top boots and spurs. When I strode across the room in the masterly fashion of our great Commander, the Doctor clapped his hands.

"'You are as like him as one pea is like another!' he exclaimed. 'Nothing would so please our good friends, the French, who have an immense curiosity regarding Le Grand Vasanton, and it will give me an opportunity to instruct them as to our spirit.'

"He went to his desk and took from a drawer a cross of jeweled gold on a long necklace of silver--a gift from the King--and put it over my head so that the cross shone upon my breast.

"'That is for the faith of our people,' he declared. 'The guests will assemble on the grounds of the Count late in the afternoon. You will ride among them on a white horse. A beautiful maiden in a white robe held at the waist with a golden girdle will receive you. She will be Human Liberty. You will dismount and kneel and kiss her hand. Then the Prime Minister of France will give to each a blessing and to you a sword and a purse. You will hold them up and say:

"'"For these things I promise you the friendship of my people and their prosperity."

"'You will kiss the sword and hang it beside your own and pass the purse to me and then I shall have something to say.'

"So it was all done, but with thrilling details, of which no suspicion had come to me. I had not dreamed, for instance, that the King and Queen would be present and that the enthusiasm would be so great. You will be able to judge of my surprise when, riding my white horse through the cheering crowd, throwing flowers in my way, I came suddenly upon Margaret Hare in the white robe of Human Liberty. Now facing me after these years of trial, her spirit was equal to her part. She was like unto the angel I had seen in my dreams. The noble look of her face thrilled me. It was not so easy to maintain the calm dignity of Washington in that moment. I wanted to lift her in my arms and hold her there, as you may well believe, but, alas, I was Washington! I dismounted and fell upon one knee before her and kissed her hand not too fervently, I would have you know, in spite of my temptation. She stood erect, although tears were streaming down her cheeks and her dear hand trembled when it rested on my brow and she could only whisper the words:

"'May the God of your fathers aid and keep you.'

"The undercurrent of restrained emotion in this little scene went out to that crowd, which represented the wealth, beauty and chivalry of France. I suppose that some of them thought it a bit of good acting. These people love the drama as no others love it. I suspect that many of the friends of Franklin knew that she who was Liberty was indeed my long lost love. A deep silence fell upon them and then arose a wild shout of approval that seemed to come out of the very heart of France and to be warm with its noble ardor. Every one in this beautiful land--even the King and Queen and their kin--are thinking of Liberty and have begun to long for her blessing. That, perhaps, is why the scene had so impressed them.

"But we were to find in this little drama a climax wholly unexpected by either of us and of an importance to our country which I try in vain to estimate. When the Prime Minister handed the purse to Franklin he bade him open it. This the latter did, finding therein letters of credit for the three million livres granted, of which we were in sore need. With it was the news that a ship would be leaving Boulogne in the morning and that relays on the way had been provided for his messenger. The invention of our beloved diplomat was equal to the demand of the moment and so he announced:

"'Washington is like his people. He turns from all the loves of this world to obey the call of duty. My young friend who has so well presented the look and manner of Washington will now show you his spirit.'

"He looked at his watch and added:

"'Within forty minutes he will be riding post to Boulogne, there to take ship for America.'

"So here I am on the ship L'Etoile and almost in sight of Boston harbor, bringing help and comfort to our great Chief.

"I was presented to the King and Queen. Of him I have written--a stout, fat-faced man, highly colored, with a sloping forehead and large gray eyes. His coat shone with gold embroidery and jeweled stars. His close-fitting waistcoat of milk white satin had golden buttons and a curve which was not the only sign he bore of rich wine and good capon. The queen was a beautiful, dark-haired lady of some forty years, with a noble and gracious countenance. She was clad in no vesture of gold, but in sober black velvet. Her curls fell upon the loose ruff of lace around her neck. There were no jewels on or about her bare, white bosom. Her smile and gentle voice, when she gave me her bon-voyage and best wishes for the cause so dear to us, are jewels I shall not soon forget.

"Yes, I had a little talk with Margaret and her mother, who walked with me to Franklin's house. There, in his reception room, I took a good look at the dear girl, now more beautiful than ever, and held her to my heart a moment.

"'I see you and then I have to go,' I said.

"'It is the fault of my too romantic soul,' she answered mournfully. 'For two days we have been in hiding here. I wanted to surprise you.'

"And this protest came involuntarily from my lips:

"'Here now is the happiness for which I have longed, and yet forthwith I must leave it. What a mystery is the spirit of man!'

"'When it is linked to the spirit of God it ceases to understand itself,' she answered. 'Oh, that I had the will for sacrifice which is in you!'

"She lifted the jeweled cross I wore to her lips and kissed it. I wish that I could tell you how beautiful she looked then. She is twenty-six years old and her womanhood is beginning.

"'Now you may go,' she said. 'My heart goes with you, but I fear that we shall not meet again.'

"'Why ?' was my question.

"'I am utterly discouraged.'

"'You can not expect her to wait for you any longer. It is not fair,' said her mother.

"'Margaret, I do not ask you to wait,' I said. 'I am not quite a human being. I seem to have no time for that. I am of the army of God. I shall not expect you to wait.'

"So it befell that the stern, strong hand of a soldier's duty drew me from her presence almost as soon as we had met I kissed her and left her weeping, for there was need of haste. Soon I was galloping out of Passy on my way to the land I love. I try not to think of her, but how can I put out of mind the pathos of that moment? Whenever I close my eyes I see her beautiful figure sitting with bowed head in the twilight."