The single Latin verse is a marvellous substitute for these diffuse and feeble lines.
If there were any doubt upon its authorship, it would be removed by the positive statement of Condorcet, who, in his Life of Turgot, written shortly after the death of this great man, says: “There is known from Turgot but one Latin verse, designed for the portrait of Franklin”; and he gives the verse in this form:—
“Eripuit cœlo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.”[228]
But Sparks and Mignet,[229] and so also both the biographical dictionaries of France,—that of Michaud and that of Didot,—while ascribing it to Turgot, concur in the form already quoted from Turgot’s Works, which was likewise adopted by Ginguené, the scholar who has done so much to illustrate Italian literature, on the title-page of his “Science du Bon-Homme Richard,” with an abridged Life of Franklin, in 1794, and by Cabanis, who lived in such intimacy with Franklin.[230] It cannot be doubted that this was the final form the verse assumed,—as it is unquestionably the best.
This verse was no common event. It was a new expression of the French alliance, and an assurance of independence. After its appearance and general adoption, there was no retreat for France.
To appreciate its importance in marking and helping a great epoch, certain dates must be borne in mind. Franklin reached Paris on his mission towards the close of 1776. He had already signed the Declaration of Independence, and his present duty was to obtain the recognition of France for the new power. The very clever Madame du Deffand, in her amusing correspondence with Horace Walpole, describes him in a visit to her “with a fur cap on his head and spectacles on his nose,” in the same small circle with Madame de Luxembourg, a great lady of the time, the Abbé Barthélemy, and the Duc de Choiseul, late Prime-Minister. This was on the 31st of December, 1776.[231] A pretty good beginning. More than a year of effort and anxiety ensued, brightened at last by the Burgoyne surrender at Saratoga. On the 6th of February, 1778, the work of the American Plenipotentiary was crowned by the signature of the two Treaties of Alliance and Commerce, by which France acknowledged our independence and pledged her belligerent support. On the 13th of March, one of these treaties, with a diplomatic note announcing that the Colonies were free and independent States, was communicated to the British Government, at London, which promptly encountered it by a declaration of war. On the 20th of March, Franklin was received by the King at Versailles, and this remarkable scene is described by the same feminine pen to which we are indebted for the early glimpse of him on his arrival in Paris.[232] But throughout this intervening period he had not lived unknown. Indeed, he had become at once a celebrity. Lacretelle, the eminent French historian, says: “By the effect which Franklin produced in France he might have been said to have fulfilled his mission, not to a court, but to a free people.… His virtues and renown negotiated for him.”[233]
Condorcet, who was part of that intellectual society which welcomed the new Plenipotentiary, has left a record of his reception. “The celebrity of Franklin in the sciences,” he says, “gave him the friendship of all who love or cultivate them, that is, of all who exert a real and durable influence upon public opinion. At his arrival he became an object of veneration to all enlightened men, and of curiosity to others. He submitted to this curiosity with the natural facility of his character, and with the conviction that he thereby served the cause of his country. It was an honor to have seen him. People repeated what they had heard him say. Every fête which he was willing to receive, every house where he consented to go, spread in society new admirers, who became so many partisans of the American Revolution.… Men whom the reading of philosophical books had secretly disposed to the love of Liberty became enthusiastic for that of a strange people.… A general cry was soon raised in favor of the American War, and the friends of peace dared not even complain that peace was sacrificed to the cause of Liberty.”[234] This is an animated picture by an eye-witness. But all authorities concur in its truthfulness. Even Capefigue, whose business is to belittle all that is truly great, and especially to efface the names associated with human liberty, while, like another Old Mortality, he furbishes the tombstones of royal mistresses, is yet constrained to attest the popularity and influence which Franklin achieved. The critic dwells on what he styles his “Quaker garb,” his “linen so white under his brown clothes,” and also the elaborate art of the philosopher, who understood France and knew well “that a popular man became soon more powerful than power itself”; but he cannot deny that the philosopher “fulfilled his duties with great superiority,” or that he became at once famous.[235] The rosewater biographer of Diane de Poitiers, Madame de Pompadour, and Madame du Barry would naturally disparage the representative of Science and Revolution.
From other quarters proceeds concurring testimony. A correspondent at Paris wrote: “He now engrosses the whole attention of the public. People of all ranks pay their court to him. His affability and complaisant behavior have gained him the esteem of the greatest people in this kingdom.”[236] Another wrote a little later: “When Dr. Franklin appears abroad, it is more like a public than a private gentleman, and the curiosity of the people to see him is so great that he may be said to be followed by a genteel mob.”[237] His mysterious power was asserted by an American newspaper, in announcing his intention “shortly to produce an electrical machine of such wonderful force, that, instead of giving a slight stroke to the elbows of fifty or a hundred thousand men who are joined hand in hand, it will give a violent shock even to Nature herself, so as to disunite kingdoms, join islands to continents, and render men of the same nation strangers and enemies to each other.”[238] The London paper which spoke of him as “the old fox” acknowledged his power.[239]
The influence of Franklin was great beyond that of any American in Europe since. His presence gave character to the cause he represented, and was a standing recommendation of our country. Jefferson, who served two years with him at Paris, describes his influence there, and, in reply to the charge of subservience, says, in pregnant words: “He possessed the confidence of that Government in the highest degree, insomuch that it may truly be said that they were more under his influence than he under theirs. The fact is, that his temper was so amiable and conciliatory, his conduct so rational, never urging impossibilities, or even things unreasonably inconvenient to them, in short, so moderate and attentive to their difficulties, as well as our own, that what his enemies called subserviency I saw was only that reasonable disposition which, sensible that advantages are not all to be on one side, yielding what is just and liberal, is the more certain of obtaining liberality and justice.”[240] It is easy to see how such a character obtained from the French people the fame of snatching the sceptre from the tyrant.