Only a few days later the verse appears in the correspondence of Madame D’Épinay, whose intimate relations with Baron Grimm—the subject of curiosity and scandal—will explain her early knowledge of it. She records it in a letter to the very remarkable Italian Abbé Galiani, under date of May 3, 1778. And she proceeds to give a translation in French verse, which she says “D’Alembert made the other morning on waking.”[247] Galiani, who was himself a master of Latin versification, and followed closely the fortunes of America, must have enjoyed the tribute. In a letter written shortly afterwards, he enters into all the grandeur of the occasion. “You have,” says he, “at this hour decided the greatest revolution of the globe,—the question whether America shall rule Europe, or Europe shall continue to rule America. I would wager in favor of America.”[248] In these words the Neapolitan said as much as Turgot.
I cannot quote Galiani without adding that nobody saw America with more prophetic eye than this inspired Pulcinello of Naples. As far back as May 18, 1776, several weeks even before the Declaration of Independence, and much longer before it was known in Europe, he wrote: “The epoch is come for the total fall of Europe and for transmigration to America.… Do not, then, buy your house in the Chaussée d’Antin, but at Philadelphia. The misfortune for me is that there are no abbeys in America.”[249] Once a favorite in the very circle where Franklin was welcomed, he left Paris for Italy before the arrival of the negotiator, so that he knew the tribute only through a faithful correspondence.
Shortly afterwards the verse appears in a different scene. It had reached the salons of Madame Doublet, whence it was transferred to the “Mémoires Secrets” of Bachaumont, under date of June 8, 1778, as “a very beautiful verse, quite proper to characterize M. Franklin and to serve as an inscription for his portrait.”[250] These Memoirs, as is well known, are the record of news and town-talk gathered in the circle of that venerable Egeria of gossip;[251] and here is evidence of the publicity this welcome had promptly obtained.
The verse was now fairly launched. War was flagrant between France and Great Britain. No longer was there any reason why the new alliance between France and the United States should not be placed under the auspices of genius, and why the same hand that had snatched the lightning from the skies should not have the fame of snatching the sceptre from King George the Third. The time for free speech had come. It was no longer “blasphemous.”
It will be observed that these records of this verse fail to mention the immediate author. Was he unknown at the time? or did the fact that he was recently a Cabinet Minister induce him to hide behind a mask? Turgot was a master of epigram,—as witness the terrible lines on Frederick of Prussia;[252] but he was very prudent in conduct. “Nobody,” said Voltaire, “so skilful to launch the shaft without showing the hand.” There is a letter from no less a person than D’Alembert, which reveals something of the “filing” which the verse underwent, and something of the persons consulted. Unhappily, the letter is without date; nor does it appear to whom it was addressed, except that the “cher confrère” seems to imply that it was to a brother of the Academy. This letter is found in a work now known to have been the compilation of the Marquis Gaëtan de la Rochefoucauld,[253] entitled “Mémoires de Condorcet sur la Révolution Française, extraits de sa Correspondance et de celles de ses Amis,” and is introduced by the following words from the Marquis:—
“It is known how Franklin was fêted when he came to Paris, because he was the representative of a republic. The philosophers, especially, received him with enthusiasm. It may be said, among other things, that D’Alembert lost his sleep; and we are going to prove it by a letter which he wrote, while racking his brain to versify in honor of Franklin.”
The letter is then given as follows:—
“Friday Morning.
“My dear Colleague,— … You are acquainted with the Franklin verse,—
‘Eripuit cœlo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.’