The very important rôle played by France in this gigantic drama never has received due recognition even in her own annals. Its significance was dwarfed by the stupendous events which followed so soon after, known as the French Revolution.
Naturally England has taken little public notice of French achievement in this war; like all nations, she dwells upon her victories more than upon her defeats, so that the entire subject of the War of American Independence has received scant attention from her historians.
The conspicuous lack of recognition among Americans of
the value of French aid is certainly less pardonable. Real gratitude is so rare and fine a quality that it is hardly to be expected from aggregates of mankind, yet from America, indeed, we have the right to expect it, for she is a country preëminently based upon high ideals. Her children always have been taught to sound the praises of her national heroes, especially those of ‘76 who won for us liberty and independence. But shall America stop here and refuse to tell them the whole truth about our national existence? There can be no danger to the patriotism of our children in giving them a correct idea of what we as a nation owe to France, for the actions of our own heroes can lose none of their lustre by a generous recognition of what we owe others.
In giving the rising generation a true understanding of what we as Americans owe the nation that stood by us in our time of trial, we shall be training them to an ideal higher than that of mere patriotism, namely, that of justice.
A decided step in this direction was taken a few years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt, then President of the United States, caused a statue of the French General Rochambeau to be erected at Washington and in so doing opened the way to a more general recognition of a great historical truth.
In 1917, the arrival upon our shores of the Allied Missions has struck a new note in our national consciousness. Resentment towards England has died away long ago and warm friendship has taken its place. For France nothing but the most enthusiastic admiration exists, and men’s minds everywhere are opening to a new realization of the part that that country has always played in the grand epic of human emancipation.
But America’s debt of gratitude to France never can be fully repaid until she has been brought to consider the claims of the one Frenchman who was the first of all Europeans
to recognize the importance of the uprising among the colonists. This is no other than Caron de Beaumarchais, the secret agent to whom Silas Deane had been directed by the French Ministers in 1776. That his claim to the gratitude of Americans has so long been neglected is due to a complexity of causes, chief of which is the fact that not until 1886 were the archives of the French Government touching this period, given to the public.[9] Among these archives may be found the complete outline of the help given by France to America during the period which elapsed between the arrival of Deane in 1776 and the open recognition by France of American Independence in 1778, all of which aid passed through the hands of Beaumarchais. After a careful study of these documents it must be conceded that to him belongs the credit of having roused the French Government to a realization of the honorable part it might play in the great conflict. Long before the historic dinner at Metz, where Lafayette conceived his chivalrous design, before even the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Beaumarchais had planned and worked out the details of the aid to be rendered by France and then literally had forced the cautious and conservative government of France into acquiescence with his plans.
The earliest authentic biography of this remarkable man was from the pen of his ardent admirer and lifelong friend, Gudin de la Brenellerie. It was intended to be prefixed to the first edition of the works of Beaumarchais which appeared in 1809. This biography was suppressed, however, for Gudin, it would seem, was an old philosopher of the eighteenth century who had outlived his time. In writing the life of his friend, the spirit of freedom revived in his breast. The Declaration of Independence called from him imprudent