“Your compliments do me too much honor,” replied Paul Jones, “but I am the person you have so flatteringly described.”
All hope of privacy was now at an end. Every eye was fixed on him, and every ear was open to catch his lightest remark. This was not what Paul Jones desired, and he inwardly chafed at Danny Dixon’s indiscreet devotion that had betrayed him. But Danny was not the boy to let the fact remain in obscurity that he served Paul Jones, and he beamed with delight at the French officer’s words.
The poor valet, having brushed the dust off his clothes, now climbed back into the rumble, and the diligence proceeded upon its way. The only word that Danny condescended to address to him was when they alighted two days afterward in the streets of Paris.
“Do you know now, Mounseer Landlubber, who Commodore Paul Jones is?”
“Parbleu, yes,” sighed the lackey. “I vill not forget ze gentilhomme—nevair, nevair!”
CHAPTER XVI.
Paul Jones’s first visit in Paris was to his best and firmest friend, Benjamin Franklin. In all of his anxieties, as well as his triumphs, Franklin had stood unflinchingly by him; and now, no man rejoiced more at his splendid fame than Franklin. As soon as it was known that the immortal Paul Jones was in Paris crowds flocked to see him, and his modest lodgings were overrun with people of the greatest distinction. The American cause was very popular, and the presence of two such men as Benjamin Franklin and Paul Jones was calculated to add luster to the cause they served.
Whether Paul Jones walked in the gardens of Paris or upon the boulevards, he was followed by a respectful and admiring crowd. The first night he went to the theater, as soon as he entered the word went round, “There is Paul Jones!” As he advanced and took his seat the whisper increased to a buzz, and then into an uproar, the audience rising and applauding excitedly. Paul Jones, with a blush upon his manly features, rose and returned the salutations of the crowd.
In a few days came an invitation, which was in reality a command, to visit Versailles and to meet the king, Louis XVI, and his queen, Marie Antoinette. Both of them were afterward to lay down their lives on the scaffold, but then they were in the heyday of power and magnificence. Louis earnestly desired the independence of America, and entertained the highest respect for the characters of her great men.
On a beautiful Sunday in May, Paul Jones, with Franklin, set off for Versailles in a plain coach. Danny Dixon, in a brand new sailor suit, sat on the box with the coachman and did duty for a footman. Inside sat Dr. Franklin, in the simple dress of an American citizen. His coat was plain but handsome, and he remarked to Paul Jones, smiling: “This is the coat, my friend, in which I was insulted by Lord Loughborough. I wear it whenever I appear as the representative of my country; and it is my ambition to wear it upon the day that an honorable peace is signed between America and Great Britain”—which actually came to pass.