The True Benjamin Franklin

by Sydney George Fisher

As a matter of fact, the French disliked everybody we sent to them at that time except Franklin. Deane they tolerated, Izard they laughed at, Adams they snubbed, and Lee they despised as a stupid blunderer who knew no better than to abuse French manners in the presence of his servants, who spread the tale all over Paris. But dear, delightful, philosophic, shrewd, economical, naughty, flirtatious, and anecdote-telling Franklin seemed like one of themselves. He still remains the only American that the French have thoroughly known and liked. The more we read of him the more confidence we are inclined to place in the supposition that three or four centuries back he must have had a French ancestor who migrated to England, and some of whose characteristics were reproduced in his famous descendant. The little fables and allegories he wrote to please them read like translations from the most subtle literary men of France. Fancy any other American or Englishman writing to Madame Brillon the letter which was really a little essay afterwards known as the “Ephemera,” and very popular in France.

“You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their natural vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a moscheto; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.”...

The letter is too long to quote entire; but some of the fine touches in the passage given should be observed. He refers to the little progress he had made in French, and he certainly spoke that language badly, although he read it with ease. He probably had a large vocabulary; but he trampled all over the grammar, as Adams tells us. He managed, however, by means of a little humor to make this defect endear him still more to the people. The musical dispute of the insects is a hit at a similar dispute among the Parisians over two musicians, Gluck and Picini. But what a depth of subtlety is shown in the suggestion which follows, that the French were under such a wise government and such a good king that they could afford to waste their time in disputing about trifles! No wonder that all the notable people and the rulers loved him.

This single delicately veiled point was alone almost sufficient to make his fortune in the peculiar society of that time. It was in such perfect taste, so French, such a rebuke to the fanatics who were laying the foundations of the Reign of Terror; and yet, at the same time, Franklin, as the apostle of liberty, was regarded by many of those fanatics as one of themselves. In this way he carried with him all France.

But suppose that John Adams had been given the opportunity to write such a letter to a French lady; what would he have done? The straightforward fellow would probably have thought it his religious, moral, and patriotic duty to tell her that the government she lived under was wasteful and extravagant, and was plotting to destroy the liberties of America.

Madame Brillon, for whom the “Ephemera” was written, was a charming woman and more domestic than French ladies are supposed to be. For her amusement were written some of Franklin’s most famous essays,—“The Morals of Chess,” “The Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout,” “The Story of the Whistle,” “The Handsome and Deformed Leg,” and “The Petition of the Left Hand.” In a letter telling how the “Ephemera” happened to be written he has described the intimacy he and his grandson enjoyed at her house:

“The person to whom it was addressed is Madame Brillon, a lady of most respectable character and pleasing conversation; mistress of an amiable family in this neighborhood, with which I spend an evening twice every week. She has, among other elegant accomplishments, that of an excellent musician; and with her daughter who sings prettily, and some friends who play, she kindly entertains me and my grandson with little concerts, a cup of tea, and a game of chess. I call this my Opera, for I rarely go to the Opera at Paris.”

Madame Helvetius, a still more intimate friend, was a very different sort of woman. She was the widow of a literary man of some celebrity, and she and Franklin were always carrying on an absurd sort of flirtation. They hugged and kissed each other in public, and exchanged extravagant notes which were sometimes mock proposals of marriage, although some have supposed them to have been real ones. He wrote a sort of essay addressed to her, in which he imagines himself in the other world, where he meets her husband, and, after the exchange of many clever remarks with him about madame, he discovers that Helvetius is married to his own deceased wife, Mrs. Franklin, who declares herself rather better pleased with him than she had been with the Philadelphia printer.

“Indignant at this refusal of my Eurydice, I immediately resolved to quit those ungrateful shades, and return to this good world again, to behold the sun and you! Here I am: let us avenge ourselves!”

Such sport over deceased wives and husbands would not be in good taste in America or England, but it was correct enough in France. One of his short notes to Madame Helvetius has also been preserved: