Bizz, izzz ouizz z ouizzz izzzzzzzzz, etc. We have long lived under the hospitable roof of the said bon homme F. He has given us free lodgings; we have also eaten and drunk the whole year at his expense without its having cost us anything. Often, when his friends and himself have used up a bowl of punch, he has left a sufficient quantity to intoxicate a hundred of us flies.
We have drunk freely from it, and after that we have made our sallies, our circles and our cotillions in the air of his bedroom, and have gaily consummated our little loves under his nose.
Finally, we would have been the happiest people in the world, if he had not permitted to remain over the top of his wainscoting a number of our declared enemies, who stretched their nets to capture us, and who tore us pitilessly to pieces. People of a disposition both subtle and fierce, abominable combination!
You, very excellent Lady, had the goodness to order that all these assassins with their habitations and their snares be swept; and your orders, as they always ought to be, were carried out immediately. Since that time we have lived happily, and have enjoyed the beneficence of the said bon homme F. without fear.
There only remains one thing for us to wish in order to assure the stability of our fortune; permit us to say it,
Bizz izzz ouizz z ouizzzz izzzzzzzzzz etc.
It is to see both of you forming at last but one ménage.
Finally, as the year 1779 drew to a close, the Ambassador lost his philosophic detachment completely and asked Madame Helvetius, in all seriousness, to marry him. She told him what she had already told Turgot, that she had made a resolve to remain single, out of her devotion to her late husband. Franklin went home to Passy and, undiscouraged, wrote one of his most famous essays. He said that he “fell on my bed, and believing myself dead, found myself in the Elysian fields.” It took him only a few moments to find Monsieur Helvetius, who received him with great courtesy. He asked Franklin a thousand questions about France, but never mentioned Madame Helvetius. The late philosopher explained that during several of his early years in Paradise he thought only of her. But now he had taken another wife, “the most like her that I could find.” The new wife was, he admitted, “not so completely beautiful, but she has as much good sense, a little more of spirit, and she loves me infinitely. Her continual study is to please me; and she has actually gone to hunt the best nectar and the best ambrosia in order to regale me this evening; remain with me and you will see her.”
“I perceive,” Franklin said, “that your old friend is more faithful than you; for several good offers have been made her, all of which she has refused. I confess to you that I myself have loved her to the point of distraction; but she was hard-hearted to my regard, and has absolutely rejected me for love of you.”
The detached ex-husband proceeded to give Franklin some advice. “If you had won over the Abbe M. (with coffee and cream) to speak for you, perhaps you would have succeeded; for he is a subtle logician like Duns Scotus or Saint Thomas; he places his arguments in such good order that they become nearly irresistible. Also, if the Abbe de la R. had been bribed (by some beautiful edition of an old classic) to speak against you, that would have been better: for I have always observed, that when he advises something, she has a very strong penchant to do the reverse....”
Just then, the new Madame Helvetius entered with the evening’s nectar. Franklin was astonished to find that she was none other than his late lamented wife, Deborah. When he indignantly tried to claim her, she told him coldly, “I have been your good wife forty-nine years and four months, nearly half a century; be content with that. Here I have formed a new connection which will endure to eternity.”
“Offended by this refusal of my Eurydice,” Franklin told Madame Helvetius, “I suddenly decided to leave these ungrateful spirits, to return to the good earth, to see again the sunshine and you. Here I am! Let us revenge ourselves.”
Madame Helvetius at first professed no more than amusement at Franklin’s impudence. But when she realized his marriage proposal was, although clothed in banter, fundamentally serious, she became deeply disturbed and fled for advice to her old friend Turgot. The portly economist in turn paid a visit to Franklin to calm his “agitated” head, so he told another friend. But the evidence would seem to suggest that Franklin was not so agitated as he was determined, and that most of the agitation occurred in the breast of Madame Helvetius. So severe did it become that the lady was forced to abandon her little kingdom at Auteuil, and spent the summer at Tours. Franklin, in the meantime, accepted her unalterable resolution to remain single and printed his visit to the Elysian fields on a small press he had set up at Passy. He sent copies of it to numerous friends, thus giving everyone the impression that the whole thing was a joke. Some people have argued that he did this to evade the humiliation of rejection by Madame Helvetius, but it can be equally argued that he was trying to save Notre Dame d’Auteuil herself from embarrassment.
Most of these emotional crises were crowded into the year 1779, when Franklin’s spirits were soaring and the war looked as if it would soon be over. The French fleet had driven the British out of Philadelphia, leaving them with only two small enclaves on the American coast at Newport and New York, just as Franklin had predicted to his son William. Spain entered the war against England, and another French fleet, assisted by a Spanish armada, was poised to seize naval superiority in European waters, enabling the French Army to invade England. Rampant optimism prevailed in both France and America. On February 17, 1779, Congress considered the report of the committee to propose peace terms. On September 27, they commissioned John Adams to return to Europe and negotiate a peace treaty with Britain.
But the year ended in disillusion and frustration on a political and military scale almost as acute as the personal pangs Franklin suffered with Madame Helvetius. The invasion of England was abandoned when the Franco-Spanish fleet succumbed to an epidemic of typhus and other diseases. After the recapture of Philadelphia, Franco-American cooperation in the New World faltered badly, and attempts to storm Newport and Savannah, Georgia (seized by the British in late 1778), ended in near fiasco.
Both Congress and their constituents, intoxicated by the French alliance, had fallen into a kind of wishful lethargy in 1779. “People here [Pennsylvania] are fast asleep,” exclaimed a Continental officer. “It’s as perfect a peace as it was in ‘73 & there is nothing that will rouze them but British guns & drums.” Another patriot compared America to a great beauty who had landed a husband. “We have grown careless in our dress and sluttish in our manner.” For Franklin, the first signs of carelessness were financial. Bills began raining in upon him from all over Europe and America, in the merry confidence that somehow he would persuade the French to pay. The Committee of Commerce blithely sent him orders for goods amounting to a staggering 12 million livres, a sum he could not possibly raise. “Too much is expected of me,” he lamented to William Carmichael, who was representing America in Madrid. “Not only the Congress draw upon me, often unexpectedly, for large sums, but all the agents of the Committee of Commerce in Europe and America think they may do the same when pinched.”
As a businessman, Franklin knew only too well the disastrous consequences of the failure of American credit. When John Jay, sent to Madrid to negotiate a loan from Spain, told Franklin that in Cadiz reports prevailed that American bills were not being honored, Franklin instantly responded that such stories were “wicked falsehoods.” So vital did he consider America’s financial reputation, he rushed to his banker, Ferdinand Grand, and enclosed in his letter to Jay a “certificate” from that gentleman, certifying that the reports were “calumnies.”
Everywhere else Franklin looked, things seemed to be going wrong. John Paul Jones and his fellow captain, Pierre Landais, called upon Franklin to settle a quarrel between them, left over from the battle with the Serapis. Landais was a seagoing Arthur Lee, who quarreled with everyone and was a miserable fighting man in the bargain. During the battle with the Serapis, he had become so co
nfused that he fired a broadside into the Bon Homme Richard Jones accused him of doing it deliberately. Franklin tried to solve the mess by relieving Landais of his command of the frigate Alliance and giving the ship to Jones. But Arthur Lee, who had finally been recalled from Europe by Congress, had booked passage in the Alliance, and he encouraged Landais to lead a revolt among the crew, seize the ship, and sail it back to the United States. Before the voyage was over, Landais had threatened Lee with a carving knife for serving himself ahead of the captain at dinner and had shown so many other symptoms of instability that the crew had deposed him and elected one of the lieutenants as captain, to get the ship home in one piece.
Franklin soon found that getting rid of Lee was by no means a panacea that guaranteed him peace of mind. Silas Deane had also vanished, and this meant that Franklin had to cope with the business side of the American mission. Along with endless arguments over the ownership of captured ships and the distribution of prize money, there were even more nightmarish involvements with Beaumarchais and Chaumont. Beaumarchais never did balance his books. There were a million livres for which he never accounted. Chaumont turned out to be as much of a plunger as Beaumarchais, and was soon on the edge of bankruptcy. He demanded favors and concessions from Franklin that the Ambassador, ever conscious of Arthur Lee’s evil eye, was unable to grant. Morosely, Franklin complained to Jonathan Williams: “I, in all these mercantile matters am like a man walking in the dark. I stumble often and frequently get my shins broke.”
Meanwhile, from William Carmichael, from his son-in-law Richard Bache and even from his sister Jane Mecom, Franklin heard stories of the venom that Lee and Izard were spewing against him in America. Franklin told Carmichael that these charges were “so frivolous, so ill-founded and amount to so little, I esteem them rather as paneygyrics upon me.” He was justified in using such language to dismiss Lee’s charges that he and Deane had made themselves millions out of the American mission to France. But not a little of Franklin’s troubles at home were emanating from one of his few serious errors of judgment, which was supplying his enemies with excellent ammunition.
In February 1780, Samuel Wharton had turned up at Passy with an exciting story about his hairbreadth escape from England a step ahead of the British Secret Service, who wanted his head for sending information to Franklin. There was strong suspicion that the whole affair was staged by his powerful friend Thomas Walpole in order to enable Wharton to transfer his allegiance to the American cause. Harassed with so many other concerns, Franklin probably gave little thought to Wharton, who was still absorbed in his Grand Ohio Company dreams of glory. Nothing much had come of the attempt of the American wing of the company to persuade Congress to confirm the Privy Council grant, and Wharton was now on his way to America to lend his more formidable energies to the effort. Although Franklin, soon after he arrived in France, had withdrawn the funds he had left with Walpole to pay for his continuing role in the company, he still considered himself a member of the enterprise, in a general way. In 1778, he had, through Edward Bancroft, regained the letter of resignation he had written to Thomas Walpole in 1774. Franklin had placed it in his papers, with a memorandum, explaining the circumstances in which he wrote it, with an endorsement: “Paper that may be of consequence to my posterity.” Now, he signed a memorial drawn up by Wharton, urging Congress to confirm the grant. With this in his pocket, Wharton was soon flaunting Franklin’s name more publicly in a pamphlet, Plain Facts. . . “The glorious revolution of these states was not made to destroy but among other things to protect private property and as the grant to Messrs. Franklin, etc., would have passed under the British government . . . can it be supposed that the Congress of America will be less sensible to the influence of justice than the King of England was?” Later in the year, Wharton persuaded Tom Paine to write a pamphlet, entitled “Public Good,” supporting the proposition, in return for 300 shares in the company. Wharton also got himself elected to Congress, so he could not only lobby but vote for his scheme. Naturally, Arthur Lee, who had an insider’s knowledge of the history of the entire Indiana Company, Grand Ohio speculation, was one of the fiercest opponents, and undoubtedly took delight in pointing out how Franklin was trying to use his high office and prestige to make a fortune for himself, his family, and his friends. Later, when his son-in-law, Richard Bache, obviously uneasy because of the turmoil being stirred up, asked Franklin’s opinion of the Wharton-Paine pamphlets, Franklin replied, “Justice is, I think, on the side of those who contracted for the lands. But moral and political rights sometimes differ, and sometimes are both subdued by might.” This was hardly a passionate endorsement of Wharton’s cause, and it strongly suggests that Franklin was already having second thoughts about the wisdom of allowing the intriguing Philadelphian to use his name.
Knowing the unstable moods of legislative bodies, Franklin could not help but wonder if the Lee-Adams axis might suddenly seize control of Congress. As a man who had long yearned to end his days on a bright point, Franklin had no desire to be fired from his job with odium and imputed disgrace. His worries about Congress were not assuaged by the almost total lack of communication between them and him. Nor was his state of mind improved by the sudden reappearance of John Adams in Paris. Adams came as the extremely premature commissioner in charge of peace negotiations and did not even have the good grace to tell Franklin why he was on the scene. Franklin told Carmichael, “We live upon good terms with each other, but he [Adams] . . . never communicated anything of his business to me and I have made no inquiries of him, nor have I any letter from Congress explaining it so that I am in utter ignorance.”
Diplomatically, John Adams’ position was an absurdity. He was empowered to negotiate peace with a nation that was not showing the least interest in the subject. In fact, the British were on the offensive in America and in the West Indies. Vergennes, as a seasoned diplomat, practically ordered Adams to keep his mouth shut, lest he make himself and his country ridiculous. With nothing better to do, Adams proceeded to pick a quarrel with Vergennes. Congress, trying desperately to control the runaway depreciation of American currency, decided to redeem earlier bank notes at a ratio of forty to one. Vergennes thought that this was fair enough if it applied only to American citizens, but foreigners, particularly French merchants, ought to be indemnified since they had accepted the original notes in good faith. The French Foreign Minister pointed out that his countrymen had run considerable risks to help the Americans, and shortchanging them was hardly what he called gratitude. With an almost incredible lack of diplomacy, Adams replied that it was France who should be grateful to America for enabling her to humble Great Britain.
More than a little irked, Vergennes called on Franklin for support, and he did his best to explain away Adams’ conduct. Meanwhile, Honest John, as he called himself, proceeded to lecture Vergennes on naval and military strategy, demanding a French fleet to support Washington’s army. Vergennes coldly informed him that the King, “without having been solicited by Congress,” had already made plans to send an expeditionary force to bolster the American cause. Adams took it upon himself to resent these words and wrote Vergennes another long lecture on why France should be grateful to the United States. Grandly, this burlesque of a diplomat declared, “I am determined to omit no opportunity of communicating my sentiments to your Excellency upon everything that appears to me of importance to the common cause.”
This was too much for Vergennes. Stiffly he informed Adams that “Mr. Franklin being the sole person who has letters of credence to the King for the United States, it is with him only that I ought and can treat of matters which concern them.” A thoroughly angry Vergennes called in Franklin and handed over to him the correspondence with Adams, requesting him to forward it to Congress, “That they may judge whether he is endowed, as Congress no doubt desires, with that conciliating spirit which is necessary for the important and delicate business with which he is entrusted.”
Numerous people had told Franklin that Adams
was his secret enemy. Certainly Adams had talked loosely and vindictively against Franklin to a wide range of people, including members of Congress and even the new French ambassador to the United States, the Chevalier de la Luzerne. If Franklin wanted to destroy Adams’ reputation as a diplomat and politician, he now had all the ammunition he needed. But like Washington, Franklin was too committed to the American cause to permit animosity to cloud his judgment. He saw Adams for precisely what he was, and summed him up in a line (written at a later date) that simultaneously describes and explains his erratic role in American history: “He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses. Now Franklin passed on the correspondence Vergennes had given him with the gentlest kind of criticism of Adams’ blundering conduct.
“. . . He seems to have endeavored to supply what he may suppose my negotiations defective in,” Franklin told the president of Congress. “He thinks, as he tells me himself, that America has been too free in expressions of gratitude to France; for that she is more oblig’d to us than we to her; and that we should show spirit in our applications. I apprehend that he mistakes his ground and that this Court is to be treated with decency and delicacy.” Franklin pointed out that the King took “pleasure” in his benevolence in assisting “an oppressed people.” Franklin thought it was good policy to increase this pleasure with expressions of gratitude, which, he pointed out, “is not only our duty, but our interest.”
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