Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein

by Isaacson, Walter

  So how good was Franklin’s French? By 1780, he was speaking and writing with great flourish and gusto, though not always with proper pronunciation and grammar. That approach appealed to most of his friends there, particularly the women, but not surprisingly, it offended John Adams. “Dr. Franklin is reported to speak French very well, but I find upon attending to him critically that he does not speak it grammatically,” Adams chided. “He acknowledged to me that he was wholly inattentive to grammar. His pronunciation, too, upon which the French gentlemen and ladies complimented him very highly, and which he seemed to think pretty well, I soon found out was very inaccurate.”31

  The bagatelle that most enchanted his French friends, entitled “Conte,” was a parable about religious tolerance. A French officer who is about to die recounts a dream in which he arrives at the gates of heaven and watches St. Peter ask people about their religion. The first replies that he is a Catholic, and St. Peter says, “Take your place there among the Catholics.” A similar procedure follows for an Anglican and a Quaker. When the officer confesses that he has no religion, St. Peter is indulgent: “You can come in anyway; just find a place for yourself wherever you can.” (Franklin seems to have revised the manuscript a few times to make his point about tolerance clear, and in one version expressed it more forcefully as: “Enter anyway and take any place you wish.”)32

  The tale echoed many of Franklin’s previous light writings advocating religious tolerance. Although Franklin’s belief in a benevolent God was becoming stronger as he grew older, the French intellectuals admired the fact that he did not embrace any religious sect. “Our freethinkers have adroitly sounded him on his religion,” one acquaintance wrote, “and they maintain that they have discovered he is one of their own, that is that he had none at all.”33

  Chess and Farts

  One of Franklin’s famous passions was chess, as evidenced by the late-night match he played in Madame Brillon’s bathroom. He saw the game as a metaphor for both diplomacy and life, a point that he made explicit in a bagatelle he wrote in 1779 on “The Morals of Chess,” which was based on an essay he had drafted in 1732 for his Philadelphia Junto. “The game of chess is not merely an idle amusement,” he began. “Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it. For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain and competitors or adversaries to contend with.”

  Chess, he said, taught foresight, circumspection, caution, and the importance of not being discouraged. There was also an important etiquette to be practiced: never hurry your opponent, do not try to deceive by pretending to have made a bad move, and never gloat in victory: “Moderate your desire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with the one over yourself.” There were even times when it was prudent to let an opponent retract a bad move: “You may indeed happen to lose the game to your opponent, but you will win what is better, his esteem.”34

  During one of Franklin’s late-night chess matches in Passy, a messenger arrived with an important set of dispatches from America. Franklin waved him off until the game was finished. Another time, he was playing with his equal, the Duchess of Bourbon, who made a move that inadvertently exposed her king. Ignoring the rules of the game, he promptly captured it. “Ah,” said the duchess, “we do not take Kings so.” Replied Franklin in a famous quip: “We do in America.”35

  One night in Passy he was absorbed in a game when the candles flickered out. Refusing to quit, he sent his opponent to find more. The man quickly returned with a surprised look and the news that it was already light outside. Franklin threw open the shutters. “You are right, it is daytime,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.”

  The incident was the inspiration for a bagatelle he wrote about his surprise at discovering that the sun rose and poured forth light at 6 in the morning. By this stage in his life, it should be noted, he no longer shared Poor Richard’s belief in being early to bed and early to rise. He declared that this discovery would surprise his readers, “who with me have never seen any signs of sunshine before noon.” This led him to conclude that if people would simply get up much earlier, they could save a lot of money on candles. He even included some pseudo-scientific calculations of what could be saved by this “Economical Project” if during the summer months Parisians would shift their sleeping time seven hours earlier: close to 97 million livres, “an immense sum that the city of Paris might save every year by the economy of using sunshine instead of candles.”

  Franklin concluded by bestowing the idea on the public without any request for royalty or reward. “I expect only to have the honor of it,” he declared. He ended up with far more honor than he could have imagined: most histories of the invention of Daylight Savings Time credit the idea to this essay by Franklin, even though he wrote it mockingly and did not come up with the idea of actually shifting clocks by an hour during the summer.36

  The essay, which parodied both human habits and scientific treatises, reflected (as did his writings as a youth) the influence of Jonathan Swift. “It was the type of irony Swift would have written in place of ‘A Modest Proposal’ if he had spent five years in the company of Mmes. Helvétius and Brillon,” notes Alfred Owen Aldridge.37

  A similar scientific spoof, even more fun and famous (or perhaps notorious), was the mock proposal he made to the Royal Academy of Brussels that they study the causes and cures of farting. Noting that the academy’s leaders, in soliciting questions to study, claimed to “esteem utility,” he suggested a “serious enquiry” that would be worthy of “this enlightened age”:

  It is universally well known that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures a great quantity of wind. That the permitting this air to escape and mix with the atmosphere is usually offensive to the company from the fetid smell that accompanies it. That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offense, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind. That so retained contrary to nature, it not only gives frequently great present pain, but occasions future diseases…

  Were it not for the odiously offensive smell accompanying such escapes, polite people would probably be under no more restraint in discharging such wind in company than they are in spitting or in blowing their noses. My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some drug wholesome and not disagreeable, to be mixed with our common food or sauces, that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreeable as perfumes.

  With a pretense of scientific seriousness, Franklin proceeded to explain how different foods and minerals change the odor of farts. Might not a mineral such as lime work to make the smell pleasant? “This is worth the experiment!” There would be “immortal honor” attached to whoever made the discovery, he argued, for it would be far more “useful [than] those discoveries in science that have heretofore made philosophers famous.” All the works of Aristotle and Newton, he noted, do little to help those plagued by gas. “What comfort can the vortices of Descartes give to a man who has whirlwinds in his bowels!” The invention of a fart perfume would allow hosts to pass wind freely with the comfort that it would give pleasure to their guests. Compared to this luxury, he said with a bad pun, previous discoveries “are, all together, scarcely worth a Fart-hing.”

  Although he printed this farce privately at his press in Passy, Franklin apparently had qualms and never released it publicly. He did, however, send it to friends, and he noted in particular that it might be of interest to one of them, the famous chemist and gas specialist Joseph Priestley, “who is apt to give himself airs.”38

  Yet another delightful essay of mock science was written as a letter to the Abbé Morellet. It celebrated the wonders of wine and the glories of the human elbow:

  We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descend
s from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. The miracle in question was performed only to hasten the operation.

  As for the human elbow, Franklin explained, it was important that it be located at the right place, otherwise it would be hard to drink wine. If Providence had placed the elbow too low on the arm, it would be hard for the forearm to reach the mouth. Likewise, if the elbow had been placed too high, the forearm would overshoot the mouth. “But by the actual situation, we are enabled to drink at our ease, the glass going exactly to the mouth. Let us, then, with glass in hand, adore this benevolent wisdom; let us adore and drink!”39

  Family Matters

  Where did this new circle of ersatz family members leave Franklin’s actual family? At a distance. His daughter, Sally, who adored him, wrote of her diligence in restoring their house in Philadelphia after the British had withdrawn in May 1778. But whereas the letters from his French lady friends began “Cher Papa,” most of those from his real daughter began more stiffly, with “Dear and honored sir.” His replies, addressed to “Dear Sally” and occasionally “My Dear Child,” often expressed delight about the exploits of his grandchildren. But sometimes even his compliments were freighted with exhortations. “If you knew how happy your letters make me,” he lectured at one point, “I think you would write oftener.”

  In early 1779, Sally wrote of the high price of goods in America and how she was busy spinning her own tablecloths. Unfortunately, however, she made the mistake of adding that she had been invited to a ball in honor of General Washington and had sent to France for pins, lace, and feathers so she could look fashionable. “There never was so much dressing and pleasure going on,” she exulted to her father, and she added that she hoped he would send her some accessories so that she could take pride in showing off his taste.

  At the time, Franklin was writing his sweet bagatelles to his French friends and promising Polly Stevenson a pair of diamond earrings if one of his lottery tickets won. But he responded with dismay at Sally’s plea for a few luxuries. “Your sending for long black pins, and lace, and feathers! disgusted me as much as if you had put salt in my strawberries,” he chided. “The spinning, I see, is laid aside, and you are to be dressed for the ball! You seem not to know, my dear daughter, that, of all the dear things in this world, idleness is the dearest.” He sent her some of the items she had requested “that are useful and necessary,” but added a dose of homespun advice, with just a touch of his humor, about the frivolous fineries. “If you wear your cambric ruffles as I do, and take care not to mend the holes, they will come in time to be lace; and feathers, my dear girl, may be had in America from every cock’s tail.”40

  Clearly hurt, she replied with a detailed description of how industrious and frugal she was being, and she tried to work back into his graces by sending over some homespun American silk for him to present from her to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Knowing her father’s desire to promote the local silk industry, she noted, “It will show what can be sent from America.”

  It was a sweet gesture, with all the elements—industriousness, self-lessness, promotion of American products, gratitude toward France—that should have appealed to Franklin. Alas, the silk was stained by salt water on the way over and, worse yet, her father scoffed at the entire scheme. “I wonder how, having yourself scarce shoes to your feet, it would come into your head to give clothes to a Queen,” he wrote back. “I shall see if the stains can be covered by dyeing it and make summer suits of it for myself, Temple and Benny.” He did, however, end on a kinder and gentler note. “All the things you order will be sent, for you continue to be a good girl, and spin and knit your family stockings.”41

  Franklin’s heart proved far softer when it came to news about his grandchildren. In late 1779, Sally had a fourth child and, in hopes of pleasing Franklin, baptized the boy Louis, after the French king. The name was so unusual in America that people had to inquire whether the child was a boy or girl. When her son Willy recited the Lord’s Prayer after a nightmare and addressed it to Hercules, she asked her father for his advice: “Whether it is best to instruct him in a little religion or let him pray a little longer to Hercules?” Franklin replied, with a hint of humor, that she should teach him “to direct his worship more properly, for the deity of Hercules is now quite out of fashion.” Sally complied. A little later she wrote that Willy was learning his Bible well and that he had “an extraordinary memory” for all literature. “He has learned the speech of Anthony over Caesar’s body, which he can scarcely speak without tears.” Her daughter, Elizabeth, she added, was fond of looking at the picture of her grandfather “and has frequently tried to tempt you to walk out of the frame to play with her with a piece of apple pie, the thing of all others she likes best.”42

  Sally also found a project that enabled her to earn Franklin’s unvarnished approval. With Washington’s army suffering in tattered uniforms in December 1779, she rallied the women of Philadelphia to raise donations, buy cloth, and sew more than two thousand shirts for the beleaguered troops. “I am very busily employed in cutting out and making shirts…for our brave soldiers,” she reported. When Washington tried to pay cash for even more shirts, the ladies refused it and kept working for free. “I hope you will approve of what we have done,” she wrote, clearly fishing for an expression of praise. Franklin, of course, did approve. He wrote back commending her for her “amor patrie,” and he had an account of her activities published in France.43

  Her son Benny also felt the vagaries of Franklin’s affection, even though the boy had been snatched from the bosom of the Bache family to accompany him to Europe. After two years at a boarding school near Passy, where he saw his grandfather but once a week, the quiet 9-year-old was packed off to an academy in Geneva, where he would not see him for more than four years. Despite his love of the French, Franklin felt that a Catholic monarchy was not the best place to educate his grandson, he wrote Sally, “as I intend him for a Presbyterian as well as a Republican.”44

  Benny was taken to Geneva by a French diplomat, Philibert Cramer, who was a publisher of Voltaire. Hungry as ever for affection and a father figure, Benny latched on to Cramer, who died suddenly a few months later. So he lived for a while with Cramer’s widow, Catherine, and then was left in the charge of Gabriel Louis de Marignac, a former poet and military officer who ran the academy.

  Horribly lonely, Benny begged that his brother William, or his former Passy classmate John Quincy Adams, be sent to join him. At the very least, could he please have a picture of Franklin and some news? Franklin, ever willing to send out his portrait, obliged with one, along with the news of Sally’s success in supplying shirts to Washington’s troops. “Be diligent in your studies that you also may be qualified to do service to your country and be worthy of so good a mother,” he wrote. He also sent word that four of Benny’s former Passy schoolmates had died of smallpox, and he should be thankful he had been inoculated as a child. Yet even his expressions of affection contained a note of contingency. “I shall always love you very much if you continue to be a good boy,” he closed one letter.45

  Benny did well his first year and even won the school prize for translating Latin into French. Franklin sent him some money so that he could host the celebration the prizewinner traditionally gave for his classmates. He also asked Polly Stevenson, still in London, to pick out some books for Benny in English, as he was showing signs of losing that language. Polly, knowing how to flatter her friend, picked out a book that included mentions of Franklin.46

  But Benny eventually fell into the funk of a depressed adolescent, perhaps because Franklin never visited, nor did Temple, nor was he brought back to Passy for vacations. He turned shy and indolent, reported Madame Cramer, who continued to keep an eye on him. “He has an excellent heart; he is sensible, reasonable, he is serious, but he has neither gaiety nor vivacity; he is cold, he has few needs, no fantasies.” He didn’t
play cards, never got in fights, and showed no signs that he would ever display “great talents” or “passions.” (In this prediction she was wrong, for in later life Benny would become a crusading newspaper editor.) When she reminded Benny that he had won the Latin prize and was clearly capable of being a good student, “he answered coldly that it had been sheer luck,” she wrote Franklin. And when she offered to request for him a larger allowance from his grandfather, he showed no interest.

  Benny’s parents became worried, and Richard Bache timidly suggested that perhaps Franklin could find time to go see him. “It would give us pleasure to hear that you had found leisure enough to visit him at Geneva,” Bache wrote, noting that “the journey might conduce to your health.” But it was a tentative suggestion made almost apologetically. “I suspect your time has been more importantly employed,” he quickly added. Madame Cramer, for her part, suggested that at the very least he could write Benny more frequently.47

  Franklin did not find time to travel to Geneva, but he did compose for him one of his didactic little essays that proclaimed the virtues of education and diligence. Those who study hard, he wrote, “live comfortably in good houses,” whereas those who are idle and neglect their schoolwork “are poor and dirty and ragged and ignorant and vicious and live in miserable cabins and garrets.” Franklin liked the lesson so much that he made a copy and sent it to Sally, who gushed that “Willy shall get it by heart.” Benny, on the other hand, did not even acknowledge receiving it. So Franklin sent him another copy and ordered him to translate it into French and send it back to assure he understood it.48

  Finally, Benny found a friend who brought him out of his torpor: Samuel Johonnot, the grandson of Franklin’s Boston friend the Rev. Samuel Cooper. A “turbulent and factious” lad, he was expelled from the school in Passy, and Franklin arranged to send him to the Geneva academy. He was a smart student, placing first in the class and spurring Benny to come in a respectable third.