In the Days of Poor Richard Part 46

"'What was it?' I asked.

"'That righteousness was not a joke; that Christianity was not a solemn plaything for one day in the week, but a real, practical, working proposition for every day in the year; that the main support of the structure is industry; that its most vital commandment is this, 'six days shalt thou labor'; that no amount of wealth can excuse a man from this duty. Every one worked. There was no idleness and therefore little poverty. The days were all for labor and the nights for rest.

The wheels of progress were greased and moving.'

"'And our love of learning helped to push them along,' I suggested.

"'True. Our people have been mostly like you and me,' he went on. 'We long for knowledge of the truth. We build schools and libraries and colleges. We have pushed on out of the eighteenth century into a new time. There you were born. Now you have stepped a hundred years backward into Europe. You are astonished, and this brings me to my point. Here I am with a great task on my hands. It is to enlist the sympathy and help of France. I must take things, not as I could wish them to be, but as I find them. At this court women are all powerful.

It has long been a maxim here that a diplomatist must stand well with the ladies. Even though he is venerable, he must be gallant, and I do not use the word in a shady sense. The ladies are not so bad as you would think them. They are playthings. To them, life is not as we know it, filled with realities. It is a beautiful drama of rich costumes and painted scenes and ingenious words, all set in the atmosphere of romance. The players only pretend to believe each other.

In the salon I am one of these players. I have to be.'

"'Mirabeau seemed to mean what he said,' was my answer.

"'Yes. He is one of those who often speak from the heart. All these players love the note of sincerity when they hear it. In the salon it is out of key, but away from the ladies the men are often living and not playing. Mirabeau, Condorcet, Turgot and others have heard the call of Human Liberty. Often they come to this house and speak out with a strong candor.'

"'I suppose that this great drama of despotism in France will end in a tragedy whose climax will consume the stage and half the players,' I ventured to say.

"'That is a theme, Jack, on which you and I must be silent,' Franklin answered. 'We must hold our mouths as with a bridle.'

"For a moment he sat looking sadly into the glowing coals on the grate.

Franklin loved to talk, but no one could better keep his own counsel.

"'At heart I am no revolutionist,' he said presently. 'I believe in purifying--not in breaking down. I would to G.o.d that I could have convinced the British of their error. Mainly I am with the prophet who says:

"'"Stand in the old ways. View the ancient paths. Consider them well and be not among those who are given to change."'

"I sat for a moment thinking of the cruelties I had witnessed, and asking myself if it had been really worth while. Franklin interrupted my thoughts.

"'I wish we could discover a plan which would induce and compel nations to settle their differences without cutting each other's throats. When will human wisdom be sufficient to see the advantage of this?'

"He told me the thrilling details of his success in France; how he had won the kingdom for an ally and secured loans and the help of a fleet and army then on the sea.

"'And you will not be surprised to learn that the British have been sounding me to see if we would be base enough to abandon our ally,' he laughed.

"In a moment he added:

"'Come, it is late and you must write a letter to the heart of England before you lie down to rest.'

"Often thereafter he spoke of Margaret as 'the heart of England.'"

CHAPTER XXV

THE PAGEANT

Jack began to a.s.sist Franklin in his correspondence and in the many business details connected with his mission.

"I have never seen a man with a like capacity for work," the young officer writes. "Every day he is conferring with Vergennes or other representatives of the King, or with the ministers of Spain, Holland and Great Britain. The greatest intellect in the kingdom is naturally in great request. To-day, after many hours of negotiation with the Spanish minister, in came M. Dubourg, the most distinguished physician in Europe.

"'_Mon chere maitre_,' he said. 'I have a most difficult case and as you know more about the human body than any man of my acquaintance I wish to confer with you.'

"Yesterday, Doctor Ingenhauz, physician to the Emperor of Austria, came to consult him regarding the vaccination of the royal family of France.

"In the evening, M. Robespierre, a slim, dark-skinned, studious young attorney from Arras, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, came for information regarding lightning rods, he having doubts of their legality. While they were talking, M. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, another physician, arrived. He was looking for advice regarding a proposed new method of capital punishment, and wished to know if, in the Doctor's opinion, a painless death could be produced by quickly severing the head from the body. Next morning, M. Jourdan, with hair and beard as red as the flank of my bay mare and a loud voice, came soon after breakfast, to sell us mules by the s.h.i.+p load.

"So you see that even I, living in his home and seeing him almost every hour of the day, have little chance to talk with him. Last night we met M. Voltaire--dramatist and historian--now in the evening of his days. We were at the Academy, where we had gone to hear an essay by D'Alembert. Franklin and Voltaire--a very thin old gentleman of eighty-four, with piercing black eyes--sat side by side on the platform. The audience demanded that the two great men should come forward and salute each other. They arose and advanced and shook hands.

"'_A la Francaise_,' the crowd demanded.

"So the two white-haired men embraced and kissed each other amidst loud applause.

"We are up at sunrise and at breakfast, for half an hour or so, I have him to myself. Then we take a little walk in the palace grounds of M.

le Ray de Chaumont, Chief Forester of the kingdom, which adjoins us.

To the Count's generosity Franklin is indebted for the house we live in. The Doctor loves to have me with him in the early morning. He says breakfasting alone is the most _triste_ of all occupations.

"'I think that the words of Demosthenes could not have been more sought than yours,' I said to him at breakfast this morning.

"He laughed as he answered: 'Demosthenes said that the first point in speaking was action. Probably he meant the action which preceded the address--a course of it which had impressed people with the integrity and understanding of the speaker. For years I have had what Doctor Johnson would call 'a wise and n.o.ble curiosity' about nature and have had some success in gratifying it. Then, too, I have tried to order my life so that no man could say that Ben Franklin had intentionally done him a wrong. So I suppose that my words are ent.i.tled to a degree of respect--a far more limited degree than the French are good enough to accord them.'

"As we were leaving the table he said: 'Jack, I have an idea worthy of Demosthenes. My friend, David Hartley of London, who still has hope of peace by negotiation, wishes to come over and confer with me. I shall tell him that he may come if he will bring with him the Lady Hare and her daughter.'

"'More thrilling words were never spoken by Demosthenes,' I answered.

'But how about Jones and his _Bonne Homme Richard_? He is now a terror to the British coasts. They would fear destruction.'

"'I shall ask Jones to let them alone,' he said. 'They can come under a special flag.'

"Commodore Jones did not appear again in Paris until October, when he came to Pa.s.sy to report upon a famous battle.

"I was eager to meet this terror of the coasts. His impudent courage and sheer audacity had astonished the world. The wonder was that men were willing to join him in such dare devil enterprises.

"I had imagined that Jones would be a tall, gaunt, swarthy, raw-boned, swearing man of the sea. He was a sleek, silent, modest little man, with delicate hands and features. He wished to be alone with the Doctor, and so I did not hear their talk. I know that he needed money and that Franklin, having no funds, provided the sea fighter from his own purse.

"Commodore Jones had brought with him a cartload of mail from captured British s.h.i.+ps. In it were letters to me from Margaret.

"'Now you are near me and yet there is an impa.s.sable gulf between us,'

she wrote. 'We hear that the seas are overrun with pirates and that no s.h.i.+p is safe. Our vessels are being fired upon and sunk. I would not mind being captured by a good Yankee captain, if it were carefully done. But cannons are so noisy and impolite! I have a lot of British pluck in me, but I fear that you would not like to marry a girl who limped because she had been shot in the war. And, just think of the possible effect on my disposition. So before we start Doctor Franklin will have to promise not to fire his cannons at us.'

"I showed the letter to Franklin and he laughed and said:

"'They will be treated tenderly. The Commodore will convoy them across the channel. I shall a.s.sure Hartley of that in a letter which will go forward today.'

"Anxious days are upon us. Our money in America has become almost worthless and we are in extreme need of funds to pay and equip the army. We are daily expecting a loan from the King of three million livres. But Vergennes has made it clear to us that the government of France is itself in rather desperate straits. The loan has been approved, but the treasury is waiting upon certain taxes not yet collected. The moment the money is available the Prime Minister will inform us of the fact.

"On a fine autumn day we drove with the Prince of Conde in his great coach, ornamented with costly paintings, to spend a day at his country seat in Chantilly. The palace was surrounded by an artificial ca.n.a.l; the gardens beautified with ponds and streams and islands and cascades and grottos and labyrinths, the latter adorned with graceful sculptures. His stables were lined with polished woods; their windows covered with soft silk curtains. Of such a refinement of luxury I had never dreamed. Having seen at least a thousand beggars on the way, I was saddened by these rich, lavish details of a prince's self-indulgence.

"On the wish of our host, Franklin had taken with him a part of his electrical apparatus, with which he amused a large company of the friends of the great _Seigneur_ in his palace grounds. Spirits were fired by a spark sent from one pond to another with no conductor but the water of a stream. The fowls for dinner were slain by electrical shocks and cooked over a fire kindled by a current from an electrical bottle. At the table the success of America was toasted in electrified b.u.mpers with an accompaniment of guns fired by an electrical battery.