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Culture Watch

A GREAT IMPROVISATION

Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

By Stacy Schiff
Henry Holt & Co., New York
412 pp – Hardback

I fell in love with Benjamin Franklin many years ago. “At least,” said my husband, “he’s 200 years dead!” As someone who has studied and written about Franklin, I keep up with anything new that is published about him. I am usually hyper-critical of writers who make 21 st-century value judgments on 18 18th century behavior, or who don’t get their facts straight.

I’m happy to report that Stacy Schiff’s re-telling of Franklin’s years in France is pretty much on the nose. Her research is accurate, and her ability to articulate Franklin’s brilliance and subtlety are quite wonderful.

The story in itself is amazing: a seventy-year-old man, at the end of a long career as printer, publisher, inventor, educator, and diplomat, who has already crossed the ocean six times, is sent from Philadelphia to France to try to talk the French into a treaty that will help the American Colonies in their rebellion from Great Britain.

The audacity of the would-be new nation in seeking help from an absolute monarchy to overthrow another monarch in order to establish a democracy is mind-boggling, even considering that France and England were old enemies.

There were other Americans in France, working to persuade the Compte de Vergennes (Minister of Foreign Affairs) to persuade Louis XVI to form an alliance with the fledgling country, but they often worked at cross-purposes to each other, and there was much in-fighting and financial impropriety among them. Schiff is pretty even-handed and non-judgmental about them all, even as she points out that the American representatives dispatched to the courts of Vienna, Tuscany, and Spain were not received at any of those places, and never left Paris, where they settled and often complained of Franklin.

Dr. Franklin, who was famous in Europe long before his arrival there, parlayed his fame in a fashion that would be the envy of the most flagrant Hollywood press agent. He was well aware that his chosen persona, that of simple frontiersman and charming savant, was his best weapon in winning over the French. His success resulted in the 1778 Treaty of Amity and Commerce, which in turn led to the French fleet’s participation in the Battle of Yorktown.

For any American history buff, this book should be required reading. For others, it is worth the time and effort, just to understand how perilously close America came to never happening at all. And, of course, to enjoy the good Doctor’s charm.

JS

(Julia Sneden is author of Franklin on Franklin, a play for one actor, and Dinner at Passy – A Bagatelle.)

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© 2005 Julia Sneden for SeniorWomenWeb
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