Ligniville, belonging to a family of twenty-one
children, from a chateau in Lorraine, and the niece of Madame de
Graffigny, the author of the "Peruvian Letters"; Franklin in his old
age, while a welcome guest in the intellectual circle which this
widowed lady continued to gather about her. Throughout his stay in
France he was in unbroken relations with this circle, dining with it
very often, and adding much to its gayety, while Madame Helvetius, with
her friends, dined with him once a week. It was with tears in his eyes
that he parted from her, whom he never expected to see again in this
life; and on reaching his American home, he addressed her in words of
touching tenderness:--"I stretch out my arms towards you,
notwithstanding the immensity of the seas which separate us, while I
wait the heavenly kiss which I firmly trust one day to give you."[36]

But the story of the verse is not yet finished. And here it mingles with
the history of Franklin in Paris, constituting in itself an episode of
the American Revolution. The verse was written for a portrait. And now
that the ice was broken, the portrait of Franklin was to be seen
everywhere,--in painting, in sculpture, and in engraving. I have
counted, in the superb collection of the Bibliotheque Imperiale at
Paris, nearly a hundred engraved heads of him. At the royal exposition
of pictures the republican portrait found a place, and the name of
Franklin was printed at length in the catalogue,--a circumstance which
did not pass unobserved at the time; for the "Espion Anglais," in
recording it, treats it as "announcing that he began to come out from
his obscurity."[37] The same curious authority, describing a festival at
Marseilles, says, under date of March 20th, 1779,--"I was struck, on
entering the hall, to observe a crowd of portraits representing the
insurgents; but that of M. Franklin especially drew my attention, on
account of the device, '_Eripuit coelo_,' etc. This was inscribed
recently, and _every one admired the sublime truth_."[38] Thus
completely was France, not merely in its social centre, where fashion
gives the law, but in its distant borders, pledged to the cause of which
Franklin was the representative.

As in the halls of science and in popular resorts, so was our
Plenipotentiary even in the palace of princes. The biographer of the
Prince de Conde dwells with admiration upon the illustrious character
who, during the great debate and the negotiations which