e in Paris it would be
scandalous, inhospitable, and contrary to the laws of nations to send
him away.[40]

[Note 40: Hale's _Franklin in France_, i. 73.]

But while the English were angry, the French indulged in a _furore_ of
welcome. They made feasts and hailed the American as the friend of human
kind, as the "ideal of a patriarchal republic and of idyllic
simplicity," as a sage of antiquity; and the exuberant classicism of
the nation exhausted itself in glorifying him by comparisons with those
great names of Greece and Rome which have become symbols for all private
and public virtues. They admired him because he did not wear a wig; they
lauded his spectacles; they were overcome with enthusiasm as they
contemplated his great cap of martin fur, his scrupulously white linen,
and the quaint simplicity of his brown Quaker raiment of colonial make.
They noted with amazement that his "only defense" was a "walking-stick
in his hand." The print-shops were soon full of countless
representations of his noble face and venerable figure, set off by all
these pleasing adjuncts. The people thronged the streets to see him
pass, and respectfully made way for him. He seemed, as John Adams said
later, to enjoy a reputation "more universal than that of Leibnitz or
Newton, Frederick or Voltaire."

So soon as all this uproar gave him time to look about him, he
established himself at Passy, in a part of the Hotel de Valentinois,
which was kindly placed at his disposal by its owner, M. Ray de
Chaumont. In this at that time retired suburb he hoped to be able to
keep the inevitable but useless interruptions within endurable limits.
Not improbably also he was further influenced, in accepting M.
Chaumont's hospitality, by a motive of diplomatic prudence. His
shrewdness and experience must soon have shown him that his presence in
Paris, if not precisely distasteful to the French government, must at
least in some degree compromise it, and might by any indiscretion on his
part easily be made to annoy and vex the ministers. It therefore
behooved him to make himself as little as possible conspicuous in any
official or public way. A rebuke, a cold reception, might do serious
harm; nor was it politic to bring perplexities to those whose friendship
he sought. He could not avoid, nor had he any reason to do so, the
social eclat with which he was greeted; but he must shun the ostentation
of any relationship with men in office. This would be more easily