nd Izard, being
informed of the arrangement, took Arthur Lee's original view and
protested against it. Lee reports that this interference put Franklin
"much out of humor," and that he said it would "appear an act of levity
to renew the discussion of a thing we had agreed to." None the less, Lee
now resumed his first position so firmly that Franklin and Deane in
their turn agreed to omit both articles. But they stipulated that Lee
should arrange the matter with Gerard, since, as they had just agreed in
writing to retain both, they "could not with any consistency make a
point of their being expunged," and they felt that the business of a
change at this stage might be disagreeable. In fact Lee found it so.
When he called on Gerard and requested the omission of both, Gerard
replied that the king had already approved the treaty, that it was now
engrossed on parchment, and that a new arrangement would entail
"inconvenience and considerable delay." But finally, not without showing
some irritation at the fickleness of the commissioners, he was brought
to agree that Congress might ratify the treaty either with or without
these articles, as it should see fit. This business cost Franklin, as an
annoying incident, an encounter with Mr. Izard, and a tart
correspondence ensued.

On February 6 all was at length ready and the parties came together, M.
Gerard for France and the envoys for the States, to execute these most
important documents. Franklin wore the spotted velvet suit of privy
council fame. They signed a treaty of amity and commerce, a treaty of
alliance, and a secret article belonging with the latter providing that
Spain might become a party to it--on the Spanish _manana_. There was an
express stipulation on the part of France that the whole should be kept
secret until after ratification by Congress; for there was a singular
apprehension that in the interval some accommodation might be brought
about between the insurgent States and the mother country, which would
leave France in a very embarrassing position if she should not be free
to deny the existence of such treaties. It was undoubtedly a dread of
some such occurrence which had induced the promptitude and the
ever-increasing liberality in terms which France had shown from the
moment when the news of Saratoga arrived. Nor perhaps was her anxiety
so utterly absurd as it now seems. There was some foundation for
Gibbon's epigrammatic statement that "the two greatest nations