ings on his "dear friend," and closing with the ominous words, "If
tempestuous times should come, take care of your own safety; events are
uncertain and men may be capricious." Franklin, however, declined to be
alarmed. "I thank you," he said, "for your kind caution, but having
nearly finished a long life, I set but little value on what remains of
it. Like a draper, when one chaffers with him for a remnant, I am ready
to say: 'As it is only the fag end, I will not differ with you about it;
take it for what you please.' Perhaps the best use such an old fellow
can be put to is to make a martyr of him."

A few weeks after the conclusion of this diplomatic bond of friendship
between the two peoples, Franklin, in the words of Mr. Bancroft, "placed
the public opinion of philosophical France conspicuously on the side of
America." Voltaire came back to Paris, after twenty-seven years of
voluntary exile, and received such adoration that it almost seemed as
if, for Frenchmen, he was taking the place of that God whom he had been
declaring non-existent, but whom he believed it necessary for mankind to
invent. Franklin had an interview with him, which presented a curious
scene. The aged French philosopher, shriveled, bright-eyed,
destructive-minded, received the aged American philosopher, portly,
serene, the humanest of men, in theatrical French fashion, quoting a
passage of English poetry, and uttering over the head of young Temple
the appropriate benediction, "God and Liberty." This drama was enacted
in private, but on April 29 occurred that public spectacle made familiar
by countless engravings, decorating the walls of so many old-fashioned
American "sitting-rooms" and "best parlors," when, upon the stage of the
Academy of Sciences, before a numerous and distinguished audience, the
two venerable sages met and saluted each other. "_Il faut s'embrasser a
la Francaise_," shouted the enthusiastic crowd; so they fell into each
other's arms, and kissed, after the continental mode. Great was the
fervor aroused in the breasts of the classic people of France as they
proudly saw upon their soil a new "Solon and Sophocles" in embrace. Who
shall say that Franklin's personal prestige in Europe had not practical
value for America?

Silas Deane, recalled, accompanied Gerard to America. He carried with
him a brief but generous letter from Franklin to the president of
Congress.[60] At the same time Izard was writing home that Deane's
misbehavior