This is the second article in a series about travel and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something about Benjamin Franklin. He is the least dead of America\u2019s founders, and the most relatable, the founder you want to have a beer with. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison have scholars; Franklin has fans \u2014 including me.<\/p>\n
As the nation prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, I am particularly enthralled by the diplomatic magic Franklin performed in France as a U.S. representative. Against steep odds, he managed to persuade a wary French government to back the American rebels with guns and money, thus enabling George Washington and his Continental Army to triumph over the British.<\/p>\n
What really intrigues me is that Franklin pulled off this diplomatic feat in his 70s, while suffering from a number of ailments. It was in his closing act, a time when he could have been doing the colonial equivalent of golfing in Florida, that he accomplished the most and changed the most.<\/p>\n
Traveled the most, too, for Franklin was the most peripatetic of the founders, logging some 42,000 miles and crossing the Atlantic eight times.<\/p>\n
With all this in mind, I, too, crossed the Atlantic, a journey that took seven hours, not seven weeks, as it did in Franklin\u2019s time. Before long, I found myself in the Brittany village of Auray. This is where Franklin came ashore on a cold December day in 1776. Normally, he loved sea voyages, but not this time. The ship that carried him and his two grandchildren from Philadelphia was \u201ca miserable vessel,\u201d he wrote in a letter to his daughter and son-in-law. The autumn seas were rough, the quarters cramped, the food too hard. The journey, he recalled, \u201calmost demolish\u2019d me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franklin didn\u2019t stay long in Auray (though that hasn\u2019t stopped the town from naming a quay, a bar and an ice cream flavor after him). From my vantage on the terrace of Bar Cr\u00eaperie Le Franklin<\/a> I could survey all of Auray: the wooden sailboats bobbing in the harbor, the black-roofed buildings contrasting with cottony clouds, the sidewalk booksellers who arrange their offerings in neat, adoring rows.<\/p>\n The next day, Franklin began the arduous carriage journey to Paris, dodging armed bandits and fawning fans alike. Thanks to his electrical experiments, he was famous in France. Cheering crowds lined Paris\u2019s Rue de l\u2019Universit\u00e9 to greet him. He soon settled in the village of Passy \u2014 today part of Paris\u2019s posh 16th Arrondissement.<\/p>\n Passy is a neighborhood where no one walks. They stroll, so I did, too. I strolled past the impromptu book stalls where each volume was, again, displayed with great care and \u2014 there is no other word for it \u2014 love. Franklin, the printer, no doubt would have appreciated this passion for books. I strolled past utility workers, leather-apron men, as Franklin called the working class, wrestling with a tangle of cables. I strolled to the March\u00e9 de Passy, a covered market featuring sides of beef, cuts of veal and wheels of cheese the size of my head. No wonder Franklin had trouble resisting.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t help noticing a profusion of opticians in Passy. Very Franklin, given his invention of bifocals.<\/p>\n I had strolled down Rue Benjamin Franklin and then a narrow street, Rue Raynouard, when I spotted it: a plaque marking the spot where the H\u00f4tel de Valentinois<\/a> once stood. This had been Franklin\u2019s home and the makeshift U.S. mission, the nation\u2019s first. The mansion was ideally situated \u2014 close to Paris but far enough away to offer breathing space and, best of all, on the road to Versailles, the seat of government. It overlooked vineyards sloping toward the Seine. It had a wine cellar and, once Franklin moved in, a lightning rod (another Franklin invention) on the roof and a printing press in the basement.<\/p>\n Franklin adored Passy. He delighted in the spring water, far healthier than anything in London, where he had spent 17 years. As he relayed to his sister Jane in Boston: \u201cI live in a fine airy house upon a hill, which has a large garden with fine walks in it, about \u00bd an hours drive from the city of Paris. I walk a little every day in the garden, have a good appetite and sleep well. I have got into a good neighborhood, of very agreeable people who appear very fond of me.\u201d<\/p>\n That was an understatement. The French adored Franklin and couldn\u2019t get enough of him. \u201cMon cher papa,\u201d they called him. He was constantly buttonholed by \u201cprojectors, speculators, and adventurers of all descriptions,\u201d recalled his grandson Temple, years later, in a compilation of his grandfather\u2019s writing<\/a>. Franklin was a regular at salons, especially those hosted by Madame Helv\u00e9tius, the widow of a renowned philosopher, Claude Adrien Helv\u00e9tius, and an intellectual force in her own right. Her cat-filled house in Auteuil, a short carriage ride from Passy, was nicknamed the Nine Sisters, after the Nine Muses; the \u201cphilosophes\u201d who gathered there were known as L\u2019Acad\u00e9mie d\u2019Auteuil. Franklin often played chess there late into the night, as long as the candles held out.<\/p>\n