“‘Mon chere maitre,’ he said.  ’I have a most difficult case and as you know more about the human body than any man of my acquaintance I wish to confer with you.’

“Yesterday, Doctor Ingenhauz, physician to the Emperor of Austria, came to consult him regarding the vaccination of the royal family of France.

“In the evening, M. Robespierre, a slim, dark-skinned, studious young attorney from Arras, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, came for information regarding lightning rods, he having doubts of their legality.  While they were talking, M. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, another physician, arrived.  He was looking for advice regarding a proposed new method of capital punishment, and wished to know if, in the Doctor’s opinion, a painless death could be produced by quickly severing the head from the body.  Next morning, M. Jourdan, with hair and beard as red as the flank of my bay mare and a loud voice, came soon after breakfast, to sell us mules by the ship load.

“So you see that even I, living in his home and seeing him almost every hour of the day, have little chance to talk with him.  Last night we met M. Voltaire—­dramatist and historian—­now in the evening of his days.  We were at the Academy, where we had gone to hear an essay by D’Alembert.  Franklin and Voltaire—­a very thin old gentleman of eighty-four, with piercing black eyes—­sat side by side on the platform.  The audience demanded that the two great men should come forward and salute each other.  They arose and advanced and shook hands.

“‘A la Francaise,’ the crowd demanded.

“So the two white-haired men embraced and kissed each other amidst loud applause.

“We are up at sunrise and at breakfast, for half an hour or so, I have him to myself.  Then we take a little walk in the palace grounds of M. le Ray de Chaumont, Chief Forester of the kingdom, which adjoins us.  To the Count’s generosity Franklin is indebted for the house we live in.  The Doctor loves to have me with him in the early morning.  He says breakfasting alone is the most triste of all occupations.

“’I think that the words of Demosthenes could not have been more sought than yours,’ I said to him at breakfast this morning.

“He laughed as he answered:  ’Demosthenes said that the first point in speaking was action.  Probably he meant the action which preceded the address—­a course of it which had impressed people with the integrity and understanding of the speaker.  For years I have had what Doctor Johnson would call ‘a wise and noble curiosity’ about nature and have had some success in gratifying it.  Then, too, I have tried to order my life so that no man could say that Ben Franklin had intentionally done him a wrong.  So I suppose that my words are entitled to a degree of respect—­a far more limited degree than the French are good enough to accord them.’

“As we were leaving the table he said:  ’Jack, I have an idea worthy of Demosthenes.  My friend, David Hartley of London, who still has hope of peace by negotiation, wishes to come over and confer with me.  I shall tell him that he may come if he will bring with him the Lady Hare and her daughter.’