“Eripuit coelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.”

But Sparks and Mignet, in their biographies,[16] and so also both the biographical dictionaries of France,—­that of Michaud and that of Didot,—­while ascribing the verse to Turgot, concur in the form already quoted from Turgot’s Works, which was likewise adopted by Ginguene, the scholar who has done so much to illustrate Italian literature, on the title-page of his “Science du Bon-Homme Richard,” with an abridged Life of Franklin, in 1794, and by Cabanis, who lived in such intimacy with Franklin.[17] It cannot be doubted that it was the final form which this verse assumed,—­as it is unquestionably the best.

To appreciate the importance of this verse, as marking and helping a great epoch, there are certain dates which must not be forgotten.  Franklin reached Paris on his mission towards the close of 1776.  He had already signed the Declaration of Independence, and his present duty was to obtain the recognition of France for the new power.  The very clever Madame Du Deffant, in her amusing correspondence with Horace Walpole, describes him in a visit to her “with his fur cap on his head and his spectacles on his nose,” in the same small circle with Madame de Luxembourg, a great lady of the time, and the Duke de Choiseul, late Prime-Minister.  This was on the thirty-first of December, 1776.[18] A pretty good beginning.  More than a year of effort and anxiety ensued, brightened at last by the news that Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga.  On the sixth of February, 1778, the work of the American Plenipotentiary was crowned by the signature of the two Treaties of Alliance and Commerce by which France acknowledged our Independence and pledged her belligerent support.  On the fifteenth of March, one of these treaties, with a diplomatic note announcing that the Colonies were free and independent States, was communicated to the British Government, at London, which was promptly encountered by a declaration of war from Great Britain.  On the twenty-second of March, Franklin was received by the King at Versailles, and this remarkable scene is described by the same feminine pen to which we are indebted for the early glimpse of him on his arrival in Paris.[19] But throughout this intervening period he had not lived unknown.  Indeed, he had become at once a celebrity.  Lacretelle, the eminent French historian, says, “By the effect which Franklin produced, he appears to have fulfilled his mission, not with a court, but with a free people.  His virtues and renown negotiated for him."[20]

Condorcet, who was a part of that intellectual society which welcomed the new Plenipotentiary, has left a record of his reception.  “The celebrity of Franklin in the sciences,” he says, “gave him the friendship of all who love or cultivate them, that is, of all who exert a real and durable influence upon public opinion.  At his arrival he became an object of veneration to all enlightened men, and