A little later the verse appears in a different scene.  It had reached the salons of Madame Doublet, whence it was transferred to the “Memoires Secrets de Bachaumont,” under date of June 8th, 1778, as “a very beautiful verse, proper to characterize M. Franklin and to serve as an inscription for his portrait.”  These Memoirs, as is well known, are the record of conversations and news gathered in the circle of that venerable Egeria of gossip;[30] and here is evidence of the publicity which this welcome had already obtained.

The verse was now fairly launched.  War was flagrant between France and Great Britain.  There was no longer any reason why the new alliance between France and the United States should not be placed under the auspices of genius, and why the same hand which had snatched the lightning from the skies should not have the fame of snatching the sceptre from King George III.  The time for free speech had come.  It was no longer “blasphemous.”

But it will be observed that these records of this verse fail to mention the immediate author.  Was he unknown at the time?  Or did the fact that he was recently a cabinet-minister induce him to hide behind a mask?  Turgot was a master of epigram,—­as witness the terrible lines on Frederick of Prussia; but he was very prudent in conduct.  “Nobody,” said Voltaire, “so skilful to launch the shaft without showing the hand.”  But there is a letter from no less a person than D’Alembert, which reveals something of the “filing” which this verse underwent, and something of the persons consulted.  Unhappily, the letter is without date; nor does it appear to whom it was addressed, except that the “cher confrere” seems to imply that it was to a brother of the Academy.  This letter will be found in a work which is now known to have been the compilation of the Marquis Gaetan de La Rochefoucauld,[31] entitled, “Memoires de Condorcet sur la Revolution Francaise, extraits de sa Correspondance et de celle de ses Amis."[32] It is introduced by the following words from the Marquis:—­

“It is known how Franklin had been feted when he came to Paris, because he was the representative of a republic.  The philosophers, especially, received him with enthusiasm.  It may be said, among other things, that D’Alembert lost his sleep; and we are going to prove it by a letter which he wrote, where he put himself to the torture in order to versify in honor of Franklin.”

The letter is then given as follows:—­

    “Friday Morning.

    “MY DEAR COLLEAGUE,—­You are acquainted with the Franklin verse,—­

      ‘Eripuit coelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.’

    You should surely cause it to be put in the Paris paper, if it is
    not there already.

“I should agree with La Harpe that sceptrumque is better:  first, because mox sceptra is a little hard, and then because mox, according to the dictionary of Gesner, who collects examples, signifies equally statim or deinde, which causes a double meaning, mox eripuit or mox eripiet.

    “However, here is how I have attempted to translate this verse for
    the portrait of Franklin:—­