But the story of the verse is not yet finished.  And here it mingles with the history of Franklin in Paris, constituting in itself an episode of the American Revolution.  The verse was written for a portrait.  And now that the ice was broken, the portrait of Franklin was to be seen everywhere,—­in painting, in sculpture, and in engraving.  I have counted, in the superb collection of the Bibliotheque Imperiale at Paris, nearly a hundred engraved heads of him.  At the royal exposition of pictures the republican portrait found a place, and the name of Franklin was printed at length in the catalogue,—­a circumstance which did not pass unobserved at the time; for the “Espion Anglais,” in recording it, treats it as “announcing that he began to come out from his obscurity."[37] The same curious authority, describing a festival at Marseilles, says, under date of March 20th, 1779,—­“I was struck, on entering the hall, to observe a crowd of portraits representing the insurgents; but that of M. Franklin especially drew my attention, on account of the device, ‘Eripuit coelo,’ etc.  This was inscribed recently, and every one admired the sublime truth."[38] Thus completely was France, not merely in its social centre, where fashion gives the law, but in its distant borders, pledged to the cause of which Franklin was the representative.

As in the halls of science and in popular resorts, so was our Plenipotentiary even in the palace of princes.  The biographer of the Prince de Conde dwells with admiration upon the illustrious character who, during the great debate and the negotiations which ensued, had fixed the regards of Paris, of Versailles, of the whole kingdom indeed,—­although in his simple and farmer-like exterior so unlike those gilded plenipotentiaries to whom France was accustomed,—­and he recounts, most sympathetically, that the Prince, after an interview of two hours, declared that “Franklin appeared to him above even his reputation."[39] And here again we encounter the unwilling testimony of Capefigue, who says that he was followed everywhere, taking possession of “hearts and minds,” and that “his image, under the simple garb of a Quaker, was to be found at the hearth of the poor and in the boudoir of the beautiful";[40]—­all of which is in harmony with the more sympathetic record of Lacretelle, who says that “portraits of Franklin were everywhere, with this inscription, Eripuit coelo, etc., which the Court itself found just and sublime."[41]

But it was at court, even in the precincts of Versailles, that the portrait and the inscription had their most remarkable experience.  Of this there is an authentic account in the Memoirs of Marie Antoinette by her attendant, Madame Campan.  This feminine chronicler relates that Franklin appeared at court in the dress of an American farmer.  His flat hair without powder, his round hat, his coat of brown cloth contrasted with the bespangled and embroidered dresses, the powdered