Jean Jules Jusserand

“ On behalf of the French Republic, with feelings of gratitude, I receive the gift offered to my country, this masterful portrait Franklin, which a law of Congress ordered to be made, and which is signed with the name, twice famous, of Saint-Gaudens.
Everything in such a present powerfully appeals to a French heart. It represents a man ever venerated and admired in my country—the scientist, the philosopher, the inventor, the leader of men, the one who gave to France her first notion of what true Americans really were. ”

“ The gift is offered in this town of Philadelphia where there exists a hall the very name of which is dear to every American and every French heart —the Hall of Independence — and at a gathering of a society founded “for promoting useful knowledge,” which has remained true to its principle, worthy of its founder, and which numbers many whose fame is equally great on both sides of the ocean. ”

“ The work of art offered by America to France will be sent to Paris to be harbored in that unique museum, her Museum of Medals, where her history is, so to say, written in gold and bronze, from the fifteenth century up to now, without any ruler, any great event, being omitted. ”