John French

“ Franklin loved the French, he could smile at their foibles, in dressing their hair so that they could not wear a hat, but were compelled to carry it under their arms; also in filling their noses with tobacco. “These,” said he, “are mere follies. There is nothing wanting, in the character of a Frenchman, that belongs to that of an agreeable and worthy man.”
It may perhaps be mentioned, as a defect in the character of Franklin, that when in France he could see nothing but the beautiful. ”

“ The question arose as to who should lead the English expeditionary force so sorely needed to stem the tide of the German legions as it rolled over an outraged Belgium [Pg 117] and an unprepared France. There was never any doubt as to whom the great task should be entrusted. Sir John French was obviously the man for the task.
A CAPABLE STAFF
Fate pointed to him not only as the greatest active military leader in this country, but as the one man possessing the peculiar qualities called for in this campaign. ”

“ In a year or two, or perhaps even sooner, we shall return to Paris, where we shall continue our Breton cloth commerce. Such, at least, is my intention and that of my dear wife and her mother."
"Hurrah! May your plan be realized, the sooner the better, my dear friend. Then we shall no longer be reduced to a correspondence for consolation."
"Your last letters," replied John, "decided me to come to Paris, seeing the Republic was in danger of perishing. I think I could be useful to you in such a case, and also perhaps to the Republic, by still pulling a trigger against her enemies." ”

“ May the Lord bless and prosper him in an employment which he allowed him to desire so strongly.
John returned to London from Virginia, in May, 1719, and soon after came home to us, and remained rather more than a year, when he accompanied Francis to London. Francis had been devoted to study from infancy, and had determined to be a preacher of the gospel, he had taken his degree of Master of Arts, and was well skilled in the Oriental languages, as well as in all the more usual branches of college education. ”

“ The same lesson was being taught the British public at another section of the battle front. Its soldiers not only were unable to maintain a successful artillery fire, but the fact became so impressed on the German mind that the Teutons in the Ypres and Lille regions felt assured that their infantry had the British at their mercy. Sir John French, however, had a clever knowledge of human nature. He began his efforts to remedy the difficulty by telling the war correspondents his troubles. They spread (p. 134) the news. ”

“ There is nothing of the jealous and erratic genius about French. To read his dispatches is to find praise lavishly given to subordinates but no mention of self. For he looks after his assistants and leaves his own record to fate. He has, indeed, mastered the art of being great enough to allow others to be great. Hence the excellence which always marks his General Staff. ”

“ But the best medicine that Franklin ever obtained from Sir John was his companionship upon two continental tours, one of which was inspired by the latter's desire to drink the waters at Pyrmont, and the other by the attractions of the French capital. When the news of Sir John's death reached Franklin at Passy he paid the usual heartfelt tribute. "We have lost our common Friend," he wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "the excellent Pringle. ”

“ France had given Franklin. They fully comprehended its significance. France was in sympathy with the Americans, in their heroic endeavor to escape from the despotism of the British crown. Thus the traffic which had enriched England, would be transferred to France.
Even the Earl of Chatham said, in one of the most eloquent of his speeches,
“France, my lords, has insulted you. She has encouraged and sustained America. And whether America be wrong or right, the dignity of this country ought to spurn at the officiousness of the French interference. ”

“ Honesty we have of our own; but Frankness we must learn of these: nay, all the western nations of us are in a few centuries more to be known by this name of Frank. Franks, of Paris that is to be, in time to come; but French of Paris is in year of grace 500 an unknown tongue in Paris, as much as in Stratford-att-ye-Bowe. French of Amiens is the kingly and courtly form of Christian speech, Paris lying yet in Lutetian clay, to develope into tile-field, perhaps, in due time. Here, by soft-glittering Somme, reign Clovis and his Clotilde. ”

“ It may be noted, that the summoning by the barons of a French prince to assume the crown of England indicates that, up to the end of the reign of King John, there can scarcely have existed in the country much of the deeply rooted anti-French feeling, which, for many centuries afterwards, played so important a part in the relations between the two Powers. ”

“ The only person who passes for a Frenchman is one of our American fellow-travellers, who has grown a most venerable beard; but, as he pronounces French just as if it were English, and calls Dijon ‘Dee John,’ he is afraid to open his mouth for fear of being convicted as an impostor immediately. ”

“ Needless to say "Uncle French" and his men hugely enjoyed the correspondent's awakening.
Such a man is bound to be the idol of the ranks. "What a good leader General French is," wrote Driver Payne, of the Royal Horse Artillery, to a friend. "He seems so cool at excitable moments; he does not lose his head and rush his men into danger. In fact, he always looks before he leaps, and when he does leap, he makes us move—and the Boers too." Perhaps French was best summed-up one day by a trooper whom, in a curt word, he had just sentenced to barracks for some offence. ”

“ Is lineally descended from Patrick Fitz-Stephen French, who died at Dungar (now called French Park) co. Roscommon, Ireland, in the year 1600, and was a junior branch of the family of de Berneval, originally from Lower Brittany, in France, and allied to the dukes of that province. ”

“ King Florus held her for three years, but never might have child of her. But here the tale holdeth peace of King Florus, and betaketh it again to Sir Robin, and to John who were at Marseilles.
Here telleth the tale that much sorry was Sir Robin when he came to Marseilles, whereas he heard tell of nought toward in the country; so he said to John: “What do we? Thou hast lent me of thy moneys, whereof I thank thee: I will give them back to thee, for I will sell my palfrey, and quit me toward thee.” “Sir,” said John, “if it please thee, believe me, and I shall tell thee what we shall do. ”

“ He is a moral person, and makes war upon his neighbor for the maintenance of peace and good order, and sound principles. He is a money-making personage, and fights for the prosperity of commerce and manufactures. Thus the two nations have been fighting, time out of mind, for glory and good. The French, in pursuit of glory, have had their capital twice taken; and John, in pursuit of good, has run himself over head and ears in debt.
THE TUILERIES AND WINDSOR CASTLE
I have sometimes fancied I could discover national characteristics in national edifices. ”

“ but I even then felt, though without stating it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank sociability and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the English mode of existence, in which everybody acts as if everybody else (with few, or no exceptions) was either an enemy or a bore. ”

“ There, in the happy days when dear Monsieur John was young, and the eighteenth century old, she had often repaired under guard of her mother—dead now, alas!—and Monsieur John would slip away from the dull play and dry society of Théâtre d'Orléans, and come around with his crowd of elegant friends; and through the long sweet hours of the ball she had danced, and laughed, and coquetted under her satin mask, even to the baffling and tormenting of that prince of gentlemen, dear Monsieur John himself. No man of questionable blood dare set his foot within the door. ”

“ and the French revolution will be found to have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the subsequent political transactions of the United States. ”

“ France, the France of the Revolution, the France that belongs to its people, will not fall."
John looked at him with a new interest. Here was a peasant, but a thinking peasant, and there were millions like him in France. They were not really peasants in the old sense of the word, but workingmen with a stake in the country, and the mind and courage to defend it. It might be possible to beat the army of a nation, but not a nation in arms.
"No, Picard," said John, "France will not fall." ”

“ THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR’S ANSWER 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. ”

“ It has become a den of Italians, who sell fuel by daylight, and by night are up to no telling what extent of deviltry. This was once the home of a gay gentleman, whose first name happened to be John. He was a member of the Good Children Social Club. As his parents lived with him, his wife would, according to custom, have been called Madame John but he had no wife. His father died, then his mother; last of all, himself. As he is about to be off, in comes Madame John, with 'Tïte Poulette, then an infant, on her arm.
"Zalli," said he, "I am going." ”

“ But it was mainly the spell of La Belle France herself, with her cordial appeal to his delight in existence, which finally produced the state of mutual affection that enabled him to say with truth that he loved the French and that they loved him. What this meant to our cause we can easily divine when we remember how wholly some of the colleagues of Franklin [Pg 252] failed to recommend themselves to the good will of the people, whose good will it was of the utmost concern to America that they should conciliate, or to abstain from untimely dissensions. ”

“ Referring to a visit that he paid to John at Newport, Franklin says in the Autobiography, "He received me very affectionately, for he always lov'd me." When John died in 1756 at the age of sixty-five, some years after his brother Benjamin had thoughtfully devised a special catheter for his use, the latter wrote to his sister Jane, "I condole with you on the loss of our dear brother. As our number grows less, let us love one another proportionably [Pg 280] more." John's widow he made postmistress at Boston in her husband's place. ”

“ Franci smiled like an angel, and the moment the Skipper's back was turned, made frightful grimaces at the boy, and threatened his life. But John was too happy to be afraid of Franci. Going boldly up to him, he asked,—
"Why don't you like me, and why do you want to kill me? I never did you any harm, and I should like to be friends, please."
The Spaniard looked at him sidelong out of his soft, sleepy eyes.
"Have you understanding?" he asked presently. "Have you intelligence to accept the idea of a person of poetry, of soul?" ”

“ That Franklin, when he came to Paris, as the representative of a country, which was not only at war with the hereditary enemy of France, but had fearlessly avowed general political sentiments, that France herself was eager to avow, should, with his fame, simple manners and social charm, have excited for a time the surpassing enthusiasm which he did is not surprising; for what the French ardently admire they usually festoon with fireworks and crown with flowers ”

“ The young man watched the opposite window steadily and painfully from early in the afternoon until the moon shone bright; and from the time the moon shone bright until Madame John!—joy!—Madame John! and not 'Tite Poulette, stepped through the wicket, much dressed and well muffled, and hurried off toward the Rue Condé. Madame John was the "young lady;" and the young man's mind, glad to return to its own unimpassioned affairs, relapsed into quietude. ”

“ Well, he was a bright, pleasant boy. He soon learned to speak English; and I and my sisters and brothers became very fond of him. He would have been very happy, but for one thing. He longed to see his little brother John, whom he had parted with at Toulon.
One day, to his great delight, Bernard received a letter from his father, [Pg 13] telling him that John was also to be sent to America, and that he would take passage from Marseilles by the first vessel bound for Boston.
At that time there were no steamships and no regular packets from Europe. The only way of coming was by a merchant-vessel. ”

“ At last, I saw Frank's mark, and he saw mine. I can tell you we were both angry enough. Now we want to be revenged on John Green, and have a capital plan. You see he will be on his guard, and we must be very cunning. To-morrow is exhibition day, and he will have on his best dark-green jacket, and Frank and I are to sit one on each side of him. ”

“ Sir John found on reaching England that there was about to be a renewal of polar research, and that the confidence of the admiralty in him was undiminished, as was shown by his being offered the command of an expedition for the discovery of a North-West Passage to the Pacific. This offer he accepted. The prestige of Arctic service and of his former experiences attracted a crowd of volunteers of all classes, from whom were selected a body of officers conspicuous for talent and energy. ”