"'Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus.'"
[Illustration: FRANKLIN RELICS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA]
One of the cleverest letters Franklin wrote while in France was addressed to an old English friend, Mrs. Thompson, who had called him a rebel. "You are too early, _hussy_" he says, "as well as too saucy, in calling me _rebel_; you should wait for the event, which will determine whether it is a _rebellion_ or only a _revolution_. Here the ladies are more civil; they call us _les insurgens_, a character that usually pleases them." He continues chaffing her, and describes himself as wearing his own hair in France, where every one else had on a great powdered wig. If they would only dismiss their _friseurs_ and give him half the money they pay to them, "I could then enlist these _friseurs_, who are at least one hundred thousand, and with the money I would maintain them, make a visit with them to England, and dress the heads of your ministers and privy councillors, which I conceive at present to be _un peu dérangées_. Adieu, madcap; and believe me ever, your affectionate friend and humble servant."
In the large house of M. de Chaumont, which he occupied, he, of course, had his electrical apparatus, and played doctor by giving electricity to paralytic people who were brought to him. On one occasion he made the wrong contact, and fell to the floor senseless. He had, also, a small printing-press with type made in the house by his own servants, and he used it to print the little essays with which he amused his friends.
His friendships in France seem to have been mostly among elderly people. There are only a few traces of his fondness for young girls, and we find none of those pleasant intimacies such as he enjoyed with Miss Ray, Miss Stevenson, or the daughters of the Bishop of St. Asaph. Unmarried women in France were too much restricted to be capable of such friendships even with an elderly man. But among his papers in the collection of the American Philosophical Society there is a letter written by some French girl who evidently had taken a fancy to him and playfully insisted on calling herself his daughter.
"god Bess liberty! I drunk with all my heart to the republick of the united provinces. I am prepared to my departure if you will and if it possible. give me I pray you leave to go. I shall be happy of to live under the laws of venerable good man richard. adieu my dear father I am with the most respect and tenderness