Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

To prove that I do not love you, my good Papa, you compare yourself to a beggar who asked alms from a bishop. Now, the role of a bishop is not to refuse to give to beggars when they are really in want; he honors himself in doing good. But in truth the kind of charity which you ask of me so amusingly can be found everywhere. You will not grow thin because of my refusals! What would you think of your beggar, if, the bishop having given him the ”louis” which he asked, he had grumbled because he did not get two? That, however, is your case, my good friend.

You adopted me as your daughter, I chose you for my father: what do you expect of me? Friends.h.i.+p! Well, I love you as a daughter should love her father. The purest, the most respectful, the tenderest affection for you fills my soul; you asked me for a ”louis”; I gave it to you, and yet you murmur at not getting another one, which does not belong to me. It is a treasure which has been entrusted to me, my good Papa; I guard it and will always guard it carefully. Even if you were like ”Colin sick,” in truth I could not cure you; and nevertheless, whatever you may think or say, no one in this world loves you more than I.

In this letter she puts him off with the teasing a.s.surance of friends.h.i.+p.

In another, written from Ma.r.s.eilles, it is with other charming women that she mocks him:

I received on my arrival here, my good Papa, your letter of October 1st. It has given me keen pleasure; I found in it evidences of your friends.h.i.+p and a tinge of that gayety and gallantry which make all women love you, because you love them all. Your proposition to carry me on your wings, if you were the angel Gabriel, made me laugh; but I would not accept it, although I am no longer very young nor a virgin. That angel was a sly fellow and your nature united to his would become too dangerous. I should be afraid of miracles happening, and miracles between women and angels might well not always bring a redeemer....

I have arranged, my good friend, to write alternately to my ”great neighbor” and to you; the one to whom I shall not have written will kindly tell the other that I love him with all my heart, and when your turn comes you will add an embrace for the good wife of our neighbor, for her daughter, for little Mother Caillot, for all the gentle and pretty women of my acquaintance whom you may meet. You see that not being able to amuse you, either by my singing or by chess, I seek to procure you other pleasures. If you had been at Avignon with us, it is there you would have wished to embrace people. The women there are charming; I thought of you every time I saw one of them. Adieu, my good Papa; I do not relate to you the details of my journey, as I have written of them to our neighbor, who will communicate them to you. I limit myself to a.s.suring you of the most constant and the tenderest friends.h.i.+p on my part.

At times the pursuer is too badly afflicted with gout in his legs to maintain the pursuit, and the pursued has to come to his a.s.sistance to keep the flirtation going:

How are you, my good Papa? Never has it cost me so much to leave you; every evening it seems to me that you would be very glad to see me, and every evening I think of you. On Monday, the 21st, I shall go to meet you again; I hope that you will then be very firm on your feet, and that the teas of Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day, and that of Sunday morning, will regain all their brilliance. I will bring you _la bonne eveque_. My fat husband will make you laugh, our children will laugh together, our great neighbor will quiz, the Abbes La Roche and Morellet will eat all the b.u.t.ter, Mme. Grand, her amiable niece, and M. Grand will help the company out, Pere Pagin will play _G.o.d of Love_ on his violin, I the march on the Piano, and you _Pet.i.ts Oiseaux_ on the armonica.

O! my friend, let us see in the future fine and strong legs for you, and think no more of the bad one that has persecuted you so much. After what is bad, one enjoys what is good more; life is sown with both, which she changes unceasingly. What she cannot keep from being equal and uniform is my tenderness for you, that time, place, and events will never alter.

My mother and all my family wish to be remembered to you.

I have had some news of you through our neighbor, but I must absolutely have some from you.

Amusingly enough, M. Brillon contributes his part to the restoration of the gouty legs to something like normal activity.

The visits of your good husband during my sickness [wrote Franklin to Madame Brillon] have been very agreeable to me. His conversation has eased and enlivened me. I regret that, instead of seeking it when I have been at your home, I have lost so much time in playing chess. He has many stories and always applies them well. If he has despoiled you of some, you can repeat them all the same, for they will always please me, coming from your mouth.

There is another letter from Madame Brillon to Franklin which drew a reply from him, in which he ascended into the Christian heaven with almost as much literary facility as marked his entrance into the Pagan Elysium. Her letter was written during an absence from home:

Here I am reduced to writing to you, my good Papa, and to telling you that I love you. It was sweeter no doubt to let you see it in my eyes. How am I going to spend the Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days? No teas, no chess, no music, no hope of seeing or embracing my good papa! It seems to me that the privation which I experience from your absence would suffice to make me change my views, were I inclined to materialism.

Happiness is so uncertain, so full of crosses, that the deep conviction that we shall be happier in another life can alone tide us over the trials of this one. In Paradise we shall be reunited, never to leave each other again! We shall there live on roasted apples only; the music will be made up of Scotch airs; all parties will be given over to chess, so that no one may be disappointed; every one will speak the same language; the English will be neither unjust nor wicked there; the women will not be coquettes, the men will be neither jealous nor too gallant; ”King John” will be left to eat his apples in peace; perhaps he will be decent enough to offer some to his neighbors--who knows? since we shall want for nothing in paradise! We shall never suffer from gout or nervous troubles there.

Mr. Mesmer will content himself with playing on the armonica, without wearying us with the electric fluid; ambition, envy, sn.o.bbery, jealousy, prejudice, all these will vanish at the sound of the trumpet. A lasting, sweet and peaceful friends.h.i.+p will animate every gathering. Every day we shall love one another, in order that we may love one another still more the day after; in a word, we shall be completely happy. In the meantime, let us get all the good we can out of this poor world of ours. I am far from you, my good Papa; I look forward to the time of our meeting, and I am pleased to think that your regrets and desires equal mine.

My mother and my children send you a thousand tender messages of respect; we should all like to have you here. May I venture to ask you to remember us to your grandson?

And this was the deft reply of Franklin which has come down to us in French corrected by Madame Brillon's hand:

Since you have a.s.sured me that we shall meet each other again, and shall recognize each other, in Paradise, I have reflected continually on our arrangements in that country; for I have great confidence in your a.s.surances, and I believe implicitly what you believe.

Probably more than forty years will pa.s.s away, after my arrival there, before you will follow me. I fear a little that, in the course of such a long time, you may forget me; that is why I have had thoughts of proposing to you that you give me your word that you will not renew your contract with M. Brillon. I would give you mine at the same time to wait for you, but this monsieur is so good, so generous to us--he loves you--and we him--so well--that I can not think of this proposition without some scruples of conscience--however the idea of an eternity, in which I should not be more favored than to be allowed to kiss your hands, or your cheeks occasionally, and to pa.s.s two or three hours in your sweet society at Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day evening parties, is frightful. In fine, I can not make that proposal, but since, like all who know you, I desire to see you happy in every respect, we may agree to say nothing more about it at this time, and to leave you at liberty to decide, when we are all together again: there to determine the question as you deem best for your happiness and ours; but, determine it as you will, I feel that I shall love you eternally.

Should you reject me, perhaps, I shall pay my addresses to Madame D'Hardancourt (the mother of Madame Brillon), who might be glad to keep house for me. In that event I should pa.s.s my domestic hours agreeably with her; and I should be better prepared to see you. I should have enough time in those forty years there to practise on the armonica, and, perhaps, I should play well enough to be worthy to accompany your pianoforte. We should have little concerts from time to time, good father Pagin would be of the company, your neighbor and his dear family [M. Jupin], M. de Chaumont, M. B., M.

Jourdan, M. Grammont, Madame du Tartre, the little mother, and some other select friends will be our audience, and the dear, good girls, accompanied by some other young angels, whose portraits you have already given me, will sing hallelujahs with us; we shall eat together apples of Paradise, roasted with b.u.t.ter and nutmeg; and we shall pity them who are not dead.

In another letter, he complains that she shuts him out from everything except a few civil and polite kisses such as she might give to some of her small cousins.

All this, however, was but preliminary to the treaty, which the signer of the Treaty of Alliance between France and the United States formally submitted to her in this letter.

Among the articles of this treaty were to be these:

Article 6. And the said Mr. F. on his part stipulates and covenants that he is to call at the home of M'de B.

as often as he pleases.