In September, 1776, Franklin was appointed envoy to France and
sailed soon afterwards. The envoys appointed to act with him
proved a handicap rather than a help, and the great burden of a
difficult and momentous mission was thus laid upon an old man of
seventy. But no other American could have taken his place. His
reputation in France was already made, through his books and
inventions and discoveries. To the corrupt and licentious court
he was the personification of the age of simplicity, which it was
the fashion to admire; to the learned, he was a sage; to the
common man he was the apotheosis of all the virtues; to the
rabble he was little less than a god. Great ladies sought his
smiles; nobles treasured a kindly word; the shopkeeper hung his
portrait on the wall; and the people drew aside in the streets
that he might pass without annoyance. Through all this adulation
Franklin passed serenely, if not unconsciously.
The French ministers were not at first willing to make a treaty
of alliance, but under Franklin's influence they lent money to
the struggling colonies. Congress sought to finance the war by
the issue of paper currency and by borrowing rather than by
taxation, and sent bill after bill to Franklin, who somehow
managed to meet them by putting his pride in his pocket, and
applying again and again to the French Government.
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