A Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff

Author:Stacy Schiff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2005-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

The supplies that Washington and Lafayette had every reason to believe would turn up daily were still in France. Having made two false starts, Jones and the Ariel were again in Lorient; the Lafayette was not yet loaded. It was amply clear to Franklin that there was to be no relief in sight from his end for the American winter. He did not succumb to despair but did succumb, just after Jones’s second return, to a disabling attack of gout. For the next three weeks he barely stirred from his bed, where he was much visited by Madame Helvétius’s devoted houseguest, the poetry-writing Cabanis. The mild-mannered medical student in part explained how Franklin survived those wretched weeks. For him Franklin trotted out his earliest memories and pet theories, an oral preview of the Autobiography. He explained that he considered ill humor a vice. To prove his point he penned an essay, ably translated by his attentive visitor. In “The Deformed and Handsome Leg,” Franklin noted that the world divided into two camps. To some, defects were always more pronounced than were beauties. Franklin advised steering clear of those discontents, “particularly when one finds oneself entangled in their quarrels.” Typically, he believed a peevish disposition could be corrected. It amounted to nothing more than a bad habit.

He was proud of the piece, which he submitted to Madame Brillon. As ever she proved an inspiration, on the page if not in person. Throughout the fall she too was confined to bed, by nerves. The correspondence along the rue Basse flourished accordingly, with Monsieur Brillon as go-between. Franklin found the arrangement unsatisfactory; he wished he had wings to carry his friend off, or at least to peck at her window. He missed her dearly. From her sickbed Madame Brillon sent Franklin a fable, “The Sage and the Gout,” a piece he much admired. Its hero eats lustily, exercises infrequently, and devotes an inordinate amount of time to chess and the ladies, for which the gout takes him to task. Franklin could hardly quibble with the assessment but could improve on it; chaste though it remained, the relationship proved as fertile as ever. At midnight on October 22 he picked up his pen to compose “The Dialogue Between the Gout and Mr. Franklin.” He had a score of his own to settle with Madame Gout. Did she really need not only to torment him but to slander him as well? She made him appear a gourmand and a drunkard. Those indulgences, counters Franklin’s quick-witted scourge, were perfectly acceptable in a man who exercised reasonably. Franklin did no such thing. A Valentinois morning consisted of a few sedentary hours given to books and worthless newspapers, followed by a hearty breakfast. Then Franklin would settle in at his desk, immobile until lunch. And what then of the Brillons’ magnificent one hundred steps? Franklin had spent three hours at that household several times a week all summer, installing himself on the upper terrace, extolling the magnificent view,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.