“‘More thrilling words were never spoken by Demosthenes,’ I answered.  ’But how about Jones and his Bonne Homme Richard?  He is now a terror to the British coasts.  They would fear destruction.’

“‘I shall ask Jones to let them alone,’ he said.  ’They can come under a special flag.’

“Commodore Jones did not appear again in Paris until October, when he came to Passy to report upon a famous battle.

“I was eager to meet this terror of the coasts.  His impudent courage and sheer audacity had astonished the world.  The wonder was that men were willing to join him in such dare devil enterprises.

“I had imagined that Jones would be a tall, gaunt, swarthy, raw-boned, swearing man of the sea.  He was a sleek, silent, modest little man, with delicate hands and features.  He wished to be alone with the Doctor, and so I did not hear their talk.  I know that he needed money and that Franklin, having no funds, provided the sea fighter from his own purse.

“Commodore Jones had brought with him a cartload of mail from captured British ships.  In it were letters to me from Margaret.

“‘Now you are near me and yet there is an impassable gulf between us,’ she wrote.  ’We hear that the seas are overrun with pirates and that no ship is safe.  Our vessels are being fired upon and sunk.  I would not mind being captured by a good Yankee captain, if it were carefully done.  But cannons are so noisy and impolite!  I have a lot of British pluck in me, but I fear that you would not like to marry a girl who limped because she had been shot in the war.  And, just think of the possible effect on my disposition.  So before we start Doctor Franklin will have to promise not to fire his cannons at us.’

“I showed the letter to Franklin and he laughed and said: 

“’They will be treated tenderly.  The Commodore will convoy them across the channel.  I shall assure Hartley of that in a letter which will go forward today.’

“Anxious days are upon us.  Our money in America has become almost worthless and we are in extreme need of funds to pay and equip the army.  We are daily expecting a loan from the King of three million livres.  But Vergennes has made it clear to us that the government of France is itself in rather desperate straits.  The loan has been approved, but the treasury is waiting upon certain taxes not yet collected.  The moment the money is available the Prime Minister will inform us of the fact.

“On a fine autumn day we drove with the Prince of Conde in his great coach, ornamented with costly paintings, to spend a day at his country seat in Chantilly.  The palace was surrounded by an artificial canal; the gardens beautified with ponds and streams and islands and cascades and grottos and labyrinths, the latter adorned with graceful sculptures.  His stables were lined with polished woods; their windows covered with soft silk curtains.  Of such a refinement of luxury I had never dreamed.  Having seen at least a thousand beggars on the way, I was saddened by these rich, lavish details of a prince’s self-indulgence.