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President Stiles interpreted the sentiments of the collegiate institutions of the city in a Latin eulogy. On motion of Mr. Madison, it was unanimously resolved by Congress, then sitting in New York, "that the members should wear the customary badge of mourning for one month, as a mark of due veneration to the memory of a citizen whose native genius was not more an ornament to human nature than his various exertions of it have been precious to science, to freedom, and to his country."

A more unusual, if not more flattering, homage was paid to the memorv of the deceased by the National Assembly of France.

On the morning after the news reached Paris, June 11th, Mirabeau rose and addressed the Assembly as follows:

"Franklin is dead!

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The genius, which gave freedom to America, and scattered torrents of light upon Europe, is returned to the bosom of the Divinity.

The sage, whom two worlds claim; the man, disputed by the history of the sciences and the history of empires, holds, most undoubtedly, an elevated rank among the human species.

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Political cabinets have but too long notified the death of those who were never great but in their funeral orations; the etiquette of courts has but too long sanctioned hypocritical grief. Nations ought only to mourn for their benefactors; the representatives of free men ought never to recommend any other than the heroes of humanity to their homage.

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The Congress hath ordered a general mourning for one month throughout the fourteen confederated States, on account of the death of Franklin; and America hath thus acquitted her tribute of admiration in behalf of one of the fathers of her Constitution.

"Would it not be worthy of you, fellow-legislators, to unite yourselves in this religious act, to participate in this homage rendered in the face of the universe to the rights of man, and to the philosopher who has so eminently propagated the conquest of them throughout the world?

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Antiquity would have elevated altars to that mortal, who for the advantage of the human race, embracing both heaven and earth in his vast and extensive mind, knew how to subdue thunder and tyranny.

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Enlightened and free, Europe at least owes its remembrance and its regret to one of the greatest men who has ever served the cause of philosophy and of liberty.

"I propose, that a decree do now pass, enacting, that the National Assembly shall wear mourning during three days for Benjamin Franklin." La Rochefoucauld and Lafayette rose immediately to second the motion of the orator, which was adopted by acclamation. It was further resolved that the discourse of Mirabeau should be printed, and that the President of the Assembly, the Abbé Sieyes, should address a letter of condolence to the Congress of the United States.

VOL. III.-40

The name of Benjamin Franklin," said President Sieyes, in fulfilling the instructions of the Assembly, "will be immortal in the records of freedom and philosophy; but it is more particularly dear to a country where, conducted by the most sublime mission, this venerable man knew how very soon to acquire an infinite number of friends and admirers, as well by the simplicity and sweetness of his manners, as by the purity of his principles, the extent of his knowledge, and the charms of his mind."

To this letter, in compliance with the instructions of Congress, President Washington sent a reply, in which he said that "so peculiar and so signal an expression of the esteem of so respectable a body for a citizen of the United States, whose eminent and patriotic services are indelibly engraved on the minds of his countrymen, cannot fail to be appreciated by them as it ought to be."

Two days after the decree of the National Assembly, M. de la Rochefoucauld read to the "Society of 1789" a paper on the Life and Character of Franklin. The Commune of Paris also ordered a celebration in his honor, and invited the Abbé Fauchet to deliver a eulogy of the deceased, of which they sent twenty-six copies to Congress. Condorcet pronounced an elaborate eulogy also before the Académie des Sciences, on the 13th November. The printers of Paris testified their sense of the loss their calling had sustained by assembling in a large hall, in presence of a column surmounted by a bust of Franklin, with a civic crown upon his head, and surrounded by printers, cases, types, press, &c. And while one of their number delivered a eulogy, they printed it on the spot, and delivered copies of it to the vast concourse attracted by the occasion.

The Council General of Passy, now one of the most attractive parts of the city of Paris, testified its respect for Franklin's memory by giving his name to one of its principal streets within less than a year after his decease, the impulse, no doubt, of his old friend Le Veillard, who was then mayor of that place. The motives for this step are officially set forth in the following extract from the official register, which was kindly furnished the editor by the custodian des Archives de la Bibliothèque et des Travaux historiques, at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris, in 1866:

On Saturday, the third of September, of the year seventeen hundred and ninety-one, at seven o'clock in the morning.

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The council-general offers no opposition to the execution of the decree relating to the inscriptions of the names of the streets, while observing that the old denominations be followed, with the exception of that running from the Grande Rue to the heretofore barrier of the Ladies of St. Mary, which not yet having received any name shall bear that of Franklin, in perpetual remembrance to the inhabitants of this municipality of the long sojourn of that eminent man in this parish."

As the register from which the foregoing is an extract was destroyed

with the Hôtel de Ville in 1871, and as there is probably no other ecord of this interesting deliberation now in existence save that from which I quote, I need offer no apology for giving the authenticated record at length in these pages.

Secrétariat général, 3e Section, 3e Bureau.

PRÉFECTURE DU DÉPARTEMENT DE LA SEINE.

Exposé des motifs qui ont fait donner le nom de Franklin à une des rues de la commune de Passy.

D'un régistre déposé aux archives de la Préfecture de la Seine, contenant Les déliberations du Conseil général de la commune de Passy et portant au commencement la date du 3 Juillet 1791, a été extrait ce qui suit:

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L'an mil sept cent quatre-vingt-onze, le samedi trois Septembre sept heures de relevée. * * Le Conseil général ne s'oppose pas à ce que l'arrêt relatif au jour pris pour la perception et celui relatif aux inscriptions des noms de rues soient exécutés, en observant à l'égard des rues, que les anciennes dénominations soient suivies, à l'exception de celle allant de la grande rue à la cydevant Barrière des Dames Sainte-Marie, laquelle, n'ayant point encore de nom, portera celui de Franklin, pour rappeler à perpetuité aux habitants de cette municipalité le long séjour de ce grand homme sur la paroisse. * *

Signé au régistre:

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LEVEILLARD (Maire).

DUSSAULT et PERISEUX (Officiers municipaux).
TOUSSAINT, GIRANDIER, DANDUMONT, HUSSON,
HARROEL et OLLIVIER (Notables).

Certifié conforme à l'original.

Le chef de la section des archives de la bibliothèque et des travaux historiques. CHARLES READ.

"In withdrawing Franklin at this period," says Ste.-Beuve (" Causeries de Lundi," vol. vii.), " and in relieving him of the two or three following years on the earth, Providence spared him the horror of seeing those he had most known and loved during his sojourn in France, snatched away by violent deaths, the 'good duke' de la Rochefoucauld, Lavoisier, his neighbor Le Veillard, and so many others, all guillotined or massacred in the name of the very principles they had themselves most favored and cherished. The last thought of Franklin would then have been shrouded in funereal gloom, and his serene soul, before that second birth for which he hoped, had ex.perienced the extremity of bitterness."-ED.

CHAPTER XIV.

Franklin's Last Will and Testament-His Epitaph.

1790.

I, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of Philadelphia, printer, late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of France, now President of the State of Pennsylvania, do make and declare my last will and testament as follows.

To my son, William Franklin, late Governor of the Jerseys, I give and devise all the lands I hold or have a right to, in the Province of Nova Scotia, to hold to him, his heirs and assigns for ever. I also give to him all my books and papers, which he has in his possession, and all debts standing against him on my account books, willing that no payment for, nor restitution of, the same be required of him by my executors. The part he acted against me in the late war, which is of public notoriety, will account for my leaving him no more of an estate he endeavoured to deprive me of.*

This part of Franklin's will was prepared about two years before his death. His estate was then estimated to be fairly worth about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

He never saw his son William after they separated at Southampton, in

Having since my return from France demolished the three houses in Market Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, fronting my dwelling house, and erected two new and larger ones on the ground, and having also erected another house on the lot which formerly was the passage to my dwelling, and also a printing office between my dwelling and the front houses; now I do give and devise my said dwelling house, wherein I now live,* my said three new houses, my printing office and the lots of ground thereto belonging; also my small lot and house in Sixth Street, which I bought of the widow Henmarsh; also my pasture ground which I have in Hickory Lane, with the buildings thereon; also my house and lot on the north side of Market Street, now occupied by Mary Jacobs, together with two houses and lots behind the same, and fronting on PewterPlatter Alley; also my lot of ground in Arch Street, oppo site the church burying ground, with the buildings thereon erected; also all my silver plate, pictures, and household goods, of every kind, now in my said dwelling house, to my daughter, Sarah Bache, and to her husband, Richard Bache, to hold to them for and during their natural lives, and the life of the longest liver of them. And from and after the decease of the survivor of them, I do give, devise, and bequeath to all children already born, or to be born of my said daughter, and to their heirs and assigns for ever, as tenants in common, and not as joint tenants.

1785, nor does it appear that they ever held any correspondence with each other subsequent to that event. The ex-governor continued to reside in London, and attained the ripe age of eighty-two years. After the war he married a second time, but there is no evidence that he left any issue by these nuptials.-ED.

*The dwelling-house in which Franklin died was torn down in 1812, and the carriage-way which led to it is now called Franklin Court.—ED.

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