1901.] ROSENGAKTEN — FRANKLIX's BAGATELLES. 131 



license with his ready pen. Bigelow has labored hard to restore 

 Franklin's Autobiography as he wrote it, and not as it was printed 

 with corrections from the hand of Temple Franklin and his co- 

 laborers in editing it. Ford and McMaster and Fisher have 

 endeavored to set before their readers the real Franklin, and Parton 

 dwells affectionately on his life in Paris, where he was the centre of 

 a group of admirers, who carried their flattery to a point that 

 shocked his sober-minded colleagues. 



It was characteristic of Franklin that he used his position as a man 

 of science and as a man of letters to advance the interests of his coun- 

 try, to forward its cause, and to cement that alliance which secured 

 for the American colonies the vast resources of the French Govern- 

 ment, its army, its navy, and its representatives, Lafayette, Rocham- 

 beau and the many other gallant soldiers and sailors, who both by 

 their deeds and by their writings helped to make the young republic 

 known abroad, and to bring here many of those who have contributed 

 its best elements to our population. The friends of Franklin in Paris 

 included Voltaire, Hume, Turgot, Marmontel, d'Holbach, Le Roy, 

 the Abbes Morellet and La Roche ; all these are mentioned in the 

 letter to the last printed in Vol. 5, p. 283, of the edition of his 

 works, London, 1819. Then Mme. Helvetius, Mme. Brillon and 

 a number of other clever women belonged to the little knot of his 

 intimate friends for whom these "Bagatelles" were written. In 

 the voluminous collection of Franklin's Papers in the Library of the 

 American Philosophical Society are evidences of the care with 

 which he preserved his papers. These show the pains he took to 

 have his " Bagatelles " translated into French good enough to 

 withstand the criticism of his French friends, while he no doubt 

 sought in this way to improve his own knowledge and mastery of 

 the French language, so that he could both write and speak it. 

 Thus in Vol. 45, No. 149^2, is a draft of a letter, on the right in 

 English, on the left in French, but the latter corrected in red ink 

 in another hand than that of the first draft of the translation ; it 

 is dated Passy, November 16, 1779^ an d is The Story of the Whistle, 

 which has passed into the popular use of all reading people of all 

 countries. Under date of April 8, 1784 (Vol. 45, No. 181) is a letter 

 to Mme, Brillon, enclosing copies of "Bagatelles," and his cor- 

 respondence with her is largely preserved in one of these seventy 

 bulky volumes. Another "Bagatelle," The Ephemera, in Vol. 50, 

 No. 39#, is in two manuscript versions in French, perhaps by M. 



