OxN Receiving Franklin Medal ioi 



The work of art offered by America to France will be 

 sent to Paris to be harbored in that unique museum, our 

 Museum of Medals, where French history is, so to say, 

 written in gold and bronze, from the fifteenth century 

 up to now, without any ruler, any great event, being 

 omitted. Some of the American past is also written 

 there: that period so glorious when the histories of 

 France and America were the same history, when first 

 rose a nation that has never since ceased to rise. 



There, awaiting your gift, are preserved medals 

 struck in France at the very time of the events, in honor 

 of Washington, to commemorate the relief of Boston in 

 1776; a medal to John Paul Jones in honor of his naval 

 campaign of 1779; another medal representing Wash- 

 ington, and one representing General Howard, to com- 

 memorate the battle of Cowpens in 1781 ; one to cele- 

 brate the peace of 1783 and the freedom of the thirteen 

 States; one of La Fayette; one of Suffren, who fought 

 so valiantly on distant seas for the same cause as Wash- 

 ington; one, lastly, of Franklin himself, dated 1784, 

 bearing the famous inscription composed in honor of the 

 great man by Turgot: " Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrum- 

 que tyrannis." 



My earnest hope is that one of the next medals to be 

 struck and added to the series will be one to commemo- 

 rate the resurrection of that great town which now, at 



