The Glorious Cause - Jeff Shaara [109]
When Lee reached Paris, he initiated an immediate conflict with Silas Deane, and a small flood of letters from Lee was already sailing to Philadelphia. Deane’s offense had been to carry on business negotiations without Lee’s involvement. It was the worst kind of wound to a man like Arthur Lee. He was accusing Deane of ignoring him.
Deane was deeply immersed in a complicated arrangement for French loans that had to be funneled secretly through a private company. Franklin trusted Deane, and by the time he had reached Paris, he understood that Deane’s negotiations were nearly complete, and the transfer of funds to congress was already in progress. He welcomed Deane’s talents in the areas of high finance, and Deane returned the favor by suggesting that Franklin serve as the spokesman for the commission, an obvious choice, since Franklin was quite simply the most famous American in the world. Once again, Arthur Lee’s prickly sensitivity was bruised.
With his grandsons firmly in the care of motherly hands, Franklin began to focus on his mission. They did not have long to wait, the first official welcome coming to Franklin’s hotel, an invitation for their first meeting at the French Foreign Ministry.
JANUARY 9, 1777
The man’s name was Charles Gravier, and he carried the title of the Count of Vergennes, had held the position as the Minister of Foreign Affairs to King Louis XVI since the young king’s ascension to the throne barely two years earlier. Vergennes was an immensely intelligent and charming man, and had become an immediate favorite of both Louis and the young king’s Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette. Louis had inherited a court divided in its support for the American cause, but Vergennes had been firmly on the side of the Americans from the beginning. His opposition had come mainly from the stubbornness of the conservative finance minister, Baron Turgot. But Turgot was soon replaced, the young king showing no patience for disagreements in his court. Though Vergennes brought the support of his king to the negotiating table, Franklin believed that there must still be some discomfort for a well-entrenched monarch like Louis. The only news from America was a dismal report of loss and retreat by the American army. It would certainly be inappropriate to ask the French for a commitment of troops or a fleet of ships. Louis would be cautious, hesitant to risk a war with England by granting full support to a rebel army that had yet to prove it could stand up against the might of the British.
Franklin was concerned as well that the issue at the very core of their negotiations was independence for a people who were struggling to throw off the yoke of their own monarch. Whatever value Vergennes placed on American independence, George III and Louis XVI were of the same mold. England and France were traditional enemies, and Louis might delight in King George’s crisis, but if the Americans were successful, the passion for independence might spread, and every monarch in Europe might suddenly find himself immersed in a revolution of his own. It was a delicate political reality, and Franklin knew that Vergennes would have to tread carefully. There was indeed a game to be played.
VERGENNES HAD NOT YET ARRIVED, AND THE AMERICANS HAD BEEN