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By Root 1425 0

had made a game of predicting their particular story, would watch through the window as they emerged from elegant carriages, or climbed down from swaybacked horses. The sport was the only consolation to the assault on his intelligence, as though he was blind to their ambitions and their motivations for leaving France. No matter their performance, he created his own category of applicant. Some were fleeing some personal difficulty, usually an escape from a creditor. Others had personal problems of a different sort, usually involving one or more women, a mix of revenge or jealousy. Then there were the soldiers, and Franklin categorized them as either genuine or counterfeit. In either case, they poured forth their requests, cloaked in a well-rehearsed passion for the American cause. Franklin had come to dread the appearance of a man in uniform. The more finery on the man’s coat, the more outrageous his expectations. More than one man insisted on supplanting Washington himself, as though no American could possibly measure himself in the company of a Frenchman with obscure medals on his chest. Franklin was aware that Silas Deane had succumbed to these presentations, had annoyed congress with letters of introduction for some men who Franklin was convinced would never see any form of battlefield.

But not all the applicants for service had been pretenders, and Franklin had heard of the young man, this Marquis de Lafayette, a man whom King Louis considered so valuable to his own military that Lafayette could make the journey only by violating the king’s orders that he not go. The only way the young man could avoid the king’s decree, and the ship captains who would certainly obey it, was by purchasing a ship and hiring its crew with his own funds. It could have been the fancy of just another wealthy adventurer, but Franklin learned from his friends in the French court that if this particular young man was provided the opportunity, Washington himself might benefit from his service.

Lafayette had been the joyous exception, and Franklin had come to accept that if he was to accomplish any work at all, the reports to congress, even his personal letters, he must first usher the waiting applicants through his sitting room.

He welcomed the presence of Deane, could always depend on the younger man’s energy in hastening the process. For a long hour they had endured the angry spouting from a strange old man, and neither Franklin nor Deane had been able to grasp what the man was demanding, his French twisted by the man’s age and some infirmity of his speech. The man’s presentation was concluded by his exhaustion, and Deane had graciously escorted the man out to his carriage. Franklin waited for him in the parlor, and Deane returned, said, “Rather odd chap, that one. I heard something about horses, ‘Lord High’ horseman . . . or some such.”

Franklin moved toward the sitting room, said, “You understood more than I did. I could only gather something about wanting to command all the horses. Perhaps he was asking to be named major general of livestock. He could oversee the lieutenant of chickens, organize the goat brigade.” He settled into his chair, felt the giddy humor, the complete lack of patience for the process. He sighed, tested the soreness in his joints. “Just a pathetic old man, I suppose, whose good days are past. We should be more tolerant, Silas. But they do not make it easy.”

Deane sat across the room from him, looked into a teacup, sniffed, “Cold. More coffee, Doctor? I’ll retrieve it myself.”

“No, thank you.”

Deane was out of the chair already, disappeared toward the back of the house, and Franklin thought, He has learned a great deal. Not so impressed anymore by every man in a uniform. Not sure if that lesson has been learned by the congress, which must certainly give dismay to General Washington.

Deane returned, a steaming cup in his hand, and he stopped in the doorway, looked out through the front window.

“A carriage. I thought we had completed our punishment for today.”

Franklin heard the beat of the horses, listened more