Lesson 11:Ben Franklin Goes to Paris

y Eric Oatman
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Ben Franklin
Goes to Paris
by Eric Oatman
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A Fresh Start
In the spring of 1775, Ben Franklin felt like a
failure. He was in London trying to get the British
to let its thirteen American colonies run their own
affairs. But the British wouldn’t listen to him.
Finally, he gave up and sailed home to
Philadelphia. There, some shocking news awaited
him. American and British soldiers were killing
each other! The Revolutionary War had begun.
Franklin joined the Continental Congress the
day after he got home. Meeting in Philadelphia,
the Congress was made up of 61 men, or delegates.
They had come to Philadelphia as representatives
for their colonies. Change was in the air, and
Franklin wanted to be a part of it.
When Franklin lived
there, Philadelphia
was the largest city
in the colonies.
2

Benjamin Franklin helped write the Declaration of
Independence. In the group of standing men he is
farthest right.
On July 4, 1776, Congress took a giant step.
They voted to break all ties with Britain and to
set up a new nation. They had declared their
independence, but how would they win it?
The British had the strongest army in the
world while the Americans had one of the
weakest. The Americans were short of guns,
gunpowder, ships, and money to pay their soldiers.
Clearly, the Patriots needed the aid of another
country, and fast. In September, Franklin’s fellow
delegates asked him to go to France to seek help.
3

On to Paris
Franklin was 70 years old in 1776, and his
health was not good. “I am old and good for
nothing,” he told a friend. But he wanted to help
his country, so he agreed to go to Paris.
He took his two oldest grandsons with him.
Temple Franklin was 17 years old, and Benny
Bache was seven.
Franklin tried to keep his plans secret because
Philadelphia was filled with British spies. The
British would hang him if they caught him going
to France. It was a dangerous time for Franklin.
The day before they sailed, Franklin and the
boys pretended they were going on a short ride,
hoping to fool any spies watching them. But their
true mission was to drive to the shore to embark
on their secret voyage to France.
4

They sailed in a U.S. Navy ship that was
cramped and smelly, and the ocean was rough.
They braved storms and rotten food.
After five weeks at sea, the voyage finally
ended. Quickly Franklin and his grandsons
journeyed to Paris, the capital of France.
When Franklin sailed, British warships patrolled
the ocean. They almost caught his ship.
5

The French treated Franklin like a rock star.
To them, he was a man of many talents. He was
a scientist, a writer, and a thinker. His plain
clothes and talk appealed to the French. While
rich Frenchmen wore powdered wigs, Franklin
wore a round fur cap or went bareheaded.
Instead of fancy velvet clothes, he wore a simple
brown suit made of rough cloth.
Franklin and the boys got to Paris four days
before Christmas. Hundreds of Parisians lined
the city’s narrow streets to cheer. Congress had
sent the right man to ask the French for help.
The French loved
Franklin’s fur cap,
eyeglasses, and
plain brown suit.
6

Digging In
Franklin settled in a
village just outside Paris in a
huge house. There he set up
his office and printing press.
The house sat on the
banks of the river Seine,
where Franklin swam every
day. Temple sometimes
swam with him. He worked
as his grandfather’s unpaid
secretary. Benny went to live
at a nearby school, where he
learned to speak French.
Even though the French loved him, Franklin
had been handed a difficult job. Not wasting any
Deane first went to Paris
as a spy. He helped Franklin
gain French support.
time, Franklin got down to work with the two men
whom Congress had sent to help him. One was
Silas Deane from Connecticut. The other was
Arthur Lee of Virginia.
Deane had been in Paris for five months and
had already bought cannons, gunpowder, rifles,
and clothes for 30,000 soldiers. The French
government helped set up a fake company
to ship these supplies to America.
7

The man who okayed this plan was the Count
of Vergennes (ver GENS). Vergennes worked for
the French king, Louis XVI. The king and his court
hated the British and wanted to see the Americans
drive them out of North America.
Vergennes agreed to meet with Franklin a few
days after Christmas. The two men liked each
other. “His conversation is gentle and honest,”
Vergennes told a friend.
Franklin told Vergennes that the Americans
needed money to fight the war. He added that
he hoped France would send its soldiers to fight
alongside the Americans.
Franklin charmed and amused the French.
8

Thanks to Ben Franklin, the
Count of Vergennes became
a strong supporter of the
American cause.
Vergennes shook his head. Loans were one
thing, he said. Actually fighting in the war was
another. France had been at peace with Britain for
13 years. The king didn’t want to shatter the peace.
Vergennes shared another worry. France
didn’t want to back a lost cause. Franklin
understood that. To change the king’s viewpoint,
the Americans would have to win a major battle.
Until that happened, Franklin tried to arrange
for all the loans that he could so the Patriot army
would have enough money.
9

Under the Eyes of Spies
The French finally agreed to make a secret
loan to the Americans. But that loan didn’t stay
secret for long. Spies for Britain were all over
Paris. At least two of them worked right under
Franklin’s nose.
One of the spies was John Thornton, Arthur
Lee’s secretary. The other was Edward Bancroft,
the busiest secretary in Franklin’s office. Both were
Americans who would do almost anything for
money, and the British paid them very well.
Bancroft used invisible ink to write his
secret reports to the British.
10

Bancroft sent the British
weekly reports on what he
saw. He used invisible ink,
writing between the lines of
fake love letters.
Every Tuesday night,
Bancroft would put one of
these reports into a bottle.
Then he dropped the bottle
into a hole in a tree in a Paris
park. Another spy would pick
up the report and send it off
to London.
Bancroft never got caught.
That may be because
Franklin felt he had more
pressing things to do than
chase spies. He never let
anyone or anything distract
him from his goal.
Even King George III of
Britain couldn’t wait to
read Bancroft’s secret
reports.
11

General John
Burgoyne’s
surrender to
General Horatio
Gates at Saratoga
was a turning
point in the
Revolutionary War.
Victory at Saratoga
The good news Franklin had been waiting
for came just before noon on December 4, 1777.
An American galloped up to his door. Franklin
braced himself, preparing for bad news. “General
Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners!” the
man shouted.
Franklin could hardly believe it. But it was
true! In October, British General John Burgoyne
had given up after two bloody days of fighting
near the small village of Saratoga, New York.
The Patriots had won a major battle. The tides
of war were turning in favor of the Patriots.
12

How had the Patriots won this great success?
One reason was that the guns the Americans used
were nearly brand new. They had arrived from
France only weeks before the battle.
Franklin gave this happy news to France.
A few days later, Vergennes and the king decided
the time was right to help the Patriots win the war.
Three months later, King Louis invited
Franklin to meet him at his palace outside
of Paris. As Franklin entered the palace gates,
a crowd cheered him. “Long Live Franklin!”
they yelled in French.
Inside the palace, Franklin stood before the
king in his simple brown suit. One woman
thought he looked like “a big farmer.” She
surveyed the other men in the room. They
“were all powdered, in full dress, and
splashed all over with gold and ribbons.”
But this simple man had won the
French over to the Patriot side.
King Louis finally agreed
to support the Patriots.
13

“I hope that this will be for the good of both
nations,” the king said of the agreement to join
forces. He added, “I am very satisfied with the way
you have conducted yourself in my kingdom.”
All of Franklin’s hard work paid off in October
1781. Thousands of American and French soldiers
trapped the main British army in Yorktown,
Virginia. A fleet of French ships kept the British
from escaping by sea. On October 17, the British
gave up, and all fighting stopped.
An official end to the war didn’t come
for another two years. Led by Franklin, the
Americans in Paris got the British to agree to
leave North America. The Treaty of Paris was
signed in September 1783, bringing the war to a
close. America’s long fight for independence was
finally over. But just think—it might all have
ended differently if Ben Franklin had not gone
to Paris.
Ben Franklin
signed the
Declaration of
Independence,
the Treaty of
Paris, and the
Constitution.
14

Responding
TARGET VOCABULARY Word Builder What
trips would you like to take? Make a chart listing
some trips or journeys that you might embark on.
Name the kind of transportation. Tell what kind of
journey it is.
Kind of Transportation
boat
Kind of Trip
cruise to South America
Write About It
Text to Self Write two paragraphs describing one of
the trips or journeys from your chart. Tell why the trip
or journey is important to you and what you would
like to see.
15

TARGET VOCABULARY
bracing
conduct
cramped
distracted
embark
pressing
representatives
shattered
surveyed
viewpoint
TARGET STRATEGY Visualize Use text details to form
pictures in your mind of what you are reading.
Which word describes what happened to a
pane of glass when a baseball hit it?
16

Level: R
DRA: 40
Social Studies
Strategy:
Visualize
Word Count: 1,603
5.3.11 Build Vocabulary
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
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