Account of a Fête Champêtre in Franklin’s Honor, [12 April 1781]
Account of a Fête Champêtre in Franklin’s Honor
Reprinted from Rivington’s New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser, December 24, 1783
The rustic celebration in Franklin’s honor, which the comtesse d’Houdetot rescheduled to accomodate him,3 turned out to be a carefully stylized event, scripted by the comtesse in company with her neighbor the comte de Tressan.4 The two neighbors planned the event well in advance and together worked on verses and songs to honor not “le grand Benjamin,” but “le bon Benjamin,” the man who had used his talents for the good of the world, and to support and embellish life. They would receive him not in the grand style of a court festivity, but with the grace and spirit of a fête champêtre.5
Thus the day’s events, culminating in Franklin’s planting a Virginia locust in the arbor of the estate, were to be marked by a recitation or a song in praise of Franklin and the virtues he represented.
The following account appeared two years later in the American press, placed there by St.-John de Crèvecoeur.6 Although Crèvecoeur was not among the guests present that day (he had not yet returned from his American sojourn), he subsequently became a protégé of Mme d’Houdetot’s, and must often have heard the story of the day’s festivities.
[April 12, 1781]
SKETCH
of a Festre Champestre, given by Madame La Countesse de Houdetot,7 to his Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America. Member of the Academies of Paris, London, &c. at her rural and elegant Seat, at Sanoy, in the delightful Valley of Montmorency, twelve Miles from Paris, on the 12th of April, 1781.
The Company consisted only of the different branches of the illustrious family of the Count and Countesse. Upon the appearance of Mr. Franklin’s carriage being announced, they all set off on foot from the Chateau, and met him at about half a mile distance.
This venerable Sage, with his grey hairs floating on his shoulders, his Staff in his hands, the spectacles of wisdom on his nose, the perfect representation of true philosophy and virtue, was handed from his carriage by the Countesse herself, who, upon his alighting, pronounced the following verses of her composition.
Ame du héros, et du sage,
Oh liberté! premier bienfait des dieux!
Hélas! c’est de trop loin que nous t’offrons des vœux;
Ce n’est qu’en soupirant que nous rendons hommage
Au mortel qui forma des citoyens heureux.8
Surrounded by this most excellent family, Mr. Franklin walked slowly on to the Chateau, where with them he sat down, to a most splendid dinner, and at the first glass of wine, a few soft instruments of music accompanied the whole assembly whilst they sung the following stanza, which became the Chorus of the day:
De Benjamin célébrons la mémoire,
Chantons le bien qu’il a fait aux mortels;
En Amérique il aura des autels,
Et dans Sanoy nous buvons à sa gloire.
At the second glass, (being accompanied by the same soft music) the Countesse sang the following Quatrain:
Il rend ses droits à l’humaine nature,
Pour l’affranchir il voulut l’éclairer,
Et la vertu, pour se faire adorer,
De Benjamin emprunta la figure.
At the third glass, the Viscount de Houdetot9 sung the following:
Guillaume Tell1 fut brave, mais sauvage;
J’estime plus notre cher Benjamin;
De l’Amérique en fixant le destin,
A table il rit, et c’est là le vrai sage.
At the fourth, the Viscountesse sung:2
Je dis aussi, vive Philadelphie!
L’indépendance a de quoi me tenter;
Dans ce pays je voudrais habiter,
Quoiqu’il n’y ait ni bal ni comédie.
At the fifth, Madame de Pernan:3
Tous nos enfants apprendront de leurs mères
A vous aimer, vous croire et vous bénir;
Vous enseignez ce qui peut réunir
Tous les humains dans les bras d’un seul père.
At the sixth, the Count de Tressan:
Vive Sanoy! C’est ma Philadelphie
Lorsque j’y vois son cher législateur;
J’y rajeunis dans le sein du bonheur,
J’y ris, j’y bois, et j’écoute Sophie.4
At the seventh, the Count D’Apché:5
Pour soutenir cette charte sacrée
Qu’Edouard accorda aux Anglais,
Je sens qu’il n’est de chevalier Français
Qui ne désire employer son épée.
And every individual of the Company, in this way paid compliments to the Great Man, equally elegant.
Dinner being ended, Mr. Franklin was led by the Countesse, accompanied with the whole family, into the Gardens of Sanoy, where, in a rural arbour, he was presented by the Gardener with a Virginian Locust Tree, which, at the request of the company, the American Philosopher planted with his own hands.6
During this simple but elegant scene, the Countesse de Houdetot distinctly repeated the following verses:7
Arbre sacré, durable monument
Du séjour qu’en ces lieux a daigné faire un sage,
De ces jardins devenu l’ornement,
Recevez-y le juste hommage
De nos vœux et de notre encens;
Et puissiez-vous dans tous les âges,
A jamais respecté du temps,
Vivre autant que son nom, ses lois et ses ouvrages.
On the return, they were met by a Band of Music, which accompanied the whole Family in the following song:
Que cet arbre, planté par sa main bienfaisante,
Elevant sa tige naissante
Au dessus du stérile ormeau,
Par sa fleur odoriférante,
Parfume l’air de cet heureux hameau.
La foudre ne pourra l’atteindre,
Elle respectera son faite et ses rameaux;
Franklin nous enseigna par ses heureux travaux
A la diriger ou à l’eteindre,
Tandis qu’il détruisait des maux
Pour la terre encore plus à plaindre.8
After which all proceeded to the Chateau, where lively conversation, genuine wit, with true philosophical and patriotic sentiments completed this remarkable day.
Towards evening, Mr. Franklin was, by the whole Company, reconducted to his carriage, and before the door of it was shut, this most excellent and amiable Countesse, addressing herself to him, pronounced the following most elegant compliment, composed by herself.
Législateur d’un Monde, et Bienfaiteur des deux,
L’homme dans tous les temps te devra ses hommages,
Et je m’acquitte dans ces lieux
De la dette de tous les âges.
3. See our annotation of her letter of [April 1].
4. The comte lived nearby at Franconville, where he devoted himself to writing and literary translations. He was received into the Académie française in January, 1781: XXIV, 218n; Maurice Tourneux, ed., Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc. (16 vols., Paris, 1877–1882), XII, 453–4, 469–72.
5. Mme d’Houdetot’s invitation to Tressan described the reception on which they were collaborating as a celebration and as though it would be BF’s first visit: “C’est un grand plaisir d’avoir quelques relations avec vous, mon cher voisin, même quand on ose toucher à vos enfants; je parle de vos couplets, car pour les autres il n’y a rien à faire. … Nous aurons de quoi bien recevoir le bon Benjamin; c’est un titre que j’aime encore mieux lui donner que celui de Grand, quoiqu’il les mérite tous deux. Il verra le plaisir que nous avons à recevoir un homme de bien et utile au monde. C’est le plus doux et le plus bel emploi des talents, et cet éloge est bien flatteur quand il est aussi véritablement senti que mérité.
“Ainsi, nous célébrerons à ce dîner tout ce qui fait suporter la vie et ce qui l’embellit: la Liberté et les Grâces. Il y aura toujours des autels pour tous deux.” Hippolyte Buffenoir, La Comtesse d’Houdetot, une amie de J.-J. Rousseau (Paris, 1901), pp. 120–1.
6. Howard C. Rice, Le Cultivateur américain: étude sur l’œuvre de Saint John de Crèvecœur (Paris, 1933), p. 31. See also Crèvecoeur’s “Souvenirs consacrés à la mémoire de Mme la comtesse d’Houdetot” in Robert de Crèvecœur, Saint John de Crèvecoeur, sa vie et ses ouvrages (1735–1813) (Paris, 1883), p. 327. An abbreviated version of Crèvecoeur’s sketch, without attribution, appears in Sparks, Works, IX, 22n–24n. Buffenoir also describes the event (which he dates April 22): La Comtesse d’Houdetot, une amie, pp. 75–7, 327–9.
Absent from France for twenty-seven years, Crèvecoeur returned from America to his parents’ Normandy estate near Caen in August, 1781. The following spring Mme d’Houdetot, whose husband’s family had ties to the Crèvecoeurs, invited him to live at her house in Paris. She introduced him to her society of gens de lettres and was instrumental in securing his appointment in June, 1783, as French consul to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. His account of the fête champêtre, published a little over a month after his arrival at New York, reflects as much his admiration for his benefactress as it does hers for BF. See Robert de Crèvecœur, Saint John de Crèvecoeur, pp. 64, 66–72, 76–8; Rice, Le Cultivateur américain, pp. 20–3; Julia Post Mitchell, St. Jean de Crèvecoeur (New York, 1916), p. 84.
7. Crèvecoeur added in a note: “A Lady as conspicuous for the elegance and improvement of her mind, as for the generosity, usefulness, and benevolence of her heart.” See also his “Souvenirs consacrés à la mémoire de Mme la comtesse d’Houdetot” in Saint John de Crèvecoeur, pp. 329–30.
8. Buffenoir says that the comtesse composed the verses “en compagnie de M. de Tressan” and gives two additional strophes not found in other accounts (ibid., p. 75):
Il n’eut pas besoin d’Egérie
Pour leur faire admettre ses lois;
La nature et l’honneur s’exprimaient par sa voix,
Quand il parlait à la Patrie!
Guidé par la main d’Uranie,
Il la tira de son berceau;
Il l’éclaira par le flambeau
Qu’il allume au feu du génie;
Et, détruisant la tyrannie,
Il en fit un peuple nouveau!
Egeria was the nymph who counseled Numa Pompilius, successor to Romulus and first to give laws to Rome: Aeneid, VI, 810; Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed., Oxford and New York, 1996), p. 510. Urania was the muse of astronomy.
9. The comtesse’s son, César-Louis-Marie-François-Ange, vicomte d’Houdetot (1749–1825) who later fought in India against the British: Hippolyte Buffenoir, La Comtesse d’Houdetot, sa famille, ses amis (Paris, 1905), pp. 16–17.
1. The legendary fourteenth-century hero of Swiss independence and the title character in a tragedy (1767) by Antoine-Marin Lemierre: Jean-Pierre Guicciardi, ed., Mémoires de Dufort de Cheverny (Paris, 1990), p. 112.
2. Louise Perrinet de Faugnes (1758–1781), married in 1775, shared with her mother-in-law a talent for poetry, some of which was collected and published in 1782. She died on May 18, a month after BF’s visit: Buffenoir, La Comtesse d’Houdetot, sa famille, pp. 98–9.
3. Crèvecoeur may have intended her husband, Marc-Antoine-Charles Dupleix de Pernan, as Mme de Pernan had died in 1779: Medlin, Morellet I, 171n, 175, 609. The extended families of Mme d’Houdetot and Mme de Pernan had close ties and from 1763 to 1780 the latter’s family rented from Mme d’Houdetot’s brother a château close to Sannois. There Mme de Pernan and her sisters continued the tradition established by the owners of staging plays: Robert de Crèvecœur, ed., Mémoires du comte Dufort de Cheverny (2 vols., 2nd ed., Paris, 1909) I, 86–7, 379–80; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions, eds. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris, 1959), p. 346; Maurice Tourneux, ed., Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc., IX, 234–5, 297; XI, 148–9.
4. Crèvecoeur added in a footnote: “The name of the Countesse.” These are no doubt the couplets that Mme d’Houdetot refers to in her letter to the comte de Tressan quoted above.
5. His identity is uncertain. The comte d’Houdetot’s sister Charlotte-Madeleine (b. 1731) was married to a chevalier d’Aché, seigneur de Marbeuf, an army captain: Dictionnaire de la noblesse, X, 795. The only comte d’Aché of whom we know, Anne-Antoine d’Aché, a vice-admiral in the French Navy, died without direct issue in 1780. The family was from Normandy, like the d’Houdetots, and many of them were distinguished naval and military officers: DBF.
6. BF’s papers at the APS contain an anonymous poem, written on receipt of some couplets from Tressan composed for this fête. A note at the head of the poem states that BF planted an acacia, or locust, near a monument dedicated to Voltaire. This anonymous poem commemorates the occasion of the fête champêtre and envisions the day when the acacia will spread its shade over the monument to Voltaire. It is published in Gilbert Chinard, Les Amitiés américaines de Madame d’Houdetot … (Paris, 1924), pp. 9–10.
The acacia held special meaning in freemasonry as a symbol of equality and renewal. It was also under a flowering acacia that Rousseau confessed his love to Mme d’Houdetot: Daniel Ligou, Dictionnaire de la franc-maçonnerie (Paris, 1987), pp. 5–6; J.-J. Rousseau, Confessions, Gagnebin and Raymond, eds., p. 444.
7. Crèvecoeur added in a footnote: “These verses have since been engraven on a Marble Pillar in the neighbourhood of that Tree.”
8. Both Buffenoir and Crèvecœur have “craindre” in place of “plaindre”: La Comtesse d’Houdetot une amie, p. 76; Saint-John de Crèvecoeur, p. 347.