The Fourth of July in 1783 was the first Independence Day since the United States of America had been recognized by Great Britain and hostilities had ceased. Although the terms of the definitive peace treaty had not yet been settled, the preliminaries had been ratified and the French troops had returned home. To celebrate the occasion, Franklin hosted a banquet at Passy whose guests of honor, according to the London Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of July 28, were the comte d’Estaing, the comte de Rochambeau, and the marquis de Lafayette, who wore their military uniforms. Also present were ambassadors Aranda and Berkenrode, the duc de Lauzun, and “a great number of other noblemen and ladies of the first distinction.” It was, according to the newspaper, a “most brilliant entertainment.”

Franklin had hosted an Independence Day celebration in 1779, his first as sole minister plenipotentiary, for which he printed invitations on his newly established press.3 If he printed invitations for this occasion, no example has been located. What we believe to be a partial guest list, written by William Temple Franklin on the address sheet of an unrelated letter,4 contains twenty-one names. Heading it are d’Estaing, Rochambeau, Rochambeau’s son the vicomte de Rochambeau, Chastellux,5 the marquis and marquise de Lafayette, Lewis Littlepage, who had recently accompanied Lafayette to Paris,6 and Michel Capitaine de Chesnoy, one of Lafayette’s aides-de-camp.7 Next are a series of Americans: John Adams and his secretaries Charles Storer and John Thaxter, Jr., Matthew and Anne Ridley and Anne’s cousin John Hunt, Thomas and Mary Barclay, Dorcas Montgomery, Joseph Mayo,8 and William Vernon, Jr.9 Finally, Temple wrote the names “Grand” (Franklin’s banker and neighbor) and “Price,” undoubtedly the merchant currently in Paris pursuing a lawsuit and petitioning the French government.1 John and Sarah Jay, who were then living in Franklin’s residence, also attended.2

Only three responses to Franklin’s invitations survive.3 The Barclays accepted on July 1.4 Capitaine sent heartfelt regrets to Temple on July 3; he was too busy assisting Lafayette, who was about to depart for his family estate.5 The abbé Morellet, also addressing his response to Temple, accepted with pleasure. His letter, dated only “Mercredy” (July 2), requested that a piano rather than a harpsichord be available; surely Madame Brillon would lend one of hers. The abbé proposed to arrive before one o’clock and have music before dinner. In that case, he teased, Madame Brillon would be more likely to come, as Fridays were one of the two mornings she customarily entertained Franklin.6

The accounts kept by Franklin’s maître d’hôtel Jacques Finck hint at a sumptuous banquet. The guests dined on fattened hens, duck, quail, a turkey, chickens (“communs” and otherwise), six pigeons à la Gautier, a wild boar, rabbit, and hare. There were six mackerel, a ray, carp, eels, cod, flounder, sole, and one hundred crayfish. From the grocer, Finck ordered peas, carrots, turnips, romaine lettuce, chicory, onions, lemons, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers, white and green string beans (“aricots”), shallots, and 1,112 eggs. Six baskets of strawberries were delivered, as well as two varieties of cherries, one hundred apricots, pears, melons, and red and white currants. Some of that fruit was doused in the twelve pints of eau de vie ordered for the purpose. Additional stores included oil for the lamps, firewood for the kitchen, coffee, spices, salt, parmesan cheese, six pounds of chocolate, fifty pounds of candles, and two quarter-casks of bière de paris. A large order of flowers cost 6 l.t. Whatever the table decorations consisted of,7 it took a porter several trips to deliver them. Either before or after the banquet (the accounts are not clear on this point), Finck bought six carafes and three dozen goblets.8

The only known description of the event is the paragraph published in the London Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, based on an unknown source in Paris. According to this account, “an allegorical representation was given of the military prowess of every one of those who had in any material degree contributed to effect that great revolution; this naturally leading the attention of the company to the great merits and signal services performed by the Doctor himself, they bestowed on him those praises which both his public and private character so well deserved; to which he replied by the following couplet, no less polite à propos: ‘Des Chevaliers François, tel est le caractere, / Leur Noblesse en tout temp nous fut utile et chere.’”

No trace has survived of that “allegorical representation.” Morellet’s song, however, has been preserved among Franklin’s papers. Set to the same tune as the drinking song he composed for Franklin in 1779,9 this series of patriotic stanzas is more serious and heartfelt than its predecessor. Here, Morellet proclaims himself an American and pays homage to the heroes of the war. The manuscript makes clear that he originally ended the song after twenty-one stanzas. The afterthought, which he marked for insertion as the penultimate stanza, was a toast to Adams and Jay.