[228] May 10, 1786.
[229] September 9, 1786.
[230] July 8, 1783.
[231] "Short Autobiography, written at the request of a friend," Complete Works, ed. Nicolay and Hay, 1905, pp. 26, 27.
[232] Ibid., 28, 29.
[233] Some French settlements were still in existence in the region, and were still French. "The French settlements about Kaskaskia retained much of their national character, and the pioneers from the South who visited them or settled among them never ceased to wonder at their gayety, their peaceable industry, and their domestic affection, which they did not care to dissemble and conceal like their shy and reticent neighbors. It was a daily spectacle which never lost its strangeness for the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians to see the Frenchman returning from his work greeted by his wife and children with embraces of welcome 'at the gate of his dooryard, and in view of all the villagers.' The natural and kindly fraternization of the Frenchmen with the Indians was also a cause of wonder." Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, 1904, I, 58.
[234] February 22, 1861.
[235] L'Amérique devant l'Europe, Paris, 1862; conclusion.
[236] Washington, August, 4, 1862.
[237] "L'esprit Gaulois, toujours moqueur, avait saisi le côté plaisant de cet inutile étalage d'épaulettes et de tambours, et les officiers du 55º New York qui, à l'heure du danger, prodiguèrent pour leur nouvelle patrie le sang français sous la direction d'un chef habile et vaillant, M. de Trobriand, s'étaient donnés à eux-mêmes, dans l'un des repas de corps qui terminent toujours ces cérémonies, le titre joyeux de 'Gardes La fourchette.'" Comte de Paris, Histoire de la Guerre civile en Amérique, 1874, I, 311.
[238] Quatre ans de campagnes à l'armée du Potomac, par Régis de Trobriand, ex-Major Général au service volontaire des Etats Unis d'Amérique, Paris, 1867, 2 vols. As is well known, two French princes took part in the war as staff-officers in the Army of the Potomac, the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Chartres. An American officer who was present told me that, whether on foot or on horseback, the Comte de Paris had the habit of stooping. During a severe engagement he was asked to carry an order across an open field, quite exposed to the enemy's fire. He took the order, straightened on his saddle, crossed the field quite erect, fulfilled his mission, recrossed the field, keeping perfectly straight, and when back in the lines, stooped again.
[239] Quatre ans de campagnes, I, 131.
[240] Abraham Lincoln, by Alphonse Jouault. The work was begun in Washington at the time of Lincoln's assassination, which the author witnessed, but printed only in 1875. The text of the second inaugural address had been read in France with great admiration. The famous bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, wrote concerning it to Augustin Cochin: "Mr. Lincoln expresses with solemn and touching gravity the feelings which, I am sure, pervade superior souls in the North as in the South.... I thank you for having made me read this beautiful page of the history of great men, and I beg you to tell Mr. Bigelow of my sympathetic sentiments. I would hold it an honor if he were so good as to convey an expression of them to Mr. Lincoln." Orleans, April 2, 1865; an appendix to Montalembert's Victoire du Nord, Paris, 1865.
[241] April 28, 1865. Text as well as that of the documents just quoted in The Assassination of President Lincoln. Appendix to Diplomatic Correspondence of 1865, Government Printing Office, 1866.
[242] "Dédié par la Démocratie Française à Lincoln, Président deux fois élu des Etats Unis—Lincoln, honnête homme, abolit l'esclavage, rétablit l'union, sauva la République, sans voiler la statue de la liberté." The medal is now the property of the President's son, Mr. Robert T. Lincoln.
[243] A very long article by L. de Gaillard, April 30, 1868.
[244] La Victoire du Nord, Paris, 1865, pp. 7, 11, 20, 23.
[245] In the Avenir National, May 3, 1865.
[246] April 29, 1865.
[247] Abraham Lincoln, sa naissance, sa vie, sa mort, par Achille Arnaud, Rédacteur à "l'Opinion Nationale." Paris, 1865, p. 96.
[248] Bibliothèque Libérale—Abraham Lincoln, by Augustin Cochin, Paris, 1869.
V
THE FRANKLIN MEDAL
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 20, 1906
THE FRANKLIN MEDAL
On the occasion of the second centennial of Franklin's birth, a solemn celebration, lasting several days, was held in Philadelphia, under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society, founded by himself more than a century and a half before.
Many Americans of fame took part in the celebration, such men as the Secretary of State Elihu Root, Senator Lodge, Horace H. Furness, former Ambassador Joseph Choate, the President (not yet emeritus) of Harvard, Charles W. Eliot, Doctor Weir Mitchell, and many others. Several foreign nations were represented; England notably by one of her sons who has succeeded in the difficult task of adding lustre to the name he bears, Sir George Darwin.
In accordance with a law passed by Congress two years before, a commemorative medal was, on that occasion, offered to France. The speech of acceptance is here reproduced solely to have a pretext for reprinting the generous and memorable address of presentation by the then Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root; and also in order to help in better preserving the souvenir of a more than graceful act of the United States toward France.