SILAS
DEANE
Page 109
In March 1776, Silas Deane began his long journey to France
as America's first diplomat. He arrived over two months latter on June 6, 1776, in the port of Bordeaux, 300 miles southwest
of Paris.He immediately sent word of his presence in France to Edward Bancroft, who was residing in London with his wife and
daughter. In response, Bancroft travelled to Paris where he met with Deane and, upon learning of his secret mission, agreed
to assist him.
EDWARD BANCROFT
physician
honored scientist
American spy
On July 17, accompanied by Bancroft as
his French translator, Silas Deane travelled the twelve miles from Paris to the Chateau de Versailles, the 700-room residence
of the king, his royal court, government ministers, clerks, and numerous servant. At Versailles, with French speaking
Bancroft by his side, Deane formally presented his diplomatic credentials to the French minister of foreign affairs, Charles
Gravier, comte de Vergennes.
After polite, general conversation, Deane broached
the subject of France providing aid to the Americans. Vergennes did not respond with a direct reply but instead strongly
urged Deane to meet with a certain Caron de Beaumarchais.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
led the American delegation in France
during the Revolutionary War,
discovered the missing million
Page 83
On July 11, 1786, Benjamin Franklin, retired American diplomat to
France, wrote from Philadelphia to Mr. Rodolphe-Ferdinand Grand, a banker in Paris:
I send you inclosed some Letters that have passed between the
Secretary of Congress and me respecting three Million of Livres acknowledged to have been received before the Treaty of Feb.
1778, as Don gratuit from the King, of which only two Millions are found in your Accounts; unless the Million from the Farmers
General be one of the three. I have assured, that all the Money received from the King, whether as Loan or Gift, went through
your Hands; and as I always looked on the Million we had of the Farmers General to be distinct from what we had of the Crown,
I wonder how I came to sign the Contract, acknowledging three Millions of Gift, when in reality there was only two, exclusive
of that from the Farmers. And as both you and I examined the Project of the Contract before I signed it, I am surprized that
neither of us took Notice of the Error. It is possible that the Million furnish’d ostensibly by the Farmers, was in
Fact a Gift of the Crown in which Case, as Mr. Thomson observes, they owe us for the two ship Loads of Tobacco they received
on Acct. of it. I must earnestly request of you to get this Matter explained that it may stand clear before I die, lest some
Enemy should afterwards accuse me of having received a Million not accounted for.
PIERRE-AUGUSTIN CARON
DE BEAUMARCHAIS
playwright
and French secret agent
Page 141
In June 1794, while Beaumarchais was still in exile for fear of
losing his life, Gouverneur Morris, U.S. minister plenipotentiary to France, once again asked the French government to
reveal whose signature was on the June 10, 1776, receipt for 1,000,000 livres.
Much to Morris’s shock, the new foreign minister of the French
Republic turned over the receipt to him.
The receipt was signed by...
MARIE JEANNE BÉCU,
COMTESSE DU BARRY
last Royal Mistress
of King Louis XV of France
Page
87
Beaumarchais’s mission
in England for the king was a most delicate one, for it involved the suppression of a soon-to-be published pamphlet. "Secret
Memoirs of a Courtesan," an odious scandal sheet, threatened to describe in minute detail the sexual appetite and proclivities
of Madame du Barry who a few years after the death of Madame de Pompadour had become the king’s new royal mistress.
The author was a young Frenchman named Morande who published a small newspaper in London
that trafficked in the scandalous activities of the French court. However, his best income derived from the monies he extorted
for withholding gossip.
MADAME D’EON
alias
CHEVALIER D’EON
decorated French soldier,
diplomat
and secret agent
of
King Louis XV
Page 91
Beaumarchais
had a solution. He was aware that although Chevalier d’Eon had been a decorated dragoon cavalry officer in the Seven
Years’ War, his womanish voice and slight physique had led to widely whispered public speculation and gossip as to his
true gender—rumors that d’Eon never directly dispelled. Beaumarchais therefore proposed that d’Eon, on entering
France, would be dressed as a woman and in this way would never receive a challenge to mortal combat from any self-respecting
French male
D’Eon
readily agreed, confessing to the startled Beaumarchais that in fact she was a woman and that her female identity had been
hidden from birth by her family in order for her to inherit her father’s estate.
However, there was now a new unforeseeable
complication, for Beaumarchais had become smitten with the charming d’Eon...
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