A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

by Stacy Schiff

Overview

In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career

In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy.

When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man.

In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429907996
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/10/2006
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	75,220
File size:	624 KB

About the Author

Stacy Schiff is the author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2000, and Saint-Exupery, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. Schiff's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The Times Literary Supplement. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in New York City.

Stacy Schiff is the author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2000, and Saint-Exupery, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize. Schiff's work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The Times Literary Supplement. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in New York City.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

October 26, 1961

Place of Birth:

Adams, Massachusetts

Education:

B.A., Williams College, 1982

Website:

http://stacyschiff.com/

Read an Excerpt

From A Great Improvisation:
Typically after an ocean crossing Franklin's eyes brimmed with tears at the sight of land; he had just withstood the most brutal voyage of his life. For thirty days he had pitched about violently on the wintry Atlantic, in a cramped cabin and under unremittingly dark skies. He was left with barely the strength to stand, but was to cause a sensation. Even his enemies conceded that he touched down in France like a meteor. Among American arrivals, only Charles Lindbergh could be said to have met with equal rapture, the difference being that Lindbergh was not a celebrity until he landed in Paris. At the time he set foot on French soil Benjamin Franklin was among the most famous men in the world. It was his country that was the great unknown. America was six months old; Franklin seventy years her senior. And the fate of that infant republic was, to a significant extent, in his hands.

Table of Contents

	Cast of Characters	xi
	Introduction	1
I	The First Mistake in Public Business Is the Going into It 1776	7
II	Half the Truth Is Often a Great Lie 1776-1777	36
III	Three Can Keep a Secret, If Two of Them Are Dead 1777	65
IV	The Cat in Gloves Catches No Mice 1777-1778	94
V	There Is No Such Thing as a Little Enemy 1778	126
VI	Admiration Is the Daughter of Ignorance 1778	165
VII	Success Has Ruined Many a Man 1779	196
VIII	Everyone Has Wisdom Enough to Manage the Affairs of His Neighbors 1780	229
IX	The Sting of a Reproach Is the Truth of It 1780-1781	260
X	Those Who in Quarrels Interpose May Get Bloody Nose 1782	291
XI	The Absent Are Never Without Fault 1783	325
XII	Creditors Have Better Memories Than Debtors 1784-1785	359
	Epilogue	398
	Chronology	413
	Notes	419
	Selected Bibliography	459
	Acknowledgments	463
	Index	467

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. How would you answer the question raised in the Crèvecoeur quote that opens the introduction? How would a colonist answer the question? How would a European?

2. What set Benjamin Franklin apart from other founding fathers? Did he personify "this new man" more accurately than the other founding fathers did?

3. Though charged with similar duties, Franklin and Silas Deane garnered fairly different results. Compare their diplomacy styles, and other factors affecting their mission in France. Did the fact that Franklin made the pivotal trip to France in his seventies give him an upper hand?

4. Did the negotiation tactics of John Adams enhance or undermine Franklin's successes? Do you think Franklin is to blame for his difficulties with his colleagues, or was he simply unlucky in the company Congress sent him?

5. Many of the fascinating details culled by Stacy Schiff include the vagaries of transatlantic travel and correspondence in the eighteenth century. Vital letters ended up on the ocean floor; spies intercepted hand-delivered missives; supply ships were captured; and passengers (even Franklin, en route to the French coast in 1776) often had to endure horrifically rough voyages to cross the ocean. How has modern technology transformed diplomacy? Were there any benefits to the laborious protocol of Franklin's era?

6. Discuss Vergennes's motivations in negotiating with Franklin. In Vergennes's mind, what were the political and financial ramifications of supporting the Americans? What events caused his point of view to shift? How did his motivations compare to those of private suppliers, such as Chaumont?

7. How did Benny fare as a schoolboy in Europe? In what way was his identity influenced by living there at such a formative age? Did he and Temple share their grandfather's perception of French culture? Do you believe that Temple's father, William, had good reason to be a Loyalist, Did he do the right thing? Did Franklin?

8. Franklin's numerous inventions contributed to his fame throughout France, where his likeness appeared on assorted kitschy objects. Why was he more celebrated (and more properly eulogized) in France than in the colonies?

9. Discuss the women in Franklin's life. What do you conclude about his marriage? Did American culture permit women like Madame Brillon and Madame Helvétius to exist in Franklin's homeland? How did you react to the generations of illegitimate children marking Franklin's lineage?

10. The title A Great Improvisation reminds us of the unscripted, uncharted territory in which Franklin and the patriots gambled with high stakes. How did Franklin put uncertainty to work for him? Was he a better improviser than the kings of France, Spain, and England?

11. What defenses did Franklin possess for undermining British propaganda efforts? Why do you think he—America's greatest writer and prominent publisher—wrote so little while in France?

12. The year prior to Franklin's death, French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille prison and set in motion Napoleon's rise to power. What might Franklin have thought of those events? What did he seem to think about the general concept of monarchies?

13. Did Franklin feel at home once he returned to Philadelphia? Why was he not given compensation equal to other American diplomats? Do you have sympathy for him?

14. This chapter of American history raises several provocative what-ifs: What if Franklin had not been dispatched to France? What if George Washington's wish had been fulfilled and the revolution had been fought without French troops?

15. What could the world's current political leaders learn from the aphorisms that comprise the chapter titles – All drawn from Poor Richard's Almanac—in A Great Improvisation?

16. Did this chapter of Franklin's life color your sense of the other, better-known adventures? Why do you think the author chose to focus on it? How does Schiff's Franklin tally with your image of him before your read A Great Improvisation?

17. Among the supporting cast, did you develop a fondness for any particular character?

18. Did the author approach the subject of Ben Franklin in the same way she approached the subjects of her previous biographies, Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) and Saint-Exupéry?

Editorial Reviews

Numerous bestselling volumes have been written recently on the man one biography called "the first American." Pulitzer Prize-winner Schiff (for Vera [Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov]) eloquently adds to our understanding of Benjamin Franklin with a graceful, sly and smart look at his seven-year sojourn in France in his quasi-secret quest to secure American independence by procuring an alliance with the French. Drawing on newly available sources, Schiff brilliantly chronicles the international intrigues and the political backbiting that surrounded Franklin during his mission. "A master of the oblique approach, a dabbler in shades of gray," she writes, "Franklin was a natural diplomat, genial and ruthless." She deftly recreates the glittering and gossipy late 18th-century Paris in which Franklin moved, and she brings to life such enigmatic French leaders as Jacques-Donatien Chaumont, Franklin's closest adviser and chief supplier of American aid, and Charles Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs, who helped Franklin write the French-American Alliance of 1778. Franklin also negotiated the peace of 1783 that led not only to the independence of the colonies from Britain but also to a bond between France and America that, Schiff says, lasted until WWII. Schiff's sure-handed historical research and her majestic prose offer glimpses into a little-explored chapter of Franklin's life and American history. Agent, Lois Wallace. (Apr. 2) Forecast: This should receive excellent review coverage, which will boost sales, and perhaps the blurb from Joseph Ellis will help. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer travels to Paris as Ben Franklin persuades the French to back the Colonies. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Here's breaking news for the Francophobic freedom-fries set: without France, there would have been no United States. "The majority of the guns fired on the British at Saratoga were French," writes ace biographer/historian Schiff (Vera [Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov], 1999; Saint-Exupery, 1994). "Four years later, when the British set down their muskets at Yorktown, they surrendered to forces that were nearly equal parts French and American, all of them fed and clothed and paid by France, and protected by de Grasse's fleet." Moreover, she adds, the French came up with the equivalent of $9 billion to secure American independence. But without Benjamin Franklin, Schiff argues, France likely would not have come to the aid of the fledgling republic. It was not only that Franklin, who a few years before had been an ardent royalist, presented the American cause as an ideal way for France to play knavish tricks on Britain, but also that Franklin was not Silas Deane. The latter, a staid Connecticut businessman, was Congress's representative in Paris, having arrived there just three days after the Declaration of Independence was promulgated; his duties also involved espionage, but Deane was an unable spy. Moreover, he was a bumpkin compared to the British ambassador, who had a grand time announcing every American defeat to the court at Versailles. Franklin's reputation as a sophisticate and man of letters and science preceded him, and he found himself welcome and even lionized. His steady lobbying soon brought material aid to the much-suffering rebels, though the French and Americans forged a partnership "founded on various illusions about the past and a general misunderstanding of the future"; theprofessional French military scorned the American militia as mere rabble, and the French in general felt that the Americans showed too little gratitude to them for their help. Which evens the score, one supposes, for subsequent American complaints that the French have been insufficiently grateful for our help. . . . A lively, well-written, and most timely study of diplomacy in action. Author tour

Kirkus Reviews

This is a book to savor. Every page has some new nugget of insight, or some graceful turn of phrase that generates a verbal airburst over the most psychologically agile American of his time, perhaps of all time. Schiff has given a genuine jolt to the recent surge of interest in Franklin, along the way demonstrating why she is generally regarded as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today.

author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency: Joseph J. Ellis

This remarkable book breaks new ground. Stacy Schiff has dug deep into the archives of France (no mean feat!) and brought up a motherlode of gems which, polished by her wit, illuminate the doublespeak of the ambassadorial world, as well as the ferocious backbiting among the colonial envoys. From this maelstrom emerges Franklin, inventing the American foreign service as he had figured out electricity, bifocals, a new stove, the glass armonica -- step by cautious step.

Author of Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladi Claude-Anne Lopez

In sparkling prose, burnished to a high gloss, Stacy Schiff tells the tale of Benjamin Franklin in Paris with piquant humor, outrageous anecdotes worthy of the finest French farce, and a wealth of lapidary observations. Her Paris unfolds as a glittering carnival of spies, rogues, frauds, and flawed reformers, eccentric nobility and perpetually squabbling American diplomats. Towering above all is the protean figure of Franklin, an improbable compound of wit, cunning, hypocrisy, courage, and tireless devotion to his country. C'est magnifique!” —Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton

“This is a book to savor. Every page has some new nugget of insight, or some graceful turn of phrase that generates a verbal airburst over the most psychologically agile American of his time, perhaps of all time. Schiff has given a genuine jolt to the recent surge of interest in Franklin, along the way demonstrating why she is generally regarded as one of the most gifted storytellers writing today.” —Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers and His Excellency: George Washington

“What a brilliant book. A Great Improvisation pays tribute to the extraordinary love affair between monarchist France and the republican Benjamin Franklin. Their child was America, conceived at home and nurtured into maturity by France. It is a story full of intrigue, jealousy and passion. But ultimately it is a celebration of one American's love for his country. Stacy Schiff has written a masterpiece, capturing a fleeting moment when the stars aligned between Congress and Versailles. ” —Amanda Foreman, Author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

“Stacy Schiff's extensive scholarship, her eye for the colorful detail, and her lively wit combine to bring alive — in full dress and in an absorbing narrative — the cast of statesmen, adventurers, spies, courtiers, patriots and con men who have a part in the story of Benjamin Franklin's negotiations for American independence, and to fix among them America's greatest diplomat, winning his way (and America's) in a style of calculated disarray. An extraordinary book.” —Edmund S. Morgan, author of Benjamin Franklin

“This remarkable book breaks new ground. Stacy Schiff has dug deep into the archives of France (no mean feat!) and brought up a motherlode of gems which, polished by her wit, illuminate the doublespeak of the ambassadorial world, as well as the ferocious backbiting among the colonial envoys. From this maelstrom emerges Franklin, inventing the American foreign service as he had figured out electricity, bifocals, a new stove, the glass armonica — step by cautious step.” —Claude-Anne Lopez, Author of Mon Cher Papa: Franklin and the Ladies of Paris

From the Publisher