Word: franklin
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STACY SCHIFF, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her biography Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), is writing a book about Franklin's years in Paris
More than two centuries after his death, people are still trying to figure out how a paunchy, balding, bifocaled septuagenarian managed to get French ladies in a flutter. From his days as an ambitious young printer in Philadelphia to his years as a diplomatic superstar in France, Ben Franklin surrounded himself with adoring women, often much younger, usually attractive and preferably intelligent. For the most part, his loyal wife Deborah tolerated these dalliances. As she probably knew, most were never consummated. In fact, Franklin was a master of what the French call amitie amoureuse, whose English translation, amorous friendship, gives...
...DEBORAH FRANKLIN: THE AFFECTIONATE WIFE Deborah and Ben had a close marriage, except for the fact that for 18 of the 44 years of their union they lived apart. But even if their bond lacked grand passion, it had mutual respect. Plain and plump, Deborah, a carpenter's daughter, is first taken with the young printer when he begins lodging with her family shortly after his arrival in Philadelphia in 1723. They, as Benjamin put it, "interchang'd some promises"--an 18th century locution for engagement--a year later as he set off for England to buy printing equipment...
...Franklin decides he is ready for marriage. Though not his first choice, the stolidly middle-class Deborah seems a good "helpmate." When they hear rumors of her wayward husband's death, Deborah moves in with Ben, accepts his recently born illegitimate offspring William as her stepson and takes on the mantle of Mrs. Franklin. It is a common-law union never recorded in church for fear of bigamy charges, but it prospers. While her husband nurtures his publications, she runs their store, selling everything from writing materials to tea and coffee to a well-known homemade ointment for "the itch...
...there are strains. Despite Franklin's repeated entreaties, she refuses to join him overseas, perhaps as wary of hobnobbing with his highly placed friends as of ocean voyages. During his absences, she acts as postmistress, oversees the building of a larger house and turns a deaf ear to attacks by Franklin's political rivals. When Stamp Act rioters threaten her house, Deborah and her brother face them...