mbrace like Frenchmen.

[3] How charming it was to see Solon and Sophocles embrace.

The mention of John Adams recalls us to the most disagreeable part of
Franklin's experience. During all his sojourn in France he was subject
to continual and annoying interference from his colleagues. Before his
arrival in Paris, Silas Deane had entered for Congress into
semi-commercial relations with the French government through the
eccentric and industrious Beaumarchais. Franklin was content to leave
these affairs to him, and did not at the time even know their real
nature. But with Arthur Lee it was different. Of all characters in
American history Lee is almost the hardest to endure. He was patriotic,
and in a way honest, but meddlesome, suspicious, vain, and quarrelsome
to an incredible degree. He immediately made up his mind that Deane was
peculating, and never ceased writing accusatory letters until Congress
recalled the unfortunate envoy. All this time he was also acting toward
Franklin in a manner which can only be described as insane. He fumed at
Franklin's easy way of conducting business; his vanity suffered
indescribable tortures at every mark of respect paid to his
distinguished colleague; he suspected him of treason and every other
crime; and with his partisans (whose names we need not here mention) he
wrote voluble letters of incrimination to Congress. When Silas Deane
was recalled, John Adams was sent over to take his place, and for a
while Franklin received support from his new colleague,--for Adams,
with all his faults, was at least single-hearted in his patriotism. But
their characters were too widely different for them to work easily
together in harness. Adams's vanity was almost as great as Arthur
Lee's. The homage paid to Franklin drove him almost into a frenzy of
rage, both because he thought himself overlooked and because such
homage savored of aristocracy. In Franklin's catalogue of the virtues
there were two which he could not claim to have attained,--chastity and
orderliness; and these two weaknesses now rose to exact their penalty.
Adams could not believe that a man who had been lax with women could be
honest in anything else; Adams was the spirit of petty orderliness, and
Franklin's easy ways seemed to him the destruction of all business. At
last Congress came to the rescue, and for once acted sensibly: Lee and
Adams were recalled, and Franklin was left as sole plenipotentiary in
Paris.

With other