Benny Bache

THE TWO FRANKLINS -- Bernard Fay --Little, Brown ($3.50).

Benjamin Franklin is still a canonical name in U. S. history despite modern knowledge of the ins & outs of the Doctor's private life. But many a devout patriot may be dismayed by French Professor Fay's sympathetic disclosure of the public goings-on of Franklin's favorite (legitimate) grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache. Few U. S. schoolboys have ever heard of Benny Bache, whom Biographer Fay describes as "the most outspoken, the most reckless, the most generous, and the most neglected" figure of his day. In this authoritative but racily written biography Author Fay takes the lid off a period of U. S. history that has long been simmering in academic ovens, dishes it up with spicy Gallic sauce.

In 1776, when Benny Bache was only seven, his famed grandfather took him abroad to school him. Franklin gave Benny every advantage he had never had : dancing, deportment and French in Paris, Greek, Latin and virtue in Geneva. Franklin hoped Benny would become a high servant of the State. Benny was quite willing, but when he came home again to Philadelphia, at 16, he found that his grandfather's fame kept getting in his way. Franklin was a national hero but Washington and the Federalists disliked his philosophy and feared his politics: they shut every political door in his grandson's face. Franklin fitted Benny up in a printshop and expected Benny to be happy, but he wasn't. "While Franklin, by his precept, urged him to become a craftsman, he obliged him, by his glory, to act the lordling. While he preached simplicity, industry, frugality and love of the people to him, his three houses, his sedan chair, his titles and his fame gave him the rank of a nobleman. When he thought about this, Benny felt wretched and ashamed. But what could he do about it?'"

To add to his troubles Benny fell in love with Margaret Markoe. Uncertain, coy and hard to please, she led him a weary dance but finally married him. Benjamin Franklin died. The same year (1790) Benny started his first newspaper, the General Advertiser, and Political, Commercial, Agricultural and Literary Journal.

This paper and its successor, the Aurora, became chief begetters of what Author Fay calls "the second American Revolution . . . that broke Federalism and the English alliance." After the Revolutionary War the Federalists, with Washington as their dignified figurehead, grew cooler & cooler to France, wanted a treaty with England. They overrode Ambassador Genet's dangerous popularity with the U. S. crowd, forced his retirement. But when John Jay brought back from England his famed pusillanimous treaty, even Washington kept the text dark till he could be sure of getting it through Congress. Benny Bache spilled the beans: he got a copy of the treaty, printed it in his paper, loosed a storm of popular indignation.

A "Jacobin," Benny hated and feared the way things were going in the U. S. "He wanted the people to govern themselves directly and express themselves explicitly. He wanted to see the disappearance from political life of all individual wills which were too strong, which could not yield to the desires of the masses." So he attacked Washington, vilified him to a fare-ye-well. Naturally Benny's enemies were legion. His rival journalist in Philadelphia, William Cobbett, expressed the settled opinion of the day when he called him "Printer to the French Directory, Distributor General of the principles of Insurrection, Anarchy and Confusion, the greatest of fools, and the most stubborn sans-culotte in the United States." He was attacked on the street, denounced as a spy, his printshop windows were broken. In the summer of 1798 yellow fever settled on Philadelphia, every paper suspended publication except Benny's and his old enemy Cobbett's. One hot midnight Death came for 29-year-old Benny Bache; an hour later his widow was printing a defiance to his foes, a promise that his paper would go on.

The Author, a 40-year-old Parisian who divides his year between France and the U. S., is rare among unofficial ambassadors in being properly and adequately accredited. A brilliant scholar who has taken every degree open to a professor in France, he knows more about the U. S. and U. S. history than the vast majority of U. S. citizens. No myopic flatfoot, Professor Fay served nearly five years in the War, emerged with the rank of captain, the Croix de Guerre (won at Verdun), the Medaille de Leopold II. Twelve years ago he began to make regular visits to the U.S., has lectured at Columbia University, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Iowa State et al. Still a bachelor, on trips to Manhattan he stays at the Harvard Club.

Other books: The Revolutionary Spirit in France and in America at the Close of the Eighteenth Century, A Panorama of Contemporary French Literature, Franklin: The Apostle of Modern Times, Washington: Republican Aristocrat.

Spaniel by Woolf

FLUSH -- Virginia Woolf -- Harcourt, Brace ($2).

As most Browningites and most Manhattan playgoers know, Poet Robert Browning was not Poetess Elizabeth Barrett's first love. Highest in her affections before Browning's appearance and his rival even for a short time after it was her spaniel Flush. Perhaps to show that of the making of biographies there is no end, perhaps because such a dog's-eye-view of human romance appealed to her originality, Virginia Woolf has written a vignette in which both Flush and his invalid mistress are brought touchingly to life. If at times Flush seems more Woolf than spaniel, his biographer smilingly admits that "there are very few authorities" for so circumstantial, so authoritative an account.

Flush was a red cocker spaniel of good breeding whose puppyhood was passed in the pleasant English countryside near Reading. Before he was out of his doggy teens he had tasted the pleasures of love and was a father. Then his owner, Miss Mitford, gave him to her invalid friend, Elizabeth Barrett. In his new mistress's home, on London's genteel Wimpole Street, Flush passed into polite and celibate seclusion. Though not by nature a lapdog, Flush sacrificed his roaming instincts and became a devoted stay-at-home, never stirring from Miss Barrett's room except on her rare excursions to take the air in fine weather. By the time brisk Mr. Browning appeared to lay siege to Miss Barrett's fluttering heart, Flush was almost a softy. He viewed Mr. Browning with alarm, did his best to break up the match. On two occasions Flush attacked him, bit his stalwart leg to no effect. A graceful realist, he saw the struggle was hopeless, admitted Mr. Browning to his friendship.

Wimpole Street backed up against one of London's grisliest slums, one of whose well-organized rackets it was to steal Wimpole Street's pets and hold them for ransom. If the ransom were not quickly forthcoming, the pet's paws and head were returned to the owners in a bag. Once (in reality, three times, says Biographer Woolf in a note) Flush was so kidnapped by these racketeers. Everybody, including Mr. Browning, advised Miss Barrett to refuse to pay ransom, sacrifice Flush on the altar of law & order. Miss Barrett indignantly refused, went herself to beard the chief racketeer in his den, finally got Flush back at an exorbitant price.

When Poetess Barrett eloped with Mr. Browning, Flush naturally went along. He enjoyed Italy as much as they did. In a land where nobody thought of kidnapping dogs, with a mistress who had ceased to be an invalid in becoming a wife, Flush led an unrestrained and roving life, made up for many a lost love-affair. With the Brownings he visited England and Wimpole Street once again, but he was glad to get back to Italy, to spend his old age in the southern sun and to die in peace by his beloved mistress's side.

Flush is one of the two choices (see p. 55) of the Book-of-the-Month Club for October.

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