This paper argues that Franklin’s intimate friendships with French women played a key political role in early American diplomacy, that the Franklin-Brillon friendship helped Benjamin Franklin to achieve his diplomatic goals, and reaffirms Brillon as one of Franklin’s most important social links in Paris during the American Revolution. To address this gap in the historiography of early American diplomacy, this paper explores the nuances in Franklin’s friendship with Anne-Louise Brillon de Jouy, a famous composer and one of Franklin’s most important social links in French society during his diplomatic mission. In short, despite the excellent work of scholars who have written extensively on Benjamin Franklin’s nine-year diplomatic mission to France, historians have neglected to explore the intersection of diplomacy, gender, and friendship in the late eighteenth-century. Instead, they generalize about the scandalous nature of Franklin’s behavior in France and limit themselves by focusing almost exclusively on Franklin’s romantic interests in French women. However, historians have not fully explored the diplomatic implications of Franklin’s friendships with French women or how Franklin’s relationships with French women affected his role as an emissary. Dull have advanced the argument that Franklin’s French-like behavior was a key component contributing to his success as a diplomat even though his behavior conflicted with the other revolutionary leaders’ ideas of accepted moral behavior.
In recent years, Stacy Schiff and Jonathan R. Historians who study Franklin and early American diplomacy generally agree that Franklin benefitted from socializing with French women because they gave him access to French society, which in turn enabled him to use his reputation and popularity to gain support from the French public, acquire additional secret aid from the French government, and complicate British war objectives while integrating himself into French society. Thankfully, this infrequency has not hindered historians from recognizing Franklin’s diplomatic accomplishments, his difficulties in obtaining foreign assistance, his difficulties with his American compatriots, and Franklin’s appreciation for French women. However, Franklin’s exploits as a diplomat have received infrequent attention over the years. This post is a part of the 2020 Selected Papers of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, which were edited and compiled by members of the CRE’s board alongside editors at Age of Revolutions.įor generations, Benjamin Franklin has remained a popular American figure due to his exploits as a scientist, inventor, and diplomat.
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