I find the list hilarious, because Ben Franklin was a notorious player, and his time in France (as American ambassador) was legendary - if documented today, it would make the Wolf of Wallstreet jealous. In modern parlance, ‘coke and hookers’ galore.
He also, by all accounts, was instrumental in getting France to support the US war of independence, without which the war would likely have gone an entirely different way.
Not to say he treated anyone badly - by all accounts, all participants enjoyed themselves immensely.
But don’t take these pronouncements as documentations of fact, but rather playing to an audience. He was also one of the major publishers and propagandists in early America, and his audience was profoundly conservative (often in the puritan sense), rural, and poor. It’s how he made one of his first fortunes [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack].
He probably did follow some of them, when it suited him, but clearly was never hesitant to let them get in the way of a good time either. Taking it too literally is like taking one of those popular business books too literally.
Considering he didn’t have any embassy bureaucracy beyond a few staff helping him, and that any reply from washington would be many weeks away… it seems extremely unlikely he would have had much free time at all in Paris.
lazide|9 months ago
He also, by all accounts, was instrumental in getting France to support the US war of independence, without which the war would likely have gone an entirely different way.
Not to say he treated anyone badly - by all accounts, all participants enjoyed themselves immensely.
But don’t take these pronouncements as documentations of fact, but rather playing to an audience. He was also one of the major publishers and propagandists in early America, and his audience was profoundly conservative (often in the puritan sense), rural, and poor. It’s how he made one of his first fortunes [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack].
He probably did follow some of them, when it suited him, but clearly was never hesitant to let them get in the way of a good time either. Taking it too literally is like taking one of those popular business books too literally.
MichaelZuo|9 months ago
Considering he didn’t have any embassy bureaucracy beyond a few staff helping him, and that any reply from washington would be many weeks away… it seems extremely unlikely he would have had much free time at all in Paris.
unknown|9 months ago
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