I've seen this before, but it's always seemed curious to me. Does anyone know the circumstances of this letter?
Was there really a journal of Paris? Was it some kind of English language paper for ex-pats, which would explain why Franklin was writing an letter in English to it? Or was he writing a letter in English to a "Journal de Paris", assuming that anybody educated enough to read was educated enough to read English? Or is the whole "journal" thing just a joke, and it's just a pamphlet for general publication making fun of the Parisians (which would also explain the English language)?
On a broader note, Franklin and Jefferson spent an awful lot of time in Paris, but I never run across any letters or writings of theirs in French. Do these things exist but just don't show up often, was there some kind of social faux pas that explains this, or was their French just kind of sucky?
I think this was from Le Journal de Paris. "Journal" in this case actually means "newspaper" -- it was a daily that ran from the 1770's to the 1840's. I have a copy, but sadly it has no Benjamin Franklin essays in it.
If it was actually published in Journal de Paris, why the weird "Journal of Paris" thing? And did the actual Journal de Paris really publish letters in English sometimes? I've always heard Franklin was a big celebrity in Paris(that definitely might be propaganda in American schoolbooks), but English wasn't all that popular of a language at the time.
I can believe that Franklin was making a joking reference to Le Journal de Paris, but it seems hard to believe this actually got published there.
The article starts in the "E C O N O M I E" section.
(note: the shape of the printed lowercase s looks like an f)
Don't be surprised that the he was able to write in French, as educated people of that time knew French, much as educated people today know English. Moreover he was ambassador to France during 1776–1785.
Thank you very much!! I stand corrected. And with this to search with, I found the complete original on Google Books (along with what seems to be a complete set of Journal de Paris from the 18th century; I'm going to waste the whole day reading bits of these.)
I'm not surprised at all that Jefferson and Franklin spoke French -- I always assumed they did -- what surprises me is that we (at least in the US) see so little evidence of it and that translations are presented as originals so often.
This letter is a good example. Is the English translation even Franklin's? And yet it's everywhere, while this French original doesn't even show up on the Library of Congress Franklin site. That's what I find bizarre.
Was there really a journal of Paris? Was it some kind of English language paper for ex-pats, which would explain why Franklin was writing an letter in English to it? Or was he writing a letter in English to a "Journal de Paris", assuming that anybody educated enough to read was educated enough to read English? Or is the whole "journal" thing just a joke, and it's just a pamphlet for general publication making fun of the Parisians (which would also explain the English language)?
On a broader note, Franklin and Jefferson spent an awful lot of time in Paris, but I never run across any letters or writings of theirs in French. Do these things exist but just don't show up often, was there some kind of social faux pas that explains this, or was their French just kind of sucky?