We see Beaumarchais rushing away from Franklin's
lodgings in Passy to spread the good news, and in such mad haste that he
upset his carriage and dislocated his arm. And when we next look out from
the path we see the British soldiers passing in surrender between two
lines drawn up at Yorktown, the American soldiers on one side with
Washington at their head, and on the other the French soldiers under Count
Rochambeau.
Washington and Legardeur de St. Pierre at Fort Le Boeuf, Washington and
Rochambeau at Yorktown! You have been told again and again that except for
the France of Rochambeau the War of Independence would probably have
failed and that the colonies would have remained English colonies. But let
us remember that except for the France of Legardeur de St. Pierre there
would probably not have been, as Parkman says, a "revolution"; and by the
France of Legardeur I mean the spirit of France that had illustration in
his lonely, exiled watching of the regions won by her pioneers.
The French man-of-war _Triumph_ brought to Philadelphia in May of 1783 the
treaty of Paris.
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