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to make an announcement tonight, of general interest. As all of youknow, we arrived in France originally to sign our treaty with Great Britain—that was the doctor, Mr. Jay, and your humble servant. Mr. Jay has long since returned to America, and while the doctor and I have stayed on to negotiate other,
commercial
treaties, and Mr. Jefferson has joined us—nonetheless Fortune turns her wheel.”
    He stopped and repeated everything in slow, correct French (as stiff as buckram, Short thought; not one to board in Saint-Germain, John Adams studied French in a ponderously formal way at home—he had shown Short the copy of Bossuet’s
Funeral Orations
that was his text).
    “Fortune turns her wheel,” Adams said once more. “The doctor observes that he travels very little now, but he has authorized me to announce to you that in the spring of this year he means to relinquish permanently his post here and travel back to Pennsylvania.”
    The outburst was all that Franklin would have wished. The ladies groaned, the French gentlemen sprang from their chairs, a general bilingual lament rose from the length of the table. Adams remained standing, hands still clasped behind him. “I guessed,” Miss Adams whispered to Short. “All those letters and meetings. He wants to go home to die.”
    In the drawing room afterward, while servants passed around bits of orange and nuts and sweet red wine, a trio of musicians played Scottish and Irish melodies—Franklin’s favorite kind of music—and he himself gave a brief demonstration on his own glass-and-finger instrument, the famous and briefly fashionable “armonica,” which he had invented twenty years ago in London. And then, before Short was at all prepared for it, the party was ending. John and Abigail Adams handed guests into coats and cloaks, carriages ran up through the interminable rain, and footmen splashed in and out of the hallway with their boots and umbrellas. In the confusion Short found himself face to face with Franklin as they waited for a carriage to move.
    “Mr. Short.”
    “I saw your likeness yesterday, sir, in the shop at the Palais Royal and was amazed at the resemblance.”
    Franklin chuckled, like a great elf, Short thought. “Yes.” Heleaned on his cane, smiling. “I like to say that I have been
i-doll-
ized in this kingdom.”
    “Your popularity, sir—”
    Franklin had the old man’s habit of finishing young men’s thoughts. “My popularity is a source of great amusement to me. Do you know that when I first arrived in Paris and was being made much of, the king grew so prickly about it that he presented the Countess de Polignac with a Sèvres porcelain chamber pot, and my portrait at the bottom of it.”
    Franklin chuckled again and looked around. From the drawing room Adams and Jefferson were slowly advancing, heads down in conference. “You’re serving him as secretary?” Franklin asked.
    “Informally. There’s no salary or title—”
    “So you don’t know how long it can last. He’s a very deep man, very deep. Mr. Jefferson doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.” Madame Brillon was two steps away, holding up Franklin’s gray hooded cloak and chattering over her shoulder in rapid French. Franklin patted Short’s wrist in an unexpected gesture. His hand was as soft and skittering as a mouse. “Now, of course, you’re thinking what my departure means politically for him—and you.”
    “My plans—”
    Franklin bent forward confidentially. Short expected him to warn against Adams, or to recommend “Poor Richard”-fashion some sly mixture of prudence and horse sense. Instead, he cocked his elfish head and looked past Short’s arm and into the darkness of the hallway, nodding as if he were seeing a familiar, harmless ghost. “France will change him,” he said quietly. “It changes everyone. Whatever he was, he will turn out different. Whatever
you
are”—the old man straightened and grinned—“flirt like the devil,” he