Here’s an excerpt from the biography of Ben Franklin I am reading right now (the one which has too many “perhaps'” and too many “must have been”s – but still – it’s a good read.)
This is a rather legendary tale about Franklin, oft told – it has showed up in most of the other books I have read about this time. I love it. It comes from his long sojourn in France, when he was the darling of the world, basically. All the while trying to negotiate matters between France and the rebelling colonies. He was, at that time, one of the most well-known (if not the most well-known) faces in the world.
Not surprisingly, the relative rarity of his [Franklin’s] spoken mots made them the more precious.
One that was long remembered came from a chess match between Franklin and the elderly Duchess of Bourbon. Inexpert, she illegally placed her king in check. Franklin, in the spirit of rule-breaking, captured it. She, knowing enough to realize that this was not permitted, declared that in France “we do not take kings”.
With a sly smile he responded, “We do in America.”
Check MATE.
Great quote.
Lovely quote from one of my favorite people.
Ben was a man distinguished by complimenting intelligences. One of these was Proust’s favorite,
“Cetainly men of wit, such as Swann for instance, regarded themselves as superior to men of merit, whom they despised, but that was because what the Duchess valued above everything else was not intelligence but–a superior form of intelligence, according to her, rarer, more exquisite, raising it up to a verbal variety of talent–wit.”