John Adams was a man who always said yes or no decidedly, never having, like Franklin, learned from Socrates that if you wish to convince people, making them think for themselves is more effective than bludgeoning them. But as he was essentially honest, Adams did not deny that Franklin was beloved by the French as he would never be: “His name was familiar to government and people,” he wrote later, “to king, courtiers, nobility, clergy, and philosophers, as well as plebeians, to such a degree that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a _valet de chambre_, coachman or footman, a lady’s chambermaid or a scullion in a kitchen who was not familiar with it and who did not consider him a friend to human kind.... When they spoke of him they seemed to think he was to restore the golden age....” In one of the many elaborate ceremonies organized in Franklin’s honor, a crown of laurel was placed on his white hair by the most beautiful of three hundred women admirers. At another, a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a cap of liberty was presented to him. A poem, composed for the occasion, was read. The wood of the cane, it said, had been seized on the plains of Marathon by the Goddess of Liberty before she abandoned Greece. It had been transported to Switzerland, where the valiant mountaineers fought against invading Austrians. More recently it had been seen at Trenton, where Washington defeated the British. By possession of this symbol of victory, Benjamin Franklin was assured of a place in the “Temple of Memory.” Franklin’s French friends had long been hoping for a meeting between him and Voltaire, considered the two most enlightened men of the eighteenth century. In February 1778, after an exile of more than twenty-eight years, Voltaire returned to spend the last four months of his life in Paris. With his grandson Temple, Franklin called to pay his respects to the great philosopher. Voltaire was then eighty-four, lean and emaciated, but he still had the fiery spirit that had kept all Europe in an uproar over the major part of his life. He insisted on greeting the “illustrious and wise Franklin” in English, and held his hand over Temple’s head in blessing, pronouncing the words “God and Liberty.” There was a more publicized meeting in April at the Academy of Sciences. The audience, seeing both present, clamored to have them introduced to each other. Obligingly, they stepped forward and bowed to each other. The spectators were not yet satisfied. They wanted them to embrace each other in the French manner. Only when Franklin and Voltaire put their arms around each other and kissed each other’s cheeks did the tumult subside.