Plagued by Frenchmen desiring places in the colonial army, feted by the _philosophes_, sorely vexed by the need for settling countless maritime affairs, embracing and embraced by the venerable Voltaire, corresponding with Hartley concerning exchange of prisoners, shaping alliances and treaties, conducting scientific experiments, investigating Mesmer, intrigued by balloon ascensions, made the darling of several salons, associating in the Lodge of the Nine Sisters with Bailly, Bonneville, Warville, Condorcet, Danton, Desmoulins, D'Auberteuil, Pétion, Saint-Étienne, Sieyès, and others, all men who helped to give shape (or shapelessness) to the French Revolution,[i-336] Franklin found little time to search for that philosophic repose which he had long coveted. It may be extravagant to say that Franklin was the "Creator of Constitutionalism in Europe,"[i-337] but we know that in 1783 he printed the colonial constitutions for continental distribution.[i-338] It has been suggested that Franklin was an important formative factor in Condorcet's faith in universal suffrage, a unicameral legislature, and the liberties guaranteed by constitutional law.[i-339] Then, too, Franklin had signed the Declaration of Independence--a document which the French hailed as the "restoration of humanity's title deeds."[i-340] The Duc de la Rochefoucauld eulogized the unicameral legislature of Pennsylvania, identifying "this grand idea" and its "maximum of simplicity" as Franklin's creation.[i-341] Fauchet eulogized him as "one of the foremost builders of our sacred constitution."[i-342] Along with Helvétius, Mably, Rousseau, and Voltaire, Franklin was considered as one who laid the foundations for the French revolution.[i-343] Franklin's taciturnity, his "art of listening," his diplomatic reserve, do not suggest a volatile iconoclast doing anything consciously to bring about a republican France. This did not prevent him from becoming a symbol of liberty by his mere presence in the land, stimulating patriots to examine the foundations of the tyrannical authority which they saw or imagined enslaving them. Holding no brief for natural equality, Franklin suggested that "quiet and regular Subordination" is "so necessary to Success."[i-344] Realist that he was, he became almost obsessed with the innate depravity of men until he was doubtful whether "the Species were really worth producing or preserving."[i-345] One would not be considered excessively republican who inveighed against the "collected passions, prejudices, and private interests" of collective legislative bodies.[i-346] He wrote to Caleb Whitefoord: "It is unlucky ... that the Wise and Good should be as mortal as Common People and that they often die before others are found fit to supply their Places."[i-347] The great proportion of mankind, weak and selfish, need "the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice."[i-348] No less extreme than J. Q. Adams's retort to Paine's