There is yet another circumstance which should be mentioned as revealing an identity of sympathies in these two eminent persons. Each sought to marry Madame Helvétius: Turgot early in life, while she was still Mademoiselle Ligniville, belonging to a family of twenty-one children, from a château in Lorraine, and a niece of Madame de Graffigny, author of the “Peruvian Letters”; Franklin in his old age, while a welcome guest in the intellectual company which this widowed lady continued to gather about her at Auteuil, in the neighborhood of Paris, and not far from his own house at Passy. Throughout his stay in France he continued in unbroken relations with this circle, dining with it very often, and adding much to its gayety, while Madame Helvétius, with her friends, dined with him once a week. It was with tears in his eyes that he parted from her, whom he never expected to see again in this life; and on reaching his American home he addressed her in words of touching tenderness: “I stretch out my arms towards you, notwithstanding the immensity of the seas which separate us, while I wait the heavenly kiss which I firmly trust one day to give you.”[258] In the permanent group about Madame Helvétius were Cabanis and Morellet, both living for many years under her hospitable roof. To the former we are indebted for the interesting extract last quoted. The intimacy with Franklin is attested in other ways. Nobody who has visited the Imperial[259] Library at Paris can forget his very pleasant autograph note in French concerning Madame Helvétius, exhibited in the same case with an autograph note of Henry the Fourth to Gabrielle d’Estrées. Another glimpse is furnished by Mrs. Adams, who, in her family correspondence, reports a scene at the house of Franklin. “The Doctor entered at one door, she [Madame Helvétius] at the other; upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the hand, ‘Hélas, Franklin!’--then gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, and another upon his forehead.… She carried on the chief of the conversation at dinner, frequently locking her hand into the Doctor’s.” Franklin spoke of her as “a genuine Frenchwoman, wholly free from affectation or stiffness of behavior, and one of the best women in the world.”[260] Madame Helvétius died at Auteuil, August 12, 1800, aged eighty-one, and, according to her desire, was buried in her garden. A few years later the same house became the home of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who died there, and was buried in the neighboring cemetery.