The great need of the colonies was money to carry on the war, and, pressed as was France in the days preceding her own revolution, when M. Necker was continually opposing the grants, she loaned our country--part of it a gift--over five million dollars, says James Parton, in his admirable life of Franklin. For this reason, as well as for the noble men like Lafayette who came to our aid, the interests of France should always be dear to America. When the Revolutionary War was over, Franklin helped negotiate the peace, and returned to America at his own request in the fall of 1785, receiving among his farewell presents a portrait of Louis XVI., set with four hundred and eight diamonds. Thomas Jefferson became minister in his stead. When asked if he had replaced Dr. Franklin, he replied, "I _succeed_; no one can ever _replace_ him." He was now seventy-nine years old. He had been absent for nine years. When he landed, cannon were fired, church-bells rung, and crowds greeted him with shouts of welcome. He was at once made President of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and at eighty-one a delegate to the convention that framed our Constitution, where he sat regularly five hours a day for four months. To him is due the happy suggestion, after a heated discussion, of equal representation for every State in the Senate, and representation in proportion to population in the House. At eighty-four, in reply to a letter to Washington, he received these tender words:-- "If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in vain. And I flatter myself that it will not be ranked among the least grateful occurrences of your life to be assured that, so long as I retain my memory, you will be recollected with respect, veneration, and affection, by your sincere friend, "GEORGE WASHINGTON." The time for the final farewell came, April 17, 1790, near midnight, when the gentle and great statesman, doubly great because so gentle, slept quietly in death. Twenty thousand persons gathered to do honor to the celebrated dead. Not only in this country was there universal mourning, but across the ocean as well. The National Assembly of France paid its highest eulogies. By his own request, Franklin was buried beside his wife and Franky, under a plain marble slab, in Christ Church Cemetery, Philadelphia, with the words,-- Benjamin } Franklin. and } 1790. Deborah }