It is not likely that Franklin had the respect for Madame Helvetius that he had for Madame Brillon. She was, strange to say, an illiterate woman, as one of her letters to him plainly shows. Some of his letters to her read as if he were purposely feeding her inordinate vanity. He tells her in one that her most striking quality is her artless simplicity; that statesmen, philosophers, and poets flock to her; that he and his friends find in her “sweet society that charming benevolence, that amiable attention to oblige, that disposition to please and to be pleased which we do not always find in the society of one another.” She lived at Auteuil, and he and the Abbé Morellet and others called her “Our Lady of Auteuil.” They boasted much of their love for her, and enjoyed many wonderful conversations on literature and philosophy, and much gayety at her house, which they called “The Academy.” After Franklin had returned to America the Abbé Morellet, who was an active and able man in his way, wrote him many amusing letters about their lady and her friends. “I shall never forget the happiness I have enjoyed in knowing you and seeing you intimately. I write to you from Auteuil, seated in your arm chair, on which I have engraved _Benjamin Franklin hic sedebat_, and having by my side the little bureau, which you bequeathed to me at parting with a drawerful of nails to gratify the love of nailing and hammering, which I possess in common with you. But, believe me, I have no need of all these helps to cherish your endeared remembrance and to love you. “‘Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus hos reget artus.’” [Illustration: FRANKLIN RELICS IN THE POSSESSION OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA] One of the cleverest letters Franklin wrote while in France was addressed to an old English friend, Mrs. Thompson, who had called him a rebel. “You are too early, _hussy_” he says, “as well as too saucy, in calling me _rebel_; you should wait for the event, which will determine whether it is a _rebellion_ or only a _revolution_. Here the ladies are more civil; they call us _les insurgens_, a character that usually pleases them.” He continues chaffing her, and describes himself as wearing his own hair in France, where every one else had on a great powdered wig. If they would only dismiss their _friseurs_ and give him half the money they pay to them, “I could then enlist these _friseurs_, who are at least one hundred thousand, and with the money I would maintain them, make a visit with them to England, and dress the heads of your ministers and privy councillors, which I conceive at present to be _un peu dérangées_. Adieu, madcap; and believe me ever, your affectionate friend and humble servant.”