The instant John Adams was sure that Bancroft was out of earshot, he struck out again: “Do you not find it odd that your secretary was lurking at the door, just when his name came up in conversation?” he demanded of Franklin.

“Our secretary,” Franklin corrected him. “He is paid by the mission. And I don’t find it strange, when I was just ringing to find him myself—”

“Good Lord!” cried Jefferson, peering out the library’s French windows. “There is a barnyard animal eating your costly roses, and the wench who’s astride him clearly can’t manage the beast!”

The two men went to the windows. There, at the center of the jewel-like garden, a middle-aged woman sat astride an obdurate white mule, yanking at the reins. When this got her nowhere, she swung her leg over the saddle in apparent exasperation, dismounted like a man, and still grasping the reins forcefully, she uprooted a bunch of flowers from a nearby garden bed and shoved them into the mule’s muzzle. The beast, instantly diverted by the fresh buds, took a healthy mouthful.

Franklin smiled a strange, private smile.

“I believe that I am acquainted with that ‘wench’ out there—though not with her beast,” he informed his companions. “I may add, in my experience, the lady has assuredly mounted animals superior to that one.” He laughed as he saw the astonished faces of Adams and Jefferson.

“Do you not recognize her?” Franklin asked Adams. When the latter shook his head, Franklin clarified: “It is Notre dame d’Auteuil.”

“Madame Helvetius?” cried Adams, aghast.

When Franklin nodded, Jefferson said, “Not the wife of the philosophe! But why is she dressed as a farmer’s wife?”

“Ah, the upper classes are always a mystery, aren’t they?” said Franklin. “Our charming queen, Marie Antoinette, has a peasant farm on the grounds of the palace, where she plays at being a poor shepherdess. Rousseau has made these ‘natural’ ideas so popular.”

But privately, Franklin couldn’t imagine why Anne-Catherine Helvetius would arrive here in this fashion, astride a recalcitrant mule. The situation did not bode well.

Suddenly he saw that Mme Helvetius had lashed her mule to a tempting-looking lemon tree with lush green leaves. While it was occupied, she was headed on foot—with a swiftness that almost resembled stealth—straight for the garden entrance to the salon, where the others Bancroft had mentioned would be waiting.

What in blazes was the woman thinking, prancing about in the garden instead of using the customary entrance? And where was her driver? Where was her cabriolet? Action seemed called for on Franklin’s part—and quickly.

“Enough for the morning, gentlemen, I can rest here no longer,” he announced, rubbing his leg as if to plead his eternal gout. “Let’s attend to the others, shall we?”

And, leaving the two men to collect themselves, he hobbled swiftly out the door.

* * *

He was too late—at least, too late to halt the explosion.

Echoing down the long gallery of mirrors and many-paned windows that led from the library came a piercing shriek that had emanated from within the salon. Franklin knew it could only be Anne-Catherine Helvetius: