Franklin had visited France twice in the 1760s, joking that his tailor and peruke maker “transformed me into a Frenchman.… They told me I was become twenty years younger and looked very gallant.” Now he was the American, a slightly paunchy embodiment of his country, authentic and unpretentious in an inauthentic, pretentious age. Excerpts from the final edition of his Poor Richard’s Almanack, published in 1758, would be reprinted 145 times before the end of the century, including twenty-eight French translations; reportedly even priests found his aphorisms on prudence, thrift, and diligence to
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