Smallpox

[Teresa]

It has often been said that Ben Franklin liked the ladies. He once wrote in a letter to a friend that the older they were , the more grateful they were and the more likely they were not about to talk about it.

In the John Adams series, Adams accompanied Benjamin Franklin to France during the days after the Declaration of Independence an effort to seek financial assistance for the Revolutionary War.

One day, a French woman patted on Franklin's ample potbelly and joked that if his stomach were on a woman, they would all know what to think. Franklin replied that thirty minutes prior it had been on a woman.

The two men were staying in the King's palace. One afternoon, Adams could not wait to talk to Franklin about an important letter he had just received from the Continental Congress.

Adams started to Franklin's room but was told by an aide that Franklin had left instructions he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

John Adams would have nothing of it and barged into Ben's room. Benjamin Franklin, in his early 70s, was in a bathtub with an elderly French woman.

Incidentally, on this trip, John Adams was accompanied by an eleven year who became the sixth president of the United States. The child was John Quincy, his son.

That was in the episode that was on tonight. It was very very good. Can't wait until next Sunday.