We learn very young that Benjamin Franklin with charm and cunning forged the Franco-American alliance that won our Independence.

That’s what we were taught, anyway. But it’s not true.

The true story is that in 1775 the Continental Congress decided to send someone on a secret mission to persuade France to arm them against Britain. Franklin proposed  a Yankee shopkeeper named “Silas Deane”. Deane had never left Connecticut in his life, could not speak a word of French, and knew nothing about diplomacy. Franklin thought that Deane was such an improbable spy the British would never suspect him.

With nothing but the worthless paper money printed by the Continental Congress, Deane arrived in France in July, 1776, unaware that Congress had just declared Independence. He was, in effect, our first emissary to Europe, and for the next six months without any diplomatic instructions, he improvised. He succeeded in his mission with the help of the French comic playwright, Beaumarchais, who wrote, “The Marriage of Figaro,” and “The Barber of Seville.” 

Beaumarchais was a dashing and brilliant bon vivant who invented the wrist watch, designed the modern harp, and built the Paris water system. He was also an arms dealer on the side.

Together Deane and Beaumarchais shipped all the arms and supplies for the Continental Army even before Franklin set foot in France.

None of this secret dealing would have been possible without the unwitting help of the French ambassador to London, the Chevalier d’Eon. D’Eon was a famous military hero, an accomplished diplomat, and a French spy. He was also blackmailing Louis XVI, and the King had asked Beaumarchais to try to negotiate with D’Eon.

When D’Eon met Beaumarchais he was instantly drawn to the handsome playwright and confessed that he was, in fact, secretly a woman. D’Eon told Beaumarchais that her father had preferred a son and raised her as a boy and that in her male disguise she found opportunities to succeed that no woman ever had.

Beaumarchais offered to marry d’Eon in exchange for her abandoning both her blackmail threat and her male persona. Beaumarchais’ reward for neutralizing the threat to Louis XVI was that the King agreed to give Beaumarchais the arms for the Americans.

Thus, d’Eon’s decision to come out as a woman provided the catalyst that forged the Franco-American alliance and won our independence.

This Independence Day let’s remember our debt not just to Silas Deane, Beaumarchais, and France, but also to the cross-dressing spy who made it all possible.

The election of the forty-first Republican and the first nudie model to the U.S. Senate has the pundits chattering. Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts senate race is being read as a dark omen of what the Democrats will face in the mid-term election. Does Scott Brown’s election really signal the emergence of the Tea Party as a powerful new reactionary force on the American political scene? Does his election foretell the end of the Democratic majority? Is it a turning point in American politics?  

We can’t know for sure, but history is never so predetermined. It’s more than likely that the pundits are wrong. After all these are the same pundits who predicted last year that the Democratic majority would rule for a generation – before they predicted that Obama was unelectable and Hillary Clinton had the Democratic nomination sewn up.

Here’s another interpretation: Scott Brown defeated an indifferent Democratic politician who didn’t even bother to campaign. The handful of voters who showed up at a special election in the middle of winter were motivated by frustration and anger – not necessarily directed at President Obama – but at the local Democratic machine politicians who took them for granted and run Massachusetts like a one-party state.

The media’s penchant for reading too much into Scott Brown’s election is a common phenomenon. Looking backward we often attribute significance to events that might be merely random localized occurrences. On the other hand, sometimes random occurrences can alter the course of history. We learn in school that history is determined by great leaders, big ideas, or broad social movements. But sometimes, history is determined by accident.

The success of the American Revolution, for example, has been attributed to a wide-range of causes: the brilliant leadership of our founding fathers, the ideology of civic republicanism, and the social mobility of American colonists. But a more likely explanation is the particular timing of France’s intervention on the side of the colonies.

Why did Louis XVI agree to aid the American revolutionaries when they appeared to be losing? The conventional explanation is that Benjamin Franklin charmed the French monarchy into providing all of the arms, ammunition and supplies for the Continental Army. But, in reality, Franklin had nothing to do with it.

In January 1776, long before Franklin arrived in France, he sent an unknown Connecticut shopkeeper, Silas Deane, on a secret mission to persuade Louis XVI to arm the Americans. Deane had never left Connecticut in his life, could not speak a word of French, and knew nothing about diplomacy. But Franklin thought that Deane was such an improbable emissary that the British spies would never suspect him.

Deane succeeded with the help of two Frenchmen: the comic playwright Caron de Beaumarchais and the French ambassador to London Chevalier d’Eon. This improbable trio are the subject of my new book, UNLIKELY ALLIES: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution.

Beaumarchais was one of the most interesting men of the nineteenth century. Though he is best remembered as the author of the original plays, “The Barber of Seville” and “The Marriage of Figaro,” he also invented the wristwatch, designed the modern harp, performed and taught music, built the Paris water system with the Perrier brothers, spied for the French King, and traded arms on the side. Deane and Beaumarchais together smuggled all of the arms, ammunition, uniforms, tents, blankets, and boots for an army of 30,000 men passed a swarm of British spies and through a British blockade to the Continental Army. The arms were sent before Franklin even set foot in France, and they arrived just in time to sway the outcome of the Battle of Saratoga, the turning point of the American Revolution.

None of this would have been possible without the leavening influence of the flamboyant Chevalier d’Eon. D’Eon was a decorated French war hero, an accomplished diplomat, and a brilliant spy, who was also blackmailing the French king. Louis XVI sent Beaumarchais on a secret mission to London to persuade d’Eon to surrender the incriminating documents. The dashing playwright ended up seducing d’Eon, who  admitted to Beaumarchais that he was in fact – a woman.

D’Eon’s decision to come out as a woman after forty years disguised as a male soldier, diplomat and spy set in motion a series of events that provided the catalyst that convinced Louis XVI to arm the Americans against the British. How and why that happened is the story of UNLIKELY ALLIES.

The point of my book is that history isn’t just hammered out by great leaders or great ideas or great social movements; the arc of history is just as often bent by random events, peripheral characters, and strange coincidents. History, like weather, is subject to the famous “butterfly effect.”

Scott Brown’s election is another chance occurrence. Perhaps he will change the trajectory of political history. But I doubt it. Right now, the forty-first Republican has nothing coherent to offer except his rigid opposition to health reform. Between now and the next election there will be many more butterflies that none of us can anticipate. We should be cautious about reading too much into a special election.

I’m not saying that Brown’s election is completely irrelevant. Maybe someday Brown will look no less significant in American history than that cross-dressing French spy who revealed herself. But for now all we can say for sure about Brown is that the senator has no clothes.

Cross-posted at http://www.acslaw.org/node/15336

Halloween is a holiday in search of a hero. President’s Day has Lincoln and Washington; Christmas has Santa; Valentine’s has Cupid; even Groundhog Day has Punxsutawney Phil; and Mother’s Day – well, you get the idea.

Halloween, which, let’s face it, is for adults not kids, has languished without an appropriate adult role model. Most Halloween characters, like Dracula, the Wicked Witch, or Tricky Dick have few redeeming qualities. Others, like Casper the Friendly Ghost or Batman are either too juvenile or too commercial. And the rest – princesses, clowns, and cowboys – are all puny anonymities. Where is the real masked hero whose exploits should be celebrated on this auspicious day?

I’d like to nominate the eighteenth-century Chevalier d’Eon as a genuine costumed hero for Halloween. Who, you ask? The Chevalier d’Eon was the French emissary to London in the 1760’s. D’Eon, was a courageous military hero of the Seven Years War between France and England, a champion fencer, and a brilliant spy, who lived a lifetime in disguise – first, for 40 years as a man and later, for 40 years as a woman. Voltaire once famously described the Chevalier as “A nice problem for history.”

According to the Chevalier’s memoirs, her father wanted a son and decided to raise her as a boy. She was not only an exceptionally handsome young man, but also an accomplished student and a talented athlete. She soon discovered that as a male she had more opportunities in life than her sisters who were imprisoned in dresses and denied any chance to exercise their free will. She rose quickly through Louis XV’s secret spy network, allegedly sometimes disguised as female and sometimes as male. The Chevalier became a fierce military commander in the elite royal dragoons, and later, as a diplomat, she negotiated the treaty that ended the Seven Years War. The Chevalier was so beloved in the court of King George II, then it was rumored d’Eon had fathered George III.

After a squabble with Louis XV’s foreign minister d’Eon was fired as Minister Plenipotentiary to Britain. The Chevalier retaliated against the French Government by publishing a portion of secret diplomatic correspondence. Then d’Eon blackmailed the King by threatening to publish secret letters in which Louis asked d’Eon to assist in planning a French invasion of London that could only be described as cuckoo.

Louis XVI sent the famous French playwright, Caron de Beaumarchais, author of The Barber of Seville, on a secret mission to London in 1775 to persuade d’Eon to surrender the secret correspondence. By then rumors that d’Eon was a cross-dresser had spread widely, and tens of thousands of pounds sterling were wagered on this unlikely proposition. When d’Eon met the dashing Beaumarchais, the Chevalier tearfully disclosed to him for the first time that under the decorated uniform of a captain of the dragoons, she was indeed female.

How then was d’Eon a hero? Sometime around Halloween, 1776, d’Eon agreed with Beaumarchais to abandon her blackmail and her military uniform and admit publicly that she was a woman. Through a twisted series of events d’Eon’ decision to “come out” became the catalyst that convinced Louis XVI to arm the Americans against the British in the American Revolution. As a result of d’Eon’s actions Louis XVI provided the Americans with all of the arms, ammunition, uniforms, blankets, tents, boots, hats, even handkerchiefs for an army of 30,000 men. These desperately needed supplies reached Washington’s men just weeks before the critical Battle of Saratoga that proved to be the turning point of the American Revolution.

In other words, America owes its independence in part to a cross-dressing French spy. Who could be a more appropriate patron saint for the festival of Halloween? Come to think of it maybe we should make d’Eon the hero of July Fourth instead.

If you like reading this blog, check out my new book, UNLIKELY ALLIES.  

Here’s what Library Journal says about UNLIKELY ALLIES : “Paul’s fast-paced, engaging narrative fills a gap in the historiography of the American Revolution and is essential reading for students of revolutionary diplomacy as well as general devotees of the age.”