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 While serving his duty in France as Ambassador from the American Colonies during the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin affiliated himself with French Free-Masonic Lodges. In 1777, he became a member of the famous Lodge des Neuf Soeurs (Lodge of the Nine Sisters, or Nine Muses) in Paris under the Grand Orient de France; in 1778, he assisted in Voltaire's initiation into this Lodge. What a meeting that must have been and what events may have had their beginnings in the meeting of these two brilliant minds! The Frenchman: caustic, tart, rapier-like in wit, and scathing in denunciation of wrong and evil; Franklin: smooth, suave, direct, sensible, and keen as his French contemporary; both laying aside their defensive arms of wit and diplomacy to meet upon the level and part upon the square. Alas, their communion did not last for long, within the year Franklin helped bury the famous Frenchman with Masonic honors. The following year (1779), he was elected Master of the Lodge des Neuf Soeurs. In 1782, he became a member of Lodge de Saint Jean de Jerusalem and the next year was elected Venerable d'Honneur of that body and honorary member of Lodge des Bons Amis (Good Friends), in Rouen.
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