An excerpt from the beginning.
NO SINGLE event of the present decade has aroused so much interest in both France and the United States as the discovery in Paris and the triumphal return to the United States of the remains of John Paul Jones, and none has been more fruitful in demonstrations of international good will and the promotion of cordial relations between the two great republics of the world.
At the time of his death (July 18, 1792), both countries claimed him as their own. The French Assembly passed a unanimous resolution honoring the memory of Paul Jones, "Admiral of the United States of America," and decreed "that twelve of its members should assist at the funeral of a man who had so well served the cause of liberty;" some of its members even proposed that he should be buried in the Pantheon among the illustrious dead of France.
The high esteem in which Napoleon held Paul Jones may be judged from the following anecdote. In 1805, Napoleon, musing gloomily over the news from Trafalgar, asked Berthier: "How old was Paul Jones when he died?" Berthier replied that he thought he was forty-five years old. "Then," said Napoleon, "he did not fulfil his destiny. Had he lived to this time, France might have had an Admiral."
The present government of France has shown no less honor than its predecessors to the memory of Paul Jones by the imposing ceremonies organized for the occasion of the transfer of the remains and the magnificent reception given to the American Mission and the American sailors and marines, sent over to claim and escort the body of the most illustrious commodore of the early American Navy.
