A forgotten connection between France, Nova Scotia and the Oak Island story
In 2018, my research into The Curse of Oak Island took me to Château de La Rochefoucauld in the Charente region of France. I was following the historical trail surrounding Zena Halpern’s map, the House of La Rochefoucauld and the possibility that fragments of European history had become entangled with the enduring mystery of Oak Island, Nova Scotia.
Inside the château, among the portraits, books and family memorials, I noticed a framed document bearing a name that immediately stood out: Benjamin Franklin.
I photographed it and, in 2019, brought the image to the War Room table during another meeting connected with The Curse of Oak Island. It did not become part of that episode, but I continued to investigate its implications. The program was already opening fascinating lines of enquiry involving colonial history, Freemasonry, the American Founding Fathers and Benjamin Franklin’s Benjamin connections with Nova Scotia.
The photograph above has been digitally restored to reduce reflections and improve clarity. The underlying text and documentary features have not been altered. Photographed by Gretchen Cornwall at Château de La Rochefoucauld, France, 2018. © Gretchen Cornwall.
By 2019, The Curse of Oak Island had already introduced its large audience to theories connecting Oak Island with the American Founding Fathers.
I find this object fascinating. It brings together Benjamin Franklin, several generations of the House of La Rochefoucauld, the American Revolution, Nova Scotia and the foundation of a French savings bank.
What does the plaque actually say?
The framed, expensive, high status object is not simply a commemorative plaque. It reproduces, or possibly preserves, the title page of a small French publication issued in Paris in 1826:
CONSEILS
POUR
FAIRE FORTUNE,
PAR
BENJAMIN FRANKLINORDONNANCE DE LOUIS XVIII SUR LA
CAISSE D’ÉPARGNES ET DE
PRÉVOYANCETravaillez, prenez de la peine,
C’est le fonds qui manque le moins.À Paris,
Chez Renouard, Libraire,
Rue de Tournon, No. 6.
MDCCCXXVI
In English, this becomes:
Advice for Making a Fortune, by Benjamin Franklin
Followed by the ordinance of Louis XVIII concerning the Savings and Provident Bank
Work and take pains. Labour is the capital least likely to fail.
Paris, Renouard, bookseller, 6 Rue de Tournon, 1826.
The phrase faire fortune means establishing oneself financially, prospering and accumulating wealth through work, thrift, credit and careful conduct.
A surviving library catalogue identifies the publication as a thirty-six-page booklet measuring only fifteen centimeters tall. It contained a calendar for 1826, a short account of Franklin’s life, his financial advice and the ordinance authorizing the French savings institution. The bibliographical record is preserved by the Amiens Métropole libraries.
The circular mark visible on the left reads Bibliothèque Royale, or “Royal Library,” surrounding a crown and three fleurs-de-lis. If the stamp is original to the sheet, it suggests that the book or page once entered the French Royal Library during the Bourbon Restoration. If the framed object is a reproduction, it may preserve the stamp of the source copy. Either way, it is an ownership or provenance mark.
The buried-treasure message hidden in plain sight
The short verse printed beneath Franklin’s name is not actually by Franklin. It comes from Jean de La Fontaine’s seventeenth-century fable, Le Laboureur et ses Enfants, or The Labourer and His Children.
In the fable, a dying farmer tells his sons that treasure is concealed somewhere in their inherited field. After his death, they dig through the entire property searching for it. They discover no gold, but their labor thoroughly cultivates the ground and produces an unusually abundant harvest.
The father’s lesson is that work itself can uncover treasure. For me, this adds another dimension to the extraordinary Oak Island search. More than 230 years of exploration have revealed objects, structures, documents and historical connections that continue to support the possibility of treasure, whether sacred, documentary or material. With Franklin, the Rochefoucaulds and other significant figures joining that story, the search remains as compelling as ever.
The French word fonds is particularly clever on this title page. It can mean a resource, a fund or financial capital. The quotation therefore unites La Fontaine’s moral lesson with Franklin’s teachings about industry and the new savings bank described in the booklet.
Benjamin Franklin’s friend, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld
The Franklin connection at the château is grounded in a genuine and well-documented friendship with Louis-Alexandre de La Rochefoucauld d’Enville, the sixth Duc de La Rochefoucauld.
Louis-Alexandre was a nobleman, scientist, reformer and supporter of the American cause. He and Franklin corresponded over many years. In a surviving letter of February 1787, the duke addressed Franklin as his “dear and illustrious friend.” Their correspondence continued after Franklin returned to America and can be traced through The Papers of Benjamin Franklin.
Their most important collaboration was political and literary. At Franklin’s encouragement, Louis-Alexandre translated the constitutions of the thirteen newly independent American states into French. Franklin arranged for the work to be published in Paris in 1783 under the title Constitutions des Treize États-Unis de l’Amérique.
Franklin understood that the American Revolution would not be secured by military victory alone. The new republic needed European recognition and intellectual legitimacy. The publication therefore included the state constitutions, the Declaration of Independence and important treaties. Beautifully bound copies were presented to Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and French government ministers.
The Library of Congress preserves a copy personally inscribed by Franklin to Louis-Alexandre. This was not a passing social acquaintance. Franklin and the duke worked together to introduce the political structure of the new United States to the French-speaking world.
An earlier La Rochefoucauld connection with Nova Scotia
Louis-Alexandre also carried a deeply personal connection to Nova Scotia. His father was Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye, Duc d’Anville.
In 1746, the Duc d’Anville commanded a major French naval expedition sent to recover Acadia and Louisbourg from the British. Storms, disease and delays devastated the fleet. When its surviving ships finally reached Chebucto, now Halifax Harbour, thousands of men were dead or seriously ill. D’Anville himself died shortly after arriving.
The encampment is now recognized as a National Historic Site by Parks Canada.
This creates an important sequence. The father led a French expedition to regain Nova Scotia in 1746. His son later became Benjamin Franklin’s friend and helped publish the constitutions of the thirteen American states in 1783.
The relationship between the House of La Rochefoucauld and Atlantic North America therefore did not begin with the framed Franklin page. It extended across two generations and passed through war, diplomacy, science and political reform.
The Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt and the savings bank
There is another La Rochefoucauld behind the 1826 document, and distinguishing between the two dukes is essential.
Following Louis-Alexandre’s death in 1792, the senior title passed to his cousin, François-Alexandre-Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. He was the famous reforming aristocrat who reportedly informed Louis XVI of the fall of the Bastille. When the king asked whether it was a revolt, Liancourt replied, “No, Sire, it is a revolution.”
During his exile from revolutionary France, Liancourt travelled through the United States and Upper Canada. He studied agriculture, prisons, education, industry and the social conditions of the young republic. His interests closely resembled Franklin’s belief that practical knowledge should be used for public benefit.
After returning to France, Liancourt became involved in education, vaccination, prison reform and economic protection for working people. On 22 May 1818, he and the banker and philanthropist Benjamin Delessert established France’s first Caisse d’Épargne et de Prévoyance.
This was not a speculative investment bank for the wealthy. It was intended to give working people a safe place to deposit small savings at a time when France had no modern system of social security. Louis XVIII authorized the institution by royal ordinance on 29 July 1818. France Archives identifies Liancourt and Delessert as the two leading founders.
There is another Franklin connection within this story. Benjamin Delessert’s father, Étienne Delessert, had been Franklin’s friend and neighbor at Passy during Franklin’s residence in France.
The 1826 booklet therefore did something very deliberate. It placed Franklin’s teachings about industry, thrift and financial responsibility beside the royal ordinance authorizing the savings institution co-founded by the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.
This explains why the title page belonged in the château. It commemorated one of the family’s most important contributions to French social and economic history.
The booklet appeared only one year before Liancourt’s death in 1827.
Could the page really be vellum?
When I saw the object personally, the surface appeared heavily textured and displayed ridges and irregularities associated with vellum or calf-skin. The photograph records some of those branching, skin-like creases. I took only one photograph because I was in a hurry and did not yet realize how important this object might become.
The French term papier vélin can also refer to high-quality wove paper rather than animal skin.
Rare-book evidence shows that Renouard produced luxury copies of Franklin’s writings on vellum. A catalogue of Renouard’s collection describes a related grouping of Franklin publications as “Sur VÊLIN; le seul tiré”, meaning “on vellum; the only copy printed.” Historian John McBride also recorded that a vellum copy of Conseils pour faire fortune was advertised at the remarkable price of 220 francs. McBride’s study appeared in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society in 1956.
Considering the high standing of the House of La Rochefoucauld and its close relationship with the French throne, this may be a costly and historically significant object. It brings together luxury printing, friendship, political reform and the shared ideals that helped shape modern democracy.
Who was Benjamin Franklin?
Franklin cannot be reduced to the familiar image of an elderly gentleman flying a kite.
He was a printer, publisher, author, scientist, inventor, political organizer and diplomat. His Poor Richard’s Almanack popularized practical advice about time, credit, work and economy. His experiments with electricity brought him international scientific fame long before the American Revolution.
As an American commissioner and later minister to France, Franklin helped secure the French alliance without which American independence might not have survived. He helped negotiate the 1783 Treaty of Paris and became one of the principal figures connecting the American Revolution with the European Enlightenment.
Franklin was also a Freemason. He entered the fraternity in Philadelphia in 1731, became Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734 and printed the first American edition of James Anderson’s Constitutions of the Free-Masons. While living in France, he joined the celebrated Parisian Lodge of the Nine Sisters, whose members included leading intellectuals and artists. He participated in Voltaire’s initiation in 1778.
These affiliations placed Franklin within an international culture of sociability, learning and reform. They help explain the ease with which he moved among scientists, writers, aristocrats and political thinkers in France.
Franklin’s connection with Nova Scotia
Franklin was closely connected with the administration and development of British North America before he became a revolutionary.
In 1753, he and William Hunter were appointed joint deputy postmasters general for British North America. Franklin’s jurisdiction included the northern colonies and Nova Scotia. Under this wider authority, regular official postal service was established at Halifax.
His position was broad: Deputy Postmaster General for British North America. In 1775, the Continental Congress appointed him the first Postmaster General of the emerging United States. His colonial postal career is documented by the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Franklin also held substantial land interests in Nova Scotia. In 1767, the Privy Council authorized a personal grant of 20,000 acres to him within the province. The original order survives in the Franklin Papers. The tract is commonly associated with the East Hants and Enfield area, although the precise execution and later legal status of the grant require care.
Franklin still claimed Nova Scotian lands or rights when writing his will. He left them to his estranged son William Franklin, the former royal governor of New Jersey who had remained loyal to Britain during the Revolution.
His 20,000-acre grant on mainland Nova Scotia is fascinating due to its proximity to Oak Island.
Could Nova Scotia have joined the American Revolution?
Nova Scotia would have been a welcomed colony…
There was real sympathy for the American cause among some Nova Scotians. Committees resembling the revolutionary Committees of Correspondence appeared, and there were acts of resistance against British authority. American leaders investigated whether an uprising could be supported, while Jonathan Eddy’s unsuccessful attack on Fort Cumberland in 1776 represented a serious attempt to bring the region into the rebellion.
The attempt failed. Halifax was an important British naval and military center, the province’s population was politically divided, and American privateering raids alienated communities that might otherwise have been sympathetic. Nova Scotia remained within the British Empire and later received thousands of Loyalist refugees. The complicated circumstances are examined in the Smithsonian’s account, “When Nova Scotia Almost Joined the American Revolution”.
What does the plaque contribute to the Oak Island story?
It reveals a documented Atlantic network.
A member of the House of La Rochefoucauld led the enormous French attempt to recover Nova Scotia in 1746. His son became Franklin’s friend and translated the constitutions of the thirteen American states. Franklin administered postal communication with Nova Scotia and held rights to 20,000 acres there.
The next Duc de La Rochefoucauld founded France’s first savings bank, and an 1826 publication joined Franklin’s financial teachings to the royal ordinance authorizing that institution.
In 2018, I photographed that page while following the La Rochefoucauld trail raised by my Oak Island research.
The plaque adds another tangible point of connection and another compelling reason to continue the search. Whether Oak Island’s lost treasure is sacred, documentary or material, overlooked details such as this may ultimately prove to be among the most important clues.
It does not close the mystery. It gives us another reason to continue following it. Whether the treasure is sacred, documentary or material, overlooked details such as this may ultimately prove to be among the most important clues.
by Gretchen Cornwall ©
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“Dead Man’s Chest” (14 November 2017): Doug Crowell, with Captain James Anderson’s descendant Steve Atkinson, introduced the Masonic evidence.
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“Dan’s Breakthrough” (2 January 2018): Doug Crowell first introduced his research into the La Rochefoucauld family.
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“The French Connection” (9 January 2018): Follow-up to Doug Crowell’s research, involving Nichola Lewis and Sonia Matossian at Château de La Rochefoucauld.
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“The Signs of a Cross” (16 January 2018): Doug Crowell presented the Duc d’Anville ship-log material.
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“Lost and Founding” (30 April 2019): Cort Lindahl, supported by Bruce Lindahl and Justin Cannady, presented the Franklin, Jefferson and La Rochefoucauld theory.
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“Oak Island and the Founding Fathers” (12 May 2020): Revisited Cort Lindahl’s theory and Doug Crowell’s earlier research.