Passy

Passy is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is traditionally home to many of the city's wealthiest residents.

Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around which spa facilities were developed. This attracted Parisian society and English visitors, some of whom made the area, which combined attractive countryside with both modest houses and fine residences, their winter retreat. The population was 2,400 in 1836, 4,545 in 1841, but larger in summer. In 1861 the population was 11,431. Passy's population was 17,594 when it was absorbed into Paris along with several other communities in 1860.

Passy was the home of Benjamin Franklin during the nine years that he lived in France during the American Revolutionary War. For much of this time, he was a lodger in the home of Monsieur de Chaumont.

Franklin established a small printing press in his lodgings to print pamphlets and other material as part of his mandate to maintain French support for the revolution. He called it the Passy Press. Among his printing projects, he produced comics he called Bagatelles and passports. He developed a typeface known as "le Franklin". He also printed a 1782 treatise by Pierre-André Gargaz titled A Project of Universal and Perpetual Peace, which laid out a vision for maintaining a permanent peace in Europe. It proposed a central governing council composed of representatives of all the nations of Europe to arbitrate international disputes.

He also worked on his scientific projects at a laboratory he shared with others, which had been installed by Louis XV in the Château de la Muette.

When Franklin returned to America, the new American Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, wrote: "When he left Passy, it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch."

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