More than two centuries after his death, people are still trying to figure out how a paunchy, balding, bifocaled septuagenarian managed to get French ladies in a flutter. From his days as an ambitious young printer in Philadelphia to his years as a diplomatic superstar in France, Ben Franklin surrounded himself with adoring women, often much younger, usually attractive and preferably intelligent. For the most part, his loyal wife Deborah tolerated these dalliances. As she probably knew, most were never consummated. In fact, Franklin was a master of what the French call amiti� amoureuse, whose English translation, amorous friendship, gives only a hint of its true meaning: a delicious form of intimacy, expressed in exchanges of teasing kisses, tender embraces, intimate conversations and rhapsodic love