Ben Franklin and others in the French high society probably had a laugh at John Paul Jone's expense. This was about a story which should have been
shrouded in secrecy and made Jones look more like a
kitten than a lion. It involved some
risky business he was supposedly involved in which also
slashed at his reputation.
During the Mardi Gras celebrations a chamber maid dressed up as John Paul Jones and goosed the wife of Madame Chaumont's gardener. Chaumont was the landlord of the Passy estate Franklin and his friends were staying with while living outside of Paris.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passy There was a lot of miscommunication between Franklin and Jones about this incident and it did not help that the gardener's wife was up in arms about the attempted rape of her by John Paul Jones and had three of her sons threatening to kill Jones. The estate regulars were however quite amused by the whole farce as Franklin wrote the woman in question was "one of the grossest, coarsest, dirtiest and ugliest" woman "that one may find in a thousand." Madame Chaumont joked that John Paul Jone's sexual appetite must be prodigious-- "it gave a high idea of the strength of appetite and courage of the Americans."