THE BOYS' LIFE OF LAFAYETTE

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE From an engraving by Jones

The Boys' Life of LAFAYETTE

by
Helen Nicolay

Illustrated

Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London

CONTENTS

1. [Preface]

1. [Warriors and Wild Beasts]
2. [Educating a Marquis]
3. [A New King]
4. [An Unruly Courtier]
5. [Leading a Double Life]
6. [A Sea-turn]
7. [An American Pilgrimage]
8. [An Astonishing Reception]
9. [Proving Himself a Soldier]
10. [Letters]
11. [A Fool's Errand]
12. [Farce and Treachery]
13. [A Liaison Officer]
14. [Near-mutiny and near-imprisonment]
15. [Help—and Disappointment]
16. [Black Treachery]
17. [Preparing for the Last Act]
18. [Yorktown]
19. ["The Wine of Honor"]
20. [The Passing of Old France]
21. [The Tricolor]
22. [The Sans-culottes]
23. [Popularity and Prison]
24. [South Carolina to the Rescue!]
25. [Volunteers in Misfortune]
26. [Exiles]
27. [A Grateful Republic]
28. [Leave-takings]
29. [President—or King-maker]
30. [Seventy-six Years Young]

1. [Index]

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. [MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE]
2. [THE MANOR-HOUSE OF CHAVANIAC]
3. [FRANKLIN AT THE FRENCH COURT]
4. [WASHINGTON AND THE COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS AT VALLEY FORGE]
5. [VALLEY FORGE—WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE]
6. [THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH]
7. [THE BASTILLE]
8. [SIEGE OF THE BASTILLE]
9. [MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE]
10. [MADAME DE LAFAYETTE]
11. [MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE AND LOUIS-PHILIPPE]

PREFACE

This is no work of fiction. It is sober history; yet if the bare facts it tells were set forth without the connecting links, its preface might be made to look like the plot of a dime novel.

It is the story of a poor boy who inherited great wealth; who ran away from home to fight for liberty and glory; who became a major-general before he was twenty years old; who knew every nook and corner of the palace at Versailles, yet was the blood-brother of American Indians; who tried vainly to save the lives of his king and queen; who was in favor of law, yet remained a rebel to the end of his days; who suffered an unjust imprisonment which has well been called "a night five years long"; who was twice practically Dictator of France; and who, in his old age, was called upon to make a great decision.

But it is no work of fiction. It is only the biography of a French gentleman named Lafayette.

THE BOYS' LIFE OF LAFAYETTE

I
WARRIORS AND WILD BEASTS

"The Lafayettes die young, but die fighting," was a saying in that part of France where they had been people of consequence for seven hundred years before the most famous of them came into the world. The family name was Motier, but, after the custom of the time, they were better known by the name of their estate, La Fayette, in Auvergne, a region which had been called the French Siberia. Although situated in central southern France, fully three hundred and fifty miles from Paris, it is a high wind-swept country of plains and cone-shaped hills, among whose rugged summits storms break to send destruction rushing down into the valleys. Unexpected, fertile, sheltered spots are to be found among these same hills, but on the whole it is not a gentle nor a smiling land.

The history of France during the Middle Ages bears not a little resemblance to this region of Auvergne, so full of sharp contrasts, often of disaster. Through all the turbulent centuries the men of the house of Lafayette bore their part, fighting gallantly for prince and king. Family tradition abounded in stories telling how they had taken part in every war since old Pons Motier de Lafayette, the Crusader, fought at Acre, in Palestine, in 1250. Jean fell at Poictiers in 1356. There was a Claude—exception to the rule that they died young—who took part in sixty-five sieges and no end of pitched battles. Though most of them fought on land, there was an occasional sailor to relieve the monotony; notably a vice-admiral of the reign of Francis First, who held joint command with Andrea Doria when that soldier of fortune went to the relief of Marseilles, and who sank or burned four Spanish galleons in the naval battle at the mouth of the Var.

But the Lafayette who occupied most space in family tradition and written history was Gilbert, who was head of the family about the time Columbus discovered America. It was he who took for motto upon his coat of arms the words, "Cur non?" "Why not?" and by energetic deeds satisfactorily answered his own question. "Seneschal of the Bourbonnaise," "Lieutenant-General," "Governor of Dauphigny," and "Marshal of France" were a few of the titles and honors he gathered in the course of a long life, for he was another exception to the family rule. He was eighty-two before he passed away, ready to fight to the last. Although it is not true that he slew the English Duke of Clarence with his own hands at the battle of Baugé, it is true that he fought under the banner of Joan of Arc at Orléans, and that he had many adventures on many fields. When there was no foreign enemy to battle against, he worked hard to subdue the bandits who infested France and made travel on the highroads more exciting than agreeable to timid souls in the reign of Charles VII.

In time the Motiers de Lafayette divided into two branches, the elder keeping the estate and name and most of the glory; the younger, known as the Motiers of Champetières, enjoying only local renown. The women of the family also made a place for themselves in history. One, who had beauty, had also courage and wit to oppose the great Cardinal Richelieu himself. Another, less known in politics than in literature, though she tried her hand at both, became famous as a novelist. It was her grand-daughter who inherited part of the property at a time when there were no more men of the elder branch to carry on the name. In order that it might not die out, she arranged to have the estates pass back to the younger branch, which in time inherited the title also.

The Lafayettes went on fighting and losing their lives early in battle. Thus it happened that a baby born to a young widow in the grim old manor-house of Chavaniac on the 6th of September, 1757, was the last male representative of his race, a marquis from the hour of his birth. His father had been made Chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis and Colonel of Grenadiers at the early age of twenty-two, and fell before he was twenty-five, leading his men in an obscure engagement of the Seven Years' War. This was about a month before his son was born. His family believed that the gallant colonel's life was sacrificed by the recklessness of his commanding officer.

According to the old parish register, still preserved, "The very high and puissant gentleman, Monseigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier de Lafayette, the lawful son of the very high and very puissant Monseigneur Michel-Louis-Christophe-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier, Marquis de Lafayette, Baron de Wissac, Seigneur de Saint-Romain and other places, and of the very high and very puissant lady, Madame Marie Louise Julie de la Rivière," was baptized in the little parish church of Chavaniac twenty-four hours after his birth. Besides this terrifying name and the title, all the traditions and responsibilities of both branches of the family descended upon his infant shoulders. Being such a scrap of a baby, however, he was mercifully ignorant of responsibilities and ancient names. The one given him in baptism was shortened for daily use to Gilbert, the name of the old Marshal of France; but a time came when it was convenient to have a number, rightfully his, from which to choose. For his signature "La Fayette" covered the whole ground.

His only near relatives were his young mother, his grandmother (a stately lady of strong character), and two aunts, sisters of his dead father, who came to live at Chavaniac. It was by this little group of aristocratic Frenchwomen that the champion of liberty was brought up during those early years when character is formed. That he did not become hopelessly spoiled speaks well for his disposition and their self-control. He was not a strong baby, and they must have spent many anxious hours bending over him as he lay asleep, however much they concealed their interest at other times for fear of doing him moral harm.

Until he was eleven they all lived together in the gloomy old château where he was born. This has been described as "great and rather heavy." It had been fortified in the fourteenth century. Two round towers with steep, pointed roofs flanked it on the right and left. Across its front high French windows let in light to the upper floors. From them there was a far-reaching view over plain and river, and steep hills dotted with clumps of trees. But loopholes on each side of an inhospitable narrow doorway told of a time when its situation had been more prized for defense than for mere beauty of scenery. It had a dungeon and other grim conveniences of life in the Middle Ages, which must have stamped themselves deep on the mind of an impressionable child. The castles of Wissac and Saint-Romain, of which the boy was also lord, could be seen higher up among the hills. There were glimpses, too, of peasant homes, but these were neither neat nor prosperous. Bad laws, and abuse of law that had been going on for centuries, had brought France to a point where a few people were growing inordinately rich at the expense of all the rest. The king suffered from this as well as the peasants. The country was overrun by an army of tax-collectors, one for every one hundred and thirty souls in France, each of them bent on giving up as little as possible of the money he collected. To curry favor with the great nobles, who were more powerful than the king himself, their property was not taxed so heavily as it should have been, while poorer people, especially the peasants, were robbed to make up the difference. "The people of our country live in misery; they have neither furniture nor beds; during part of the year the most of them have no nourishment except bread made of oats and barley, and even this they must snatch from their own mouths and those of their children in order to pay the taxes." That was written about this very region of Auvergne a few years before Lafayette was born. In self-defense the peasants made their homes look even more wretched than they really were. On occasion, when convinced that the stranger knocking at their door was no spy, they could bring a wheaten loaf and a bottle of wine from their secret store and do the honors most hospitably.

The La Fayettes were not rich, though they were the great people of their neighborhood. Only one Frenchman in a hundred belonged to the nobility, but that one received more consideration than all the other ninety-nine combined. When the boy marquis rode out with his mother, or that stately lady his grandmother, the peasants in the little village which had grown up around the walls of Chavaniac, clinging to it for protection, bowed down as though the child were a sovereign. Some of them knelt in the dust as the coach passed by. Truly it was strange soil for the growth of democratic ideas. It was well for the boy's soul that in spite of lands and honor the household was of necessity a frugal one. The wide acres were unproductive. Men who had fought so often and so well for their princes had found little leisure to gather wealth for their children. Besides, it was thought out of the question for a nobleman to engage in gainful pursuits. The wealth such men enjoyed came through favor at court; and in this household of women there was no longer any one able to render the kind of service likely to be noticed and rewarded by a king.

THE MANOR-HOUSE OF CHAVANIAC
Birthplace of Lafayette

So the lad grew from babyhood in an atmosphere of much ceremony and very little luxury. On the whole, his was a happy childhood, though by no means gay. He loved the women who cherished him so devotedly. In his Memoirs, written late in life, he calls them "tender and venerated relatives." They looked forward to the day when in his turn he should become a soldier, dreading it, as women will, but accepting it, as such women do, in the spirit of noblesse oblige, believing it the one possible calling for a young man of his station. To prepare him for it he was trained in manly exercises, by means of which he outgrew the delicacy of his earliest years and became tall and strong for his age. He was trained also in horsemanship, to which he took kindly, for he loved all spirited animals. In books, to which he did not object, though he was never wholly a scholar, he followed such studies as could be taught him by the kindly Abbé Feyon, his tutor.

On his rides, when he met the ragged, threadbare people who lived among the hills, they saluted him and looked upon him almost with a sense of ownership. Was he not one of their Lafayettes who had been fighting and dying gallantly for hundreds of years? As for him, his friendly, boyish eyes looked a little deeper through their rags into their sterling peasant hearts than either he or they realized. In the old manor-house his day-dreams were all of "riding over the world in search of reputation," he tells us; a reputation to be won by doing gallant deeds. "You ask me," we read in his Memoirs, "at what time I felt the earliest longings for glory and liberty. I cannot recall anything earlier than my enthusiasm for tales of heroism. At the age of eight my heart beat fast at thought of a hyena which had done some damage and made even more noise in the neighborhood. The hope of meeting that beast animated all my excursions." Had the encounter taken place, it might have been thrilling in the extreme. It might even have deprived history of a bright page; for it was nothing less than hunger which drove such beasts out of the woods in winter to make raids upon lonely farms—even to terrify villagers at the very gates of Chavaniac.

II
EDUCATING A MARQUIS

The first period of Gilbert's life came to an end when he was eleven years old. His mother was by no means ignorant of the ways of the world and she had powerful relatives at court. She realized how much they could do to advance her boy's career by speaking an occasional word in his behalf; and also how much truth there is in the old saying "Out of sight, out of mind." They might easily forget all about her and her boy if they remained hidden in the provinces. So they went up to Paris together, and she had herself presented at court and took up her residence in the French capital, while Gilbert became a student at the Collège Du Plessis, a favorite school for sons of French noblemen. His mother's uncle, the Comte de la Rivière, entered his name upon the army lists as member of a regiment of Black Mousquetaires, to secure him the benefit of early promotion. He was enrolled, too, among the pages of Marie Leszczynska, the Polish wife of King Louis XV, but his duties, as page and soldier, were merely nominal. He does not say a word about being page in his Memoirs. Of the regiment he merely says that it served to get him excused from classes when there was to be a parade.

He remained three years at Du Plessis. He found studying according to rule decidedly irksome, and very different from the solitary lessons at Chavaniac, where the few rules in force had been made for his benefit, if not for his convenience. He tells us that he was "distracted from study only by the desire to study without restraint," and that such success as he gained was "inspired by a desire for glory and troubled by the desire for liberty." Sometimes the latter triumphed. It amused him, when he was old, to recall how, being ordered to write an essay on "the perfect steed," he sacrificed a good mark and the praise of his teachers to the pleasure of describing a spirited horse that threw his rider at the very sight of a whip.

The Collège Du Plessis must have been almost like a monastery. Each boy had a stuffy little cell into which he was locked at night. No member of a student's family might cross the threshold, and the many careful rules for health and diet were quite the opposite of those now practised. This period of Lafayette's school-days was a time when men's ideas on a variety of subjects were undergoing vast change. The old notion that learning was something to be jealously guarded and made as difficult and disagreeable as possible died hard. It is true that the good Fénelon, who believed in teaching children to read from books printed in French instead of in Latin, and who thought it could do them no harm if the books were "well bound and gilded on the edge," had gone to his reward half a century before; but he had been writing about the education of girls! When Lafayette was only five years old one Jean Jacques Rousseau had published a fantastic story called Émile, which was nothing in the world but a treatise on education in disguise. In this he objected to the doctrine of original sin, holding that children were not born bad; and he reasoned that they did not learn better nor more quickly for having knowledge beaten into them with rods. But this man Rousseau was looked upon as an infidel and a dangerous character. Probably at Du Plessis the discipline and course of study belonged to the old order of things, though there were concessions in the way of teaching the young gentlemen manners and poetry and polite letter-writing, which they would need later in their fashionable life at court. History as taught them was hopelessly tangled up in heraldry, being all about the coats of arms and the quarrels of nobles in France and neighboring countries. When something about justice and liberty and the rights of the people did creep into the history lesson the tall young student from Auvergne fell upon it with avidity. Perhaps it was because of such bits scattered through the pages of Roman authors that he learned considerable Latin, and learned it well enough to remember it forty years later, when he found it useful to piece out his ignorance of German in talking with his Austrian jailers.

In spite of queer notions about hygiene, like those which bade him shut out fresh air from his room at night and avoid the risk of eating fresh fruit, he grew in body as well as in mind during the years at Du Plessis, and he had almost reached his man's height of five feet eleven inches, when one day in 1770 a messenger came to the college, bringing the news that his mother had just died. A very few days later her death was followed by that of her father, who was wealthy and had made the boy his heir. Thus, almost within a week, he found himself infinitely poorer than he had ever been before, yet very rich, deprived of those dearest to him and in possession of a large fortune.

People began to take a sudden lively interest in him. The son of a young widow studying in the Collège Du Plessis was of consequence only to himself and his mother. But the young Marquis de Lafayette, of such old and excellent family, such good disposition, such a record in his studies, such a very large income—above all, a generous young man with no near relatives to give meddling advice about how he should spend his money, became fair prey for all the fortune-hunters prowling around the corrupt court of old Louis XV.

These were many. The king was bored as well as old. His days were filled with a succession of tiresome ceremonies. A crowd of bowing courtiers was admitted to his bedroom before he got up in the morning. Crowds attended him at every turn, even assisting in his toilet at night. Frederick the Great had said, "If I were king of France, the first thing I would do would be to appoint another king to hold court in my place"! But indolent old Louis had not the energy even to break down customs which had come to him from the days of kings long dead. "He cared for nothing in this life except to hunt, and feared nothing in the life to come except hell." When not hunting, his one desire was to be let alone to pursue whatever evil fancy entered his brain.

The people at court had two desires—to flatter the king and to get money. The first was the surest means to the second. Everybody, good and bad, seemed in need of money, for the few rich nobles had set a style of living which not even the king could afford to follow. It was all part of the same tangle, the result of accidents and crimes and carelessness extending through many reigns, which had brought about ever-increasing visits of the tax-collectors and reduced the peasants to starvation. One after another important concessions had been given away as a mark of royal favor, or else had been sold outright. A clever man in the reign of Louis XIV had remarked that whenever his Majesty created an office the Lord supplied a fool to buy it. In the reign of his grandson, Louis XV, things were even worse. A high-sounding official title, carrying with it a merely nominal duty and some privilege that might be turned into coin, was the elegant way of overcoming financial difficulty. Even the wax candles burned in the sconces at Versailles were sold for the benefit of the official who had charge of their lighting. He saw to it that plenty of candles were lighted, and that none of them burned too long before going to swell his income. What the great nobles did lesser ones imitated; and so on, down a long line. No wonder that young Lafayette, having inherited his fortune, became suddenly interesting.

Of course, not everybody was corrupt, even at court. There were people who could not possibly be classed as fortune-hunters. Even to these the fact that the young heir was tall and silent and awkward, not especially popular at school, and not likely to shine in a society whose standards were those of dancing-school manners and lively wit, did not weigh for a moment against the solid attraction of his wealth. To fathers and mothers of marriageable daughters both his moral and material qualifications appealed. He was barely fourteen years old when proposals of marriage began to be made in the careful French way, which assumes that matrimony is an affair to be arranged between guardians, instead of being left to the haphazard whim of young people. An early letter of Lafayette's written about this time was partly upon this subject. It might have been penned by a world-wise man of thirty. The Comte de la Rivière appears to have been the person to whom these proposals were first addressed. He, and possibly the Abbé Feyon, discussed them with Lafayette in a business-like way; and the young man, not being in love, either with a maid or with the idea of matrimony, listened without enthusiasm, suggesting that better matches might be found among the beauties of Auvergne. New duties and surroundings engrossed him. He had left Du Plessis for the Military Academy at Versailles, where there was more army and less cloister in his training; where he spent part of his money upon fine horses and lent them generously to friends; and where, for amusement in his hours of leisure, he could watch the pageant of court life unrolling at the very gates of the academy. Matrimony could wait.

Among those more interested in providing a wife for him than he was in finding one for himself was the lively Duc d'Ayen, a rich and important nobleman, the father of five daughters. The eldest of these was fully a year younger than Lafayette, while the others descended toward babyhood like a flight of steps. Even in that day of youthful marriages it seemed early to begin picking out husbands for them. But there were five, and the duke felt he could not begin better than by securing this long-limbed boy for a son-in-law. He suggested either his eldest daughter, Louise, or the second child, Adrienne, then barely twelve, as a future Marquise de Lafayette. He did not care which was chosen, but of course it must be one of the older girls, since the bridegroom would have to wait too long for the others to grow up. The match was entirely suitable, and was taken under favorable consideration by the bridegroom's family; but when it occurred to the duke to mention the matter to his wife, he found opposition where it was least expected. Madame d'Ayen absolutely refused her consent. These two were quite apt to hold different views. The husband liked the luxury of the court and chuckled over its shams. His wife, on the contrary, was of a most serious turn of mind and had very little sense of humor. The frivolities of court life really shocked her. She looked upon riches as a burden, and fulfilled the social duties of her position only under protest as part of that burden. The one real joy of her life lay in educating her daughters. She studied the needs of their differing natures. She talked with them much more freely than was then the custom, and did all in her power to make of them women who could live nobly at court and die bravely when and wherever their time came.

She had no fault to find with young Lafayette. Her opposition was a matter of theory and just a little selfish, for her married life had not been happy enough to make her anxious to see her girls become wives of even the best young men. As for this Motier lad, she thought him particularly open to temptation because of his youth and loneliness and great wealth. He had lacked the benefit of a father's training. So, for that matter, had her own children. Their father was almost always away from home.

The duke's airy manner hid a persistent spirit, and, in spite of his worldliness, he esteemed the good character of the boy. The discussion lasted almost a year and developed into the most serious quarrel of their married life. No wonder, under the circumstances, that the duke did not, as his daughter expressed it, "like his home." The little girls knew something was wrong, and shared their mother's unhappiness without guessing the cause. The duke's acquaintances, on the other hand, to whom the cause was no secret, looked upon the contest of wills as a comedy staged for their benefit. One of them said in his hearing that no woman of Madame d'Ayen's strength of character, who had gone so far in refusal, would ever consent to the marriage. At this the duke warmly rushed to the defense of his wife and answered that a woman of her character, once convinced that she was wrong, would give in completely and utterly.

That was exactly what happened. After months of critical observation she found herself liking Lafayette better and better. The duke assured her that the marriage need not take place for two years, and that meantime the young man should continue his studies. She gave her consent and took the motherless boy from that moment into her heart; while the little girls, sensitive to the home atmosphere, felt the joy of reconciliation without even yet knowing how nearly it concerned them.

It was decided among the elders that Adrienne, the second daughter, was to become Madame Lafayette, because the young Vicomte de Noailles, a cousin to whom Louise had been partial from babyhood, had made formal proposals for her hand. This cousin was a friend and schoolfellow of Lafayette's, and during the next few months the youths were given the opportunity of meeting their future wives apparently by chance while out walking, and even under the roof of the duke; but for a year nothing was said to the girls about marriage. Their mother did not wish to have their minds distracted from their lessons or from that important event in the lives of Catholic maidens, their first communion.

Two months before her marriage actually took place Louise was told that she was to be the bride of Noailles; and at the time of that wedding Adrienne was informed of the fate in store for her. She found nothing whatever to question in this. It seemed altogether delightful, and far simpler than deciding about the state of her own soul. The truth was that her heart had already begun to feel that love for Gilbert de Motier which was to grow and become the controlling factor of her life. Girl-like, her head was just a little turned by the momentous news of her engagement. Her mother tried to allay her excitement, but she also took care to let Adrienne know how much she liked the young man and to repeat to her all the good things she had found out about him. And to her joy, Adrienne found that Lafayette felt for the elder lady "that filial affection" which also grew as the years went on.

How he felt about marriage as the day approached we do not know; neither do we know the details of the wedding which must have been celebrated with some splendor on the 11th of April, 1774. The bride was not yet fifteen, the groom was sixteen. He was given leave of absence from his regiment, and the newly wedded pair took up their residence in the wonderful Paris home of Adrienne's family, the Hotel de Noailles. Although not far from the Tuileries, in the very heart of the city, it possessed a garden so large that a small hunt could be carried on in it, with dogs and all. John Adams is authority for this. He visited the Lafayettes there some time later, and found it unbelievably vast and splendid.

III
A NEW KING

Less than a month after their marriage these young people were dressed in black, as was all the rest of fashionable Paris. The gay spring season had been brought to a premature and agitated end by the news that the king lay dead of smallpox, the loathsome disease he most dreaded.

Smallpox was distressingly common in those days before vaccination had been discovered; but courageous people protected themselves against it even then by deliberately contracting the disease from a mild case and allowing it to run its course under the best possible conditions. It was found to be much less deadly in this way, though the patients often became very ill, and it required real courage to submit to it.

The old king had never been at all brave. He feared discomfort in this life almost as much as he dreaded hell in the next; so he had fled the disease instead of courting it, and in time it came to have special terrors for him. He had been riding through the April woods with a hunting party and had come upon a sad little funeral procession—a very humble one. Always curious, he stopped the bearers and asked who they were carrying to the grave. "A young girl, your Majesty." The king's watery old eyes gleamed. "Of what did she die?" "Smallpox, Sire." In terrified anger the monarch bade them begone and bury the corpse deep; then he dismissed the hunt and returned to the palace. Two days later he was stricken. The disease ran its course with amazing virulence, as though taking revenge for his misspent life. Some of the courtiers fled from Versailles. Others, to whom the king's displeasure seemed a worse menace than smallpox, remained. His favorites tried to keep the truth from the public. Daily bulletins announced that he was getting better. When it was learned that he might die the people crowded the church of Ste.-Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, kissing the reliquary and raising sobs and prayers for his recovery. When he died, on the 10th of May, his body was hastily covered with quicklime and conveyed, by a little handful of attendants who remained faithful, to St.-Denis, where the kings of France lie buried. It was done without ceremony in the dead of night. Forty days later his bones were laid in the tomb of his ancestors with all possible funeral pomp. There was decorous official mourning for the customary length of time; but the old king had never been an inspiring figure and most of his subjects were secretly glad he was out of the way.

During July and August of that year Lafayette was "in service" with the Black Mousquetaires. In September, when his period of active duty was over and he could do as he chose, he had himself exposed to smallpox, and he and his wife and mother-in-law shut themselves up in a house at Chaillon, hired for the occasion, where during his illness and convalescence Madame d'Ayen devoted herself to her new son night and day.

Even while the rafters of Ste.-Geneviève were echoing to sobs and prayers for the old king's recovery, people whispered under their breath what they really thought of him; and by the time Lafayette and his wife could take their places in the world again Louis XV had been systematically forgotten. His grandson, the new king, was a well-meaning young man, only three years older than Lafayette. One of the king's intimates said that the chief trouble with Louis XVI was that he lacked self-confidence. Marie Antoinette, his queen, was fond of pleasure, and for four long years, ever since their marriage, they had been obliged to fill the difficult position of heirs apparent, hampered by all the restraints of royalty while enjoying precious few of its privileges. Like every one else, they were anxious to get the period of mourning well over and to see the real beginning of their reign, which promised to be long and prosperous. Nobody realized that the time had come when the sins and abuses of previous reigns must be paid for, and that the country was on the verge of one of the greatest revolutions of history.

To outward appearance it was a time of hope. Population was increasing rapidly; inventions and new discoveries were being made every day. "More truths concerning the external world were discovered in France during the latter half of the eighteenth century than during all preceding periods together," says Buckle. Even in the lifetime of the old king it had been impossible to stem the tide of progress: what more natural than to believe these blessings would continue, now that his evil influence was removed?

Not only had discoveries been made; they had been brought within the reach of more people than ever before. About the time Lafayette was born the first volume of a great book called the Encyclopedia had made its appearance in the French language, modeled after one already produced in England. Priests had denounced it; laws had been made ordering severe penalties for its use. But it was too valuable to be given up and volume after volume continued to appear. Voltaire wrote an audacious imaginary account of the way it was used in the palace. The king's favorite did not know how to mix her rouge; the king's ministers wanted to learn about gunpowder. The forbidden book was sent for. A procession of lackeys staggered into the room, bending under the weight of twenty huge volumes, and everybody found the information desired. The bit of audacity hid a great truth. The Encyclopedia had brought knowledge to the people and all were anxious to profit by it.

"The people," however, were not considered by nobles who lived in palaces. Indeed, they were only beginning to consider themselves—beginning dimly to comprehend that their day was dawning. Two decades would have to pass before they were fully awake, but the scene was already being set for their great drama. Paris, the largest city in France, had increased in size one-third during the past twenty-five years. The old theory had been that too large a town was a public menace, both to health and to government. Nine times already in its history the limits of Paris had been fixed and had been outgrown. It now held between seven hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand souls. When viewed from the tower of Notre Dame it spread out ten or twelve miles in circumference, round as an orange, and cut into two nearly equal parts by the river Seine.

"One is a stranger to one's neighbor in this vast place," a man wrote soon after this. "Sometimes one learns of his death only by receiving the invitation to his funeral." "Two celebrated men may live in this city twenty-five years and never meet." "So many chimneys send forth warmth and smoke that the north wind is tempered in passing over the town." Streets were so narrow and houses so high that dwellers on the lower floors "lived in obscurity"; while elsewhere there were palaces like the great house belonging to the De Noailles family with its garden large enough to stage a small hunt. Such gardens were carefully walled away from the public. These walled-in gardens and the high, evil-smelling houses in which people lived "three hundred years behind the times," crowded together and hungry from birth to death, were equally prophetic of the awakening to come; for the improvements celebrated by this writer in describing old Paris were either of a kind to let light in upon the people or to make conditions more intolerable for them.

Advertising signs no longer creaked from iron gibbets, threatening to tumble and crush the passers-by. Spurs as big as cartwheels and the huge gloves and giant boots which formerly proclaimed the business carried on under them had been banished or were now screwed securely to the walls, which gave the streets a clean-shaven appearance. The candle lanterns that used to splutter and drip and go out, leaving Paris in darkness, were replaced, on nights when the moon was off duty, by lamps burning "tripe-oil" and fitted with reflectors. By means of this brilliant improvement fashionable quarters were almost safe after nightfall, whereas in former years there had been danger of attack and robbery, even within pistol-shot of the grand home where Lafayette went to live after his marriage. In addition to the lights glowing steadily under their reflectors—one light to every seventy or one hundred inhabitants—there were many professional lantern-bearers whose business in life was escorting wayfarers to and from their homes. Paris after nightfall was atwinkle, for "to live by candle-light is a sign of opulence."

There was a fire department, newly installed, ready to come on call, and, strange to say, "it cost absolutely nothing to be rescued." That, however, was the only cheap thing in Paris. "The poorer one is the more it costs to live!" was a cry that rose then, as now, in all its bitterness. With money anything could be bought. Voltaire declared that a Roman general on the day of his triumph never approached the luxury to be found here. Wares came to the city from the ends of the earth, and Parisians invented new wares of their own. Somebody had contrived umbrellas like those used in the Orient, except that these folded up when not in use. Somebody else had invented the business of renting them at a charge of two liards to gallants crossing the Pont Neuf who wished to shield their complexions. There were little stations at each end of the bridge where the money could be paid or the umbrella given up. Even seasons of the year set no limit to extravagance in Paris. "A bouquet of violets in the dead of winter costs two louis (about nine dollars), and some women wear them!"

Water was delivered daily to the tall houses, from carts, by a force of twenty thousand men, who carried it as high as the seventh floor for a trifle more than it cost to cross the Pont Neuf under the shade of an umbrella. Drivers sent their water-carts skidding over the slime, for the narrow, cobble-paved streets were black with slippery mud. Coaches and other vehicles swung around corners and dashed along at incredible speed, while pedestrians fled in every direction. There were no sidewalks and no zones of safety. The confusion was so great that dignified travel by sedan-chair had become well-nigh impossible. King Louis XV once said, "If I were chief of police I would forbid coaches"; but, being only King Louis, he had done nothing. Pedestrians were often run down; then there would be even greater confusion for a few moments, but only the shortest possible halt to traffic. "When on the pavements of Paris it is easy to see that the people do not make the laws," said one who had suffered.

These people who suffered in Paris at every turn were now beginning to find a cyclopedia of their own in another invention of comparatively recent date—the cafés, warmed and lighted, where even men who had not sous enough to satisfy their hunger might cheat their stomachs with a thimbleful of sour wine or a morsel of food, and sit for hours listening and pondering the talk of others who came and went. There was much talk, and in one part of Paris or another it touched upon every known subject. Each café had its specialty; politics in one, philosophy in another, science in a third. Men of the same cast of mind gravitated toward the same spot. Cafés had already become schools. Soon they were to become political clubs. It was a wonderful way to spread new ideas.

Some of the cafés were very humble, some very expensive, but none were strictly fashionable. To be seen dining in such a place indicated that a man had no invitations to dinner, so the eighteen or twenty thousand fops who, curled and perfumed, went from house to house cared little for cafés. They ate like grasshoppers, through the welcome of one host on Monday and another on Tuesday, and so down the week, "knowing neither the price of meat nor of bread, and consuming not one-quarter of that which was set before them," while thousands went hungry—which is the reason that after a time the men in the cafés rose and took a terrible revenge. Paris was by no means all France, but whatever Paris did and felt the other towns were doing also; and slowly but surely the passions animating them would make their way to the loneliest peasant hut on the remotest edge of the kingdom.

Thus, while the nobles in their gardens still dreamed pleasantly of the power that was passing from them, the people were slowly rousing from torpor to resentment. It is well to linger over these conditions in order to understand fully all that Lafayette's acts meant in the society in which he moved. He was not one of the twenty thousand fops, but he belonged to the fortunate class to whom every door seemed open during the early years of the new reign. His military duties were agreeable and light, he had plenty of money, a charming wife, powerful family connections, and he was admitted to the inmost circle at court. If he had longings to experiment with the democratic theories set forth by radical authors like Rousseau, even that was not forbidden him. Their writings had attracted much attention and had already brought about increased liberality of manners. While the court at Versailles and the city of Paris were very distinct, Paris being only a huge town near at hand, the distance between them was but fourteen miles, and it was quite possible for young men like Lafayette to go visiting, so to speak, in circles not their own. Lafayette's friend, the Comte de Ségur, has left a picture of life as the young men of their circle knew it.

"Devoting all our time to society, fêtes, and pleasure, ... we enjoyed at one and the same time all the advantages we had inherited from our ancient institutions, and all the liberty permitted by new fashions. The one ministered to our vanity, the other to our love of pleasure. In our castles, among our peasants, our guards, and our bailiffs, we still exercised some vestiges of our ancient feudal power. At court and in the city we enjoyed all the distinctions of birth. In camp our illustrious names alone were enough to raise us to superior command, while at the same time we were at perfect liberty to mix unhindered and without ostentation with all our co-citizens and thus to taste the pleasures of plebeian equality. The short years of our springtime of life rolled by in a series of illusions—a kind of well-being which could have been ours, I think, at no other age of the world."

IV
AN UNRULY COURTIER

During the winter after Adrienne's marriage the Duchesse d'Ayen took her two daughters regularly to the balls given each week by the queen, and after the balls invited the friends of her sons-in-law to supper, in a pathetically conscientious effort to make the home of the De Noailles a more agreeable place for the husbands of her children than it had been for her own. Adrienne inherited much of her mother's seriousness, but she was young enough to enjoy dancing, and, feeling that duty as well as inclination smiled upon this life, she was very happy. In December of that year her first child was born, a daughter who was named Henriette.

Lafayette tells us in his Memoirs that he did not feel thoroughly at ease in the gay society Marie Antoinette drew about her. Nor did the queen altogether approve of him, because of his silence and an awkwardness which did not measure up to the standards of deportment she had set for this circle of intimate friends. "I was silent," he says, "because I did not hear anything which seemed worth repeating; and I certainly had no thoughts of my own worthy of being put into words." Some of his friends, who knew him better than the queen, realized that there was plenty of fire in him, in spite of his cold manner and slow speech. De Ségur was one of these, for at some period of his youth Lafayette, smitten with sudden and mistaken jealousy, had spent nearly an entire night trying to persuade De Ségur to fight a duel with him about a beauty for whom De Ségur did not care at all.

Adrienne's family, wishing to do their best by him, tried to secure a place for him in the household of the prince who afterward became Louis XVIII. Lafayette did not want to hurt their feelings; neither did he fancy himself in the rôle they had chosen for him, where he believed he would be forced to govern his actions by another man's opinions. He kept his own counsel,but, "in order to save his independence," managed to have the prince overhear a remark which he made with the deliberate purpose of angering him. The office was of course given to some one else, and another bit of ill will went to swell the breezes blowing over the terraces at Versailles.

There were bitter court factions. Friends of Louis XV had not relished seeing power slip out of their hands. The queen was an Austrian who never fully understood nor sympathized with the French. Neither her critics nor her partizans ever allowed themselves to forget her foreign birth. King Louis, not having confidence in himself, chose for his premier M. de Maurepas, who was over eighty, and should therefore have been a mine of wisdom and experience. Unfortunately, he was the wrong man; he was not universally respected, and his white hairs crowned a pate that was not proof against the frivolities of society. The younger men were displeased. It was not customary to give young men positions of importance, but they were sure they could do quite as well as he. They had their café club also, a place called the Wooden Sword, where they discussed the most extravagant theories of new philosophy, reviled old customs, calling them "Gothic," their favorite term of reproach, and concocted schemes to amuse themselves and tease their elders. Having nothing serious to occupy them, they turned their attention to setting new fashions. A series of pageants and dances gave them excellent opportunity. The admiration they felt for themselves and one another in the romantic dress of the time of Henri IV made them resolve to adopt it and force it upon others for daily wear. That the capes and plumes and love-knots which became their slender figures so well made older and stouter men look ridiculous was perhaps part of their malicious intent.

Age made common cause against them, and the youngsters went too far when they held a mock session of Parliament, one of those grave assemblages which had taken place in far-off days in France, but had been almost forgotten since. There was an increasing demand that the custom be revived, which was not relished by M. de Maurepas and his kind. When the old premier learned that a prince of the blood had played the role of President in this travesty, while Lafayette had been attorney-general and other sprigs of high family figured as counsel, barristers, and advocates, it was evident that a storm was brewing. De Ségur went straight to the king and told him the story in a way that made him laugh. This saved the participants from serious consequences, but it was agreed that such trifling must stop; and most of them were packed off to join their regiments.

Lafayette's regiment was stationed at Metz, and he took his way there feeling much as he had felt when he wrote his school-boy essay on the "perfect steed." It was the most fortunate journey of his life, for at the end of it he met his great opportunity. The Duke of Gloucester, brother of the King of England, was traveling abroad. He came to Metz, and the military commander of the place, Comte de Broglie, gave a dinner in his honor to which he invited the chief officers of the garrison. It was not the only time that a dinner played an important part in Lafayette's career. Neither Lafayette's age nor his military rank quite entitled him to such an invitation; but the count had a kindly spot in his heart for young men. Besides, Adrienne Lafayette was a kinswoman of his, and he remembered that the father of this tall, silent lad had served under him in the Seven Years' War.

The guest of honor was not the kind of loyal subject and brother who could speak no ill of his sovereign. In fact, he and King George were not on good terms. He had his own views about the troubles in America, and thought the king quite wrong in his attitude toward the Colonists. He had lately received letters, and at this dinner discussed them with the utmost frankness, explaining the point of view of the "insurgents" and expressing his belief that they would give England serious trouble. Possibly Lafayette had never heard of George Washington until that moment. Certainly he had never considered the continent of North America except as a vague and distant part of the earth's surface with which he could have no personal concern. Yet twice already the names of his family and of America had been linked. The old marshal who took Cur non? for his motto had lived when the voyage of Columbus had set the world ringing; and Gilbert de Motier, Lafayette's own father, had lost his life in the Seven Years' War, by which England won from France practically all the land she held in the New World.

Slight and remote as these connections were, who can say that they did not unconsciously influence a spirit inclined toward liberty? The conversation of the Duke of Gloucester seemed to bring America from a great distance to within actual reach of Lafayette's hand. He hung upon every word. The prince may not have been altogether prudent in his remarks. It was an after-dinner conversation and in that day the English drank hard. Even so, the duke's indiscretions made the talk more interesting and, to Lafayette, more convincing. Every word spoken strengthened the belief that these American Colonists were brave men, well within their rights, fighting for a principle which would make the world better and happier. He realized with a thrill that men three thousand miles away were not content with mere words, but were risking their lives at that very moment for the theories which philosophers had been preaching for a thousand years; the same theories that orators in six hundred Paris cafés had lately begun to declaim.

Afterward he got permission to ask some of the questions with which his brain teemed; but long before the candles of that feast had burned down in their sockets his great resolution was made to "go to America and offer his services to a people struggling to be free." From that time on he could think of little else; but, as so often happens with quick and generous resolutions, the more he thought about it the more difficult it seemed to carry out. He had exulted at first that he was his own master with a fortune to dispose of as he chose. Then he remembered his wife and her family. He knew he could count upon her loyalty; but he was equally certain that he would meet determined opposition from the Duc d'Ayen and all his powerful connection, who had done their worldly best to make him a member of a prince's household.

And disapproval of "the family" in France was not to be lightly regarded. No serious step could be undertaken by young people without their elders feeling it their solemn duty to give advice. Very likely the king and his ministers would also have something to say. "However," he wrote in his Memoirs, "I had confidence in myself, and dared adopt as device for my coat of arms the words Cur non? that they might serve me on occasion for encouragement, or by way of answer."

He knew almost nothing about America, and, as soon as military duties permitted, asked leave to go to Paris to make further inquiries, opening his heart very frankly to the Comte de Broglie. It happened that the count had vivid dreams of his own about America—dreams which centered on nothing less than the hope that with proper hints and encouragement the rebellious colonies might call him (the Comte de Broglie, of wide military experience) to take supreme command of their armies and lead them to victory, instead of trusting them to the doubtful guidance of local talent in the person of this obscure Col. George Washington. But De Broglie was not minded to confide such things to the red-haired stripling who looked at him so pleadingly. He conscientiously tried to dissuade him. "My boy," he said, "I saw your uncle die in the Italian wars. I witnessed your father's death.... I will not be accessory to the ruin of the only remaining branch of your family." But finding arguments made no impression, he gave him the coveted permission and also an introduction to a middle-aged Bavarian officer known as the Baron de Kalb. This man had made a voyage to America in the secret employment of the French government some years before, and he was even now acting as De Broglie's agent.

Arrived in Paris, Lafayette found the town full of enthusiasm for the insurgents, or the Bostonians, as they were called. Already English whist had been abandoned for another game of cards known as le Boston, and soon the authorities might feel it necessary to forbid the wearing of a certain style of head-dress called "aux insurgents" and to prohibit talk about American rebels in the cafés. Secretly the ministers of Louis wished the audacious rebels well, being convinced that whatever vexed England served to advance the interests of France, but officially they were strictly neutral. When Lord Stormont, the British ambassador, complained that agents of the American government were shipping supplies from French ports, they made a great show of activity, asked American vessels to leave, and forbade trade in contraband articles; but they obligingly shut their eyes to the presence of Silas Deane, the American envoy, in Paris. Diplomatically speaking, he did not exist, since Louis had not yet received him; but everybody knew that people of distinction in all walks of life went secretly to his lodgings.

Lafayette knew not one word of English. Silas Deane knew little, if any, French, and it was De Kalb who acted as interpreter when the young nobleman went to call upon him. Liberty, like misery, brings about strange companionships. Three men more unlike could scarcely have been found. Although known as "Baron," Johann Kalb was a man of mystery who had in truth begun life as a butler and had won his place in the army through sheer merit. He was middle-aged, handsome, and grave. Silas Deane, the lawyer-merchant from Connecticut, was not only imperfectly equipped with French, his manners were so unpolished as to appear little short of repulsive. Lafayette's usual quiet was shaken by his new enthusiasm. His bearing, which seemed awkward at Versailles, was more graceful than the Yankee envoy thought quite moral, or than the grave soldier of fortune had been able to achieve. And he was ridiculously young. Even he realized that. "In presenting my nineteen-year-old face to Mr. Deane," says the Memoirs, "I dwelt more on my zeal than on my experience; but I did make him comprehend that my departure would cause some little excitement and might influence others to take a similar step." He could make the family opposition count for something on his side!

Whatever Silas Deane may have lacked in manner, his wits were not slow. He instantly saw the advantage of gaining such a convert to his cause. The two signed an agreement which was a rather remarkable document. On his part Silas Deane promised Lafayette the rank of major-general in the Continental Army. But hardened as Deane was to making lavish promises in the name of the Continental Congress, he knew that a major-general only nineteen years of age, who had never heard the sound of a hostile gun, would be received with question rather than with joy in America, so he added a few words explaining that Lafayette's "high birth, his connections, the great dignities held by his family at the court, his disinterestedness, and, above all, his zeal for the freedom of our Colonies have alone been able to induce me to make this promise." One would think Lafayette had been haggling, whereas quite the reverse appears to have been the truth.

Lafayette wrote: "To the above conditions I agree; and promise to start when and how Mr. Deane shall judge it proper, to serve the said states with all possible zeal, with no allowance for private salary, reserving to myself only the right to return to France whenever my family or the king shall recall me," and signed his name. After which he left the house of the American commissioner feeling that nothing short of all the king's horses and all the king's men could turn him from his purpose.

V
LEADING A DOUBLE LIFE

Lafayette found his brother-in-law De Noailles and De Ségur in Paris, and, certain of being thoroughly understood by these two friends, confided his plan to them. As he expected, both expressed a wish to accompany him. The wish may not have been entirely unselfish. Many young officers in the French army were chafing at the inaction which ten years of peace had forced upon them, and this chance to distinguish themselves in war may have appealed to them at first even more strongly than the justice of the American cause. It certainly added to the appeal of justice in Lafayette's own case; but meetings with Silas Deane and his associates, Arthur Lee and Mr. Carmichael, above all, with Benjamin Franklin, who came to Paris about this time, soon altered interest to a warmer and less selfish feeling.

These Americans, with their unfashionable clothes, their straightforward speech, and their simple bearing, with plenty of pride in it, presented the greatest possible contrast to the curled and powdered flatterers surrounding Louis XVI. To meet them was like being met by a breath of fresh, wholesome air. The young men who came under their influence fancied that Franklin might almost be a friend of Plato himself. "What added to our esteem, our confidence, and our admiration," wrote De Ségur, "were the good faith and simplicity with which the envoys, disdaining all diplomacy, told us of the frequent and oft-repeated reverses sustained by their militia, inexperienced as yet in the art of war." Merely as a sporting proposition it was a fine thing that they and their army were doing.

De Ségur and De Noailles quietly entered into an agreement with the Americans, as Lafayette had done. So did others; and it became impossible to keep their plans secret. When the families of our three friends learned of their quixotic plan it was clear they would never consent. De Noailles played a bold card by applying directly to the War Office for permission to serve as a French officer in the American army, hoping in this way to match family opposition with official sanction, but the War Office refused. After that there was nothing to do but to submit, since they were not men of independent means like Lafayette, though both were older than he and held higher military rank. They were dependent upon allowances made them by their respective families, who thus had a very effective way of expressing disapproval. All they could do was to assure Lafayette of their sympathy and keep his secret, for they knew that the opposition which blocked them would only make him the more determined. The better to carry out his plan, however, he also pretended to listen to reason and to give up all thoughts of crossing the Atlantic.

De Kalb, meanwhile, almost succeeded in leaving France. But the French government decided that it would be a breach of neutrality to allow its officers to fight against England, and he was obliged to turn back. Knowing more about the secret hopes and plans of the Comte de Broglie than Lafayette knew, he proposed that they go together to consult him, and they spent several days at the count's country home. How much Lafayette learned about his host's American dreams is uncertain, nor does it make much difference in Lafayette's own story. The two elder men were quite willing to use his enthusiasm to further their own ends; but he had great need of their help. It was agreed that the voyage to America must on no account be given up, and that the best way would be for Lafayette to purchase and fit out a ship. This, however, was easier said than done. One cannot buy a ship as casually as a new pair of gloves.

Not only was his family genuinely opposed and his government officially opposed to his going; England had spies in Paris. It was jestingly said that all the world passed at least once a day over the Pont Neuf, and men were supposed to be on watch there, to ascertain who had and who had not left the city. England, moreover, had agents at every seaport in northern France. But Bordeaux in the south seemed very far away in days of stage-coach travel, and consequently was not so well guarded. As luck would have it, the Comte de Broglie's secretary had a brother who knew all about ships and merchants in Bordeaux. He found a vessel which would do, though she was not very good. Her name could not be improved upon, for she was called La Victoire. Perhaps, like her new owner, she was able to choose one to fit the occasion. She was to cost 112,000 francs, one-quarter down, and the rest within fifteen months of the date of delivery, which was fixed for the middle of March, 1777.

Weeks before this time arrived very bad news had come from America. The report ran that Washington had lost practically everything. He had been defeated in the battles of Long Island and White Plains; New York was burned, and he and his troops, reduced now to a ragged mob of two or, at most, three thousand men, were in full retreat across New Jersey, pursued by thirty thousand British. It was well known that England was the most powerful military nation of Europe and that, not content with her own forces, she was hiring regiments of Hessians to send overseas. Clearly the triumph of such numbers must come speedily. All society, from Marie Antoinette down, admired the sturdy, independent Franklin, with his baggy coat and his homely wit. Portraits of him in his coonskin cap were to be seen in every home. He was a wizard who had done things with lightning no other mortal had done before, but even he could not bring success to a hopeless cause.

FRANKLIN AT THE FRENCH COURT
All society, from Marie Antoinette down, admired the sturdy, independent Franklin, who was always a welcome guest at court

The prospect must have appeared black indeed to the envoys themselves. Honorable men that they were, they felt in duty bound to explain the changed conditions to Lafayette, and not to allow him to ruin his whole future because of a promise enthusiastically given. They sent him a message asking him to come and see them. He knew he was watched and dared not meet Franklin openly, but he went at once to Silas Deane and listened to all he had to tell him. When he finished the young Frenchman thanked him for his very frank statement of a bad situation and then made a very frank statement in return. "Heretofore," he said, "I have been able to show you only my willingness to aid you in your struggle. The time has now come when that willingness can be put to effective use, for I am going to buy a ship and take your officers out in it. Let us not give up our hope yet; it is precisely in the time of danger that I wish to share whatever fortune may have in store for you." After that it would have required superhuman unselfishness on the part of the Americans to dissuade him.

How transactions which covered three months of time, two-thirds of the length of France, and involved so many individuals remained undiscovered is a mystery unless we assume that the opposition of the government was more feigned than real. Officials appear to have closed their eyes most obligingly whenever possible.

To divert suspicion from himself, Lafayette occupied several weeks in a visit to England which had been arranged long before. Franklin and Deane were most anxious to have him carry out this plan to visit the French ambassador in London. So Lafayette crossed the Channel and spent three weeks in the smoky city, where he received many social courtesies. He appears to have enjoyed this season of gaiety much better than similar occasions at home. The necessity for hiding his plans gave zest to meetings and conversations that would otherwise have been commonplace enough, while the necessity for remaining true to his ideals of conduct—of continuing to be a guest and not a spy in an enemy country—exercised his conscience as well as his wit. It became a humorous adventure to dance at Lord Germain's in the same set with Lord Rawdon, just back from New York, and to encounter between acts at the opera General Clinton, against whom he was soon to fight at Monmouth. When presented to his Majesty George III he replied to that monarch's gracious hope that he intended to make a long stay in London, with an answer at once guarded and misleading. The king inquired what errand called him away, and Lafayette answered, with an inward chuckle, that if his Majesty knew he would not wish him to remain! Although taking good care not to betray his plans, he made no secret of his interest in the Colonists or his belief in the justice of their cause; and he avoided visiting seaport towns where expeditions were being fitted out against them, and declined all invitations likely to put him in a position to obtain information to which, under the circumstances, he felt he had no right.

Before leaving London he wrote a long letter to his father-in-law, to be delivered only when he was safely on his way to Bordeaux. Then he crossed to France, but instead of going to his own home took refuge with De Kalb at Chaillot, a suburb of Paris. Here he remained three days, making final preparations. On one of these days he appeared very early before the sleepy, astonished eyes of his friend De Ségur, sent away the servant, closed the door of the bedroom with great care, and hurled the bombshell of his news: "I am going to America. Nobody knows it, but I am too fond of you to leave without telling you my secret." Then he gave him the outline of his plan, including the port from which he was to sail and the names of the dozen French officers who were to accompany him. "Lucky dog! I wish I were going with you!" was the substance of De Ségur's answer, but it had not the usual ring of sincerity. De Ségur was about to marry a young aunt of Adrienne Lafayette's and his wedding-day was drawing very near.

Lafayette managed to impart his secret to De Noailles also, but he left Paris without a farewell to Adrienne. The one hard thing in this hurried departure was that he did not dare to see or even to write directly to her. She was not well; and, besides the risk of arrest involved in visiting her, the interview could only be unnerving and distressing on both sides. The letter he wrote from London to her father appears to have been the nearest to a direct message, and that, it must be confessed, contained no mention of her name and no word exclusively for her. It was her mother, the upright Madame d'Ayen, who broke the news of his departure, tempering the seeming cruelty of his conduct with words of praise for his pluck and for the motive which prompted him to act as he did. Madame d'Ayen was the only one of the immediate family who had a good word for the runaway. The young wife clung to her, appalled at the anger of her father. The duke was furious, and once more the worthy pair came to the verge of quarrel over this well-meaning young man. The count could see only madcap folly in exchanging an assured position at the French court for the doubtful honor of helping a lot of English farmers rebel against their king. For a few days the town buzzed with excitement. Lafayette's acquaintances were frankly astonished that the cold and indifferent young marquis had roused himself to such action, and thought it exceedingly "chic" that he should "go over to be hanged with the poor rebels." They were indignant at the bitterness of the duke's denunciation. One lady with a sharp tongue said that if he treated Lafayette so, he did not deserve to find husbands for the rest of his daughters.

The runaway was safely out of Paris, but by no means out of danger. The Duc d'Ayen, who honestly felt that he was bringing disgrace upon the family, bestirred himself to prevent his sailing, and had a lettre de cachet sent after him. A lettre de cachet was an official document whose use and abuse during the last hundred years had done much to bring France to its present state of suppressed political excitement. It was an order for arrest—a perfectly suitable and necessary document when properly used. But men who had power, and also had private ends to gain, had been able to secure such papers by the hundreds with spaces left blank wherein they could write whatever names they chose. It was a safe and deadly and underhand way of satisfying grudges. In Lafayette's case its use was quite lawful, because he was captain in a French regiment, leaving the country in disobedience to the wish of his sovereign, to fight against a nation with whom France was on friendly terms. Technically he was little better than a deserter. When such conduct was brought to official notice, only one course was possible. The lettre de cachet was sent, a general order was issued forbidding French officers to take service in the American colonies, and directing that if any of them, "especially the Marquis de Lafayette," reached the French West Indies on such an errand he should forthwith return to France. Word was also sent to French seaports to keep a close watch upon vessels and to prevent the shipment of war materials to North America. Lafayette's friends became alarmed at all this activity and feared that it might have serious consequences not only for him, but for themselves. Officials began to receive letters from them calculated to shift the blame from their own shoulders, as well as to shield the young man. The French ambassador to England, whose guest he had been in London, was particularly disturbed, but felt somewhat comforted when he learned that a high official in the French army had asked King George for permission to fight as a volunteer under General Howe. This in a manner offset Lafayette's act, and England could not accuse France of partiality if her officers were to be found engaged on both sides.

VI
A SEA-TURN

Lafayette, meanwhile, was traveling southward with De Kalb. The government does not appear to have interested itself in De Kalb, who had a two years' furlough, obtained probably through the influence of the Comte de Broglie. At the end of three days they reached Bordeaux. Here they learned about the commotion Lafayette's departure had caused and that the king's order for his arrest was on the way. That it did not travel as speedily as the rumor seems to prove that Lafayette's friends were using all possible official delay to give him ample warning. He made good use of the time and succeeded in getting La Victoire out of Bordeaux to the Spanish harbor of Los Pasajes in the Bay of Biscay, just across the French frontier.

It was in leaving Bordeaux that Lafayette found a use for his many names. Each passenger leaving a French port was required to carry with him a paper stating his name, the place of his birth, his age, and general appearance. The one made out by a port official not over-particular in spelling described him as "Sr. Gilbert du Mottie, Chevalier de Chaviallac—age twenty years, tall, and blond." This was all true except that his age was made a little stronger and the color of his hair a little weaker than facts warranted. His age was nineteen years and six months and his hair was almost red. He was the Chevalier de Chavaniac, though it is doubtful if one acquaintance in a hundred had ever heard the title.

When he stepped ashore at Los Pasajes he was confronted by two officers who had followed from Bordeaux by land with the lettre de cachet. Letters from his family and from government officials also awaited him: "terrible letters," he called them. Those from his family upbraided him bitterly; the Ministry accused him of being false to his oath of allegiance. The lettre de cachet peremptorily ordered him to Marseilles to await further instructions. He knew that this meant to await the arrival of his father-in-law, who was about to make a long journey into Italy and would insist upon Lafayette accompanying him, that he might keep an eye upon his movements.

He was now in Spain, quite beyond the reach of French law, but he could not bring himself to actual disobedience while there was the remotest chance of having these commands modified; so he went back with the messengers to Bordeaux, and from there sent letters by courier to Paris, asking permission to return and present his case in person. De Kalb remained with the ship at Los Pasajes, impatient and not a little vexed. He foresaw a long delay, if indeed the expedition ever started. La Victoire could not sail without its owner, or at least without the owner's consent. De Kalb thought Lafayette had acted very foolishly; he should either have given up entirely or gone ahead regardless of the summons, Also he felt that the young man had not been quite frank; that in talking with him he had underestimated the family opposition. "Had he told me in Paris all that he has admitted since," De Kalb wrote to his wife, "I would have remonstrated most earnestly against the whole scheme. As it is, the affair will cost him some money." Then, having freed his mind of his accumulated impatience, he added, "But if it be said that he has done a foolish thing, it may be answered that he acted from the most honorable motives and that he can hold up his head before all high-minded men."

In Bordeaux Lafayette had presented himself before the commandant and made declaration that he alone would be answerable for the consequences of his acts; then he had set himself, with all the patience he could muster, to wait the return of his messenger. To his formal request he received no reply. From private letters he learned that he had only the Duc d'Ayen to thank for the lettre de cachet. Officials had been heard to say that they would have taken no notice of his departure had it not been for the duke's complaint. This convinced him that there was nothing to be gained by waiting; so he wrote to M. de Maurepas that he interpreted his silence to be consent, "and with this pleasantry," as he says in the Memoirs, disappeared from Bordeaux. He informed the commandant that he was going to Marseilles in obedience to orders, and sent the same message to De Kalb, adding the significant hint, however, that he had not given up hope, and the request that De Kalb look after his interests. He, indeed, set out by post-chaise on the road to Marseilles in company with the Vicomte de Mauroy, a young officer who like himself held one of Silas Deane's commissions. They left that road, however, at the first convenient opportunity and turned their horses directly toward Spain. They also made slight changes in their traveling arrangements, after which De Mauroy sat in the chaise alone, while Lafayette, dressed like a postilion, rode one of the horses. The commandant, having his own suspicions, sent some officers riding after them.

At a little town near the frontier, called Saint-Jean-de-Luz, it was necessary to change horses. The masquerading post-boy threw himself down to rest in the stable while the gentleman in the chaise attended to the essential business. It was here that an inquisitive daughter of the innkeeper, who evidently knew a good deal about postilions, recognized in the youth stretched upon the straw the young gentleman she had seen riding in state in the other direction only a few days before. Her eyes and mouth opened in wonder, but a sign from Lafayette checked the exclamation upon her lips, and when the officers rode up a very demure but very positive young woman set them on the wrong trail.

On the 17th of April Lafayette rejoined De Kalb at Los Pasajes, and on Sunday, April 20, 1777, La Victoire set sail for America. In addition to the captain and crew, De Kalb, the owner of the vessel, and De Mauroy, she had on board about a dozen officers of various grades, all of whom were anxious to serve in the Continental Army. The French government took no further measures to interfere. Grave matters of state nearer home claimed its attention; and, since signs of coming war with England grew plainer every day, it may have been well content to see this band of officers already enlisted against her. M. de Vergennes, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was quoted as saying that the young man had run away again, and he would take good care this time not to mention the matter to the king.

After six months of effort Lafayette was at last under way. The ship's papers had been made out for the West Indies; but inconvenient orders might be awaiting him there, so he ordered the captain to sail directly for the mainland. The captain demurred, explaining that an English cruiser could take them prisoners and confiscate their cargo if their course and their papers did not agree. As owner of the vessel Lafayette repeated his orders; he even threatened to depose the captain and put the second officer in command. But the captain's unwillingness appeared so extraordinary that he was moved to investigate farther, and found that the thrifty man had smuggled merchandise aboard to the value of $8,000 which he hoped to sell at a profit. Lafayette felt that it was not a time to be over-particular. He promised to make good whatever loss the captain might sustain, whereupon nervousness about English cruisers left him and he steered as directed.

It proved a long voyage. La Victoire was at sea fifty-five dreary days, and Lafayette speedily fell a victim to the rollers of the Atlantic; but he wrote to his wife he "had the consolation vouchsafed to the wicked of suffering in company with many others." When he recovered he began to study English, in which he made considerable progress. He also studied military science as something about which it might be convenient for a major-general to know; and he wrote interminable pages to Adrienne, full of love, of ennui, and of whimsical arguments to prove that he had done the wisest thing, not only for his career, but for his health and safety, in offering his sword to the Continental Army.

"I have been ever since my last letter to you in the most dismal of countries," he wrote after he had been out a month. "The sea is so wearisome, and I believe we have the same doleful influence upon each other, it and I." "One day follows another, and, what is worse, they are all alike. Nothing but sky and nothing but water; and to-morrow it will be just the same." "I ought to have landed before this, but the winds have cruelly opposed me. I shall not see Charleston for eight or ten days longer. Once I am there, I have every hope of getting news from France. I shall learn then so many interesting details, not only of what I am going to find before me, but above all of what I left behind me with such regret. Provided I find that you are well, and that you still love me, and that a certain number of our friends are in the same condition, I shall accept philosophically whatever else may be." "How did you take my second departure? Did you love me the less? Have you forgiven me? Have you thought that in any event we should have been separated, I in Italy dragging along a life with no chance to distinguish myself and surrounded by people most hostile to my projects and my views?" "Consider the difference.... As the defender of that liberty which I adore, free myself beyond all others, coming as a friend to offer my services to this most interesting republic, I bring ... no selfish interests to serve. If I am striving for my own glory I am at the same time laboring for its welfare. I trust that for my sake you will become a good American; it is a sentiment made for virtuous hearts." "Do not allow yourself to feel anxiety because I am running great danger in the occupation that is before me. The post of major-general has always been a warrant of long life—so different from the service I should have had in France as colonel, for instance. With my present rank I shall only have to attend councils of war. Ask any of the French generals, of which there are so many because, having attained that rank, they run no further risk.... In order to show that I am not trying to deceive you I will admit that we are in danger at this moment, because we are likely at any time to be attacked by an English vessel, and we are not strong enough to defend ourselves. But as soon as I land I shall be in perfect safety. You see that I tell you everything in order that you may feel at ease and not allow yourself to be anxious without cause.... But now let us talk of more important things," and he goes on to write about their baby daughter, Henrietta, and about the new baby, the announcement of whose birth he expected to receive very soon after landing. "Do not lose a moment in sending me the joyful news," he commands. "Mr. Deane and my friend Carmichael will aid you in this, and I am sure they would neglect no opportunity to make me happy as quickly as possible.... Adieu. Night coming on obliges me to stop, for I have lately forbidden the use of lights aboard the ship. See how careful I am!" He could afford to dwell on perils of the voyage, since these would be safely over before the missive could start on its way back to France. The danger was by no means imaginary. One of the letters written at the time Lafayette's departure was the talk of Paris, by a man who knew whereof he spoke, had said, "His age may justify his escapade, but I am truly sorry, not only for the interest you and the Duc d'Ayen have in the matter, but because I am afraid he may fall in with some English man-of-war, and, not being distinguished from the mass of adventurers who come into their hands, may be treated with a harshness not unknown to that nation."

La Victoire was a clumsy boat armed with only "two old cannon and a few muskets" and stood small chance if attacked. Lafayette was perfectly aware of this, and had no intention of being taken alive. He entered into an agreement with one of the company, a brave Dutchman named Bedaulx, to blow up the vessel as a last resort, the pleasant alternative in any case being hanging. So, with a sailor pledged to ignite a few powder-kegs and the captain steering the ship by constraint rather than by desire, the long voyage was not devoid of thrills. These increased as they neared land. At forty leagues from shore La Victoire was overhauled by a little vessel. "The captain grew pale," Lafayette tells us; but the crew was loyal and the officers were numerous and they put up a show of defense. She proved to be an American and so much the faster boat that she was soon out of sight, though La Victoire tried hard to keep up with her. Scarcely was she gone when the lookout sighted two English frigates. With these they played a game of hide-and-seek until they were saved by a providential gale which blew the enemy out of his course long enough to enable La Victoire to run into shelter near Georgetown, South Carolina.

VII
AN AMERICAN PILGRIMAGE

The bit of land to which that unneutral north wind had wafted the travelers was an island about fifteen miles from Georgetown, South Carolina. Nobody on La Victoire knew the coast, so it was prudently decided to reconnoiter in a small boat. Lafayette, with De Kalb and two or three other officers and a few sailors, started off about two o'clock on the afternoon of June 13th, in the ship's yawl, and rowed until sunset without encountering a soul. After the sun went down they continued to row on and on, still in complete solitude, until about ten o'clock, when they came upon some negroes dredging for oysters.

Thus the first human beings that Lafayette encountered in the land of the free were slaves; and it was not the least picturesque coincidence of his picturesque career that these ignorant creatures rendered him a service, instead of his helping them. Also it is rather amusing that this knight errant of noble lineage, who had come so far to fight for freedom, should have made his entry into America in the dead of night, in an evil-smelling oyster-boat, instead of with pomp and ceremony from the ship his wealth had provided.

Neither Frenchmen nor slaves could understand the speech of the others except in a vague way. The Frenchmen thought the slaves said there was a pilot somewhere on the island. They seemed to be offering to take them to the house of their master, an American officer; and as the tide had fallen and it was impossible to proceed farther in the yawl, they transferred themselves to the oyster-boat and gave themselves up to these mysterious guides. For two hours the blacks ferried them through the darkness. About midnight they saw a light, and soon were put ashore to make their way toward it. It was evident that their approach caused excitement. Dogs began to bark and the inmates of the large house from which the light shone appeared to be making preparations for a siege. A sharp challenge rang out, which indicated that they were mistaken for marauders from some British ship. De Kalb replied in his most polite English, explaining that they were French officers come to offer their swords to the Continental Army. Then, with the swiftness of a transformation in a fairy play, they found themselves in a glow of light, the center of warm interest, and being welcomed with true Southern hospitality. No wonder that ever after Lafayette had the kindest possible feelings for African slaves.

Mid-June in Carolina is very beautiful; and it must have seemed a wonderful world upon which he opened his eyes next morning. Outside his window was the green freshness of early summer; inside the immaculate luxury of a gentleman's bedchamber—both doubly delightful after seven cramped weeks at sea. That the smiling blacks who came to minister to his wants were bondmen, absolutely at the mercy of their masters, and that the filmy gauze curtains enveloping his bed had been put there to prevent his being eaten alive by those "gnats which cover you with large blisters," about which he afterward wrote Adrienne, were drawbacks and inconsistencies he hardly realized in that first blissful awakening. He was always more inclined to enthusiasm than to faultfinding, and nothing that ever happened to him in America effaced the joy of his first impression.

His host proved to be Major Benjamin Huger, of French Huguenot descent, so he had fallen among people of his own nation. Had Major Huger been one of his own relatives he could not have been kinder or his family more sympathetic; and it was a sympathy that lasted long, for in the group around the French officers was a little lad of five who took small part in the proceedings at the moment, but lost his heart to the tall Frenchman then and there, and made a quixotic journey in Lafayette's behalf after he was grown.

The water was too shallow to permit La Victoire to enter the harbor at Georgetown, so a pilot was sent to take her to Charleston while Lafayette and his companions went by land. The reports he received about vigilant English cruisers made him send his captain orders to land officers and crew and burn the ship if occasion arose and he had time; but another unneutral wind brought La Victoire into Charleston Harbor in broad daylight without encountering friend or foe.

Major Huger furnished Lafayette and De Kalb with horses for the ninety miles and more of bad roads that lay between his plantation and Charleston. The others, for whom no mounts could be found, made the distance on foot, arriving ragged and worn. But as soon as the city knew why they had come, its inhabitants vied with one another in showering attentions upon them. One of his companions wrote that the marquis had been received with all the honors due to a marshal of France. Lafayette, who sent a letter to his wife by every ship he found ready to sail, was eloquent in praise of Charleston and its citizens. It reminded him of England, he said, but it was neater, and manners were simpler. "The richest man and the poorest are upon the same social level," he wrote, "and although there are some great fortunes in this country, I defy any one to discover the least difference in the bearing of one man to another." He thought the women beautiful, and Charlestonians the most agreeable people he had ever met. He felt as much at ease with them as though he had known them for twenty years; and he described a grand dinner at which the governor and American generals had been present, which lasted five hours. "We drank many healths and spoke very bad English, which language I am beginning to use a little. To-morrow I shall take the gentlemen who accompany me to call upon the governor, and then I shall make preparations to leave."

He hoped to provide funds for the journey to Philadelphia by selling certain goods he had brought on La Victoire. It would have been easy to do this had not his trustful nature and ignorance of business played him a sorry turn. He found that his unwilling friend, the captain, held a note which he had signed in a hurry of departure without realizing what it contained. It provided that the vessel and cargo must be taken back to Bordeaux and sold there. This was most embarrassing, because, in spite of his large possessions in France, he was a stranger in America and had no other way of providing for the immediate wants of himself and his companions. It proved even more embarrassing than at first seemed likely, for the ship never reached Bordeaux. She was wrecked on the Charleston bar at the very outset of her homeward voyage.

In his enthusiasm Lafayette had written Adrienne, "What delights me most is that all citizens are brothers." Here unexpectedly was a chance to put the brotherly quality to the test. He carried his dilemma to his new-found friends. They were polite and sympathetic, but ready money was scarce, they told him, and even before La Victoire came to her inglorious end he experienced "considerable difficulty" in arranging a loan. Whatever temporary jolt this gave his theories, his natural optimism triumphed both in securing money to equip his expedition and in preserving intact his good will toward the American people.

By the 25th of June everything was ready and his company set out, traveling in three different parties, in order not to overcrowd the inns of that sparsely settled region. The gentlemen who had been entertained by Major Huger traveled together. One of them, the Chevalier du Buisson, wrote an account of the journey which explains the order in which they set forth. "The aide-de-camp of the marquis undertook to be our guide, although he had no possible idea of the country.... The procession was headed by one of the marquis's people in huzzar uniform. The marquis's carriage was a sort of uncovered sofa on four springs, with a fore-carriage. At the side of his carriage he had one of his servants on horseback who acted as his squire. The Baron de Kalb was in the same carriage. The two colonels, Lafayette's counselors, followed in a second carriage with two wheels. The third was for the aides-de-camp, the fourth for the luggage, and the rear was brought up by a negro on horseback."

According to Lafayette's reckoning, they traveled nearly nine hundred miles through the two Carolinas, Virginia, and the states of Maryland and Delaware. But only a small part of the progress was made in such elegance. Roads were rough and the weather was very hot, which was bad for men and horses alike. Some of the company fell ill; some of the horses went lame; some of the luggage was stolen; some of it had to be left behind. Extra horses had to be bought, and this used up most of the money. On the 17th of July Lafayette wrote to Adrienne from Petersburg: "I am at present about eight days' journey from Philadelphia in the beautiful land of Virginia.... You have learned of the beginning of my journey and how brilliantly I set out in a carriage.... At present we are all on horseback, after having broken up the wagons in my usual praiseworthy fashion; and I expect to write you in a few days that we have arrived on foot." He admitted that there had been some fatigue, but as for himself he had scarcely noticed it, so interested had he been in the great new country with its vast forests and large rivers; "everything, indeed, to give nature an appearance of youth and of majesty." "The farther north I proceed the better I like this country and its people."

There was no regularity about sending mail across the Atlantic, and as yet he had not heard from home. Doubtless the hope of finding letters spurred on his desire to reach Philadelphia. From Annapolis he and De Kalb alone were able to proceed without a halt, leaving the rest of the party behind for needed repose. They reached Philadelphia on July 27th. Even with this final burst of speed they had consumed a whole month in a journey that can now be made in less than twenty-four hours.

VIII
AN ASTONISHING RECEPTION

All Lafayette's company had been looking forward to their reception by Congress as full recompense for sufferings by the way. Knowing that they had come to offer help, and having already experienced the hospitality of Charleston, they dreamed of a similar welcome increased and made more effective by official authority. They hastened to present their letters of introduction and their credentials; and it was a great blow to find that they were met, not with enthusiasm, but with coldness. Lafayette said their reception was "more like a dismissal." We are indebted to the Chevalier du Buisson for an account of this unexpected rebuff. "After having brushed ourselves up a little we went to see the President of Congress, to whom we presented our letters of recommendation and also our contracts. He sent us to Mr. Moose [Morris?], a member of Congress, who made an appointment to meet us on the following day at the door of Congress, and in the mean time our papers were to be read and examined." Next day they were very punctual, but were made to wait a long time before "Mr. Moose" appeared with a Mr. Lovell and told them all communication must be made through him. Still standing in the street, Mr. Lovell talked with them and finally walked away and left them, "after having treated us in excellent French, like a set of adventurers.... This was our first reception by Congress, and it would have been impossible for any one to be more stupefied than we were. Would it have been possible for M. de Lafayette, M. de Kalb, and M. de Mauroy with ten officers recommended as we had been, and secretly approved, if not openly avowed by the government of France, to expect such a reception as this?"

One can imagine the varying degrees of resentment and disgust with which they watched Mr. Lovell disappear. If La Victoire had been there, ready provisioned for a voyage, very likely not one of them would have remained an hour longer in America. But La Victoire was not at hand and Lafayette's sunny optimism was on the spot to serve them well. "We determined," says Du Buisson, "to wait and to discover the cause of this affront, if possible, before making any complaint."

They discovered that they had come at the worst possible time. A number of foreign adventurers had hurried from the West Indies and Europe and offered their services at the beginning of the war. Being desperately in need of trained officers, Congress had given some of them commissions, though their demands for rank and privilege were beyond all reason. This, coupled with their bad behavior after entering the army, had incensed officers of American birth, who threatened to resign if any more Europeans were taken into the army with rank superior to their own. The protest had reached almost the proportions of a strike. At that very moment a French artillery officer named De Coudray was giving Congress no end of trouble, and indeed continued to do so until, "by a happy accident," as Franklin cynically put it, he was drowned in the Schuylkill River a few weeks later.

There was nothing to prove that Lafayette and his friends differed from the rest. Like them they were foreigners with high-sounding titles in front of their names and requests for major-generalships tripping speedily after their offers of help. As for Silas Deane's contracts—Deane had commissioned some of the very worst of these men. Congress had reached the point where it proposed to end the trouble by refusing to honor any more of his agreements. Mr. Lovell told Lafayette and his companions smartly that French officers had a great fancy for entering the American army uninvited, that America no longer needed them, having plenty of experienced men of her own now; and walked away, leaving them standing there in the street.

Lafayette, not being like the others, determined to make Congress aware of the fact. He wrote a letter to that august body, stating why and how he had come to America, and adding: "After the sacrifices that I have made in this cause I have the right to ask two favors at your hands. The one is to serve without pay, and the other that I be allowed to serve first as a volunteer." Congress immediately sat up and took notice of the young man, the more readily because of two letters which arrived from Paris showing that he was of importance in his own country. The first was signed by Silas Deane and by Benjamin Franklin, and read:

"The Marquis de Lafayette, a young nobleman of great family connection here and great wealth, is gone to America on a ship of his own, accompanied by some officers of distinction, in order to serve in our armies. He is exceedingly beloved, and everybody's good wishes attend him. We cannot but hope he may meet with such a reception as will make the country and his expedition agreeable to him. Those who censure it as imprudent in him do, nevertheless, applaud his spirit; and we are satisfied that the civilities and respect that may be shown him will be serviceable to our affairs here, as pleasing not only to his powerful relations, and to the court, but to the whole French nation. He leaves a beautiful young wife ... and for her sake particularly we hope that his bravery and ardent desire to distinguish himself will be a little restrained by the general's prudence, so as not to permit his being hazarded much, but on some important occasion." The other was a communication from the French government requesting the Congress of the United States not to give employment to the Marquis de Lafayette. But Congress took the hint contained in Franklin's letter and regarded this for just what it was—a bit of official routine.

Mr. Lovell hastened to call upon Lafayette in company with another gentleman who had better manners, and made an attempt at apology. This interview led to a more private talk in which he was offered a commission of major-general without pay and without promise of a command, to date from that time, and to have no connection whatever with Silas Deane's former promises. To this Lafayette agreed.

Some of his friends did not fare so well, but even these felt that he did everything in his power to further their interests. "If he had had his way," says Du Buisson, "De Kalb would have been a major-general, and we should all have had places." The situation was particularly trying to De Kalb, who was so much older and had seen so much actual military service. On board La Victoire he had been only Lafayette's guest, though the guest of honor and, next to the owner, the most important person aboard. Under such conditions, good manners forced him to play a subordinate part; and if it be true that he and De Broglie were using Lafayette's generosity to further their own ends, that was another reason for circumspect behavior. But after landing it must have been galling to see this young captain of twenty made a major-general "on demand," while his thirty-four years of experience were completely ignored. On the day after Lafayette's appointment De Kalb wrote Congress a letter in his turn, complaining bitterly and asking either that he be made a major-general, "with the seniority I have a right to expect," or that he and the other officers who had come with Lafayette be refunded the money they had spent on the journey. He said he was very glad Congress had granted Lafayette's wishes. "He is a worthy young man, and no one will outdo him in enthusiasm in your cause of liberty and independence. My wish will always be that his success as a major-general will equal his zeal and your expectation." But De Kalb plainly had his doubts; and he did not hesitate to "confess, sir, that this distinction between him and myself is painful and very displeasing to me. We came on the same errand, with the same promises, and as military men and for military purposes. I flatter myself that if there was to be any preference, it would be due to me." He hinted that he might sue Mr. Deane for damages, and he added: "I do not think that either my name, my services, or my person are proper objects to be trifled with or laughed at. I cannot tell you, sir, how deeply I feel the injury done to me, or how ridiculous it seems to me to make people leave their homes, families, and affairs, to cross the sea under a thousand different dangers, to be received and to be looked at with contempt by those from whom you were to expect but warm welcome."

Congress could have answered with perfect justice that it had not "made" these gentlemen travel one foot toward America or brave a single danger. But on the basis of Deane's contract it was clearly in the wrong and it had no wish to insult France, though it could not afford to anger the American generals. It therefore decided to thank the French officers for their zeal in coming to America and to pay their expenses home again. Most of them did return, some by way of Boston, others from Southern ports. De Kalb meant to accompany the latter group, but a fever detained him for several weeks in Philadelphia; and just as he was leaving a messenger brought him word that he had been made major-general through the influence of several members of Congress who had made his personal acquaintance and were more impressed by the man himself than by his petulant letter. At first he was inclined to refuse, fearing the other French officers might feel he had deserted them, but on reflection he accepted, and, as every one knows, rendered great service to the United States.

Lafayette wrote Congress a letter of thanks in English—an excellent letter, considering the short time he had been using the language, but neither in wording nor in spelling exactly as a native would have written it. In this letter he expressed the hope that he might be allowed to "serve near the person of General Washington till such time as he may think proper to intrust me with a division of the army."

General Washington's previous experience with the French had been unfortunate. He had met them as enemies in the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne before Lafayette was born. They had taken part in the defeat of General Braddock, and during the present war their actions had not been of a kind to endear them to him. Probably even after reading Franklin's letter he did not look forward with the least pleasure to meeting this young sprig of the French nobility. Still, Washington was a just man and the first to admit that every man has the right to be judged on his own merits.

It was at a dinner, one of the lucky dinners in Lafayette's career, that the two met for the first time. The company was a large one, made up of the most distinguished men in Philadelphia; but from the moment Washington entered the room Lafayette was sure he was the greatest in the company. "The majesty of his countenance and his figure made it impossible not to recognize him," while his manners seemed to Lafayette as affable and kindly as they were dignified. Washington on his part observed the slim young Frenchman throughout the evening, and was also favorably impressed. Before the party broke up he drew him aside for a short conversation and invited him to become a member of his military family, saying with a smile that he could not offer the luxuries of a court or even the conveniences to which Lafayette had been accustomed, but that he was now an American soldier and would of course accommodate himself to the privations of a republican camp.

Pleased and elated as a boy, Lafayette accepted, sent his horses and luggage to camp, and took up his residence at Washington's headquarters. "Thus simply," he wrote in his Memoirs, "came about the union of two friends whose attachment and confidence were cemented by the greatest of interests." In truth this sudden flowering of friendship between the middle-aged Washington, who appeared so cool, though in fact he had an ardent nature, and the enthusiastic Frenchman twenty-five years his junior, is one of the pleasantest glimpses we have into the kindly human heart of each. It took neither of them one instant to recognize the worth of the other, and the mutual regard thus established lasted as long as life itself.

IX
PROVING HIMSELF A SOLDIER

The American army as Lafayette first saw it must have seemed a strange body of men to eyes accustomed to holiday parades in Paris. The memory of it remained with him years afterward when he wrote that it consisted of "about eleven thousand men, rather poorly armed, and much worse clad." There was a great variety in the clothing, some unmistakable nakedness, and the best garments were only loose hunting-shirts of gray linen, of a cut with which he had already become familiar in Carolina. The soldiers were drawn up in two lines, the smaller ones in front, "but with this exception there was no distinction made as to size." It was while reviewing these troops that Washington said, "it is somewhat embarrassing to us to show ourselves to an officer who has just come from the army of France," to which Lafayette made the answer that won the hearts of all, "I am here to learn, not to teach." He speedily learned that in spite of their appearance and their way of marching and maneuvering, which seemed to him childishly simple, they were "fine soldiers led by zealous officers," in whom "bravery took the place of science."

Judging by what they had accomplished, they were indeed wonders. It was now August, 1777. Lexington had been fought in April, 1775, and in that space of more than two years England had been unable to make real headway against the insurrection which General Gage had at first thought could be thoroughly crushed by four British regiments. That mistake had soon become apparent. Large reinforcements had been sent from England with new generals. At present there were two British armies in the field. Time and again the ragged Continentals had been beaten, yet in a bewildering fashion they continued to grow in importance in the eyes of the world.

The first part of the struggle had all taken place in the neighborhood of Boston; hence the name "Bostonians" by which the Americans had been applauded in Paris. But after General Howe was held for a whole winter in Boston in a state of siege he sailed away for Halifax in March, 1776, with all his troops and all the Tories who refused to stay without him. This was nothing less than an admission that he was unable to cope with the Americans. He sent word to England that it would require at least 50,000 men to do it—10,000 in New England, 20,000 in the Middle States, 10,000 in the South, and 10,000 to beat General Washington, who had developed such an uncanny power of losing battles, yet gaining prestige.

The War Office in London refused to believe General Howe. It reasoned that New England was, after all, only a small section of country which could be dealt with later; so it let it severely alone and concentrated attention upon New York with a view to getting command of the Hudson River. The Hudson would afford a direct route up to the Canadian border, and Canada was already British territory. It ought not to be difficult to gain control of one Atlantic seaport and one river. That accomplished, the rebellion would be cut in two as neatly as though severed with a knife, and it would be easy enough to dispose of New England and of the South in turn.

So General Howe was ordered back to carry out this plan. He appeared off Staten Island with twenty-five thousand men on the day after the Declaration of Independence was signed. In the thirteen months that elapsed between his coming and the day Lafayette first reviewed the American army General Washington had been able to keep Howe and all his forces at bay. He had marched and retreated and maneuvered. He had lost battles and men. Lost New York, as had been reported in Paris; had indeed lost most of his army, as the American commissioners admitted to Lafayette; yet in some mysterious way he continued to fight. By brilliant strategy he had gained enough victory to rekindle hope after hope seemed dead; and never, even when the outlook was darkest, had the British been able to get full control of the Hudson River.

The British government, annoyed by Howe's delay, sent over another army under General Burgoyne in the spring of 1777, with orders to go down from Canada and end the matter. When last heard from, this army had taken Ticonderoga and was pursuing General Schuyler through eastern New York. General Howe, meanwhile, appeared to have dropped off the map. He was no longer in force near New York, nor had Washington any definite news of his whereabouts. This was the situation when Lafayette became a member of Washington's military family; a major-general without pay, experience, or a command.

He took his commission seriously enough to cause his general some misgiving; for, after all, Washington knew nothing about his ability, only that he liked him personally. Lafayette frankly admitted his youth and inexperience, but always accompanied such admissions with a hint that he was ready to assume command as soon as the general saw fit to intrust him with it. On the 19th of August Washington wrote to Benjamin Harrison, a member of Congress, telling him his perplexity and asking him to find out how matters really stood. If Lafayette's commission had been merely honorary, as Washington supposed, the young man ought to be made fully aware of his mistake; if not, Washington would like to know what was expected of him. The answer returned was that Washington must use his own judgment; and for a time matters drifted. Lafayette meanwhile took gallant advantage of every small opportunity that came his way, both for assuming responsibility and for doing a kindness. He proved himself ready to bear a little more than his full share of hardship, and, by constant cheerfulness and willingness to accept whatever duty was assigned him, came to be regarded as by far the best foreigner in the army—though of course hopelessly and forever a foreigner. In his letters home he often touched upon the discontent of other men of European birth "who complain, detest, and are detested in turn. They do not understand why I alone am liked.... For my part I cannot understand why they are so heartily detested.... I am happy in being loved by everybody, foreign and American. I like them all, hope to merit their esteem, and we are well content with each other."

It was on the 21st of August, two days after Washington's letter to Mr. Harrison, that Lafayette was called to attend the first council of war—that duty about which he had playfully written to his wife. The question was what to do next, for General Howe and his army had not been seen or heard of for weeks. That meant that he was planning some surprise; but from which direction would it come?

The truth was that General Howe had allowed himself to be lured away from the Hudson by his ambition to capture Philadelphia, knowing what a blow it would be to the Americans to lose their chief town where Congress was sitting. As soon as this was accomplished he meant to return to his former duty. To the American officers gathered around the map on the council table his whereabouts was a great mystery, for they thought ample time had elapsed for him to appear in Chesapeake Bay if Philadelphia was indeed his objective. Presumably he meant to attack some other place, and Charleston seemed to be the only other place of sufficient importance to merit his attention. As it was manifestly impossible to get Washington's army that far south in time to be of assistance, it was determined to leave Charleston to its fate and to move nearer to New York to guard the Hudson. With Burgoyne descending from the north and Howe in hiding, it was quite possible that the river might soon be menaced from two directions. The battle of Bennington, a severe check for Burgoyne, had in fact occurred three days before, but it is probable they had not yet heard of it.

The day after the council, ships carrying Howe's army were sighted in Chesapeake Bay, which proved without doubt that Philadelphia was his goal. Washington faced his men about, and, in order to cheer Philadelphians and give his soldiers a realization of what they were defending, marched the army through the city "down Front Street to Chestnut, and up Chestnut to Elm," riding, himself, at the head of his troops, a very handsome figure on his white horse, Lafayette conspicuous among the staff-officers, and the privates wearing sprigs of green in their hats as they marched to a lively air. They were joined as they went along by Pennsylvania militia and by other volunteers who hastened forward, American fashion, at prospect of a battle. Thus Washington's force was increased to about fifteen thousand by the time he neared the enemy. Most of these new arrivals were, however, worse off for clothing and arms—and discipline—than the original army, so his force by no means matched either in numbers or equipment the eighteen thousand British soldiers, thoroughly supplied according to the best standards of the day, which were disembarked by Cornwallis "at the Head of Elk," the inlet of Chesapeake Bay nearest to the city.

There were several preliminary skirmishes, during which Lafayette learned that Washington could be as personally reckless as the youngest lieutenant. On the day the British landed he exposed himself in a reconnaissance and was forced to remain through a night of storm, with Lafayette and Gen. Nathanael Greene, in a farm-house very near the enemy lines.

The main battle for the defense of Philadelphia occurred on the 11th of September, on the banks of a little stream called the Brandywine, about twenty-five miles from the city. Washington intrenched his force upon the hilly ground of its east bank, but, owing to woods which made it hard to observe the enemy, to the ease with which the stream could be forded, and to the superior numbers of the British, this position was turned and his army forced back toward Chester. It was Lafayette's first battle, and the zeal with which he threw himself into the unequal contest, the quickness of his perceptions, and the courage he showed in following up his instinct of the thing to do with the act of doing it, won the admiration of all who saw him. After that day the army forgot he was a foreigner and looked upon him as one of themselves. "Never," he says, "was adoption more complete."

During the hottest of the fight he had leaped from his horse down among the men, striving by voice and example to rally them to make a stand against Cornwallis's fast-approaching column. Lord Sterling and General Sullivan had come to his aid and the three had held their ground until the British were only twenty yards away, when they took refuge in a wood. Lafayette's left leg had been struck by a musket-ball, but he was unconscious of this until another officer called attention to the blood running from his boot. With the help of his French aide-de-camp, Major de Gimat, who had come with him on La Victoire, he remounted his horse, but remained with the troops and was borne along in the general retreat toward Chester, which became very like a rout as night approached; men and guns hurrying on in ever-increasing confusion. Near Chester there was a bridge, and here, though Lafayette was weak from loss of blood, he placed guards and, halting the fugitives as they came up, managed to bring something like order into the chaos. It was only after Washington and other generals reached the spot that he consented to have his wound properly dressed. Washington's midnight report to Congress mentioned the gallantry of the young Frenchman.

Lafayette's injury was not at all dangerous, but it was quite serious enough to keep him in bed for a month or more. He was taken to Philadelphia, and Washington sent his most skilful surgeon to attend him, with orders to care for him as he would for his own son. Later, when Howe's continued approach made it certain the city must pass into British hands, he was sent by water to Bristol on the Delaware River, and from that point Mr. Henry Laurens, the new President of Congress, on the way to join his fleeing fellow-members, who were to resume their sessions at York, gave him a lift in his traveling-carriage as far as Bethlehem, where the Moravians nursed him back to health.

De Kalb and other military friends took a real, if humorously expressed, interest in his "little wound," and on his part he declared that he valued it at more than five hundred guineas. He had hastened to write his wife all about it, not too seriously, "for fear that General Howe, who sends his royal master rather exaggerated details of his exploits in America, may report that I am not only wounded, but dead. It would cost him no more." Reports of Lafayette's death were indeed circulated in France, but Madame d'Ayen managed to keep them from her daughter. Lafayette assured his wife that his injury was "only a flesh wound, touching neither bone nor nerves. The surgeons are astonished at the rapidity with which it heals, and fall into ecstasies every time it is dressed, pretending it is the loveliest thing in the world. For myself, I find it very dirty, very much of a bore, and quite painful enough; but in truth, if a man wanted a wound merely for diversion's sake he could not do better than come and examine mine, with a view to copying it. There, dear heart, is the true history of this thing that I give myself airs about and pompously call 'my wound' in order to appear interesting."

X
LETTERS

Lafayette had plenty of time for thought as he lay in his neat room, waited upon by the wife of the chief farmer of the Bethlehem Society and her daughter, Lissel. Much of the time was spent in wondering about Adrienne, of whom as yet he had received news only once. As this was brought him by Count Pulaski, who left Paris before the birth of the expected child, Lafayette did not know whether his new baby was a boy or a girl, whether it had been born alive or dead, or how his wife had come through the ordeal. He could only send her long letters at every opportunity, well knowing "that King George might receive some of them instead." In these he sent messages to many French friends, not forgetting his old tutor, the Abbé Feyon, but he did not enlarge upon all phases of his American Life. "At present I am in the solitude of Bethlehem, about which the Abbé Raynal has so much to say," he told her. "This community is really touching and very interesting. We will talk about it after I return, when I mean to bore every one I love, you, consequently, most of all, with stories of my travels." He did not think it wise to refer in letters to one amusing phase of the situation in which he found himself at Bethlehem—the visits paid him by influential members of the Moravian brotherhood, who took a deep interest in his spiritual welfare and tried their best to convert him from a warrior into a pacifist.

It was while listening, or appearing to listen, politely to their sermons upon peace that his mind darted over the earth, here and there, even to far-distant Asia, planning warlike expeditions for the aid of his American friends. When his peaceful hosts departed he wrote letters embodying these plans. As he says in his Memoirs, he could "do nothing except write letters." One, which he addressed to the French governor of Martinique, proposed an attack on the British West Indies, to be carried out under the American flag. He had also the temerity to write to M. de Maurepas, proposing a descent upon the British in India. The boldness of the idea, and the impudence of Lafayette in suggesting it while he was still under the ban of the French government, caused the old man to chuckle. "Once that boy got an idea in his head there was no stopping him," he said. "Some day he would strip Versailles of its furniture for the sake of his Americans," and thereafter he showed a marked partiality for "that boy."

Matters had gone badly for the Americans since the battle of the Brandywine. General Howe occupied Philadelphia on September 26th; on October 4th Washington lost the battle of Germantown. Since then the army had been moving from camp to camp, seeking a spot not too exposed, yet from which it could give General Howe all possible annoyance. Clearly this was no time to be lying in tidy, sunlit rooms listening to sermons on non-resistance. Before he was able to bear the weight of his military boot Lafayette rejoined the army. An entry in the diary of the Bethlehem Congregation, dated October 16, 1777, reads: "The French Marquis, whom we have found to be a very intelligent and pleasant young man, came to bid us adieu, and requested to be shown through the Sisters' House, which we were pleased to grant. He was accompanied by his adjutant, and expressed his admiration of the institution. While recovering from his wound he spent much of his time in reading." Under date of October 18th is another entry, "The French Marquis and General Woodford left for the army to-day."

On the day between Lafayette's visit of farewell and his actual departure Gen. John Burgoyne, who had set out confidently from Canada to open the Hudson River, ended by surrendering his entire army. He had thought he was pursuing ragged Continental soldiers when in truth they were luring him through the autumn woods to his ruin. He awoke to find his communications cut and his army compelled to fight a battle or starve. It gallantly fought two battles near Saratoga, one on September 19th, the other on October 7th; but both went against him and ten days later he gave up his sword and nearly six thousand British soldiers to "mere" Americans.

Up to that time a puzzled world had been unable to understand how the American cause continued to gain. The capture of a whole British army, however, was something tangible that Europe could fully comprehend, and respect for the Revolution measurably increased. The victory had even greater effect in Europe than in America, though at home there was much rejoicing and a marked gain in the value of those "promises to pay" which Congress issued as a means of getting money for current expenses.

But Burgoyne's surrender threatened to have very serious effects upon the personal fortunes of General Washington, and in lesser degree upon those of Lafayette. People began contrasting the results of the summer's campaign. Washington, in command of the main army, had lost Philadelphia, while farther north General Gates, with fewer men, had not only captured Burgoyne, but cleared the whole region of enemy troops. There were those who did not hesitate to say that Washington ought to be deposed and Gates put in his place.

In reality Gates had almost nothing to do with the surrender of Burgoyne. The strategy which led up to the battles of Saratoga was the work of General Schuyler, who was forced out of command by intrigue and superseded by Gates just before the crowning triumph. The battles themselves had not been fought under the personal orders of the new commander, but under Benedict Arnold and Gen. Daniel Morgan, with the help of the Polish General Kosciuszko in planning defenses. It was pure luck, therefore, which brought Gates the fame; but, being a man of more ambition than good judgment, with an excellent opinion of himself, he was the last person in the world to discourage praise of his ability.

Discontent against Washington was fanned by born intriguers like the Irish General Conway and by the more despicable Gen. Charles Lee, a traitor at heart. Lafayette became involved quite innocently, in the plot against him, known to history as the Conway Cabal. Two things, good in themselves, were responsible for it. One was his optimistic belief in human nature; the other, his increasing military renown. The latter was the result of a very small engagement in which he took a very large part shortly after rejoining the army. The main camp was then about fifteen miles from Philadelphia, but General Greene had taken his division over into New Jersey, where he was endeavoring to make life uncomfortable for General Howe. Lafayette obtained permission to join him as a volunteer, and on the 25th of November went out with about three hundred men to reconnoiter a position held by the British at Gloucester, opposite Philadelphia. He could clearly see them carrying across the river the provisions they had gathered in a raid in New Jersey, and they might easily have killed or captured him had they been on the lookout. Some of his men advanced to within two miles and a half of Gloucester, where they came upon a post of three hundred and fifty Hessians with field-pieces. What followed is told briefly in his own words. "As my little reconnoitering party was all in fine spirits, I supported them. We pushed the Hessians more than half a mile from the place where their main body was, and we made them run very fast." The vigor, of his attack made Cornwallis believe General Greene's entire division was upon him, and he hurried to the relief of his Hessians. This was more than Lafayette bargained for, and he drew off in the gathering darkness with the loss of only one man killed and five wounded, carrying with him fourteen Hessian prisoners, while twice that number, including an officer, remained on the field.

General Greene had described Lafayette to his wife as "one of the sweetest-tempered young gentlemen." Now his soldierly qualities impressed him. "The marquis is determined to be in the way of danger," was the comment he appended to his own account of the affair; and he ordered Lafayette to make his report directly to Washington, which the young man did in the boyishly jubilant epistle written in quaint French English which told how the Hessians "ran very fast." The letter fairly bubbled with pride over the behavior of his militia and his rifle corps; and, not content with expressing this to his Commander-in-chief, he lined them up next morning and made them a little speech, telling them exactly how he felt about it. An Englishman or an American could scarcely have done it with grace, but it was manifestly spontaneous on his part—one of those little acts which so endeared Lafayette to his American friends both in and out of the army.

Washington sent on the news to Congress with the intimation that his young friend had now proved his ability and might be trusted with the command he so longed for. "He possesses uncommon military talents," Washington wrote, "is of a quick and sound judgment, persevering and enterprising without rashness, and, besides these, he is of conciliating temper and perfectly sober—which are qualities that rarely combine in the same person." At that moment of bickering in the army and of popular criticism of himself they must have seemed exceptionally rare to Washington. Congress expressed its willingness, and we learn from a long letter written by Lafayette to his father-in-law and carried across the ocean by no less a personage than John Adams, when he went to replace Silas Deane at Paris, that Washington offered him the choice of several different divisions.

He chose one made up entirely of Virginians, though it was weak "even in proportion to the weakness of the entire army," and very sadly in need of clothing. "I am given hope of cloth out of which I must make coats and recruits out of which I must make soldiers in almost the same space of time. Alas! the one is harder than the other, even for men more skilled than I," he wrote, just before the army went into its melancholy winter quarters at Valley Forge. "We shall be in huts there all winter," Lafayette explained. "It is there that the American army will try to clothe itself, because it is naked with an entire nakedness; to form itself, because it is in need of instruction; and to recruit its numbers, because it is very weak. But the thirteen states are going to exert themselves and send us men," he added, cheerfully. "I hope my division will be one of the strongest, and I shall do all in my power to make it one of the best."

He was striving to make the most of his opportunity. "I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and upon the result of all this I endeavor to form my opinion and to put into it as much common sense as I can. I am cautious about talking too much, lest I should say some foolish thing; and still more cautious in my actions lest I should do some foolish thing; for I do not want to disappoint the confidence the Americans have so kindly placed in me."

There was not much to do after the army went into winter quarters; and France seemed very far away. "What is the use of writing news in a letter destined to travel for years and to reach you finally in tatters?" he wrote Adrienne on November 6th. "You may receive this letter, dear heart, in the course of five or six years, for I write by a crooked chance, of which I have no great opinion. See the route it will take. An officer of the army carries it to Fort Pitt, three hundred miles toward the back of the continent. There it will embark on the Ohio and float through a region inhabited by savages. When it reaches New Orleans a little boat will transport it to the Spanish Isles, from which a vessel of that nation will take it (Lord knows when!) when it returns to Europe. But it will still be far from you, and only after having passed through all the grimy hands of Spanish postal officials will it be allowed to cross the Pyrenees. It may be unsealed and resealed five or six times before reaching you. So it will be proof that I neglect not a single chance, even the remotest, to send you news of me and to repeat how much I love you.... It is cruel to think ... that my true happiness is two hundred leagues distant, across an immense ocean infested by scoundrelly English vessels. They make me very unhappy, those villainous ships. Only one letter from you, one single letter, dear heart, has reached me as yet. The others are lost, captured, lying at the bottom of the sea, to all appearances. I can only blame our enemies for this horrible privation; for you surely would not neglect to write me from every port and by every packet sent out by Doctor Franklin and Mr. Deane."

On his part, he neglected not a single opportunity. On one occasion he even sent her a letter by the hand of an English officer, a Mr. Fitzpatrick, with whom he had begun a friendship during his visit to London. This gentleman had come to Philadelphia with General Howe, and Lafayette learned in some way that he was about to return to England. "I could not resist the desire to embrace him before his departure. We arranged a rendezvous in this town (Germantown). It is the first time that we have met without arms in our hands, and it pleases us both much better than the enemy airs we have heretofore given ourselves ... there is no news of interest. Besides, it would not do for Mr. Fitzpatrick to transport political news written by a hand at present engaged against his army."

It was this friendly enemy, Mr. Fitzpatrick, who lifted his voice in the British House of Commons in Lafayette's behalf, when the latter was a prisoner in Germany.

XI
A FOOL'S ERRAND

The more Lafayette studied Washington the more he was confirmed in his first swift impression. "Our general is a man really created for this Revolution, which could not succeed without him," he wrote the Duc d'Ayen. "I see him more intimately than any one else in the world, and I see him worthy the adoration of his country.... His name will be revered in future ages by all lovers of liberty and humanity."

Such admiration seemed unlikely ground upon which to work for Washington's undoing, but this was what his enemies attempted. Part of their plan was to win away Washington's trusted friends, and Lafayette's good will would be particularly valuable, because he was looked upon in a way as representing France. The winter proved unusually severe, and when the sufferings of the soldiers at Valley Forge began to be noised abroad criticism of Washington increased. It was pointed out that Burgoyne's captured army was being fed at American expense, that General Clinton's forces were comfortably housed in New York, while General Howe and his officers were enjoying a brilliant social season at Philadelphia; but at Valley Forge there was only misery. General Conway was there himself, working up his plot.

Lafayette was so kindly disposed that it was hard for him to believe others evil-minded. Also he was frankly ambitious. Thomas Jefferson once said of him that he had "a canine appetite" for fame. Conway played skilfully on both these traits, professing great friendship for Lafayette and throwing out hints of glory to be gained in service under General Gates, to whom he knew Lafayette had written a polite note of congratulation after Saratoga. Lafayette appears to have taken it all at its face value until an incriminating letter from Conway to Gates fell into hands for which it was never intended. Then Lafayette went directly to Washington, meaning to unburden his heart, but the general was engaged and could not see him. He returned to his quarters and wrote him a long letter, breathing solicitude in every line. Washington answered with his usual calm dignity, but in a way to show that the young man's devotion was balm to his spirit.

Conway had played upon Lafayette's homesickness also. Family news came to him very slowly. It was not until Christmas was being celebrated at Valley Forge with such sorry festivities as the camp could afford that he learned of the birth of his little daughter, Anastasie, which had occurred in the previous July. All the camp rejoiced with him, but the news increased his desire to be with his wife and children, if only for a short time. If he had really contemplated a journey across the sea, however, he gave up the idea at once, believing that loyalty to his friend now made it his duty to "stand by."

"The bearer of this letter will describe to you the attractive surroundings of the place I have chosen to stay in rather than to enjoy the happiness of being with you," he wrote Adrienne. "After you know in detail all the circumstances of my present position ... you will approve of my course. I almost dare to say you will applaud me.... Besides the reason that I have given you, I have still another which I should not mention to everybody, because it might appear that I was assuming an air of ridiculous importance. My presence is more necessary to the American cause at this moment than you may imagine. Many foreigners who have failed to obtain commissions, or whose ambitious schemes after having obtained them could not be countenanced, have entered into powerful conspiracies; they have used every artifice to turn me against this Revolution and against him who is its leader; and they have taken every opportunity to spread the report that I am about to leave the continent. The British have openly declared this to be so. I cannot with good conscience play into the hands of these people. If I were to go, many Frenchmen who are useful here would follow my example."

So he stayed at Valley Forge, which was indeed a place of icy torment. The men suffered horribly for lack of coats and caps and shoes. Their feet froze until they were black. Sometimes they had to be amputated. There was not enough food. Even colonels rarely had more than two meals a day, often only one, while the rank and file frequently went for several days without a distribution of rations. Enlistments ceased, and desertion was very easy with a wide-open country back of the camp and Howe's sleek, well-fed army only two marches away down the Lancaster Pike. It was small wonder that Washington's numbers dwindled until he could count only five or six thousand. Lafayette called the endurance of the wretched little army that held on "a miracle which every day served to renew." It was a miracle explained by the character of the Commander-in-chief, and of the remarkable group of officers he had gathered around him. As for Lafayette, he strove to live as frugally and be as self-denying as any of them. More than forty years later some of his American friends had proof of how well he succeeded; for an old soldier came up and reminded him how one snowy night at Valley Forge he had taken a gun from a shivering sentry and stood guard himself while he sent the man to his own quarters for a pair of stockings and his only blanket; and when these things were brought how he had cut the blanket in two and given him half. Though there was cruel suffering in that winter camp, there was much of such high-spirited gallantry to meet it; and there were also pleasant hours, for several of the officers had been joined by their wives, who did everything in their power to make the dull days brighter.

WASHINGTON AND THE COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS AT VALLEY FORGE

VALLEY FORGE—WASHINGTON AND LAFAYETTE

Washington's enemies, not yet having exhausted their wiles, hit upon a clever plan to remove Lafayette from his side. They succeeded in getting Congress to appoint a new War Board with General Gates at its head. This body exercised authority, though Washington remained Commander-in-chief. Without consulting him, the board decided, or pretended to decide, to send a winter expedition into Canada, with Lafayette at its head and Conway second in command. Conway had offered his resignation at the time his letter was discovered, but it had not been accepted. To emphasize the slight put upon Washington, Lafayette's new commission was inclosed in a letter to the Commander-in-chief, with the request that he hand it to the younger man. This Washington did with admirable self-control, saying, as he gave Lafayette the paper, "I would rather they had selected you for this than any other man."

It is not often that such important duty falls to a soldier of twenty-one. Naturally enough, he was elated, and this duty was particularly tempting because it offered him, a Frenchman, the chance to go into a French province to reconquer a region which had been taken from his own people by Britain in the Seven Years' War. But he also was capable of exercising self-control, and he answered that he could accept it only on the understanding that he remained subordinate to Washington, as an officer of his army detailed for special duty, with the privilege of making reports directly to him and of sending duplicates to Congress. A committee of Congress happened to be visiting Valley Forge that day, and he went impetuously before them and declared that he would rather serve as a mere aide under Washington than accept any separate command the War Board could give him. His conditions being agreed to, he departed happily enough for York, Pennsylvania, where Congress was still holding its sittings, in order to receive his instructions.

There, in General Gates's own house, at another dinner memorable in his personal history, he got his first intimation of the kind of campaign the War Board wished him to carry on. Toast after toast was drunk—to the success of the northern expedition—to Lafayette and his brilliant prospects—and on through a long list, to which he listened in growing amazement, for he missed the most important of them all. "Gentlemen!" he cried, finally, springing to his feet, "I propose the health of General Washington!" and the others drank it in silence.

He refused to have Conway for his second in command, and asked that De Kalb be detailed to accompany him instead. He proved so intractable, in short, that even before he set out for Albany, where he was to assume command, the conspirators saw it was useless to continue the farce; but they allowed him to depart on his cold journey as the easiest way of letting the matter end. The four hundred miles occupied two weeks by sleigh and horseback, a most discouraging sample of what he must expect farther north. "Lake Champlain is too cold for producing the least bit of laurel," he wrote Washington. "I go very slowly, sometimes drenched by rain, sometimes covered by snow, and not entertaining many handsome thoughts about the projected incursion into Canada."

At Albany he found creature comforts, a bed, for one thing, with a supply of quilts and blankets that made it entirely possible to sleep without lying down in his clothes, which was a luxury he had scarcely enjoyed since leaving Bethlehem; but of preparations for invading Canada he found not one. The plans and orders that looked so well on paper, and which he had been assured were well under way, had not been heard of in Albany, or else had not been executed, for the best of reasons; because they could not be. General Conway was there ahead of him to represent the War Board, and told him curtly that the expedition was not to be thought of. Astounded, the young general refused to believe him until interviews with General Schuyler and others experienced in northern campaigning convinced him that this at least was not treachery, but cold, hard fact.

The discovery was a great blow to Lafayette's pride. Members of Congress had urged him to write about the expedition to his friends in France. He was frankly afraid that he would be laughed at "unless Congress offers the means of mending this ugly business by some glorious operation." But he was in no mood to ask favors of Congress. "For you, dear General," he wrote Washington, "I know very well that you will do everything to procure me the one thing I am ambitious of—glory. I think your Excellency will approve of my staying on here until further orders."

March found him still at Albany, awaiting the orders which the War Board was in no haste to send, having already accomplished its purpose. He tried to retrieve something out of the hopeless situation, but with fewer men than he had been promised, and these clamoring for pay long overdue, he had little success. "Everybody is after me for monney," he wrote General Gates, "and monney will be spoken of by me till I will be enabled to pay our poor soldiers. Not only justice and humanity, but even prudence obliges us to satisfy them soon." As he had already done, and would do again, he drew upon his private credit to meet the most pressing public needs; but he could work against the enemy only in an indirect way by sending supplies to Fort Schuyler, where they were sorely needed.

One interesting experience, unusual for a French nobleman, came to him during this tedious waiting. The Indians on the frontier became restless, and General Schuyler called a council of many tribes to meet "at Johnson Town" in the Mohawk Valley. He invited Lafayette to attend, hoping by his presence to reawaken the Indians' old partiality for the French. Five hundred men, women, and children attended this council, and very picturesque they must have looked with their tents and their trappings against the snowy winter landscape. The warriors were as gorgeous as macaws in their feathered war-bonnets, nose-jewels, and brilliant paint, but Lafayette noted that they talked politics with the skill of veterans, as the pipe passed from hand to hand.

He appears to have exercised his usual personal charm for Americans upon these original children of the soil as he had already exercised it upon the whites who came to supplant them. But he says of it only that they "showed an equal regard for his words and his necklaces." Before the council was over he was adopted into one of the tribes, and returned to Albany the richer by another name to add to his long collection—"Kayewla," which had belonged to a respected chief of a bygone day. The new Kayewla was so well liked that a band of Iroquois followed him south and became part of his military division.

On his return to Albany an unexpected duty awaited him. A new form of oath of office, forever forswearing allegiance to George III and acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of the United States, had come, with the order that all must subscribe to it. So, to use the picturesque phrase of the Middle Ages, it was "between" his French hands that the officers of the northern military department swore fealty to the new United States of America.

As spring advanced the influence of Gates and Conway waned and Washington regained his old place in public esteem. Conway himself left the country. Lafayette and De Kalb were ordered back to the main army; and in doing this Congress took pains to express by resolution its belief that the young general was in no way to blame for the failure of the winter expedition to Canada. When he reached Washington's headquarters in April he found Valley Forge much less melancholy than when he left it; a change due not only to the more cheerful season of the year, but to wonders in the way of improved discipline that General von Steuben had brought about in a few short weeks. This officer of much experience had been trained under Frederick the Great, and, having served as his aide, was equipped in fullest measure with the knowledge and skill in military routine that Washington's volunteers so lacked. When he took up his duties he found a confusion almost unbelievable to one of his orderly military mind. Military terms meant nothing. A regiment might contain only thirty men, or it might be larger than another officer's brigade. It might be formed of three platoons or of twenty-one. There was one company that consisted of only a single corporal. Each colonel drilled his men after a system of his own; and the arms in the hands of these go-as-you-please soldiers "were in a horrible condition—covered with rust, half of them without bayonets," while there were many from which not a single shot could be fired. Yet this was the main army of the revolutionists who had set out to oppose England! Fortunately Baron von Steuben was no mere drillmaster. He had the invaluable gift of inspiring confidence and imparting knowledge. Between March, when he began his "intensive" training, and the opening of the summer campaign, he made of that band of lean and tattered patriots a real army, though it still lacked much of having a holiday appearance. The men's coats gave no indication of their rank, or indeed that they were in the army at all. They were of many colors, including red, and it was not impossible to see an officer mounting guard at grand parade clad "in a sort of dressing-gown made of an old blanket or woolen bedcover." But the man inside the coat was competent for his job.

It was a compatriot of Lafayette's, the French Minister of War, St.-Germain, who had persuaded General Steuben to go to America; so to France is due part of our gratitude for the services of this efficient German. Perhaps, going back farther, the real person we should thank is General Burgoyne, since it was his surrender which undoubtedly quickened the interest of the French in the efficiency of our ragamuffin army. French official machinery, which had been strangely clogged before, began to revolve when news of Burgoyne's surrender reached Paris early in December, 1777. The king, who had not found it convenient to receive the American commissioners up to that time, sent them word that he had been friendly all along; and as soon as diplomatic formality permitted, a treaty of amity and commerce was signed between France and America. That meant that France was now formally an ally, and that the United States might count upon her influence and even upon her military help. It was a great point gained, but Franklin refused to allow his old eyes to be dazzled by mere glitter when he "and all the Americans in Paris" were received by the king and queen at Versailles in honor of the event. He was less impressed by the splendor of the palace than by the fact that it would be the better for a thorough cleaning. After the royal audience was over he and the other commissioners hastened to pay a visit of ceremony to young Madame Lafayette in order to testify to the part her husband had played in bringing about this happy occurrence.

When news of the signing of this treaty reached America about the 1st of May, 1778, Lafayette embraced his grave general in the exuberance of his joy, and even kissed him in French fashion. There was an official celebration in camp on the 7th of May, with much burning of gunpowder, reviewing of troops, "suitable" discoursing by chaplains, and many hearty cheers. Washington's orders prescribed in great detail just when and how each part of the celebration was to be carried out, and this is probably the only time in history that an American army en masse was ordered to cry, "Long live the king of France!"

Lafayette, with a white sash across his breast, commanded the left; but it was a heavy heart that he carried under his badge that gala-day. Letters which came to him immediately after news of the treaty had brought sad tidings. He learned of the death of a favorite nephew, loved by him like a son, and also that his oldest child, the little Henriette, to whom he had been sending messages in every letter, had died in the previous October. "My heart is full of my own grief, and of yours which I was not with you to share," he wrote Adrienne. "The distance from Europe to America never seemed so immense to me as it does now.... The news came to me immediately after that of the treaty, and while bowed down with grief I had to receive congratulations and take part in the public rejoicing." Had the letters come through without delay they would have arrived at the beginning of winter, at the moment when General Conway was fanning the flame of his homesickness. The desire to comfort his wife might have turned the scale and sent Lafayette across the sea instead of to Albany. Now, though he longed to go to her, he felt bound to remain for the campaign which was about to open.

XII
FARCE AND TREACHERY

Much as the French treaty had done for the Americans, it had by no means ended the war. There were as many British soldiers as ever on American soil, and General Howe at Philadelphia and General Clinton at New York could be trusted to make excellent use of them. Signs of British activity were already apparent. A large number of transports had sailed from Philadelphia, but whether they had gone to bring reinforcements or whether it meant that Philadelphia was being abandoned and that the Hudson was again to be the main point of attack Washington did not know. Lafayette was ordered to take some of the best troops at Valley Forge and find out.

He left camp on the 18th of May with about twenty-two hundred men, among them six hundred Pennsylvania militia and half a hundred Iroquois Indians. Crossing the Schuylkill, he established himself on high ground between that river and the Delaware, twelve miles from the city, at a hamlet called Barren Hill, whose chief ornament was a church with a graveyard. It was an excellent spot for purposes of observation; for roads ran in various directions, while the abrupt fall of the land toward the Schuylkill protected his right, and there were substantial stone buildings in a wood in front which could be used as forts in case of need. He guarded against surprise on his left, the direction from which any considerable body of British was likely to approach, by placing there his large detachment of Pennsylvania militia. He planted his five cannon in good positions, sent out his Indian scouts, who wormed themselves several miles nearer the city, had interviews with promising individuals who were to act as spies, and was well pleased with himself.

The British were also exceedingly well pleased when their spies brought in full information of Lafayette's position and numbers. They saw that he had separated himself from the American army and virtually placed himself in their hands; and short of Washington himself there was no officer they would so enjoy capturing. His prominence at home and his popularity in America made him a shining mark; moreover, he had fooled them in London before coming to America. It would be a great satisfaction to take him prisoner gently, without hurting him, treat him with mock courtesy, and send him back to England, a laughing-stock.

They had force enough to make his capture practically certain, and set out in great glee, so sure of the result that before leaving town Generals Howe and Clinton, both of whom were in Philadelphia, sent out invitations to a reception for the following day "to meet the Marquis de Lafayette." Although it was looked upon as something of a lark, the expedition was deemed sufficiently important for General Clinton to lead it in person, while General Howe accompanied him, and the admiral, General Howe's sailor brother, went along as a volunteer. Taking four men to Lafayette's one, and marching by night, they approached Barren Hill in a way to cut off the fords across the Schuylkill and also to intercept any assistance which might be sent from Valley Forge.

Unconscious that he was in danger, Lafayette was talking, early on the morning of May 20th, with a young woman who was going into the city as a spy, when word was brought him that dragoons in red coats had been seen on the Whitemarsh road. This did not disturb him, for he knew that among the coats of many colors worn by his Pennsylvania militia some were red; but he sent out to verify the information, merely as a matter of routine. Soon the truth was learned—and exaggerated—and his men set up a cry that they were surrounded by the British.

Fortunately Lafayette had a head which grew steadier in a crisis. Sending his aides flying in all directions, he found that while the way to Valley Forge was indeed cut off, one ford still remained open, though the British were rapidly advancing upon it. He quickly placed a small number of his men near the church, where the stone wall of the graveyard would serve as breastworks, stationed a few more near the woods as if they were heads of columns just appearing, and ordered all the rest to drop quietly down the steep side of the hill until they were out of sight, and then hurry to the ford. The attention of the enemy was held long enough by the decoy troops to enable the others to reach the ford or swim across, their heads dotting the water "like the corks of a floating seine," and Lafayette, who had stayed behind, brought the last of his men to safety just as two columns of the British, marching up two sides of Barren Hill, met each other, face to face, at the top. Lafayette, on the opposite bank of the river, prepared for defense, but the British were too disgusted to follow.

The real encounter of the serio-comic affair took place between the most gaudily dressed bands of fighters in the whole Revolution, Lafayette's Iroquois in their war regalia and Clinton's advance-guard of Hessian cavalry. As the latter advanced, the Indians rose from their hiding-places uttering their piercing war-whoops. The horses of the troopers were terrified by the brilliant, shrieking creatures, and bolted. But terror was not all upon one side. The Indians had never seen men like these Hessians, with their huge bearskin shakos and fierce dyed mustaches. They in their turn were seized with panic and rushed away, fleeing incontinently from "bad medicine."

Absurd as the affair proved, with little harm done to anything except the feelings of the British, its consequences might easily have been serious, both to the Revolution and to Lafayette. The loss of two thousand of his best men would have dangerously crippled Washington's little army; while the capture of Lafayette, on the very first occasion he was intrusted with a command of any size, must almost of necessity have ended his military usefulness forever. As it was, Barren Hill demonstrated that he was quick and resourceful in time of danger; and these were very valuable qualities in a war like the American Revolution, which was won largely through the skill of its generals in losing battles. To realize the truth of this and how well it was carried out, we have only to recall Washington's masterly work in the winter campaign in New Jersey, when he maneuvered and marched and gave way until the right moment came to stand; how General Schuyler lured Burgoyne to disaster; and how, in a later campaign in the South, General Greene was said to have "reduced the art of losing battles to a science." Years afterward, in talking with Napoleon, Lafayette called our Revolution "the grandest of contests, won by the skirmishes of sentinels and outposts." About a month after this affair at Barren Hill the English evacuated Philadelphia and moved slowly northward with a force of seventeen thousand men and a baggage-train nearly twelve miles long. The length of this train indicated that it was moving-day for the British army, which wanted to be nearer the Hudson, but certain other indications pointed to the opening of an active campaign in New Jersey. A majority of the American officers, including Gen. Charles Lee, who was second in command, argued against an attack because both in numbers and organization the British force was superior to their own. General Lee went so far as to say that, instead of trying to interfere with General Clinton's retreat, it ought to be aided in every possible way, "even with a bridge of gold." Subsequent developments proved that it was not fear of a British victory, but sympathy with British plans, which prompted this view. Several other officers, however, Washington himself, Gen. Anthony Wayne, who was always ready to fight, General Greene, General Cadwallader, and Lafayette, were in favor of following and attacking at the earliest opportunity. It was this course that Washington chose, in spite of the majority of votes against it. It seemed to him that the difficulty Clinton must experience in maneuvering his army over the roads of that region, and the fact that almost half of his force would need to be employed in guarding the unwieldy baggage-train, justified the expectation of success. His plan was to throw out a strong detachment ahead of the main army to harass the British flanks and rear and to follow this up so closely that the main army would be ready to go to its support in case Clinton turned to fight.

The command of the advanced detachment was the post of honor, and to this Lee was entitled because of his rank. He refused it and Washington offered it to Lafayette, who accepted joyously. He had already begun his march when Lee reconsidered and sent Washington word that he desired the command, after all, appealing at the same time to Lafayette with the words, "I place my fortune and my honor in your hands; you are too generous to destroy both the one and the other." Lee was one of the few men Lafayette did not like, though he had no suspicion of his loyalty. He thought him ugly in face and in spirit, full of avarice and ambition. But Lee was his superior officer, and Lafayette was a soldier as well as a gentleman. He relinquished the command at once and offered to serve under Lee as a volunteer.

It would have been better had he found it in his heart and in the military regulations to refuse, for on that sultry unhappy 28th of June when the two armies met and the battle of Monmouth Court House was fought, General Lee's indecision and confusion of orders, to give his conduct no harsher name, turned the advance of the Americans, who were in the best of spirits and eager to fight, into what their generals admitted was "a disgraceful rout." Officer after officer came to Lee beseeching him to let them carry out their original instructions and not to give orders to fall back; but he did everything to hinder success, answering stubbornly, "I know my business."

At Lafayette's first intimation that things were going wrong, he sent a message to Washington, who was with the main army, some miles in the rear. Whether he learned the news first from this messenger or from a very scared fifer running down the road, Washington could not believe his eyes or his ears. Hurrying forward, he found Lee in the midst of the retreating troops and a brief but terrible scene took place between them; Washington in a white heat of anger, though outwardly calm, Lee stammering and stuttering and finally bursting out with the statement that the whole movement had been made contrary to his advice. Washington's short and scorching answer ended Lee's military career. Then, turning away from him as though from a creature unworthy of further notice, the Commander-in-chief took up the serious task at hand. The soldiers responded to his presence instantly. With those on the field he and Lafayette were able to make a stand until reserves came up and a drawn battle was fought which lasted until nightfall. The conditions had been unusually trying, for the heat was so oppressive that men died of that alone, without receiving a wound. Both armies camped upon the field, Washington meaning to renew the contest next morning; but during the night the enemy retired to continue the march toward New York.

THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH, JUNE 28, 1778

Lee was tried by court martial and suspended from any command in the armies of the United States for the period of one year. Afterward Congress dismissed him altogether. The judgment of history is that he deserved severer punishment and that his sympathies were undoubtedly with the British. He was of English birth, and from the beginning of his service in the American army he tried to thwart Washington. Lafayette was convinced that, though his name does not appear prominently in the doings of the Conway cabal, it was he and not General Gates who would have profited by the success of that plot.

Since the British were able to continue their march as planned, they claimed Monmouth as a victory. Washington also continued northward and, crossing the Hudson, established himself near White Plains, which brought the British and American forces once more into the relative positions they had occupied two years earlier, after the battle of Long Island.

Monmouth proved to be the last engagement of consequence fought that year, and the last large battle of the Revolution to be fought in the Northern states. Very soon after this the British gave up their attempt to cut the rebellion in two by opening the Hudson, and substituted for it the plan of capturing the Southern states one by one, beginning with Georgia and working northward. They continued to keep a large force near New York, however, and that necessitated having an American army close by. These two forces were not idle; some of the most dramatic incidents of the whole war occurred here, though the main contest raged elsewhere, and in a larger sense, these armies were only marking time.

XIII
A LIAISON OFFICER

Lafayette's influence and duties took on a new character about the middle of July, 1778, when a fleet of twenty-six French frigates and ships of the line arrived, commanded by Admiral d'Estaing.

These ships had sailed in such secrecy that even their captains did not know whither they were bound until they had been at sea some days. Then, while a solemn Mass was being sung aboard the flagship, the signal was hoisted to break the seals upon their orders. When the full meaning of these orders dawned upon the sailors and the thousand soldiers who accompanied the expedition shouts of joy and cries of "Vive le Roi!" spread from ship to ship. But it was an expedition fated to ill luck. Storms and contrary winds delayed them five weeks in the Mediterranean, and seven more in crossing the Atlantic. Food and water were almost gone when they reached Delaware Bay, where the disappointing news awaited their commander that the British, fearing his blockade, had withdrawn to New York, taking the available food-supplies of the neighborhood with them. That was the explanation of Clinton's long wagon-train. He left little behind for hungry sailors.

D'Estaing landed Silas Deane, and the first minister sent from France to the United States, who had come over with; him sent messages announcing his arrival to Congress and to Washington, and proceeded up the coast. For eleven days he remained outside the bar at Sandy Hook in a position bad for his ships and worse for his temper; for inside the bar he could see many masts flying the British flag. But pilots were hard to find, most of them being in the service of his enemies; and without pilots he could not enter. When at last they were obtained it was only to tell him that the largest of his vessels drew too much water to enter without removing part of their guns, and this he could not afford to do with English ships lying inside. D'Estaing would not believe it until he himself had made soundings. "It is terrible to be within sight of your object and yet unable to attain it," he wrote. To add to his unhappiness he heard that an English fleet under Admiral Byron had sailed for American waters, and he knew that its arrival would raise the number of British ships and guns to a figure far exceeding his own. He put to sea again, his destination this time being Newport, where the British had a few ships and about six thousand men. Washington had suggested a combined attack here in case it was found impossible to accomplish anything at New York.

Admiral d'Estaing came from Auvergne, as did Lafayette. Indeed, their families were related by marriage, and to his first official communication Lafayette had added, at Washington's request, a long postscript giving personal and family details that the British could not possibly know, doing this to prove to the admiral that the proposed plans were genuine and not an invention of the enemy. The correspondence thus begun had continued with pleasure on both sides, and, after the fleet reached Newport, Lafayette spent a happy day on the flagship as the admiral's honored guest, though he was technically still a deserter, subject to arrest and deportation.

The American part of the combined attack on Newport was to be made by a detachment of Washington's army co-operating with state troops and militia raised by General Sullivan, near by. The command of the Continentals was offered to Lafayette, who wrote to D'Estaing in boyish glee: "Never have I realized the charm of my profession, M. le Comte, as I do now that I am to be allowed to practise it in company with Frenchmen. I have never wished so much for the ability that I have not, or for the experience that I shall obtain in the next twenty years if God spares my life and allows us to have war. No doubt it is amusing to you to see me presented as a general officer; I confess that I am forced myself to smile sometimes at the idea, even in this country where people do not smile so readily as we do at home."

Although scurvy had broken out with considerable violence on his ships, the French admiral held himself ready to carry out his part of a speedy attack. It was General Sullivan who had to ask a delay because so few of the militia responded to his summons. While expressing polite disappointment that so large a part of the American army was "still at home," D'Estaing tried to emphasize the need of haste. He believed in striking sudden, unexpected blows; and he had ever in mind the approach of that fleet of Admiral Byron's. Nine precious days passed, which the British commander at Newport utilized in preparing for defense and in sending messengers to New York.

Meanwhile Lafayette returned to camp and started with his detachment for Newport. On the march he received a letter from Washington which must have caused him keen disappointment, since it took away half his authority. General Greene was a native of Rhode Island, with special knowledge of the region where the fighting was to take place, and because of this it had been decided at the last moment to combine the Continental troops with the militia and to give General Greene joint command with Lafayette. The young man's answer was a model of cheerful acquiescence. "Dear General: I have received your Excellency's favor by General Greene, and have been much pleased with the arrival of a gentleman who, not only on account of his merit and the justness of his views, but also by his knowledge of the country and his popularity in this state, may be very serviceable to the expedition. I willingly part with half of my detachment, though I had a great dependence upon them, as you find it convenient for the good of the service. Anything, my dear General, you will order, or even wish, shall always be infinitely agreeable to me; and I will always feel happy in doing anything which may please you or forward the public good. I am of the same opinion as your Excellency that dividing our Continental troops among the militia will have a better effect than if we were to keep them together in one wing." Only a single sentence, near the end, in which he referred to himself as being with the expedition as "a man of war of the third class" betrayed his regret. Washington appears to have been much pleased and relieved by this reply, for he realized that he was drawing heavily upon Lafayette's store of patience.

As it turned out, neither Greene nor Lafayette had authority enough to quarrel over or any glory in the enterprise, for on the 10th of August, at the moment when the combined attack was about to begin, the relief expedition of Admiral Howe's ships loomed suddenly out of the fog. The French vessels had been placed only with a view to an attack upon land, and most of the sailors had been disembarked to take part in it. D'Estaing had to get them hurriedly back again and to prepare for a sea-fight. Before this was over a wind-storm of great fury arose. It separated the combatants, but left D'Estaing so crippled that he was obliged to put into Boston for repairs.

Some of these events were of a character no human foresight could prevent. All of them held possibilities of misunderstanding, and these misunderstandings were increased tenfold by differences in nationality, in temper, and in language. Some of the French thought General Sullivan deliberately and jealously tried to block success. He reproached the French admiral for going to Boston after the storm instead of returning to his aid. Lafayette's very eagerness subjected him to criticism, yet he was the one man involved who understood the temperament of both the French and the Americans. The burden of explaining, of soothing, of trying to arrange the thousand prickly details of the situation fell upon him. Twice he rode to Boston and back for conferences with D'Estaing, making the journey of seventy miles once by night in six and a half hours—unexampled speed for those days. Such work now would be called the work of a liaison officer. He had need of all his tact, and even his sweet temper grew acid under the strain. He was strongly moved to fight a duel with General Sullivan; and both Washington and Congress had to intervene before the French admiral was completely assured of America's belief in his "zeal and attachment," and before Lafayette could be thoroughly appeased.

Fond as he was of America, Lafayette was a Frenchman first of all. He had assured D'Estaing that he would rather fight as a common soldier under the French flag than as a general officer anywhere else. The coming of the French fleet had been to all intents a declaration of war by his country against England; and when the autumn was far enough advanced to make it certain there would be no more military activity in America before the next spring, he asked permission to return to France and offer his sword to his king.

Washington, who had more sympathy with the impulses of youth than we are apt to give him credit for, saw that after the trying experiences of the past few weeks a leave of absence would be the best thing for Lafayette and also for his American friends. The young man's nerves were completely on edge. He had not only wanted to fight General Sullivan and controlled the desire; he had actually sent a challenge, against the advice of Washington and Admiral d'Estaing, to the Earl of Carlisle, an Englishman in America on official business, because of some words the latter had used which Lafayette regarded as an insult to the French. Besides these grievances, his imagination was working overtime on a grand new scheme for the conquest of Canada which Washington could no more indorse than he could approve the desire to shed blood in private quarrels. The young man's friendship was too valuable to make it politic continually to thwart him. Undoubtedly this was a case where absence would make the heart grow fonder. Very possibly also the wise general foresaw how much good Lafayette might do in Paris as an advocate of American interests during the next few months.

Lafayette did not wish to sever his relations with the Continental army. All he asked was a leave of absence, and this Congress readily granted in a set of complimentary resolutions, adding for good measure a letter "To our great, faithful, and beloved friend and ally, Louis the Sixteenth, King of France and Navarre," telling what a very wise and gallant and patient and excellent young man he was. But it was weeks after this permission was given before Lafayette left America. Congress arranged, as a compliment, that he should sail from Boston on the frigate Alliance, one of the best of the nation's war-vessels. Lafayette made his visits of ceremony, wrote his notes of farewell, and set out from Philadelphia in a cold rain one day late in October. Ordinarily he would not have minded such a storm. He had endured the life at Valley Forge and discomforts of the winter trip to Canada with apparent ease; but to a year of such campaigning had been added several months of work and worry in connection with the French fleet. The two together had told upon his strength, and the storm added the finishing touch. He became really ill, but, suffering with fever, rode on, unwilling to delay his journey for mere weather, and unwilling, too, to fail in courtesy to the inhabitants of the many towns on his way who wished to do him honor. He fortified himself for the receptions and functions they had planned by frequent draughts of tea and spirits, which made his condition worse instead of better. By the time he reached Fishkill, New York, he was unable to proceed farther. His fever raged for three weeks, and the news spread that he would not recover. The concern manifested showed what a firm hold he had made for himself in American affection. Civilians spoke of him lovingly and sorrowfully as "the Marquis," while in the army, where he was known as "the soldier's friend," grief was even more sincere. Washington sent Surgeon-General Cochran, who had cared for him in Bethlehem, to take charge of the case, and rode himself almost daily the eight miles from headquarters to make inquiries, never entering the sick-room, and often turning away with tears in his eyes at the report given him. Lafayette, racked with fever and headache, was sure he would never live to reach France again. The idea of leaving the world at the early age of twenty-one did not trouble him; he felt that he would gladly compromise on three more months of life, provided he could see his family and be assured of the happy outcome of the American war.

After the fever left him and he slowly regained his strength he spent a few happy days as Washington's guest before proceeding on his journey to Boston. The elder man's farewell was "very tender, very sad," and Lafayette rode away in company with the good Doctor Cochran, who had orders to watch him like a hawk until he was safely on the ship. After this parting the young man was more than ever convinced that Washington was a great man and his own very warm personal friend. He wondered how anybody could accuse him of being cold and unsympathetic.

XIV
NEAR-MUTINY AND NEAR-IMPRISONMENT

When he reached Boston the crew of the Alliance had not been fully made up. The authorities offered to impress enough men to complete it, but Lafayette objected on principle to that way of obtaining sailors. They were finally secured by enlistment, but many of them were questionable characters, either English deserters or English prisoners of war. With such a crew the Alliance put to sea on the 11th of January, 1779, upon a voyage short for that time of year, but as tumultuous as it was brief. Excitement and discomfort began with a tempest off the Banks of Newfoundland which the frigate weathered with difficulty. Lafayette, who was always a poor sailor, longed for calm, even if it had to be found at the bottom of the sea; but that was only the beginning, the real excitement occurring about two hundred leagues off the French coast.

Lafayette's own account explains that "by a rather immoral proclamation his Britannic Majesty encouraged revolt among crews," offering them the money value of ships captured and brought into English ports as "rebel" vessels—"a result which could only be obtained by the massacre of officers and those who objected." A plot of this nature was entered into by the English deserters and prisoners among the sailors on the Alliance. A cry of "A sail!" was to bring officers and passengers hurrying upon deck and shots from four cannon, carefully trained and loaded beforehand, were to blow them to bits. The time was fixed for four o'clock in the morning, but, fortunately, it was postponed until the same time in the afternoon, and in the interval the plot was disclosed to an American sailor who was mistaken by the conspirators for an Irishman on account of the fine brogue he had acquired through much sailing "in those latitudes." They offered him command of the frigate. He pretended to accept, but was able to warn the captain and Lafayette only one short hour before the time fixed for the deed. That was quite enough, however. The officers and passengers appeared upon deck ahead of time, sword in hand, and gathering the loyal sailors about them, called up the rest one by one. Thirty-three were put in irons. Evidence pointed to an even greater number of guilty men, but it was taken for granted that the rest might be relied upon, though only the Americans and French were really trusted. A week later the Alliance sailed happily into Brest floating the new American flag.

The last word Lafayette had received from his family was already eight months old. He hurried toward Paris, but the news of his arrival traveled faster, and he found the city on tiptoe to see him. "On my arrival," says the Memoirs, "I had the honor to be consulted by all the Ministers and, what was much better, embraced by all the ladies. The embraces ceased next day, but I enjoyed for a longer time the confidence of the Cabinet and favor at Versailles, and also celebrity in Paris." His father-in-law, who had been so very bitter at his departure, received him amiably, a friendliness which touched Lafayette. "I was well spoken of in all circles, even after the favor of the queen had secured for me command of the regiment of the King's Dragoons." This was no other than the old De Noailles Cavalry in which he had served as a boy.

Merely as a matter of form, however, he had to submit to a week's imprisonment because he had left the country against the wishes of the king. Instead of being shut in the Bastille, his prison was the beautiful home of his father-in-law, where Adrienne and the baby awaited him; and during that week its rooms were filled with distinguished visitors, come ostensibly to see the Duc d'Ayen. But even this delightful travesty of imprisonment did not begin until the prodigal had gone to Versailles for his first interview with the king's chief advisers. After a few days he wrote to Louis XVI, "acknowledging my happy fault." The king summoned him to his presence to receive "a gentle reprimand" which ended in smiles and compliments, and he was restored to liberty with the hint that it would be well for a time to avoid crowded places where the common people of Paris, who so dearly loved a hero, "might consecrate his disobedience."

For the next few months he led a busy life, a favorite in society, an unofficial adviser of the government, called here and there to give first-hand testimony about men and motives in far-off America, making up lost months in as many short minutes with Adrienne, winning the heart of his new little daughter, assuming command of his "crack" regiment, so different in appearance from the ragged ranks he had commanded under Washington; and last, but by no means least in his own estimation, laying plans to accomplish by one bold stroke two military purposes dear to his heart—discomfiting the English and securing money for the American cause.

He had seen such great results undertaken and accomplished in America with the slenderest means that the recklessness with which Europeans spent money for mere show seemed to him almost wicked. He used to tell himself that the cost of a single fête would equip an army in the United States. M. de Maurepas had once said that he was capable of stripping Versailles for the sake of his beloved Americans. It was much more in accordance with his will to seize the supplies for America from England herself. He planned a descent upon the English coast by two or three frigates under John Paul Jones and a land force of fifteen hundred men commanded by himself, to sail under the American flag, fall upon rich towns like Bristol and Liverpool, and levy tribute.

Lafayette's brain worked in two distinct ways. His tropic imagination stopped at nothing, and completely ran away with his common sense when once it got going, as, for instance, while he lay recovering from his wound at Bethlehem. Very different from this was the clever, quick wit with which he could take advantage of momentary chances in battle, as he had demonstrated when he and his little force dropped between the jaws of the trap closing upon them at Barren Hill. Fortunately in moments of danger it was usually his wit, not his imagination, that acted, and he took excellent care of the men under him; but when he had nothing in the way of hard facts to pin his mind to earth, and gave free rein to his desires, he was not practical. In this season of wild planning he not only invented the scheme for a bucaneering expedition in company with John Paul Jones; he mapped out an uprising in Ireland, but decided that the time was not yet ripe for that.

While his plan for a descent upon the English coast came to nothing, it may be said to have led to much, for it interested the Ministry, and was abandoned only in favor of a more ambitious scheme of attacking England with the help of Spain. That, too, passed after it was found that England was on the alert; but it had given Lafayette his opportunity to talk about America in and out of season, and to urge the necessity for helping the United States win independence as a means of crippling England, if not for her own sake. As the most popular social lion of the moment his words carried far, and as the most earnest advocate of America in France he was indeed what he called himself, the link that bound the two countries together. The outcome was that after the collapse of the project for an expedition against England nobody could see a better way of troubling his Britannic Majesty than by following Lafayette's advice; whereupon he redoubled his efforts and arguments.

Indeed, he exceeded the wishes of the Americans themselves. He wanted to send ships and soldiers as well as money and supplies, but with the fiasco of the attack upon Newport fresh in their minds Congress and our country were chary of asking for more help of that kind. He assured M. de Vergennes that it was characteristic of Americans to believe that in three months they would no longer need help of any kind. He wrote to Washington that he was insisting upon money with such stress that the Director of Finances looked upon him as a fiend; but he argued also in France that the Americans would be glad enough to see a French army by the time it got there.

A plan drawn up by him at the request of M. de Vergennes has been called the starting-point of the events that led to the surrender of Cornwallis, because without French help that event could not have occurred. In this view of the case, the work he did in Paris and at Versailles was his greatest contribution to the cause of American independence. Another general might easily have done all that he did in the way of winning battles on American soil, but no other man in France had his enthusiasm and his knowledge, or the persistence to fill men's ears and minds and hearts with thoughts of America as he did.

After it had been decided to send over another military force it was natural for him to hope that he might be given command of it, though nobody knew better than he that his rank did not entitle him to the honor since he was only a colonel in France, even if he did hold the commission of a major-general in the United States. Having become by this time really intimate with M. de Vergennes, he gave another proof of the sweet reasonableness of his disposition by frankly presenting the whole matter in writing to him. He worked out in detail two "suppositions," the first assuming that he was to be given command of the expedition, the second that he was not, stating in each case what he thought ought to be done. Quite frankly he announced his preference for the first supposition, but quite simply and unmistakably he made it plain that he would work just as earnestly for the success of the undertaking in one case as in the other.

It was the second of these plans that the Ministry preferred and adopted practically as he prepared it. After this had been decided he found himself, early one spring day in 1780, standing before Louis XVI, in his American uniform, taking his leave. He was to go ahead of the expedition and announce its coming; to work up a welcome for it, if he found lingering traces of distrust; and to resume command of his American division and do all he could to secure effective co-operation; in short, to take up his work of liaison officer again on a scale greater than before.