The Boys Life of Lafayette 16

The Boys Life of Lafayette 16

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."

 

[Pg 125]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

[Pg 126]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

[Pg 127]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.

 

[Pg 128]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.

 

 

[Pg 129]XV

 

HELP--AND DISAPPOINTMENT

 

 

When Lafayette sailed westward this time he owned two valued

possessions, partly French, partly American, which had not been his

when he landed at Brest. One was a sword, the gift Congress directed

Franklin to have made by the best workmen in Paris and presented

to him in recognition of his services. It was a wonderful sword,

with his motto "_Cur non?_" and no end of compliments worked into

the decorations of its gold-mounted hilt and scabbard. The other

possession was a brand-new baby. "Our next one absolutely must be a

boy!" Lafayette had written Adrienne when assuring her of his joy over

the birth of Anastasie; and obligingly the next one came a boy, born

on Christmas Eve, 1779. He had been immediately christened, as was the

custom, but he was given a name that no man of the house of Motier had

borne in all the seven hundred years of the family's consequential

existence. Even the young mother's tongue may have tripped a bit as she

whispered "George Washington" to the baby cuddled against her breast.

But no other name was possible for that child, and the day came, before

[Pg 130]he was grown, when it served as a talisman to carry him out of

danger.

 

Sailing westward on the _Hermione_, the father of this Franco-American

baby reached Boston late in April after an uneventful voyage, to

receive the heartiest welcome the staid old town could give him. The

docks were black with people and the streets lined with hurrahing

crowds as he rode to the governor's house where he was to be a guest.

 

Until the _Hermione_ came to anchor he did not know where Washington

was to be found, but he had a letter ready written to despatch at once,

begging him, if he chanced to be north of Philadelphia, to await his

arrival, since he brought news of importance. It took a week for this

message to reach Washington's headquarters at Morristown, and three

days later Lafayette was there himself, greeting and being greeted

by his chief with a heartiness which showed their genuine delight at

being together again. Having been absent for more than a year, he had

much to learn about the progress of the war; and what he learned was

not reassuring. He knew in a general way how things had gone, but the

details showed how weak the American forces really were.

 

Most of the fighting had been in the South. Savannah had been taken

before Lafayette sailed for France. The British had followed up this

success by sending a large force to Georgia; Southern Tories had

been roused, and civil war had spread throughout the entire region.

At present the British were advancing upon Charleston. In the [Pg

131]North the two armies still played their waiting game, the British

actually in New York, and Washington in a position from which he could

guard the Hudson, help Philadelphia in case of need, and occasionally

do something to harass the enemy. Frequently the harassing was done

by the other side, however. During the summer of 1779 the British had

ravaged the Connecticut Valley. Washington refused to be tempted away

from the Hudson, and the brightest spot in the annals of that year had

been the capture of Stony Point while the British were thus engaged.

Lafayette's acquaintance, "Mad Anthony" Wayne, had taken it in a most

brilliant assault.

 

But that was only one episode and the history of the year could be

summed up in eight words--discouragement, an empty treasury, unpaid

troops, dwindling numbers. Washington's own army was reduced to about

six thousand men, with half of these scarcely fit for duty. They were

only partly clothed, and had been only partly fed for a long time.