The Boys Life of Lafayette 26

The Boys Life of Lafayette 26

The miracle was accomplished. By the 14th of July the whole Champs de

Mars had been transformed into an amphitheater of terraced greensward,

approached through a great triumphal arch. But on the day itself not a

single green terrace was visible, so thick were the masses of people

crowding the amphitheater and covering the hills on the other side

of the river. Opposite the triumphal arch a central pavilion for the

king, with covered galleries on each side, had been built against the

walls of the military school. On the level green in the center of the

great Champs de Mars stood an altar to "The Country," reached by a

flight of fifty steps. One hundred cannon, two thousand musicians,

and two hundred priests with the Tricolor added to their vestments,

were present to take part in the ceremonies. A model of the destroyed

Bastile lay at the foot of the altar. Upon the altar itself were

inscriptions, one of which bade the spectators "Ponder the three sacred

words that guarantee our decrees. The Nation, the Law, the King. You

are the Nation, the Law is your will, the King is the head of the

Nation and guardian of the Law."

 

The multitude was treated first to the spectacle of a grand procession

streaming through the three openings of the triumphal arch. Deputies

from the provinces, members of the National Assembly, and [Pg

211]representatives of the Paris Commune, with Mayor Bailly at their

head, marched slowly and gravely to their places. After them came the

visiting military delegations, the Paris guards, and regular troops

who had been called to Paris from all parts of the kingdom, to the

number of forty thousand or more, each with its distinctive banner.

These marched around the altar and broke into strange dances and mock

combats, undeterred by heavy showers. When the rain fell the ranks

of spectators blossomed into a mass of red and green umbrellas, no

longer the novelty they once had been. When a shower passed umbrellas

were furled and the crowd took on another color. At three o'clock

the queen appeared with the Dauphin beside her. Then the king, in

magnificent robes of state, took his seat on a purple chair sown with

fleurs-de-lis, which had been placed on an exact line and level with

a similar chair upholstered in blue for the president of the National

Assembly.

 

The king had been named for that one day Supreme Commander of all the

National Guards of France. He had delegated his powers, whatever they

may have been, to Lafayette; and it was Lafayette on a white horse such

as Washington rode who was here, there, and everywhere, the central

figure of the pageant as he moved about fulfilling the duties of his

office. General Thiébault wrote in his _Memoirs_ that the young buoyant

figure on the shining horse, riding through that great mass of men,

seemed to be commanding all France. "Look at him!" cried an enthusiast.

"He is galloping through the centuries!" And it was upon Lafayette,

[Pg 212]at the crowning moment of the ceremony, that all eyes rested.

After the two hundred priests had solemnly marched to the altar and

placed ahead of all other banners their sacred oriflamme of St.-Denis,

Lafayette dismounted and approached the king to receive his orders.

Then, slowly ascending the many steps to the altar, he laid his sword

before it and, turning, faced the soldiers. Every arm was raised and

every voice cried, "I swear!" as he led them in their oath of loyalty;

and as if in answer to the mighty shout, the sun burst at that instant

through the stormclouds. Music and artillery crashed in jubilant sound;

other cannon at a distance took up the tale; and in this way news of

the oath was borne to the utmost limits of France. The day ended with

fireworks, dancing, and a great feast. Lafayette was the center of

the cheers and adulation, admirers pressing upon him from all sides.

He was even in danger of bodily harm from the embraces, "perfidious

or sincere," of a group of unknown men who had to be forcibly driven

away by his aides-de-camp. That night somebody hung his portrait upon

the railing surrounding the statue of France's hero-king, Henri IV; an

act of unwise enthusiasm or else of very clever malignity of which his

critics made the most.

 

After this, his enemies increased rapidly. The good will and harmony

celebrated at the Feast of the Federation had been more apparent than

real; a "delicious intoxication," as one of the participants called it,

and the ill-temper that follows intoxication soon manifested itself.

The Jacobins grew daily more radical. The club did not expel Lafayette;

[Pg 213]he left it of his own accord in December, 1790; but that was

almost as good for the purposes of his critics.

 

The task he had set himself of steering a middle course between

extremes became constantly more difficult. Mirabeau was president of

the Jacobin Club after Lafayette left it, and their mutual distrust

increased. Gouverneur Morris thought Lafayette able to hold his own

and that "he was as shrewd as any one." He said that "Mirabeau has the

greater talent, but his adversary the better reputation." In spite of

being president of the Jacobins, Mirabeau was more of a royalist than

Lafayette and did what he could to ruin Lafayette with the court party.

The quarrel ended only with Mirabeau's sudden death in April, 1791.

At the other extreme Marat attacked Lafayette for his devotion to the

king, saying he had sold himself to that side. Newspapers circulated

evil stories about his private life. Slanders and attacks, wax figures

and cartoons, each a little worse than the last, flooded Paris at this

time. Some coupled the queen's name with his, which increased her

dislike of him, and in the end may have played its small part in her

downfall.

 

The king and queen were watched with lynxlike intensity by all parties,

and about three months after Mirabeau's death they made matters much

worse by betraying their fear, and what many thought their perfidy,

in an attempt to escape in disguise, meaning to get help from outside

countries and return to fight for their power. There had been rumors

[Pg 214]that they contemplated something of this sort, and Lafayette

had gone frankly to the king, urging him not to commit such folly. The

king reassured him, and Lafayette had announced that he was willing to

answer "with his head" that Louis would not leave Paris. One night,

however, rumors were so persistent that Lafayette went himself to the

Tuileries. He talked with a member of the royal family, and the queen

saw him when she was actually on her way to join the king for their

flight. Luck and his usual cleverness both failed Lafayette that night.

He suspected nothing, yet next morning it was discovered that the royal

beds had not been slept in and that the fugitives were already hours

on their way. Lafayette issued orders for their arrest, but clamor was

loud against him and Danton was for making him pay literally with his

head for his mistake.

 

Almost at the frontier the king and queen were recognized through the

likeness of Louis to his portrait on the paper money that flooded the

kingdom, and they were brought back to Paris, real prisoners this

time. They passed on their way through silent crowds who eyed them

with terrifying hostility. The queen, who was hysterical and bitter,

insisted on treating Lafayette as her personal jailer. Louis, whatever

his faults, had a sense of humor and smiled when Lafayette appeared "to

receive the orders of the king," saying it was evident that orders were

to come from the other side. It is strange that he was not dethroned at

once, for he had left behind him a paper agreeing to repeal every law

[Pg 215]that had been passed by the National Assembly. Dread of civil

war was still strong, however, even among the radicals, and he was

only kept a prisoner in the Tuileries until September, when the new

Constitution was finished and ready for him to sign. After he swore to

uphold it he was again accorded royal honors.

 

But meantime there had been serious disturbances. Lafayette had felt it

his duty to order the National Guard to fire upon the mob; and for that

he was never forgiven. On that confused day an attempt was made upon

his life. The culprit's gun missed fire, and when he was brought before

Lafayette the latter promptly set him at liberty; but before midnight a

mob surrounded Lafayette's house, crying that they had come to murder

his wife and carry her head to the general. The garden wall had been

scaled, and they were about to force an entrance when help arrived.

 

After the Constitution became the law of the land, Lafayette followed

Washington's example, resigned his military commission, and retired

to live at Chavaniac. Several times before when criticism was very

bitter he had offered to give up his sword to the Commune, but there

had been no one either willing or able to take his place and he had

been persuaded to remain. Now he felt that he could withdraw with

dignity and a clear conscience. In accepting his resignation the

Commune voted him a medal of gold. The National Guard presented him

with a sword whose blade was made from locks of the old Bastille, and

on his 360-mile journey to Chavaniac he received civic crowns enough to

[Pg 216]fill his carriage. His reception at home was in keeping with

all this. "Since you are superstitious," he wrote Washington, "I will

tell you that I arrived here on the anniversary of the surrender of

Cornwallis." But even in far-away Chavaniac there were ugly rumors and

threats against his life. The local guard volunteered to keep a special

watch; an offer he declined with thanks.

 

Bailly retired as mayor of Paris soon after this, whereupon Lafayette's

friends put up his name as a candidate. The election went against

him two to one in favor of Pétion, a Jacobin, and from that time the

clubs held undisputed sway. According to law the new Assembly had

to be elected from men who had not served in the old one; this was

unfortunate, since it deprived the new body of experienced legislators.

The pronounced royalists in the Assembly had now dwindled to a scanty

hundred.

 

Neighboring powers showed signs of coming to the aid of Louis, and

the country did not choose to wait until foreign soldiers crossed its

frontiers. Nobody knew better than Lafayette how unprepared France was

for war against a well-equipped enemy, but the marvels America had

accomplished with scarcely any equipment were fresh in his memory, and

he looked upon foreign war as a means of uniting quarreling factions

at home--a dangerous sort of political back-fire, by no means new, but

sometimes successful. Before December, 1791, three armies had been

formed for protection. Lafayette was put in command of one of them,

his friend Rochambeau of another, and the third was given to General

[Pg 217]Luckner, a Bavarian who had served France faithfully since the

Seven Years' War.

 

Lafayette's new commission bore the signature of the king. He hurried

to Paris, thanked his sovereign, paid his respects to the Assembly,

and departed for Metz on Christmas Day in a semblance of his old

popularity, escorted to the city barriers by a throng of people and a

detachment of the National Guard. He entered on his military duties

with enthusiasm, besieging the Assembly with reports of all the army

lacked, consulting with his co-commanders, and putting his men through

stiff drill.

 

By May war had been declared against Sardinia, Bohemia, and Hungary,