The Boys Life of Lafayette 27

The Boys Life of Lafayette 27

In July Prussia joined the nations at war, threatening dire vengeance

if Paris harmed even a hair of the king or queen. The mob clamorously

paraded the streets, led by five hundred men from Marseilles, singing a

new and strangely exciting song whose music and whose words, "To arms!

To arms! Strike down the tyrant!" were alike incendiary. In spite of

his recent rebuff, Lafayette made one more attempt to rescue the king,

not for love of Louis or of monarchy, but because he believed that

Louis now stood for sane government, having signed the Constitution.

It is doubtful whether the plan could have succeeded; it was one of

Lafayette's generous dreams, based on very slight foundation. He

wanted to have himself and General Luckner called to Paris for the

coming celebration of July 14th. At that time, making no secret of

it, the king should go with his generals before the Assembly and [Pg

219]announce his intention of spending a few days at Compiègne, as he

had a perfect right to do. Once away from Paris and surrounded by the

loyal troops the two generals would have taken care to bring with them,

Louis could issue a proclamation forbidding his brothers and other

_émigrés_ to continue their plans and could say that he was himself at

the head of an army to resist foreign invasion; and, having taken the

wind out of the sails of the Jacobins by this unexpected move, could

return to Paris to be acclaimed by all moderate, peace-loving men.

 

There were personal friends of the king who urged him to try this as

the one remaining possibility of safety. Others thought it might save

Louis, but could not save the monarchy. The queen quoted words of

Mirabeau's about Lafayette's ambition to keep the king a prisoner in

his tent. "Besides," she added, "it would be too humiliating to owe

our lives a second time to that man." So Lafayette was thanked for his

interest and his help was refused. On the 10th of August there was

another invasion of the Tuileries, followed this time by the massacre

of the Swiss Guard. The royal family, rescued from the palace, was kept

for safety for three days in a little room behind the one in which

the Assembly held its sessions; then it was lodged, under the cruel

protection of the Commune, in the small medieval prison called the

Temple, in the heart of Paris.

 

With the Commune in full control, it was not long before an accusation

was officially made against Lafayette. "Evidence" to bear it out was

speedily found; and on August 19th, less than ten days after [Pg

220]the imprisonment of the king, the Assembly, at the bidding of the

Commune, declared Lafayette a traitor. He knew he had nothing to hope

from his own troops, for only a few days before this his proposal that

they renew their oath of fidelity to the Nation, the Law, and the

King had met with murmurs of disapproval, until one young captain,

making himself spokesman, had declared that Liberty, Equality, and

the National Assembly were the only names to which the soldiers could

pledge allegiance.

 

Lafayette still had faith in the future, but the present offered

only two alternatives--flight, or staying quietly where he was to be

arrested and carried to Paris, where he would be put to death as surely

as the sun rose in the east. This was what his Jacobin friends seemed

to expect him to do, and they assailed him bitterly for taking the

other course. He could not see that his death at this time and in this

way would help the cause of civil liberty. He said that if he must die

he preferred to perish at the hands of foreign tyrants rather than by

those of his misguided fellow-countrymen. He placed his soldiers in the

best position to offset any advantage the enemy might gain through his

flight, and, with about a score of officers and friends, crossed the

frontier into Liège on the night of August 20th, meaning to make his

way to Holland and later to England. From England, in case he could not

return and aid France, he meant to go to America.

 

Instead of that, the party rode straight into the camp of an Austrian

advance-guard.

 

 

[Pg 221]XXIV

 

SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE RESCUE!

 

 

It was eight o'clock at night, a few leagues from the French border.

Their horses were weary and spent. The road approached the village

of Rochefort in such a way that they could see nothing of the town

until almost upon it, and the gleam of this camp-fire was their first

intimation of the presence of the Austrians. It would have availed

nothing to turn back. If they went toward the left they would almost

certainly fall in with French patrols, or those of the _émigrés_ who

were at Liège. To the right a whole chain of Austrian posts stretched

toward Namur. "On all sides there was an equality of inconvenience,"

as Lafayette said. One of the party rode boldly forward to interview

the commandant and ask permission to spend the night in the village

and continue the journey next day. This was granted after it had been

explained that they were neither _émigrés_ nor soldiers on their way to

join either side, but officers forced to leave the French army, whose

only desire was to reach a neutral country.

 

[Pg 222]A guide was sent to conduct them to the village inn. Before

they had been there many minutes Lafayette was recognized, and it was

necessary to confess the whole truth. The local commander required a

pass from the officer at Namur, and when that person learned the name

of his chief prisoner he would hear nothing more about passports,

but communicated in joyful haste with his superior officer, the Duc

de Bourbon. At Namur Lafayette received a visit from Prince Charles

of Lorraine, who sent word in advance that he wished "to talk about

the condition in which Lafayette had left France." Lafayette replied

that he did not suppose he was to be asked questions it might be

inconvenient to answer, and when the high-born caller entered with his

most affable manner he was received with distant coolness by all the

prisoners.

 

From Namur they were taken to Nivelles, where they were presented with

a government order to give up all French treasure in their possession.

Lafayette could not resist answering that he was quite sure their

Royal Highnesses would have brought the treasure with them had they

been in his place; and the amusement of the Frenchmen increased as the

messenger learned, to his evident discomfiture, that the twenty-three

of them combined did not have enough to keep them in comfort for two

months. That same day the prisoners were divided into three groups.

Those who had not served in the French National Guard were given

their liberty and told to leave the country. Others were sent to

the citadel at Antwerp and kept there for two months. Lafayette and

[Pg 223]three companions who had served with him in the Assembly,

Latour Maubourg, a lifelong friend, Alexander Lameth, and Bureaux de

Pusy, were taken to Luxembourg. There was only time for a hurried

leave-taking. Lafayette spent it with an aide who was to go to Antwerp.

Feeling sure he was marked for death, he dictated to this officer a

message to be published to the French people when he should be no more.

 

Before leaving Rochefort he had found means of sending a letter to his

wife, who was at Chavaniac overseeing repairs upon the old manor-house.

It was from this letter that she learned what had befallen him, and

she carried it in her bosom until she was arrested in her turn. The

message to Adrienne began characteristically on a note of optimism.

"Whatever the vicissitudes of fortune, dear heart, you know my soul

is not of a temper to be cast down." He told of his misfortune in a

gallant way, saying the Austrian officer thought it his duty to arrest

him. He hurriedly reviewed the reasons that led up to his flight, said

that he did not know how long his journey "might be retarded," and bade

her join him in England with all the family. His closing words were: "I

offer no excuses to my children or to you for having ruined my family.

There is not one of you who would owe fortune to conduct contrary

to my conscience. Come to me in England. Let us establish ourselves

in America, where we shall find a liberty which no longer exists in

France, and there my tenderness will endeavor to make up to you the

joys you have lost."

 

[Pg 224]His journey was "retarded" for five years, and for a large

part of that time seemed likely to end only at the grave, possibly by

way of the executioner's block. It is to be hoped that his sense of

humor allowed him to enjoy one phase of his situation. He had been

driven from France on the charge that he favored the king, yet he

was no sooner across the border than he was arrested on exactly the

opposite charge; that of being a dangerous revolutionist, an enemy to

all monarchs. When he demanded a passport he received the sinister

answer that he was to be kept safely until the French king regained

his power and was in a position to sentence him himself. He was sent

from prison to prison. First to Wezel, where he remained three months

in a rat-infested dungeon, unable to communicate with any one, and

watched over by an officer of the guard who was made to take a daily

oath to give him no news. "One would think," said Lafayette, "that

they had imprisoned the devil himself." He was so thoroughly isolated

that Latour Maubourg, a few cells away, learned only through the

indiscretion of a jailer that he was seriously ill. Maubourg asked

permission, in case the illness proved fatal, to be with him at the

last, but was told that no such privilege could be granted. But

Lafayette did not die and even in the worst of his physical ills had

the spirit to reply, "The King of Prussia is impertinent!" when a royal

message came offering to soften the rigors of his captivity in return

for information about France. The message was from that "honest prince"

who in Lafayette's opinion "would never have the genius of his uncle."

 

[Pg 225]Another answer, equally inconsiderate of royal feelings,

resulted in the transfer of the prisoners to Magdebourg, where they

were kept a year. On these journeys from place to place they served as

a show to hundreds who pressed to see them. There were even attempts

to injure them, but Lafayette believed he saw more pitying faces than

hostile ones in the crowds. Once fate brought them to an inn at the

same moment with the Comte d'Artois and his retinue, all of whom,

with a single exception, proved blind to the presence of their former

friends. We have details of the way in which Lafayette was lodged and

treated at Magdebourg, from a letter he managed to send to his stanch

friend, the Princesse d'Hénin in London.

 

"Imagine an opening under the rampart of the citadel, surrounded by a

high, strong palisade. It is through that, after opening successively

four doors each guarded with chains and padlocks and bars of iron, that

one reaches, not without some trouble and some noise, my dungeon, which

is three paces wide and five and a half long. The side wall is covered

with mold; that in front lets in light, but not the sun, through a

small barred window. Add to this two sentinels who can look down into

our subterranean chamber, but are outside the palisade so that we

cannot speak to them.... The noisy opening of our four doors occurs

every morning to allow my servant to enter; at dinner-time, that I may