The Boys Life of Lafayette 28
Friends on the outside were busy with plans, too; and though he got
no definite news of them, his optimism was too great to permit him to
doubt that they were doing everything possible for his release. At the
very outset of his captivity he applied to be set free on the ground
that he was an American citizen, though there was small chance of the
request being granted. He was sure Washington would not forget him;
he knew that Gouverneur Morris had deposited a sum of money with his
captors upon which he might draw at need. Madame de Staël, the daughter
of Necker, and the Princesse d'Hénin were in London, busy exercising
feminine influence in his behalf. General Cornwallis and General
Tarleton had interceded for him, and later he learned that Fitzpatrick,
the young Englishman he had liked on their first meeting in London, the
same who afterward carried letters for him from America, had spoken
for him in Parliament. Fox and Sheridan and Wilberforce added their
eloquence; but the cautious House of Commons decided it was none of its
business and voted against the proposal to ask for Lafayette's release,
in the same proportion that the citizens of Paris had rejected him for
mayor.
French voices also were raised in his behalf. One of the earliest
and most courageous was that of Lally Tollendal, who as member of
the French Assembly had quarreled with Lafayette for being so much
[Pg 228]of a monarchist. But later he changed his mind and acted as
go-between in the negotiations for Lafayette's final plan to remove the
royal family to Compiègne. From his exile in London Lally Tollendal now
addressed a memorial to Frederick William II, telling him the plain
truth, that it was unjust to keep Lafayette in jail as an enemy of the
French king, because it was an effort to save Louis which had proved
his ruin. "Those who regard M. de Lafayette as the cause, or even one
of the causes, of the French Revolution are entirely wrong," this
friend asserted. "He has played a great role, but he was not the author
of the piece.... He has not taken part in a single one of its evils
which would not have happened without him, while the good he did was
done by him alone."
Then Lally Tollendal went on to tell how on the Sunday after Louis
was arrested and brought back from Varennes Lafayette by one single
emphatic statement had put an end, in a committee of the Assembly, to
an ugly discussion about executing the king and proclaiming a republic.
"I warn you," he had said, "that the day after you kill the king the
National Guard and I will proclaim the prince royal." Lally Tollendal
expatiated upon how evenly Lafayette had tried to deal out justice to
royalists and revolutionists alike; how in the last days of his liberty
he had said in so many words that the Jacobins must be destroyed; and
that he had with difficulty been restrained from raising a flag bearing
the words, "No Jacobins, no Coblenz," as a banner around which friends
of the king and conservative republicans might rally. But the strict
[Pg 229]impartiality this disclosed had little charm for a king of
Prussia and the appeal bore no fruit.
There were more thrilling efforts to aid him close at hand. "It is
a whole romance, the attempt at rescuing Lafayette," says a French
biographer. The opening scene of this romance harks back to the night
when Lafayette made his first landing on American soil, piloted through
the dark by Major Huger's slaves. The least noticed actor in that
night's drama had been Major Huger's son, a very small boy, who hung
upon the words of the unexpected guests and followed them with round,
child eyes. Much had happened to change two hemispheres since, and even
greater changes had occurred in the person of that small boy. He had
grown up, he had resolved to be a surgeon, had finished his studies in
London, and betaken himself to Vienna to pursue them further. There
in the autumn of 1794 in a café he encountered a Doctor Bollman of
Hanover. They fell into conversation, and before long Bollman confided
to Huger that he had a secret mission. He had been charged by Lally
Tollendal and American friends of Lafayette then in London to find out
where the prisoner was and to plan for his escape. In his search he
had traveled up and down Germany as a wealthy physician who took an
interest in the unfortunate, particularly in prisoners, and treated
them free of charge. For a long time he had found no clue, but at
Olmütz, whose fortifications proved too strong in days past even for
Frederick the Great, he had been invited to dinner by the prison doctor
[Pg 230]and in turn had entertained him, plying him well with wine.
They talked about prisoners of note. The prison doctor admitted that he
had one now on his hands; and before the dinner was over Bollman had
sent an innocent-sounding message to Lafayette. Later he was allowed to
send him a book, with a few written lines purporting to be nothing more
than the names of some friends then in London.
When the book was returned Bollman lost no time in searching it for
hidden writing. In this way he learned that Lafayette had lately
been allowed to drive out on certain days a league or two from the
prison for the benefit of his health, and that his guard on such
occasions consisted of a stupid lieutenant and the corporal who drove
the carriage. The latter was something of a coward. Lafayette would
undertake to look after both of them himself if a rescuer and one
trusty helper should appear. No weapons need be provided; he would
take the officer's own sword away from him. All he wanted was an extra
horse or two, with the assurance that his deliverers were ready. It
was a bold plan, but only a bold plan could succeed. There were too
many bolts and bars inside the prison to make any other kind feasible.
Lameth had been set at liberty; his two other friends, Latour Maubourg
and Bureaux de Pusy, were in full sympathy with the plan, and to make
it easier had refrained from asking the privilege of driving out
themselves. Bollman added that he could not manage the rescue alone
and had come away to hunt for a trusty confederate. Huger had already
[Pg 231]told of his unforgotten meeting with Lafayette, and there was
no mistaking the eagerness with which he awaited Bollman's next word
or the joy with which he accepted the invitation to take part in the
rescue. He was moved by something deeper than mere love of adventure.
"I simply considered myself the representative of the young men of
America and acted accordingly," he said long after.
The two men returned to Olmütz and put up at the inn where Bollman had
stayed before. They managed to send a note to Lafayette. His answer
told them he would leave the prison on November 8th for his next drive,
how he would be dressed, and the signal by which they might know he was
ready. It was a market day, with many persons on the road. They paid
their score, sent their servants ahead with the traveling-carriage and
luggage to await their arrival at a town called Hoff, while they came
more slowly on horseback. Then they rode out of the gray old town.
Neither its Gothic churches, its hoary university, nor the ingenious
astronomical clock that had rung the hours from its tower for three
hundred and seventy years; not even the fortifications or the prison
itself, built on a plain so bare that all who left it were in full view
of the sentinels at the city gates, interested these travelers as did
the passers-by. Presently a small phæton containing an officer and a
civilian was driven toward them, and as it went by the pale gentleman
in a blue greatcoat raised his hand to pass a white handkerchief over
his forehead. The riders bowed slightly and tried to look indifferent,
but that was hard work. Turning as soon as they dared, they saw that
[Pg 232]the carriage had stopped by the side of the road. Its two
passengers alighted; the gentleman in blue handed a piece of money to
the driver, who drove off as though going on an errand. Then leaning
heavily upon the officer, seeming to find difficulty in walking, he
drew him toward a footpath. But at the sound of approaching horsemen,
he suddenly seized the officer's sword and attempted to wrench it from
its scabbard. The officer grappled with him. Bollman and Huger flew to
his assistance. In the act of dismounting Bollman drew his sword and
his horse, startled by the flashing steel, plunged and bolted. Huger
managed to keep hold of his own bridle, while he helped Bollman tear
away the officer's hands that were closing about Lafayette's throat.
The Austrian wrenched himself free and ran toward the town, shouting
with all his might.
Here were three men in desperate need of flight, the alarm already
raised, and only two horses to carry them to safety--one of these
running wild. Huger acted with Southern gallantry and American speed.
He got Lafayette upon his own steed, shouted to him to "Go to Hoff!"
and caught the other horse. Misunderstanding the injunction, Lafayette,
who thought he had merely been told to "Go off," rode a few steps,
then turned back to help his rescuers. They motioned him away and he
disappeared, in the wrong direction. The remaining horse reared and
plunged, refusing to carry double. Huger persuaded Bollman to mount
him, since he could be of far greater use to Lafayette, and saw him
[Pg 233]gallop away. By that time a detachment of soldiers was bearing
down upon him, and between their guns he entered the prison Lafayette
had so lately quitted.
At the end of twenty miles Lafayette had to change horses. He appealed
to an honest-looking peasant, who helped him to find another one, but
also ran to warn the authorities. These became suspicious when they saw
Lafayette's wounded hand, which had been bitten by the officer almost
to the bone. They arrested him on general principles and he was carried
back to a captivity more onerous than before. He was deprived of all
rides, of course, of all news, even of the watch and shoe-buckles which
up to this time he had been allowed to retain. Bollman reached Hoff and
waited for Lafayette until nightfall, then made his way into Silesia.
But he was captured and returned to Austria and finally to Olmütz.
The treatment accorded Lafayette's would-be rescuers was barbarous in
the extreme. Huger was chained hand and foot in an underground cell,
where he listened to realistic descriptions of beheadings, and, worse
still, of how prisoners were walled up and forgotten. Daily questions
and threats of torture were tried to make him confess that the attempt
was part of a wide-spread conspiracy. As his statements and his courage
did not waver, the prison authorities came at last to believe him,
and he was taken to a cell aboveground where it was possible to move
three steps, though he was still chained. He found that Bollman was
confined in the cell just above him. The latter let down a walnut [Pg
234]shell containing a bit of ink and also a scrap of paper. With these
Huger wrote a few lines to the American minister at London, telling of
their plight and ending with the three eloquent words, "Don't forget
us!"--doubly eloquent to one who knew those stories of walled-up
prisoners underground. They bribed the guard to smuggle this out of the
prison, and in time it reached its destination. The American minister
did not forget them. Through his good offices they were released and
told to leave the country. They waited for no second invitation, which
was very wise, because the emperor repented his clemency. He sent an
order for their rearrest, but it arrived, fortunately, just too late to
prevent their escape across the border.
[Pg 235]XXV
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