The Boys Life of Lafayette 30

The Boys Life of Lafayette 30

So, in mingled content and hardship, the days passed. The young girls

brought a certain amount of gaiety into the gray cell, even of material

well-being. After their arrival their father was supplied with his

first new clothing since becoming a prisoner, garments of rough cloth,

cut out "by guesswork," that his jailer rudely declared were good

enough for him. Out of the discarded coat Anastasie contrived shoes

to replace the pair that was fairly dropping off his feet; and one

of the girls took revenge upon the jailer by drawing a caricature

of him on a precious scrap of paper which was hidden and saved and

had a proud place in their home many years later. Madame Lafayette,

though more gravely ill than she allowed her family to know, devoted

herself alternately to her husband and to the education of the girls;

and in hours which she felt she had a right to call her own wrote

with toothpick and lampblack upon the margins of a volume of Buffon

[Pg 244]that biography of her mother, the unfortunate Madame d'Ayen,

which is such a marvel of tender devotion. In the evenings, before

his daughters were hurried away to their enforced early bedtime,

Lafayette read aloud from some old book. New volumes were not allowed;

"everything published since 1788 was proscribed," says a prison letter

of La tour de Maubourg's, "even though it were an _Imitation of Jesus

Christ_."

 

Long after she was grown Virginia, the younger daughter, remembered

with pleasure those half-hours with old books. From her account of

their prison life we learn that it was the rector of the university

who enabled her mother to send and receive letters unknown to their

jailers. "We owe him the deepest gratitude. By his means some public

news reached our ears.... In the interior of the prison we had

established a correspondence with our companions in captivity. Even

before our arrival our father's secretary could speak to him through

the window by means of a Pan's pipe for which he had arranged a cipher

known to M. de Maubourg's servant. But this mode of correspondence, the

only one in use for a long time, did not allow great intercourse. We

obtained an easier one with the help of the soldiers whom we bribed by

the pleasure of a good meal. Of a night, through our double bars, we

used to lower at the end of a string a parcel with part of our supper

to the sentry on duty under our windows, who would pass the packet in

the same manner to Messrs. Maubourg and Pusy, who occupied separate

parts of the prison."

 

[Pg 245]Though they could see no change from day to day, the prisoners

were conscious, on looking back over several weeks or months, that

they were being treated with greater consideration. After every

vigorous __EXPRESSION__ in favor of Lafayette by Englishmen and Americans,

especially after every military success gained by France, their jailers

became a fraction more polite. When talk of peace between Austria

and France began, Tourgot, the emperor's prime minister, preferred

to have his master give up the prisoners of his own free will rather

than under compulsion. In July, 1797, the Marquis de Chasteler, "a

perfect gentleman, highly educated, and accomplished," came to Olmütz

to inquire with much solicitude, on the emperor's behalf, how the

prisoners had been treated, and to offer them freedom under certain

conditions. One condition was that they should never set foot again on

Austrian territory without special permission. Another stipulated that

Lafayette should not even stay in Europe, but must sail forthwith for

America. To this he replied that he did not wish to stay in Austria,

even at the emperor's most earnest invitation, and that he had often

declared his intention of emigrating to America; but that he did not

propose to render account of his actions to Frederick William II or

to make any promise which seemed to imply that that sovereign had any

rights in the matter. Madame Lafayette and his two friends, Maubourg

and Pusy, whom he saw for the first time in three years when they were

brought to consult with him over this proposal, agreed fully with

Lafayette's stand; and the result was that all of them stayed in prison.

 

 

[Pg 246]XXVI

 

EXILES

 

But hope grew. On the very day of Chasteler's visit the prisoners

learned that negotiations for peace, already begun, contained a

clause which would set them free. These negotiations were being

directed in part--a very important part--by a remarkable man who had

been only an unknown second lieutenant when the troubles began in

France, but whose name was now on everybody's lips and whose power was

rapidly approaching that of a dictator. The elder De Ségur, father

of Lafayette's friend, had started him on his spectacular career by

placing him in the military academy. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. A

man even less sagacious than he would have seen the advantage of making

friends rather than enemies of Lafayette's supporters in Europe and

America.

 

Thus it was partly because of repeated demands for his release coming

from England and France and America, and largely because Napoleon

willed it, that Lafayette was finally set free. Also there is little

doubt that Austria was heartily tired of being his jailer. Tourgot

[Pg 247]said that Lafayette would have been released much earlier if

anybody had known what on earth to do with him, but that neither Italy

nor France would tolerate him within its borders. Tourgot supposed the

emperor would raise no objection to the arrangement he had concluded to

turn over "all that caravan" to America as a means of getting rid of

him; "of which I shall be very glad," he added. The American consul at

Hamburg was to receive the prisoners, and he promised that they should

be gone in ten days. This time Lafayette was not given a chance to say

Yes or No.

 

On September 18, 1797, five years and a month after he had been

arrested, and two years lacking one month from the time Madame

Lafayette and the girls joined him, the gates of Olmütz opened and

he and his "caravan" went forth: Latour Maubourg, Bureaux de Pusy,

the faithful Felix, and other humble members of their retinue who had

shared imprisonment with them. Louis Romeuf, the aide-de-camp, who

had taken down Lafayette's farewell words to France and who had been

zealous in working for his relief, rode joyously to meet them, but so

long as Austria had authority the military kept him at arm's-length.

The party had one single glimpse of him, but it was not until they had

reached Dresden that he was permitted to join them.

 

Gradually sun and wind lost their feeling of strangeness on

prison-blanched cheeks. Gradually the crowds that gathered to watch

them pass dared show more interest. Lafayette's face was not unknown to

all who saw him. An Austrian pressed forward to thank him for saving

[Pg 248]his life in Paris on a day when Lafayette had set his wits

against the fury of the mob. When the party reached Hamburg Gouverneur

Morris and his host, who was an imperial minister, left a dinner-party

to go through the form of receiving the prisoners from their Austrian

guard, thus "completing their liberty." The short time spent in Hamburg

was devoted to writing letters of thanks to Huger, to Fitzpatrick, and

the others who had worked for their release.

 

The one anxiety during this happy journey had been caused by the

condition of Madame Lafayette, who showed, now that the strain was

removed, how very much the prison months had cost her. She did her best

to respond to the demands made upon her strength by the friendliness

of the crowds; but it was evident that in her state of exhaustion a

voyage to America was not to be thought of. From Hamburg, therefore,

the Lafayettes went to the villa of Madame Tessé on the shores of Lake

Ploën in Holstein. Here they remained several weeks in happy reunion

with relatives and close friends; and it was here a few months later

that Anastasie, Lafayette's elder daughter, was married to a younger

brother of Latour de Maubourg, to the joy of every one, though to the

mock consternation of the lively, white-haired Countess of Tessé,

who declared that these young people, ruined by the Revolution, were

setting up housekeeping in a state of poverty and innocence unequaled

since the days of Adam and Eve.

 

The Lafayettes and the Maubourgs took together a large castle at

[Pg 249]Lhemkulen, not far from Madame de Tessé, where Lafayette

settled himself to wait until he should be allowed to return to France.

It was here that George rejoined his family. He had been a child when

his father saw him last; he returned a man, older than Lafayette had

been when he set out for America. Washington had been very kind to

him, but his years in America had not been happy. Probably he felt

instinctively the constraint in regard to him.

 

Washington had been much distressed by Lafayette's misfortune and

had taken every official step possible to secure his release. It

was through the good offices of the American minister at London

that Lafayette had learned that his wife and children still lived.

Washington had sent Madame Lafayette not only sympathetic words, but

a check for one thousand dollars, in the hope that it might relieve

some of her pressing necessities. He even wrote the Austrian emperor

a personal letter in Lafayette's behalf. When he heard that George

was to be sent him he "desired to serve the father of this young man,

and to become his best friend," but he did not find the godfatherly

duty entirely easy. It threatened to conflict with his greater duty

as father of his country, strange as it seems that kindness to one

innocent, unhappy boy could have that effect. Washington was President

of the United States at the time and it behooved the young nation to

be very circumspect. Diplomacy is a strange game of many rules and

pitfalls; and it might prove embarrassing and compromising to have

as member of his family the son of a man who was looked upon by [Pg

250]most of the governments of Europe as an arch criminal.

 

Washington wrote to George in care of the Boston friend to whose house

the youth would go on landing, advising him not to travel farther,

but to enter Harvard and pursue his studies there. But M. Frestel

also came to America, by another ship and under an assumed name, and

George continued his education with him instead of entering college.

He possessed little of his father's faculty for making friends, though

the few who knew him esteemed him highly. The most impressionable

years of his life had been passed amid tragic scenes, and his natural

reserve and tendency to silence had been increased by anxiety about

his father's fate. After a time he went to Mount Vernon and became

part of the household there. One of Washington's visitors wrote: "I

was particularly struck with the marks of affection which the general

showed his pupil, his adopted son, son of the Marquis de Lafayette.

Seated opposite to him, he looked at him with pleasure and listened

to him with manifest interest." A note in Washington's business

ledger shows that the great man was both generous and sympathetic in

fulfilling his fatherly duties. It reads: "By Geo. W. Fayette, gave for

the purpose of his getting himself such small articles of clothing as

he might not choose to ask for, $100." It was at Mount Vernon that the

news of his real father's release came to George. He rushed out into