The Spirit of Lafayette

Part 1

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THE SPIRIT OF LAFAYETTE

THE SPIRIT OF LAFAYETTE

BY JAMES MOTT HALLOWELL Former Assistant Attorney-General of Massachusetts

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1918

Copyright, 1918, by DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian

DEDICATED TO THE AMERICAN SOLDIER IN FRANCE WHO HAS ANSWERED THE CALL OF LAFAYETTE

THE SPIRIT OF LAFAYETTE

The Spirit of Lafayette

A few years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence a hostile Mohawk chief met in council a representative of the young American republics for the purpose of concluding a treaty of peace. The representative of young democracy was a soldier of France, the Marquis de Lafayette. Primitive America on the one hand, ancient Europe on the other! "Father," said the Indian, "we have heard thy voice and we rejoice that thou hast visited thy children to give to them good and necessary advice. Thou hast said that we have done wrong in opening our ears to wicked men, and closing our hearts to thy counsels. Father, it is all true; we have left the good path; we have wandered away from it and have been enveloped in a black cloud. We have now returned that thou mayest find in us good and faithful children. We rejoice to hear thy voice among us. It seems that the Great Spirit has directed thy footsteps to this council of friendship to smoke the calumet of peace and fellowship with thy long-lost children."

The Indian warrior's vision was true in a greater sense than he knew. Through him the soul of America spoke to the soul of Europe, and it spoke of the fellowship of man. Perhaps the footsteps of this soldier of France were indeed directed by a high Providence. Perhaps he was himself a message from the infinite. I love, for my own part, to believe that at his birth there appeared in this world an eternal and mighty spirit, a spirit perhaps from another age or sphere. Who knows? Why not? Who is there can look into the great unknown, the vast and impenetrable depths of the heavens, and say that this could not be, and was not so? How else explain this child of a French monarchy, brought up among the titled nobility of France, who amidst such conditions grew to manhood--the devotee of freedom and the ever-loyal champion of democracy?

Lafayette was born on September 6, 1757, at the Château de Chavagnac in the province of Auvergne in the monarchy of France. Two months before his birth his father was killed in battle. Left to the sole guidance of an indulgent mother, surrounded by flattering attendants and the enervating influences of wealth and noble birth, he faced the empty and useless life of a mere titled, wealthy aristocrat. What saved him? To add to these inauspicious beginnings, he was, at the age of twelve, sent to Paris to the College du Plessis where his rank and wealth introduced him to all the gaieties and dissipations of exclusive fashionable Parisian society. His mother died when he was but thirteen, leaving him in the full possession of large and valuable estates, the absolute master of his own destiny, and subject to the indulgences and corruptions of one of the most notorious courts of all Europe. Of a winning personality, he was appointed one of the King's pages, a position much coveted by the princes and nobles of the kingdom. He was also enrolled in the King's Regiment of Mousquetaires, and at the age of fifteen through the favour of the Queen obtained a commission, an honour conferred as a mark of especial royal regard. He was married at the age of sixteen, and his young wife was a daughter of the aristocratic house of Noailles, one of the most powerful and influential families of the French court. What more profoundly barren soil could be chosen to produce the self-denying fighter for liberty, the clean-minded democrat, Lafayette?

A significant incident is told of his early life. Shortly after his marriage, his wife's family sought for him an honorary position in the household of the Count de Provençe, afterward Louis XVIII King of France. Lafayette did not wish the appointment. The spirit of Lafayette, the democrat, was already restive under royal authority. To prevent the honour being thrust upon him, and in order at the same time not to offend his family by refusing to accept, he sought an opportunity to make himself so obnoxious to the Count that the arrangement could not go through. The chance offered itself at a masked ball where the Count appeared in a disguise which was instantly penetrated by Lafayette. Making himself known, he lost no time in engaging in conversation the royal personage, who thought himself unknown, and with a freedom and boldness bordering upon discourtesy, he gave voice to facts and opinions which he knew would be obnoxious to his listener's ear. The future King of France had little hesitation in making up his mind that the young Marquis would be a refractory attaché, and declined to make the requested appointment.

Providence, or his own spirit, had saved Lafayette for democracy.

In 1775 in the new western hemisphere democracy was born to the modern world.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard 'round the world."

Across the vast Atlantic rolled its echoes. Across a trackless sea, across the lands of France, up through the great White Ways of Paris it resounded. It knocked against the palace doors of the King of France. On through the flippant gibe, the careless laugh, the carousing and the din of the royal court, it reached and touched the spirit of Lafayette.

What was the strange tale that came to him from the New World? Was it a tale of liberty triumphant and conquering, a tale of success, a tale to touch the imagination of a soldier through the glory of a winning cause? Far from it. After a brief temporary success in Massachusetts the cause of the newly-born confederated American republics seemed to be tottering upon the brink of total destruction. The rout of the Americans at Brooklyn and the consequent abandonment of Long Island was followed by their evacuation of New York City. The American army was becoming demoralized. The militia were impatient to return home, were disobedient to orders, and were deserting in large numbers--it is said "by half and even by whole regiments." Then followed the Americans' defeat at White Plains, the surrender of Fort Washington, the evacuation of Fort Lee, and the steady disheartening of the American forces. The ineffectual attempts to increase the militia, the indisposition of the inhabitants to farther resistance, the retreat of General Washington through New Jersey at the head of less than three thousand men, poorly armed, almost without tents, blankets, or provisions, discouraged by constant reverses, many of them half-clad and barefooted in the cold of November and December, passing through a desponding country and pursued by a numerous, well-appointed, and victorious army--all these events made liberty at this time indeed

"A wretched soul bruised with adversity."

It was at this stage of the conflict that Lafayette determined to cross the Atlantic and take up the cause of the thirteen little republics. Benjamin Franklin, one of America's two representatives in France, who at first had welcomed this offer of assistance, upon learning of the continued American reverses, and almost despairing of the success of the cause, is reported honourably to have endeavoured to dissuade the Marquis from carrying his design into execution. Franklin and Silas Deane, the other American representative in France, told him they were unable to obtain a vessel for his passage. France was then at peace, and the King of France forbade his departure. Under the laws of France he risked the confiscation of all his property, as well as capture on the high seas. There was no winning cause to lure him, merely thirteen little newly-born republics struggling for a principle, fighting for democracy--a weak, bedraggled, and dispirited democracy, a democracy half-clad and poverty stricken, a barefooted, half-naked democracy that was very nearly down and out.

"Now," he replied to Franklin and Deane, "is precisely the moment to serve your cause; the more people are discouraged, the greater utility will result from my departure; and if you cannot furnish me with a vessel, I shall charter one at my own expense to convey your despatches and my person to the shores of America."

In a Paris paper of that year, there appears the following item:

Paris, April 4, 1777.

One of the richest of our young nobility, the Marquis de Lafayette, a relation of the Duke de Noailles, between nineteen and twenty years of age, has at his own expense hired a vessel and provided everything necessary for a voyage to America, with two officers of his acquaintance. He set out last week, having told his lady and family that he was going to Italy. He is to serve as Major-General in the American army.

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