The mother died soon after, leaving her child alone in the world, with rank and fortune such as few possess.
In the Memoirs, written by his own hand, Lafayette mentions simply his birth, without allusion to family or ancestry. This was characteristic of one who had so completely renounced all such distinctions. But the temptations he overcame and the prejudices he encountered can be fully appreciated only when we know his origin. His family was not merely ancient and noble, but for generations historic. It had given to French renown a Marshal, who, after honorable service in Italian campaigns, fought by the side of the Maid of Orléans in the expulsion of the English from France; and it had added to the more refined glories of the nation an authoress of that name, the friend of Rochefoucauld and Madame de Sévigné, who shone by literary genius at the court of Louis the Fourteenth, and became an early example of what woman may accomplish: so that the young orphan bore a name which, in a land of hereditary distinctions, seemed to enlist him for their conservation, while it gave him everywhere an all-sufficient passport.
But as some are born poets and others are born mathematicians, the Marquis de Lafayette was born with instinctive fidelity to the great principles of Liberty and Equality, by the side of which all hereditary distinctions disappear. Liberty, he had the habit of saying, was with him a religion, a love, and a geometrical certainty; and this passion, thus sacred, ardent, and confident, was inborn, perpetual, and irresistible. While still a child in the seclusion of Auvergne, he sighed for dangerous adventure, and when at the age of eleven he was transferred to college at Paris, the soul of the young noble responded instinctively to all instances of republican virtue. In the child may be seen the man, and he delighted afterwards to remember that during those early years, when the heart showed itself as it was, in a school exercise describing “the perfect horse,” he lost the prize by picturing the noble animal as throwing his rider at sight of the whip. Nor did his ardent nature express itself in superficial sallies. At every period of life, and particularly in youth, he was grave and silent even to coldness,—thus in external manner differing from the giddy and ostentatious nobles of his day, as he contrasted with them in character.
An early marriage, at the age of sixteen, with the remarkable daughter of the ducal house of Noailles, enlarged his aristocratic connections, and completed all that heart could desire for happiness or worldly advancement. But the life of a courtier, even with the companionship of royal princes, did not satisfy his earnest nature, and he turned away from the grandeurs and follies of Versailles to follow in the steps of his father as captain in the French army. Stationed at Metz, a border fortification on the Rhenish frontier of France, an incident occurred which gave impulse and direction to his life.
The Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George the Third, smarting under slights at court on account of a marriage disagreeable to the King, turned his back upon England, and in his travels stopped at Metz, where he was welcomed at dinner by the commander of the garrison. At that table sat the youthful Lafayette, only nineteen years old, who there for the first time heard the story of the American “insurgents,” as they were called,—of their armed resistance to British troops, and of the Declaration of Independence. His whole nature was thrilled, and the passionate declamation against arbitrary power to which the English Duke gave vent, though stirred only by wounded pride and spite, fell like a spark upon his sincere and sensitive soul, already kindling with generous emotions, so that, before the dinner was ended, his resolution was fixed to cross the ocean and offer his sword to distant, unknown fellow-men struggling for liberty. This was in the autumn of 1776.[54] Hastening back to Paris, he lost no time in engaging with the American Commissioners there, who with grateful astonishment welcomed their romantic ally.
Meanwhile came tidings of melancholy reverses which followed the Declaration of Independence, and of the scanty forces of Washington tracking the snow with bloody feet, as they retreated through New Jersey,—seeming to announce that all was lost. The American Commissioners frankly confessed that they could not encourage Lafayette to proceed with his purpose. But his undaunted temper was quickened anew, and when they told him that with their damaged credit it was impossible to provide a vessel for his conveyance, he exclaimed: “Thus far you have seen my zeal only; now it shall be something more. I will purchase and equip a vessel myself. It is while danger presses that I wish to join your fortunes.” Noble words, worthy of immortality, and never to be heard without a throb by an American heart!
Before embarking, Lafayette, partly to mask his enterprise, and also in the hardihood of courage, visited England, where his wife’s uncle, the French ambassador, presented him to George the Third, who, unconscious of his purpose, said, “I hope you mean to stay some time in Britain”; to which he answered, that it was not in his power. “What obliges you to leave us?” asked the King. “Please your Majesty,” said our new ally, “I have a very particular engagement; and if your Majesty were aware of it, you would not desire me to stay.” During this visit everything was open to the youthful soldier, and he was even invited to attend the review of British troops about to embark for America. From instinctive delicacy he declined, thinking it not right to take advantage of a hospitable invitation to inspect troops against whom he was about to array himself in war. “But,” he added, in relating this incident, “I met them six months after at the Brandywine.”
Quitting England, he traversed France with secrecy and despatch to join his vessel, which was at a Spanish port, beyond French jurisdiction. His departure came like a bolt upon the English Court, which he had just left, also upon the French Court, which was not yet prepared for a break with England, and upon his most affectionate family, who were planning for him a tour in Italy, which in his busy life he never made; but his young wife, who suffered most, loved him too well not to partake his sentiments and to approve his generous resolution, even though it separated him from her. To illustrate the general sensation, I quote the words of the historian Gibbon, in a letter dated April 12, 1777. “We talk chiefly of the Marquis de Lafayette, who was here a few weeks ago. He is about twenty, with an hundred and thirty thousand livres a year, the nephew of Noailles, who is ambassador here. He has bought the Duke of Kingston’s yacht, and is gone to join the Americans.[55] His family interfered by peremptory command, and the French Government interfered by that arbitrary mandate, under seal of the King, known as lettre-de-cachet,—but, disregarding the one and evading the other, in the disguise of a courier, our devoted ally traversed the Pyrenees, and soon found himself with his companions in arms on board his vessel, which, on the 26th of April, 1777, set sail for America.
Undertaking this enterprise at a time when the sea and all beyond were little known, the youthful adventurer showed a heart of “triple oak.” Our admiration is enhanced, when we recall the charms of country, rank, and family left behind,—with perils of capture and war braved even before reaching the land,—and especially when we contemplate the motive in which this enterprise had its origin. Rarely has hero gone forth on so beautiful an errand; for he carried words of cheer to our fathers, then in despairing struggle for the Great Declaration, and opened the way for those fleets and armies of France soon after marshalled on our side; nor is it too much to say, that he was the good angel of Independence. His family correspondence, which has seen the light only since his death, exhibits his beautiful fidelity and the completeness of his dedication to our cause. In a letter to his distinguished father-in-law, announcing his purpose, he says of American interests, that they “will always be more dear to him than his own,” and then declares himself “at the height of joy at having found so fine an occasion to do something and to improve himself.”[56] In a letter to his wife, written on the voyage, under date of June 7, 1777, his sympathy with the great objects of the national contest is tenderly revealed. “I hope, for my sake,” he writes, in words worthy of everlasting memory, “that you will become a good American. This is a sentiment proper for virtuous hearts. Intimately allied to the happiness of the whole Human Family is that of America, destined to become the respectable and sure asylum of virtue, honesty, toleration, equality, and of a tranquil liberty.”[57] Where are nobler words of aspiration for our country than this simple testimony by a youth of nineteen, pouring out his heart to his wife of seventeen? Where in history are grander words from youth or man? For seven weeks laboring through the sea, yet sustained by thoughts like these, he arrived at last on the coast of South Carolina. It was dark, but, pushing ashore in a boat, and following the guidance of a light, he found himself under a friendly roof. His first word, as he touched the land, was a vow to conquer or perish with it.