The Boys' Life of Lafayette

by Helen Nicolay

"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 dine in presence of the commandant of the citadel and of the guard; and at night when my servant is taken away to his cell." The one ornament on his prison wall was a French inscription, in which the dismal words souffrir and mourir were made to rhyme. The one break in the prison routine had been an execution, upon which, had he chosen, Lafayette could have looked from his window as from a box at the opera.

After a year of this he was moved again and turned over to the Emperor of Prussia, his prison journeys ending finally at the gloomy fortress of Olmütz in the Carpathian Mountains. Something may be said in defense of the severity with which his captors guarded him. He steadfastly refused to give his parole, preferring, he said, to take his liberty instead of having it granted him. This undoubtedly added a zest to life in prison which would otherwise have been lacking, and very likely contributed not a little to his serenity and even to his physical well-being. It transformed the uncomfortable prison routine into a contest of wits, with the odds greatly against him, but which left him honorably free to seize any advantage that came his way. He foiled the refusal to allow him writing materials by writing letters as he wrote that one to Madame d'Hénin, with vinegar and lampblack in a book on a blank leaf which had escaped the vigilant eye of his guard. Knowing very little German, he dug out of his memory forgotten bits of school-day Latin to use upon his jailers. He took every bit of exercise allowed him in order to keep up his physical strength. He believed he might have need of it. He even lived his life with a certain gay zest, and took particular delight in celebrating the Fourth of July, 1793, in his lonely cell by writing a letter to the American minister at London. He gave his vivid imagination free rein in concocting plans of escape.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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.