[868] There is an interesting account of the melancholy death of this remarkable man in Lamartine, Hist. des Girondins, vol. viii. pp. 76–80; and a contemporary relation in Musset-Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. ii. pp. 42–47.
[869] This is the honourable testimony of a political opponent; who says, that after the dissolution of the Assembly ‘La Fayette se conforma à a conduite de Washington, qu'il avait pris pour modèle.’ Cassagnac, Révolution Française, vol. iii. pp. 370, 371. Compare the grudging admission of his enemy Bouillé, Mém. de Bouillé, vol. i. p. 125; and for proofs of the affectionate intimacy between Washington and La Fayette, see Mém. de Lafayette, vol. i. pp. 16, 21, 29, 44, 55, 83, 92, 111, 165, 197, 204, 395, vol. ii. p. 123.
[870] The Duke of Bedford, no bad judge of character, said in 1794, that La Fayette's ‘whole life was an illustration of truth, disinterestedness, and honour.’ Parl. Hist. vol. xxxi. p. 664. So, too, the continuator of Sismondi (Hist. des Français, vol. xxx. p. 355), ‘La Fayette, le chevalier de la liberté d'Amérique;’ and Lamartine (Hist. des Girondins, vol. iii. p. 200), ‘Martyr de la liberté après en avoir été le héros.’ Ségur, who was intimately acquainted with him, gives some account of his noble character, as it appeared when he was a boy of nineteen. Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. pp. 106, 107. Forty years later, Lady Morgan met him in France; and what she relates shows how little he had changed, and how simple his tastes and the habits of his mind still were. Morgan's France, vol. ii. pp. 285–312. Other notices, from personal knowledge, will be found in Life of Roscoe, vol. ii. p. 178; and in Trotter's Mem. of Fox, pp. 319 seq.
[871] ‘The impious sophistry of Condorcet.’ Letter to a Noble Lord, in Burke's Works, vol. ii. p. 273.
[872] Thoughts on French Affairs in Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 574.
[873] ‘Condorcet (though no marquis, as he styled himself before the Revolution) is a man of another sort of birth, fashion, and occupation from Brissot; but in every principle and every disposition, to the lowest as well as the highest and most determined villainies, fully his equal.’ Thoughts on French Affairs, in Burke's Works, vol. i. p. 579.
[874] ‘Groaning under the most oppressive cruelty in the dungeons of Magdeburg.’ Belsham's Hist. of Great Brit. vol. ix. p. 151. See the afflicting details of his sufferings, in Mém. de Lafayette, vol. i. p. 479, vol. ii. pp. 75, 77, 78, 80, 91, 92; and on the noble equanimity with which he bore them, see De Staël, Rév. Françoise, Paris, 1820, vol. ii. p. 103.
[875] It is hardly credible that such language should have been applied to a man like La Fayette; but I have copied it from the Parliamentary History, vol. xxxi. p. 51, and from Adolphus, vol. v. p. 593. The only difference is, that in Adolphus the expression is ‘I would not debase my humanity;’ but in the Parl. Hist., ‘I would not debauch my humanity.’ But both authorities are agreed as to the term ‘horrid ruffian’ being used by Burke. Compare Burke's Correspondence with Laurence, pp. 91, 99.
[876] Burke's Works, vol. ii. p. 319. In every instance I quote the precise words employed by Burke.
[877] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 279.