The Ladies of the White House; Or, in the Home of the Presidents / Being a Complete History of the Social and Domestic Lives of the Presidents from Washington to the Present Time—1789–1881

by Laura C. Holloway

[9]. Their eldest daughter, Hortensia, a very beautiful girl, married Lord Rogers, of Baltimore.

Young and ambitious, full of enthusiasm and admiration for the principles of a free government, Mr. Monroe left the shores of his native land, whose liberty he had so recently assisted in establishing. He had entered the service of his country as a cadet in a corps under the command of the gallant General Mercer, of Virginia. Soon afterward he was appointed a lieutenant, and joined the army at New York. Following the fortunes of the Chief, he was with him at Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. Retiring from the staff of Lord Sterling, where he had served two campaigns, after being wounded in the shoulder at Trenton, he repaired to Virginia to raise a regiment. From various causes he failed in this undertaking, and did not return to the army, but entered Mr. Jefferson’s office as a student at law. A member of the Legislature, and at the age of twenty-four elected to the Continental Congress, from which he passed to the Congress of the United States, we find him from his earliest boyhood devoted to the land of his birth, and serving it in these various positions of honor and eminence.

But glowing with youthful admiration for the Republic he had left behind, he was not careful to conceal his feelings in imperial France, and hence made himself unpopular with those in power. He was deemed too enthusiastically engaged in the feelings of revolutionary France to do justice to his own country, and he was recalled by Washington.

In August, 1792, Lafayette was taken prisoner by the Austrians, and after being thrown like a criminal in the Prussian dungeon at Wesel on the Rhine, was transferred successively to Magdeburg, Glatz, Neisse, and finally to Olmutz. In this Austrian dungeon he was convinced by the rigor of his confinement and the brutal treatment of his captors that his fate was sealed. Down in his dark cell, ten paces deep, where the rain through the loop-holes poured, and the sun did not shine, the young defender of American liberty lay chained, while the weary months dragged by, and no word of hope or certainty of death came from his wife and children left behind in Paris. Wasted by disease, deprived of light, air, and decent food—the loathsome dampness and filth of his dungeon so reducing him that his hair fell from him entirely by the excess of his sufferings, his cruel tormentors cheered his gloom and oppression by no word or look of sympathy. America knew the fate of his loved ones, and while his estates were confiscated, his wife in the prison of La Force, and his little children, two of whom shared the confinement of their mother, awaiting the wrath of their oppressors, the agents of the country whose once hopeless cause he had espoused were actively employed in behalf of their former friend.

It is not to be wondered that Mrs. Monroe shared the feeling entertained by her husband, or that her warmest womanly feelings were stirred by the recital of Madame Lafayette’s woes. The Marquis de Lafayette was adored by Americans, and the indignities heaped upon his heroic wife could scarcely be borne by the Minister and his family, when they felt that the death of a martyr would be the result of her cruel and protracted confinement. The lofty position America had just assumed among the nations of the earth, and the respect engendered by her success rendered her Ministers in foreign countries objects of special attention and regard. When Mr. Monroe decided to risk displeasure by sending his wife to see Madame Lafayette, he appreciated the decided effect it would have for good or evil. He well knew that either it would meet with signal success, and be of benefit to his unfortunate friend, or render her slight claim to clemency yet more desperate. Enlisted as his feelings were, he determined to risk the die, and Mrs. Monroe was consulted in regard to the plan. To her husband’s anxious queries, she replied calmly, and assured him of her ability to control and sustain herself.

As the carriage of the American Minister, adorned with all the outward emblems of rank, halted before the entrance of the prison, the keeper advanced to know the object of the visit. Mrs. Monroe, with firm step and steady voice, alighted and made known her business, and to her surprise was conducted to the reception-room, while the official retired to make known her request. Her heart beat loudly as she alone listened to the tread of the jailer as he closed the heavy door and passed down the long hall which separated the cells. After a lapse of time, which to one in her nervous state seemed an age, she heard the footsteps returning, and soon the opening of the ponderous door discovered to her astonished view the presence of the emaciated prisoner, assisted by her guard.

The emotion of the marchioness was touching in the extreme, and she sank at the feet of Mrs. Monroe, unable to articulate her joy.

All day she had been expecting the summons to prepare for her execution, and when the silence of her cell was disturbed by the approach of the gendarmes, her last hope was fast departing. Instead of the cruel announcement—the assurance that a visitor awaited her presence in the receiving-room of the prison, and on finding in that visitor the American Ambassadress, the representative of her husband’s adopted home, her long-pent feelings found relief in sobs. The reaction was sudden, and the shock more than her feeble frame could bear.

The presence of the sentinels precluded all efforts at conversation, and both hesitated to peril the frail chance of life, or to abuse the unheard-of privilege of an interview. After a painful stay of short duration Mrs. Monroe rose to retire, assuring her friend in a voice audible to her listeners, for whom it was intended, that she would call the following morning, and then hastened to relieve the anxiety of her husband.

Madame Lafayette’s long-delayed execution had been decided upon, and that very afternoon she was to have been beheaded, but the unexpected visit of the Minister’s wife altered the minds of the officials, and to the surprise of all, she was liberated the next morning.