“My health is excellent. I have not received any injury during my operations. Present my most tender homage to Madame d’Ayen, to M. le Maréchal de Noailles; a thousand compliments to all my sisters, to l’Abbé Fayon, to M. de Margelay.
“I embrace a thousand and a thousand times our dear children. Adieu! adieu!”
Washington desired to follow up the advantages which the Americans had gained, by an expedition against Charleston; but as De Grasse had prior orders from his sovereign, preventing his remaining longer in America, the project was abandoned, and the American army retired into winter quarters.
Again La Fayette sought permission from Congress to visit his native land, and after receiving the highest testimonials from Washington and Congress, and also from the king and ministry of France, he sailed from Boston in the frigate Alliance, on the 22d of December, 1781.
The greatest enthusiasm was excited by La Fayette’s arrival in France. Royal salons courted his presence, and high-born dames and gallant cavaliers vied to do him homage. Even sovereigns deigned to note with especial honor his return. Madame de La Fayette was present at a grand fête at the Hôtel de Ville, in celebration of the Dauphin’s birth, when the news was proclaimed that La Fayette, the conqueror of Cornwallis, had just arrived; and, sympathizing with the impatient joy of the fond wife, the queen herself ordered her carriage and accompanied Madame de La Fayette to the Hôtel de Noailles, where La Fayette had just alighted.
The joy of the reunion between La Fayette and his family is more fittingly told in the words of his daughter Virginie than by another.
Speaking of her father’s second visit to America, she says:—
“My father left France once more for America, where the war still continued. The grief which my mother felt was still greater than at his first departure. Her attachment had been increased both by her anxieties on his account and by the enchanting moments she had spent with him. She was then nineteen. Her impressions had become stronger and deeper; a more intimate and serious confidence had associated her riper intellect with my father’s opinions and designs: her mind was with him as well as her heart.
“Nevertheless, what she suffered during the campaign of Virginia surpassed all she had yet endured. As the English papers, which alone brought any news, always depicted the situation as desperate, the most disastrous reports came to her knowledge; but she had the courage to hide them from her mother, and endeavored to bear all her sufferings alone.
“The brilliant conclusion of that campaign which had been conducted by my father, and had ended by the capture of Lord Cornwallis, caused her a happiness which had been purchased by prolonged sufferings. My father arrived unexpectedly in Paris on the 21st of January, 1782. The joy of seeing him again, returned with so much glory out of so many dangers, and the fascination of his presence, were intensely felt by my mother. So overpowering were her feelings that for several months she felt ready to faint every time he left the room. She was alarmed at the vehemence of her passion, fearing that she could not always conceal it from my father, and that it might become annoying to him, and she therefore endeavored to restrain it for his sake only.”