“III. The Assembly forbids the army of the North any longer to acknowledge him as a general, or to obey his orders; and strictly enjoins that no person whatsoever shall furnish anything to the troops, or pay any money for their use, but by the orders of M. Dumouriez.”
This decree was widely circulated throughout the army. Against such a hydra-headed demon of persecution it was useless to attempt to contend. La Fayette’s only safety lay in flight. For his king and his country he had sacrificed all that was dear to him in life; and this was his thankless reward.
At this time La Fayette thus wrote to his wife:—
“I make no apology to you or my children for having ruined my family; no one among you would wish to owe fortune to conduct contrary to my conscience.” Surely the actions of his heroic wife and brave children fully confirmed his exalted opinion of them.
After taking every necessary precaution for the safety of his army, La Fayette and his three friends, Messieurs Latour-Maubourg, Bureaux de Pusy, and Alexandre Lameth, with a little party of twenty-three exiles, departed from France and turned their faces towards the Netherlands. Reaching Rochefort, La Fayette and his friends endeavored to obtain passports. But La Fayette was quickly recognized, and the commandant instantly despatched a messenger to the Austrian general at Namur, with the startling intelligence that he held in safe-keeping the illustrious La Fayette, one of the bravest generals of France. The Austrian general, Moitelle, could scarcely credit this astounding piece of good fortune. “What!” exclaimed he, “La Fayette? La Fayette?” Turning to one officer, he cried, “Run instantly and inform the Duke of Bourbon of it”; to another the order was given, “Set out this moment and carry this news to his Royal Highness at Brussels”; and sending others here and there to spread the wonderful intelligence: before many hours the news had been despatched to half the princes and generals in Europe, that the illustrious La Fayette was a captive in the hands of the allies. The prisoners were conducted to Namur, then to Nivelles, and afterwards to Luxembourg, where an attempt was made to assassinate La Fayette by some of the French refugees. The Austrians finally decided that La Fayette and his three companions should be given over into the power of the Prussians. The captives were accordingly closely guarded and hurried to Wessel. Here they were separated and thrown into different cells. The many shameful indignities which they suffered and the hardships of their cruel prison life soon prostrated La Fayette, and he became dangerously ill, and for a time his life was despaired of. No mitigation of his confinement was, however, allowed him. Once the king of Prussia offered him aid if he would assist in the plans forming against France. La Fayette received this base message with indignant scorn, and bade the officer return and inform his master “that he was still La Fayette.”
The king, foiled in his attempt to weaken the stanch loyalty of the heroic marquis, who would not swerve one hair‘s-breadth from his conscientious principles, even for the longed-for boon of liberty, determined to wreak his mortified pride by inflicting further cruelties upon the helpless captives, whom, though he could not bribe to dishonor, he might still torture to death.
The monarch resolved to gratify his malignity by removing them to still more dismal and unhealthy dungeons. Whereupon, the prisoners were conducted to Magdebourg; and as they were thrown into the loathsome vaults of that prison, they were informed that they should never again behold the light of day. Here they existed, desolate and despairing, for a year. Frederic William occasionally sent to learn if their sufferings were sufficiently intense to satisfy his fiendish cruelty, and then devised new torments. La Fayette dared not send letters to his wife, fearing that his writing would be recognized, and accordingly addressed them to a friend in England, hoping that his family would in some manner receive them. He thus describes his situation:—
“Imagine an opening made under the rampart of the citadel, and surrounded with a strong high palisade; through this, after opening four doors, each armed with chains, bars, and padlocks, they come, not without some difficulty and noise, to my cell, three paces wide, five and a half long. The wall is mouldy on the side of the ditch, and the front one admits light, but not sunshine, through a little grated window. Add to this two sentinels, whose eyes penetrate into this lower region, but who are kept outside the palisade, lest they should speak; other watchers not belonging to the guard; and all the walls, ramparts, ditches, guards, within and without the citadel of Magdebourg, and you will think that the foreign powers neglect nothing to keep us within their dominions.
“The noisy opening of the four doors is repeated every morning to admit my servant; at dinner, that I may eat in the presence of the commandant of the citadel and of the guard; and at night, to take my servant to his prison. After having shut upon me all the doors, the commandant carries off the keys to the room where, since our arrival, the king has ordered him to sleep.
“I have books, the white leaves of which are taken out, but no news, no newspapers, no communications,—neither pen, ink, paper, nor pencil. It is a wonder that I possess this sheet, and I am writing with a toothpick. My health fails daily.... The account I have given you may serve for my companions, whose treatment is the same.”