Letters like this would give great consolation to Madame de Lafayette, but alas, they came at long intervals, since many of her husband's long epistles never reached her. Therefore Adrienne felt his absence the more keenly, while rumors and exaggerated reports from America made her days an agony. When, however, he returned to France in February, 1779, her happiness was beyond all expression.
Adrienne's joy was increased by the fact that while her rash young husband had left his native land under a cloud, because it was understood that he did so against the command of the king, his return was that of a conqueror, triumphant and in favor.
He was not allowed, however, wholly to forget his formal error. His appeal to Adrienne for forgiveness for his absence was one that he had to make to others. His father-in-law testified in a letter that, so far as he was concerned, the recreant might be freely forgiven. Adrienne was only too willing to receive the one who had left her to go on a mission to the other side of the world; but what about the king whose command not to leave the shores of France he had practically disobeyed? Many a man had been shut up in the Bastille because of a much smaller offense.
Lafayette was brought to the court at Versailles by his relative, the Prince de Poix. The king received him and graciously accorded a punishment. He was to suffer imprisonment for the space of one week—his prison to be the grand residence of his father-in-law, the Hôtel de Noailles! After that his pardon was to be freely granted by his Majesty, with this warning—that he should avoid public places for a time lest the people should manifest their admiration for his disobedient conduct by their applause.
The king's warning was not indeed without reason. But there was no use in trying to keep the impressionable French people from worshiping a hero after their hearts had been captured by him. The gallantry and the human-heartedness of Lafayette, as well as the ideals he held—ideals that were becoming more and more captivating to the fancy and to the reason of the French nation—contributed to make him the favorite of the hour. A passage from a certain play never failed to receive enthusiastic applause from the audiences because it was held by all to be susceptible of direct application to Lafayette; and this passage the queen copied in her own hand because she thought of him when she read it. It dwelt upon the union of mature and youthful qualities in a character, and ran as follows:
"Why talk of youth
When all the ripe experience of the old
Dwells with him? In his schemes profound and cool
He acts with wise precaution, and reserves
For times of action, his impetuous fire.
To guard the camp, to scale the 'leaguered wall,
Or dare the hottest of the fight, are toils
That suit the impetuous bearing of his youth;
Yet like the gray-haired veteran he can shun
The field of peril. Still before my eyes
I place his bright example, for I love
His lofty courage, and his prudent thought;
Gifted like him, a warrior has no age."
The queen's copy of this passage was given to Madame de Campan, the revered teacher of the young ladies of the court, and it met the fate of being burned on the very day Marie Antoinette's sad life came to an end at the hands of the executioner during the height of the Terror.
The queen had shown her interest in Lafayette's arrival by arranging to have an interview with the young hero when he was making his first visit to Versailles. At her suggestion Lafayette was now advanced by the king to be commander of an important regiment in the army of France, the king's own Dragoons. He was stationed at Saintes and afterwards at St. Jean-d'Angely, near Rochefort, where the regiment was conveniently quartered to be ready in case a project for the invasion of England by way of the British Channel should be carried out. Such a plan was under consideration, and Lafayette looked forward with delight to the prospect of action against the country which he considered the ancient foe of France.
But, to Lafayette's great grief, the plot to invade England failed; and he was now free to return to Paris and Versailles. The failure of the British plan also made it rather easier for the minds of prominent officials to look toward taking some further part in the American struggle. To aid this Lafayette gladly applied himself; for while loyal always to his own nation, and standing ready at any point to leave all to serve France, he had not for a moment forgotten the needs of his adopted country across the Atlantic. In fact, when he reached home, he had not waited for his one week's punishment to be over before beginning to create interest in the cause for which he had risked his life. Benjamin Franklin, then ambassador to the court of France from the United States, was promptly allowed, under pretense of calling upon Lafayette's father-in-law, to visit Lafayette himself.