The prisoners looked out for those who were helping them to escape; these helpers were to be protected from suspicion. To do this they put a manikin with a nightcap on in Lafayette's bed, dug a channel under the chimney, and left a coat in the passage well smudged with soot.
Why none of these plans worked is not known. Lafayette was carted on to Neisse, but the plotting still went on. At last the grim and impregnable fortress of Olmütz received the three prisoners. Here he could receive no letters; he could read no paper; he was harshly told that he should never again know anything of what was going on in the outside world; that he was now a complete nonentity, a being known only by a number, and that no person in Europe knew where he was nor ever should know until his death.
Lafayette's misery was turned to a still darker hue by the fact that he felt the gravest alarm for the welfare of Madame de Lafayette. As he was being carted from prison to prison, on his way eastward toward that final destination in the mountain fortress, the news that was smuggled to him by secret and mysterious bearers was not of a kind to bring peace to his mind. He heard of the extremes to which the revolutionary frenzy was carrying the Parisian people; he heard that the king and queen and various members of their family had been proscribed, denounced, and sentenced to death by a committee miscalled a "Committee of Public Safety," and that the nobility were being ruthlessly sacrificed. Saddest of all this for him was the news that his wife, that woman of heroic character, of marvelous spiritual charm, and of liberal and philanthropic mind, had been imprisoned and was in danger of perishing on the scaffold. This word—and nothing more! The darkness of life behind walls seven feet thick was not lightened for many a long month by any further news in regard to Adrienne. The thoughts of Lafayette in his prison were as sad as can be imagined.
As months and years passed on, Lafayette may be forgiven if he sometimes thought that he had been wholly forgotten. But it was not so. It was not an easy matter to liberate a man whose very existence was a menace to every throne. The kings had him completely in their power—they wished to keep him out of sight.
It goes without saying that to President Washington the imprisonment of his young friend, to whom he was bound by strong and vital bonds of gratitude and friendship, was a source of genuine anguish. But what could he do? As Lafayette said, America was far away and the politics of Europe were tortuous. In them Washington had no part and no influence; and he could not go to war for he had no equipment for any such exploit.
He did, however, put in train many schemes designed to influence others to aid his loyal friend. He used the greatest secrecy; the correspondence as it is preserved refers only to "our friend" and to "the one you know," so that if the letters were lost, no one could possibly divine what was being done. The President sent letters to the representatives of the United States in both France and England, commanding that informal solicitations for the release of that friend of America should be made, and that these were to be followed by formal ones if necessary. He wrote to the king of Prussia, urging the release of his dear friend as an act of justice as well as a personal favor to himself; and to the Emperor of Austria, begging that Lafayette might be allowed to come to America. The letter has that thorough goodness and that amplitude of dignity that were characteristics of Washington.
"Philadelphia, 15 May, 1796.
"To the Emperor of Germany:
"It will readily occur to your Majesty that occasions may sometimes exist, on which official considerations would constrain the chief of a nation to be silent and passive, in relation to objects which affect his sensibility, and claim his interposition as a man. Finding myself precisely in this situation at present, I take the liberty of writing this private letter to your Majesty, being persuaded that my motives will also be my apology for it.
"In common with the people of this country, I retain a strong and cordial sense of the services rendered to them by the Marquis de Lafayette; and my friendship for him has been constant and sincere. It is natural, therefore, that I should sympathize with him and his family in their misfortunes, and endeavor to mitigate the calamities which they experience; among which, his present confinement is not the least distressing.
"I forbear to enlarge on this delicate subject. Permit me only to submit to your Majesty's consideration whether his long imprisonment and the confiscation of his estates, and the indigence and dispersement of his family, and the painful anxieties incident to all these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of sufferings which recommend him to the mediation of humanity? Allow me, Sir, to be its organ on this occasion; and to entreat that he may be permitted to come to this country, on such conditions and under such restrictions as your Majesty may think fit to prescribe.