When Mr. McLane, our minister to England, made a flight to Paris in 1830, Lafayette strongly urged Cooper to give him the pleasure
of presenting him with Mr. McLane to Louis Philippe at a Palais Royal "evening." Concerning the event Cooper noted: "Though such a visit was contrary to my quiet habits, I could do nothing but comply." His book on France relates the event and concludes with: "We all got invitations to dine at the palace in a day or two." But Cooper "never had any faith in the republican king," and thought "General Lafayette had been the dupe of his own good faith and kind feelings." Queen Marie Amélie, who was the daughter of Ferdinand I of the two Sicilies, asked Cooper which he most preferred of all the lands he had visited. His quick and strictly truthful reply was: "That in which your majesty was born for its nature, and that in which your majesty reigns for its society." As the "evening"
was for men Cooper noticed that "the queen and her ladies wore bonnets."
December 8, 1830 the Americans in Paris gave General Lafayette a dinner over which Cooper presided. And, says Professor Lounsbury, "in a speech of marked fervor and ability, he had dwelt upon the debt due from the United States to the gallant Frenchman, who had ventured fortune and life to aid a nation struggling against great odds to be free." As "It was not in his [Cooper's] nature to have his deeds give lie to his words," he was fairly caught in a public controversy that brought upon him the following unpleasant results.
During this period a public dispute arose on the comparative expenses of American and French government, which Lafayette was called upon to settle, and he appealed to Cooper as an American authority. In his spirited defense of the gallant Marquis, our author was caught in a maelstrom of harsh criticism. It ended in his victory abroad, but brought upon him uncalled-for comment from the American press for "attacking the authorities of a friendly country"—as that press unjustly termed it.
At Paris in 1831, by the request of an English
friend, Cooper wrote of "The Great Eclipse" which he saw June 16, 1806, at his Cooperstown home. This account was found after his death and appeared in Putnam's Magazine of 1869. It included a thrilling tragedy and closed as follows: "I have passed a varied and eventful life—but never have I beheld any spectacle which so plainly manifested the majesty of the Creator, or so forcibly taught the lesson of humility to man as the total eclipse of the sun."