VIII
THE MARQUIS AIDS THE UNITED STATES IN FRANCE
Word of the surrender at Yorktown was received all through the thirteen States with the greatest joy. Watchmen calling the hours of the night in the cities cried, “Twelve o’clock! All’s well, and Cornwallis has surrendered!” Everywhere the people hailed this event as heralding the close of the long and distressing war. When one thinks of what they had endured since 1775 there is no wonder at the hymns of thanksgiving. And a ship at once sailed across the Atlantic to France with the glad tidings.
The surrender at Yorktown did mark the beginning of the end of the Revolution, though the conflict went on in a desultory fashion for two years more, and it was not until November 25, 1783, that the British evacuated New York City. But after Yorktown many of the French officers went home, and among them Lafayette. He wrote to the French minister, “The play is over, Monsieur le comte; the fifth act has just come to an end. I was somewhat disturbed during the former acts, but my heart rejoices exceedingly at this last, and I have no less pleasure in congratulating you upon the happy ending of our campaign.”
Both Lafayette and Congress felt that the Marquis could now help the country greatly by his presence in France in case more men and money should be needed for further campaigns. So, with Washington’s approval, Congress agreed that “Major-General the Marquis de Lafayette have permission to go to France and that he return at such time as shall be most convenient to him.” And Congress also voted that Lafayette “be informed that, on a review of his conduct throughout the past campaign and particularly during the period in which he had the chief command in Virginia, the many new proofs which present themselves of his zealous attachment to the cause he has espoused, and of his judgment, vigilance, gallantry, and address in its defense, have greatly added to the high opinion entertained by Congress of his merits and military talents.”
He took his leave of Washington, the man he admired more than any other in the world, and the commander-in-chief, who looked on the young Frenchman as if the latter was his own son, said in his dignified fashion, “I owe it to your friendship and to my affectionate regard for you, my dear marquis, not to let you leave this country without carrying with you fresh marks of my attachment to you and new expressions of the high sense I entertain of your military conduct and other important services in the course of the last campaign, although the latter are too well known to need the testimony of my approbation, and the former, I persuade myself, you believe is too well riveted to undergo diminution or change.”
The Frenchman was not so reserved as the American. His ardent spirit shows in the letter he wrote his commander. “Adieu, my dear general,” he said. “I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candor I assure you that my love, my respect, my gratitude for you are above expression; that, at the moment of leaving you, I feel more than ever the struggle of those friendly ties that forever bind me to you, and that I anticipate the pleasure, the most wished-for pleasure, to be again with you, and, by my zeal and services, to gratify the feelings of my respect and affection.”
On December 23, 1781, Lafayette sailed from Boston on the same frigate Alliance that had carried him back to France the first time. He was to be received in his native land like a conquering hero. Already Vergennes, the Secretary of State of France, had written to him. “Our joy is very great here and throughout the nation,” said Vergennes, “and you may be assured that your name is held in veneration.... I have been following you, M. le Marquis, step by step, throughout your campaign in Virginia; and I should frequently have been anxious for your welfare if I had not been confident of your wisdom. It required a great deal of skill to maintain yourself, as you did, for so long a time, in spite of the disparity of your forces, before Lord Cornwallis, whose military talents are well known. It was you who brought him to the fatal ending, where, instead of his making you a prisoner of war, as he probably expected to do, you forced him to surrender.”
He landed in France on January 17, 1782. If his former arrival had been a succession of triumphs, this one was doubly so. When he reached the house of the Duke de Noailles in Paris his wife was attending a fête at the Hôtel de Ville in honor of the birth of the Dauphin. As soon as his arrival became known the Queen took Madame de Lafayette in her own carriage and went with her to welcome the Marquis. Louis XVI. announced that he had promoted Lafayette to the high rank of “Maréchal de camp,” and wrote to him, through his minister of war, “The King, having been informed, sir, of the military skill of which you have given repeated proof in the command of the various army corps entrusted to you in America, of the wisdom and prudence which have marked the services that you have performed in the interest of the United States, and of the confidence which you have won from General Washington, his Majesty has charged me to announce to you that the commendations which you most fully deserve have attracted his notice, and that your conduct and your success have given him, sir, the most favorable opinion of you, such as you might wish him to have, and upon which you may rely for his future good-will.”
Every one delighted to entertain and praise him; the Marshal de Richelieu invited him to dine with all the marshals of France, and at the dinner the health of Washington was drunk with every honor. And if the King and the nobles were loud in their acclaim, the people were no less so; they called Lafayette by such extravagant titles as the “Conqueror of Cornwallis” and “the Saviour of America with Washington.” Had it not been that Lafayette had a remarkably level head the things that people said and wrote about him might almost have made him believe that he had won the Revolution in America single-handed.
Naturally he enjoyed being with his dear wife and children again, but he was not a man who could contentedly lead the idle life of a nobleman in Paris. Soon he was busy doing what he could to help the cause of the young American republic in France. He saw a great deal of John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, the commissioners of the United States to the French court, and Franklin wrote home concerning him, “The Marquis de Lafayette was, at his return hither, received by all ranks with all possible distinction. He daily gains in the general esteem and affection, and promises to be a great man here. He is extremely attached to our cause; we are on the most friendly and confidential footing with each other, and he is really very serviceable to me in my applications for additional assistance.”