Lafayette, We Come! / The Story of How a Young Frenchman Fought for Liberty in America and How America Now Fights for Liberty in France

by Rupert Sargent Holland

He also sent a letter to Napoleon, in which he said, “The love of liberty and country would suffice for your arrival to fill me with joy and hope. To this desire for public happiness is joined a lively and profound sentiment for my liberator. Your greetings to the prisoners of Olmutz have been sent to me by her whose life I owe to you. I rejoice in all my obligations to you, citizen-general, and in the happy conviction that to cherish your glory and to wish your success is an act of civism as much as of attachment and gratitude.”

Friends procured the exile a passport and he returned to Paris. But Bonaparte was not glad to have him come back; the First Consul was in reality no friend of the principles of the Revolution, and he felt that such a man as Lafayette must inevitably oppose him and might even prejudice the people against him. He showed his anger unreservedly when friends told him of Lafayette’s arrival, and the friends immediately advised the latter that he had better return to the Netherlands. But Lafayette, having made up his mind to come, would not budge now. “You should be sufficiently acquainted with me,” he said to the men who brought him the news from the First Consul, “to know that this imperious and menacing tone would suffice to confirm me in the course which I have taken.” And he added, “It would be very amusing for me to be arrested at night by the National Guard of Paris and imprisoned in the Temple the next day by the restorer of the principles of 1789.”

Madame Lafayette called on the First Consul, who received her kindly. She pleaded so eloquently for her husband, pointing out his natural desire to be in France, that Napoleon’s anger vanished. He said that he regretted Lafayette’s return only because it would “retard his progress toward the reëstablishment of Lafayette’s principles, and would force him to take in sail.” “You do not understand me, madame,” he continued, “but General Lafayette will understand me; and not having been in the midst of affairs, he will feel that I can judge better than he. I therefore conjure him to avoid all publicity; I leave it to his patriotism.” Madame Lafayette answered that that was her husband’s wish.

Believing that Lafayette had no desire to oppose him, Napoleon soon restored him to citizenship. Different as the two men were, each admired the strong qualities of the other. The First Consul could appreciate Lafayette’s devotion to the cause of liberty, and Lafayette said to Napoleon, “I have but one wish, General,—a free government and you at the head of it.”

Napoleon, however, had no real liking for a free government. He had forgotten any belief in liberty that he might have had in the days when he was a poor and obscure lieutenant. He had tasted power, and was already looking forward to the time when he should be not only the most powerful man in France but in the whole world. To do that he must make his countrymen forget their recently won liberties. He must keep Lafayette, the greatest apostle of freedom, in the background, and not allow him to remind the people of his liberal dreams. So Napoleon adopted a policy of silence toward Lafayette. In February, 1800, the celebrated French orator Fontanes delivered a public eulogy on the character of Washington, who had lately died. Napoleon forbade the orator to mention the name of Lafayette in his address, and saw to it that Lafayette was not invited to the ceremony, nor any Americans. The bust of Washington was draped in banners that the First Consul had taken in battle.

Lafayette’s son George applied for and was given a commission in one of Napoleon’s regiments of hussars. When his name was erased from the list of exiles Lafayette himself was restored to his rank of major-general in the French army, but he did not ask for any command. He went to Lagrange, an estate that his wife had inherited from her mother, and set himself to the work of trying to pay off the debts that had piled up while he was in prison in Austria. Like all the old aristocracy that returned to France after the Revolution he found that most of his property had been taken by the state and now had new owners and that the little that was left was burdened by heavy taxes.

Chavaniac and a few acres near it came into his possession, but there were relatives who needed it as a home more than he did and he let them live there. He himself cultivated the farm at Lagrange, and was able in a few years to pay off his French creditors. But he was still greatly in debt to Gouverneur Morris and other Americans who had helped his wife with money when she had need of it, and these were loans that were difficult to pay.

Lafayette was living quietly on his farm when Napoleon returned with fresh triumphs from Italy. The man who had been a general could not help but admire the great military genius of the First Consul. The latter felt that he had little now to fear from Lafayette, and the relations between the two men became quite friendly. Had they only been able to work together they might have accomplished a great deal for the good of France, but no two men could have been more fundamentally different in their characters and ideals than Lafayette and Napoleon.

Occasionally they discussed their views on government, and Lafayette once said to the First Consul, “I do not ignore the effect of the crimes and follies which have profaned the name of liberty; but the French are, perhaps, more than ever in a state to receive it. It is for you to give it; it is from you that it is expected.” Napoleon smiled; he had his own notions about liberty, and he felt himself strong enough to force those notions upon France.

Yet the First Consul did wish for the good opinion and support of Lafayette. It was at his suggestion that certain friends urged the latter to become a Senator. Lafayette felt that, disapproving as he did of some of the policies of the new government, he must decline, and did so, stating his reasons frankly. Then Napoleon’s minister Talleyrand offered to send him as the French representative to the United States, but this Lafayette declined also. His political views and the need of cultivating the farm at Lagrange were sufficient to keep him from accepting office.