LATOUR D'AUVERGNE.
In this regiment was Philip d'Auvergne, "the first grenadier of France," of whose prowess stories are told. When the corps came to America its name had been changed to Gatinais, whereat there was much grumbling among these aged mustaches. There were two redoubts at Yorktown to be taken. One was assigned to Lafayette and his Americans, the other to the French. The grenadiers of Gatinais were to lead this attack; and, as it was expected to be bloody, Rochambeau himself addressed them. "My friends," said he, "if I should want you this night, I hope you have not forgotten that we have served together in that brave regiment of Auvergne, 'Sans Tache.'" "Promise, general, to give us back our old name, and we will suffer ourselves to be killed, to the last man." The promise was given, the redoubt won, and King Louis confirmed the pledge. In token of its peerless valor Washington presented the regiment with one of the captured cannon.
The comfortable and contented lives of the French soldiers daily astonished our poor and tattered, but unconquerable ragamuffins. At parade they appeared so neat and gentleman-like as hardly to be distinguished from their officers. They were paid every week, and seemed to want for nothing. No sentinel was allowed to stand on his post without a warm watch-coat to cover him. The officers treated their soldiers with attention, humanity, and respect, neglecting no means of inculcating sentiments of honor. Stealing was held by them in abhorrence. As a consequence, punishments were extremely rare, desertions unfrequent, and the health of the troops excellent.
Speculations more or less unfavorable to French disinterestedness, more or less destructive of American enthusiasm for the alliance, must arise from a knowledge of the secret policy of France in coming to the aid of democracy. Possibly she hoped for the reconquest of Canada. Rochambeau would have first employed his forces against Castine, had he not been overruled. That would have been curious, indeed, to have seen France re-established at old Pentagoët, carrying war into Canada, as, more than a century previous and from the same vantage-ground, she had carried it into New England. Not much later she tried to wheedle and then to bully us into ceding to her the island of Rhode Island, in order, as urged by her, to prevent its being seized again at any future time by Great Britain. Her armed intervention was of little worth compared with the moral effect of the alliance.
Pierre du Guast had groped his way along the coast in 1605, seeking a habitation. He, and his lieutenant, Poutrincourt, had well-nigh reached their goal when compelled to turn back, baffled, for wintry Acadia. A French colony, in 1605, upon Aquidneck might have changed the order of history, and rendered impossible the events of which this chapter is the skeleton.
