Madame de Lafayette wished to do all she could to help her son in his future life. So she moved to Paris and was presented at court; that is, she was introduced to the king and queen and the highest nobles of France. When Gilbert was thirteen his mother died, leaving her son almost alone in the world. He had a rich uncle who might have been his guardian, but he also died, leaving young Lafayette another fortune and making him a very wealthy marquis.
Boys and girls in French noble families were often betrothed in infancy and brought up expecting to marry each other when old enough. Marriage seemed to be rather a question of the family fortunes than of the young people’s real love for each other. When young Marquis de Lafayette was left without parents to plan a proper marriage for him, a rich duke who was a great favorite with King Louis decided to arrange for the orphan boy to marry his own daughter Adrienne. In order to bring this about, Adrienne’s parents invited Gilbert de Lafayette to come and live in their palace, where they all could care for him as a son until it was proper for him to marry their daughter. There was a wonderful wedding when Lafayette was sixteen and Adrienne fourteen years old.
From that time, besides all the wealth of the Lafayettes, the riches of his father-in-law, the duke, gave the young marquis a splendid position at the court of France. If the boy bridegroom only had enjoyed that sort of high life he might have been very happy. But the things which interested the young nobleman were of quite a different sort. While he was at a dinner, in honor of a younger brother of George the Third, king of England, he heard that the American people had started their fight for independence. Lafayette’s sympathies for the unhappy people across the sea were so aroused that he began at once to plan to leave his palace home, his lovely young wife, and his baby daughter, in order to help the American people in their struggle. To find out how best to do this, he went to see Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, the agents for the United States in France. Knowing how much the American people needed Lafayette’s money and influence, these statesmen encouraged him in every way.
The young marquis fitted out a ship and made ready to start, taking with him several Frenchmen of high rank who also expected to be made officers in the American Army. But Lafayette’s father-in-law did not relish the youth’s idea of fighting for the common people against kings and nobles, so he persuaded the king to order the marquis not to leave the country. In spite of King Louis’s command, Lafayette walked on board his own ship, under the detectives’ noses, disguised as the bodyservant of a stranger from another country who also was going to fight for American liberty.
The Marquis de Lafayette reached the American army, near Philadelphia, after many dangers and hardships. General Washington could not help smiling at the earnestness of “Major-General” Lafayette, aged nineteen, who could command only as much of the English language as he had learned while crossing the Atlantic. Though “the Marquis,” as everyone learned to call him, volunteered to serve anywhere without pay, Washington offered him a place on his staff. Once when the commander-in-chief asked Lafayette how to improve the discipline of the American troops, the noble youth replied, “I am here, General, to learn, not to teach.”
