To record the actions and opinions of one who labored efficiently in the attainment of American independence is an agreeable task. The deeds of soldiers are always interesting to the historian and attractive to the reader. The philosophical principles that led gay young men from the brilliant capital of France to the distant regions of a new world, in order to practically assist in the assertion of human liberty, cannot be ignored, much less neglected, in our all-investigating age. Count Segur participated in the stirring scenes over which the genius of Washington presided, and he has transmitted to us the treasure of his experience in the first volume of his memoirs. As he lived in the times preceding the great Revolution which overthrew so many old forms of power and honor throughout Christendom, and as his facilities for obtaining a correct knowledge of the state of society and of systems in his day were extensive, his introductory pages are very instructive. This will appear from one comprehensive sentence of his own: "My position, my birth, the ties of friendship and consanguinity, which connected me with all the remarkable personages of the courts of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.; my father's administration, my travels in America, my negotiations in Russia and in Prussia; the advantage of having been engaged in intercourse of affairs and society with Catharine II., Frederick the Great, Potemkin, Joseph II., Gustavus III., Washington, Kosciusko, Lafayette, Nassau, Mirabeau, Napoleon, as well as with the chiefs of the aristocratic and democratic parties, and the most illustrious writers of my times;—all that I have seen, done, experienced, and suffered during the Revolution; those strange alternations of prosperity and misfortune, of credit and disgrace, of enjoyments and proscriptions, of opulence and poverty; all the different occupations which I have been forced to occupy, and the various conditions of life in which fate has placed me—having induced me to believe that this sketch of my life would prove entertaining and interesting; chance having made me successively a colonel, a general officer, a traveller, a navigator, a courtier, the son of a minister of war, an ambassador, a negotiator, a prisoner, an agriculturist, a soldier, an elector, a poet, a dramatic author, a contributor to newspapers, an essayist, a historian, a deputy, a counsellor of state, a senator, an academician, and a peer of France:"—Certainly a catalogue of sufficiently varied offices, winding up rather prosperously!
The family of Segur was ancient and honorable. In the field and in the cabinet his forefathers had distinguished themselves, and our author helped to extend his ancestral reputation. Highly gifted by nature, his ample opportunities of cultivation and acquirement made him familiar with the various branches of science then taught. He became deeply imbued with those philosophical notions that had begun to spread themselves abroad under the reign of Louis XV., and continued to gather might until they brought his successor to the block, and even still keep Europe in a state of unrest. From 1753 to 1774, when Louis XV. died, young Segur had occasion to learn as much as his youthful judgment would enable him, concerning the wretched state of society around the court of that weak and degraded prince. It was under his reign, or rather that of his mistresses—for their influence had more to do with the government than the king's—that the storm was brewed which swept away with terrible force so many corrupt systems of legislation and social life. The philosophers began to point their weapons against ancient customs. Parliamentary decrees came to the assistance of the latter, but "their acts of rigor against philosophical writings produced no other effect than to cause them to be sought after and read with a greater avidity. Public opinion became a power of opposition which triumphed over every obstacle; the condemnation was a title of consideration for its author; and under the reign of an absolute monarch, liberty having become a fashion in the capital, exercised a greater sway in it than the monarch himself." Who can fail to see that such results will always inevitably follow similar proceedings! Human nature has something imperatively logical in it, and it will act according to its laws, which are nothing else than the laws of Providence. There is a deep philosophy in what he says: "Power was still arbitrary, and yet authority lost its influence; public opinion escaped despotism by railing at it; we did not possess liberty, but license." (P.17.) The lethargy of one weak mind produced all this confusion. The parliament, clergy, philosophers, and courtiers, all joined for different purposes in the same common cry against the shameful indolence of the court. The revolution which was silently moving through public opinion was scarcely dreamed of by anybody. Rash measures of resentment, always the resort of weak and tyrannic minds, only served to irritate what had been provoked, and the folly of the king was shown in small acts of petty tyranny. But death came to remove him and his turpitude from the French throne. Segur narrates it: "In the month of April, 1774, as Louis XV. was going to hunt, he met a funeral, and, being fond of asking questions, he approached the coffin and inquired who it was they were going to bury? He was told it was a young girl who had died of the small-pox. Seized with a sudden fear, he returned to his palace, and was two days afterward attacked with that cruel malady, the very name of which had alarmed him. The hand of death was upon him; his flesh became corrupted; mortification ensued, and carried him off. His corpse was covered with lime, and conveyed to St. Denis without any kind of ceremony." (P. 32.)
He proceeds to philosophize upon the desertion of the royal fallen shadow by his most subservient flatterers, and observes that in proportion as they had been slavish to his whims and their own interests during his life, so did they evince their indifference to him when departed. They turned immediately to the rising sun, and offered him their adulatory worship. Still, the principles which had been set to work in former years continued to advance even under the benignant reign of Louis XVI., who finally atoned for the faults of his predecessors.
The author sums up succinctly the condition of the tottering society, daily becoming weaker: "The object of every one was to repair the old edifice; and, in this simultaneous attempt of all, it was levelled with the ground. Too much light was brought to the work by many, and a conflagration ensued. The consequence of this has been, that, for the last fifty years, our harassed lives have been to each of us a dream, alternately monarchical, republican, warlike, and philosophical." (P. 63.) The misfortune is, that this dreaming has not yet ended in France, or, indeed, in any part of Europe except Switzerland.
But we must hasten to the events which drew him into connection with the American war. He became a soldier, and, after fighting several duels, found himself carried away by the enthusiasm which filled his countrymen at the sound of the first cannon-shot fired in defence of the standard of liberty. "I recollect," he says, "that the Americans were then styled insurgents and Bostonians; their daring courage electrified every mind, and excited universal admiration, more particularly among young people. The American insurrection was everywhere applauded, and became, as it were, a fashion; and I was very far from being the only one whose heart beat at the sound of liberty just waking from its slumbers, and struggling to throw off the yoke of arbitrary power. On my arrival at Paris, I found the same agitation prevailing also there in the public mind. Nobody seemed favorable to the cause of England; all openly expressed their wishes for the success of the Bostonians."
Eager as were these young enthusiasts to fight in America for the cause of liberty, many obstacles interposed to prevent or defer the carrying out of their intentions. The French government was not in a very prosperous financial state at the time, as the country had scarcely recovered from the mad speculations of the Scotchman Law during the preceding reign. Besides, England was then powerful: her fleets swept the sea, and she had just conveyed across the Atlantic 40,000 mercenaries, to cut the throats of American freemen and stifle the rising spirit of liberty. Private aid was, indeed, freely afforded to the colonists; arms and ammunition were conveyed across the ocean in spite of embarrassing neutrality laws, and many enterprising officers were allowed to resign their positions in the French service and serve under Washington. When the American deputies, Silas Deane, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin, arrived in Paris, and were received with such cordiality at the French court, a new stimulus was given to the general desire of assisting the revolutionists. The appearance of those republican delegates produced a sensation in that brilliant capital. "Nothing could be more striking than the contrast between the luxury of our capitol, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles, the still brilliant remains of the monarchical pride of Louis XIV., and the polished and superb dignity of our nobility, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the almost rustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct language of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and appearance seemed to have produced within our walls, in the midst of the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth century, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of the age of Cato and Fabius." (P. 101.)
No less impressive than their unpretending exterior, the honesty and artless sincerity of the American deputies gained the hearts of the French people, and enlisted in their cause the generous enthusiasm of the warlike portion of the nation. Numerous offers of service were made, and among the most distinguished were Lafayette, then a young man, the Count de Noailles, and Count Segur. The two latter were obliged by their parents to desist from the enterprise, which they had already arranged to carry out by crossing the ocean; but Lafayette succeeded in purchasing a vessel, which he armed and manned at his own expense, and, taking with him some experienced officers, sailed from a port in Spain and reached America, where he met with a reception due to his merits and noble purpose. A brave and experienced soldier, M. de Valfort, afterward chief instructor of Napoleon Buonaparte, accompanied the Marquis and rendered efficient service during his stay in the New World.
Some time was now spent by young Segur in attending to the events which Voltaire and his colaborers were bringing about in the world of literature. He was a visitor at the family residence of Segur, whose mother was a woman of note in the metropolis. The count himself narrates several interesting incidents respecting the arch-infidel, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms. With regard to his death there is one thing worth recording. Immediately after his triumphal entry into Paris, death came upon him. Segur says that he recanted his former errors. "The clergy, no longer venturing to oppose him, now hoped to convert him. At first Voltaire yielded; he received the Abbé Gauthier, confessed himself, and wrote a profession of faith, which, without fully satisfying the priests, greatly displeased the philosophers. After escaping the danger, he forgot his fears and his prudence. A few weeks after, upon being taken extremely ill, he refused to see a priest, and terminated, with apparent indifference, a long life." There is a different version of the latter half of the story. It is related that he cried most piteously for a priest; but his philosophical friends refused to accord him his request, and he died with imprecations most horrible upon their heads for denying his dying wish.
Political changes at length enabled the count to embark for America, and become an actor in the great drama of freedom, of which he had been long an earnest spectator at a distance. War was declared between France and England. The French, under Arthur Dillon and Count Noailles, directed by D'Estaing, captured the town of Grenada; after which the latter sailed for Savannah, designing to seize that important position. Notwithstanding the valor of the French and Americans in the successive assaults upon the works, they were obliged to retire with loss, rendered still more lamentable by the fall of the brave Pulaski, who fought in America for the liberty which had been crushed in his own land. A concise and accurate narrative of the principal events that preceded the surrender of Cornwallis to the united arms of America and France, occupies a considerable space in the memoirs before us. The bravery of the French, very naturally, obtains a prominent notice until the moment of capitulation arrives. "The English troops then defiled between the two allied armies, drums beating, and carrying their arms, which they afterward deposited with their flags. As Lord Cornwallis was ill, General O'Hara defiled at the head of the English troops, and presented his sword to the Count de Rochambeau; but the French general, pointing to Washington at the head of the American army, told him that, the French being only auxiliaries, it was for the American general to receive his sword and give him his orders." (P. 237.)
Strange incidents happen in all wars. About this time, the French general, De Bouillé, made an attack on the Dutch islands of the West Indies, lately captured by the British. "Having during the night landed his troops in the island of St. Eustatia, he advanced at break of day to attack the principal fortress of the island, whose garrison was then engaged in manoeuvring on the plain. The vanguard of M. de Bouillé was composed of an Irish regiment in the service of France: deceived by the sight of their red coats, the English thought they saw a part of their own countrymen, and suffered themselves to be approached without suspicion. Undeceived too late, they vainly fought with courage; they were routed on all sides, and pursued with so much ardor that French and English entered pell-mell into the fortress, which remained in our possession." How many foreign battle-fields have found the Irish in the vanguard of armies, yet what avails their valor to their own country!