The representatives, Bourdon de l'Oise and Legendre came soon after to visit the prison and assign the fate of each. All were set at liberty except Madame de La Fayette, on whom they were not willing to pronounce sentence until they sent for the decision of the committee. The unhappy woman was but little concerned at the prolongation of her captivity; for she had just learned that her mother, her grandmother, and her sister had perished on the 4th Thermidor. Her grief was overwhelming, but she never revolted, her prayers preserved her. "Now," she wrote to her children, "I find the sentiments of those I mourn, those, too, that I desire, and those that I pray God to put in my heart, and sometimes I obtain all at once." Notwithstanding the active solicitations of Mr. Monroe, the new minister from the United States, Madame de La Fayette was not liberated; Le Piessis was used for other purposes, so she was transferred to the Maison Delmas, rue Notre Dame des Champs; she remained there four months, and met there with the strangest people, for it was now the partisans of the reign of terror who peopled the prisons; but there, as everywhere, she gained the respect of all. Her physical sufferings were great during the rigorous winter of 1794 and 1795. Everything froze in her room, and she was peculiarly sensitive to cold. God granted her in her distress a precious consolation in the visits of the Abbé Carrichon. He gave her all the details she hungered after of the death of the three dear persons that he had accompanied to the scaffold, and with him she made a complete examination of all the faults of her life. On the 23d of January, 1795, the deliverance, so long retarded, of Madame de La Fayette was finally signed, and she was set at liberty.
Her first care on leaving prison was to hasten to Mr. Monroe and thank him for all he had done for her, and begged him to finish the good work by obtaining passports for herself and family. She had but one aim, to rejoin her husband in Germany with her daughters, and place her son in safety in America. The letter she wrote General Washington, in which she portrays with simplicity, firmness, and dignity the obligations she was under to M. Frestel for his devotion to her and her family, and begs for him the regard he deserves, is truly remarkable. As to her son, she expresses herself thus: "My wish is, that my son may lead a very retired life in America, and continue the studies that three years of misfortune have interrupted; and that being far away from scenes which might abase or too strongly irritate him, he may work to become an efficient citizen of the United States, of which the principles and sentiments are entirely in accordance with those of French citizens."
When the time came to part with her only son, the separation seemed cruel to her mother's heart; but she was firmly convinced she acted in this matter as her husband would have dictated. She found her strength in this thought. As we read of so many sacrifices, sufferings, and sorrows so valiantly supported, we find ourselves so associated in the sentiments of this incomparable person, that we wait with feverish anxiety the moment when she should rejoin her husband. The memoirs of Madame de Montagu give us the details of the touching reunion of Madame de La Fayette at Altona with her two sisters and her Aunt de Tessé; they will be found in the account of Madame de Lasteyrie. The conversation with the Emperor of Austria is also there given. He granted her permission to shut herself up at Olmutz, and by opening heaven to her, he could scarcely have made her happier.
"'We arrived,' wrote Madame de Lasteyrie, 'at Olmutz, the 1st of October, 1795, at eleven o'clock in the morning, in one of the covered carriages found at all the posts, our own having been broken on the way. I never shall forget the moment when the postillion showed us from afar the steeples of the town. The vivid emotion of my mother is ever present with me. She was almost suffocated by her tears; and when she had sufficiently recovered herself to speak, she blessed God in the words of the canticle of Tobias: "Thou art great, O Lord, for ever, and thy kingdom is unto all ages, for thou scourgest and thou savest," etc., etc. My father was not informed of our arrival; he had never received a letter from my mother. Three years of captivity, the last passed in complete solitude, inquietude concerning all the objects of his affection, and sufferings of every kind, had deeply undermined his health; the change in his countenance was frightful. My mother was struck by it; but nothing could diminish the intoxication of her joy, but the bitterness of her irreparable losses. My father, after the first moment of happiness in this sudden reunion, dared not ask her a question. He knew there had been a reign of terror in France, but he was ignorant of the victims. The day passed without his venturing to examine into her fears, and without my mother having the strength to explain herself. Only at night, when my sister and I were shut into the next room assigned to us, could she inform my father that she had lost on the scaffold her grandmother, her mother, and her sister.'"
Madame de La Fayette shared her husband's captivity twenty-seven months. She paid with her health—we may say with her life—the privilege of being reunited to him she loved, and proving to him her tenderness; but it was such great happiness to her that, whatever the severity that accompanied it, it seems not even at such a price to have been too dearly bought.
At last the success of the French arms opened the dungeon of Olmutz. The French plenipotentiaries, in signing the treaty of Campo Formio, exacted that the prisoners should be immediately set at liberty. The gates of the fortress were therefore opened to them, and the 16th of September, 1797, they set out for Hamburg. It was just five years and a half since their arrest.
Happy to owe his liberty solely to the triumph of the French army, M. de La Fayette addressed to General Bonaparte the expression of his gratitude and that of his companions in arms, in these terms:
"Hamburg, Oct. 6, 1797.
"Citizen General: The prisoners of Olmutz, happy to owe their deliverance to your irresistible arms, have enjoyed in their captivity the thought that their liberty and life were attached to the triumphs of the republic and to your personal glory. To-day they enjoy the homage they would love to render to their liberator. It would, indeed, have been gratifying to us, Citizen General, to have offered in person the expression of these sentiments, and to have looked upon the theatre of so many victories, the army that won them, and the hero, who has placed our resurrection among the number of his miracles. But you know the journey to Hamburg has not been left to our choice. It is from the place where we have said good by to our jailers that we address our thanks to their conquerors. In the solitary retreat in the Danish territory of Holstein, where we will go to try and re-establish the health you have saved, we will join to our vows or patriotism for the republic the most lively interest in the illustrious general, to whom we are not only attached for the services he has rendered our country and in the cause of liberty, but for the particular obligations that we delight to owe him, and that the deepest gratitude has for ever engraven in our hearts. Salutation and respect.
"Lafayette,
Latour Maubourg,
Bureaux de Pusy."