Among all the marks of sympathy showered upon the escaped victims of Austrian tyranny, none touched M. de La Fayette more deeply than one from Madame de Staël—full of respect and emotion. Mathieu de Montmorency added to it a few lines in which these words strike us: "The constant occupation of your misfortunes and your courage has outlived in me, and ever will, my alienation from all political activity; but I believe I should renew all my ancient enthusiasm to welcome one so constant in the cause of liberty."
Although the health of Madame de La Fayette was destroyed, she preserved her wonderful activity and force of character. It was she, the only one of her family, whose name was not on the list of the banished, who was able the first to enter France, and there regulate her affairs and the return of all her relations. It was she again who, after the 18th Brumaire, understood that General La Fayette should return immediately without waiting for any authority that might possibly have been refused him. Sure of the marvellous tact with which she judged her surroundings, he followed her advice without any other information. The news of his arrival in Paris was not pleasing to the first consul; he wanted the general to return to Holland and solicit his entrance, like every one else. Madame de La Fayette called upon him, was graciously received, exposed the peculiar position of her husband, and the favorable effect that his return could not fail to produce on all honest and patriotic men, and proved herself noble, skilful, and prudent. "I am delighted, madame," said the first consul to her, "to have made your acquaintance; you have great good sense, but you understand nothing of business." However, it was agreed to that M. de La Fayette might remain openly in Paris without asking permission. Madame de Lasteyrie, in her recital, in which the most noble sentiments are expressed so simply and happily, has given us a page that portrays the whole soul of her heroic mother.
"Retirement would still have been preferable to my father under the consular magistracy of Bonaparte; under the despotism of Napoleon, it was, through honor, enforced upon him. In either case, it fulfilled the wishes of my mother. After so much suffering and exhaustion, a retired life—perfect quietude would not have been necessary for her—in which in peace she could consecrate the affections of her soul to those dearest to her, was the only earthly happiness she sought. She felt too deeply, too passionately, I may say, the emotions of family life to desire others. Neither the grandeur of her former state, nor the éclat even of her misfortunes, had excited in her that pride of imagination which cannot bear a simple existence. Her devotion rose above every trial, but the sentiments and easy duties of an obscure destiny sufficed for her heart. Love filled it entirely."
What can we add to this picture? Nothing, only to ask the perusal of the admirable letter of M. de La Fayette, which ends the volume. He there relates the long agony, the tender and charming delirium of the heavenly creature whose affections he possessed. To have seen him a practical Christian would have been the realization of her most cherished wish. "If I am going to another home, you must feel," she said to him once, "that I shall be occupied there with you. The sacrifice of my life would be very little, however much it may cost me to part with you, if it could assure your eternal happiness."
Another time, she said to him: "You are not a Christian?" As he did not reply, she said: "Ah! I know what you are, a fatalist." "You believe me proud," answered the general, "are you not a little so yourself?" "Oh! yes!" she cried, "with all my heart. I feel that I would give my life for that sect." Another time, in this half delirium which led astray her ideas, but never her heart, she said: "This life is short, troubled; let us be reunited in God, and set out together for eternity." Her God and her husband were her thoughts to the last moment. She died on Christmas night, the 25th of December, 1807, pressing the cherished hand and saying, "I am yours for ever."
Those who wish to finish this picture of conjugal love, must do as we have done, seek in the memoirs of an illustrious contemporary the scene that completes it. In the Memoires de M. Guizot, in the year 1834, we read:
"Some months before M. de Talleyrand had retired from public affairs, another celebrated man, very different in character, and celebrated in other ways, had disappeared from all worldly scenes. No life had been more exclusively, more passionately political than that of M. de La Fayette; no man had more constantly placed his political sentiments and ideas above all other preoccupations and all other interests, and yet in his death he was completely estranged from them. Having been ill for three weeks, he approached his last hour; his children and family alone surrounded his bed. He spoke no more, and they supposed he could not see. His son George noticed that, with an uncertain hand, he sought something on his breast; he came to the assistance of his father and laid in his hand the medallion that M. de La Fayette always wore suspended from his neck. He pressed it to his lips, and expired."
This medallion contained the likeness and hair of Madame de La Fayette, his wife whom he had lost twenty-seven years before. Thus, already separated from the entire world, alone with the thought and image of the devoted companion of his life, he died. When his obsequies were spoken of, it was a recognized fact in the family, that M. de La Fayette wished to be buried in the little cemetery adjoining the convent of Picpus, by the side of Madame de La Fayette, in the midst of the victims of the revolution, for the most part, royalists, and of the aristocracy, whose relations had founded this pious establishment. This wish of the veteran of 1789 was scrupulously respected and carried out. An immense crowd, troops, national guards, people of all kinds accompanied the funeral procession through the avenues and streets of Paris. Arrived at the gate of the convent, the crowd was stopped; the interior enclosure could not admit more than two or three hundred persons; the family, the near relations, the principal authorities entered alone, walked silently through the convent into the modest garden, then penetrated the cemetery. There no political manifestation took place; no discourse was pronounced; religion and the intimate memories of the soul alone were present; politics had no place near the death-bed or the tomb of the man whose life it had filled and governed.
Léon Arbaud.