Lafayette Meets Washington

Lafayette, We Come!

The Story of How a Young
Frenchman Fought for Liberty
in America and How America
Now Fights for Liberty in France

By

RUPERT S. HOLLAND

Author of “Historic Boyhoods,” “The Knights
of the Golden Spur,” etc.

PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by
George W. Jacobs & Company

All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.

To
Those Men of the Great Republic
Who Have Answered
The Call of Lafayette,
Lover of Liberty

Illustrations

[Lafayette meets Washington]Frontispiece
Facing page
[Lafayette, a Prussian prisoner]226
[“America’s Answer”]302

Foreword

In 1777 the young Marquis de Lafayette, only nineteen years old, came from France to the aid of the Thirteen Colonies of North America because he heard their cry for liberty ringing across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1917 the United States of America drew the sword in defense of the sacred principle of liberty for which the country of Lafayette was fighting. The debt of gratitude had never been forgotten; the ideals of the gallant Frenchman and of the young Republic of the Western World were the same; what he had done for us we of America are now doing for him.

It is a glorious story, and one never to be forgotten while men love liberty and truth. Every boy and girl should know it, for it is the story of a brave, generous, noble-minded youth, who gave such devoted service to America that he stands with Washington and Lincoln as one of the great benefactors of our land. “I’m going to America to fight for freedom!” he cried; and the cry still rings in our ears more than a century later. The message is the same one we hear to-day and that is carrying us across the Atlantic to France. From Lafayette’s story we learn courage, fidelity to honor, loyalty to conviction, the qualities that make men free and great. The principles of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” of France are the same as those of our own Declaration of Independence, and the men of the countries of Washington and Lafayette now fight under a common banner. “Lafayette, we come!” was America’s answer to the great man who offered all he had to us in the days of 1777.

Contents

I
THE LITTLE MARQUIS OF FRANCE

In the mountains of Auvergne in Southern France, in what was for many centuries called the province of Auvergne, but what is now known as the department of Haute-Loire, or Upper Loire, stands a great fortified castle, the Château of Chavaniac. For six hundred years it has stood there, part fortress and part manor-house and farm, a huge structure, built piecemeal through centuries, with many towers and battlements and thick stone walls long overgrown with moss. Before it lies the valley of the Allier and the great rugged mountains of Auvergne. Love of freedom is deeply rooted in the country round it, for the people of Auvergne have always been an independent, proud and fearless race.

In this old Château of Chavaniac there was born on September 6, 1757, the Marquis de Lafayette. He was baptized the next day, with all the ceremonies befitting a baby of such high rank, and the register of the little parish church in the neighboring village records the baptism as that of “the very noble and very powerful gentleman Monseigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier de Lafayette, the lawful son of the very noble and very powerful gentleman Monseigneur Michel-Louis-Christophle-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier, Marquis de Lafayette, Baron de Vissac, Seigneur de Saint-Romain and other places, and of the very noble and very powerful lady Madame Marie-Louise-Julie Delareviere.”

A good many names for a small boy to carry, but his family was very old, and it was the custom of France to give many family names to each child. He was called Gilbert Motier for short, however, though he was actually born with the title and rank of Marquis, for his father had been killed in battle six weeks before the little heir to Chavaniac was born.

The family name of Motier could be traced back to before the year 1000. Then one of the family came into possession of a farm called the Villa Faya, and he lengthened his name to Motier of La Fayette. And as other properties came to belong to the family the men added new names and titles until in 1757 the heir to the old château had not only a long string of names but was also a marquis and baron and seigneur by right of his birth. There were few families in Auvergne of older lineage than the house of Lafayette.

The little heir’s father, Michel-Louis, Marquis de Lafayette, had been killed while leading a charge at the head of his regiment of French Grenadiers in the battle of Hastenbeck, one of the battles of what was known as the Seven Years’ War in Europe, which took place at about the same time as the French and Indian War in America. Although only twenty-four years old Michel-Louis de Lafayette was already a colonel and a knight of the order of Saint Louis and had shown himself a true descendant of the old fighting stock of Auvergne nobles. Now the small baby boy, the new Marquis, succeeded to his father’s titles as well as to the castle and several other even older manor-houses, for the most part in ruins, that were perched high up in the mountains.

For all its blue blood, however, the family were what is known as “land poor.” The little Marquis owned large farms in the mountains, but the crops were not very abundant and most of the money that had come in from them for some time had been needed to provide for the fighting men. Fortunately the boy’s mother and grandmother and aunts, who all lived at Chavaniac, were strong and sturdy people, willing to live the simple, healthy, frugal life of their neighbors in the province and so save as much of the family fortune as they could for the time when the heir should make his bow at court.

Without brothers or sisters and with few playmates, spending his time out-of-doors in the woods and fields of Chavaniac, the young Lafayette had a rather solitary childhood and grew up awkward and shy. He was a lean, long-limbed fellow with a hook nose, reddish hair, and a very bashful manner. But his eyes were bright and very intelligent; whenever anything really caught his attention he quickly became intensely interested in it, and he was devoted to all the birds and beasts of the country round about his home.

Some of these beasts, however, were dangerous; there was a great gray wolf that the farmers said had been breaking into sheepfolds and doing great damage. The boy of eight years old heard the story and set out, sword in hand, to hunt and slay the wolf. There is no account of his ever coming up with that particular monster, but the peasants of the neighborhood liked to tell all visitors this story as proof of the courage of their young Marquis.

But the family had no intention of keeping the head of their house in this far-off province of France. He must learn to conduct himself as a polished gentleman and courtier, he must go to Paris and prepare himself to take the place at the royal court that belonged to a son of his long, distinguished line. His family had rich and powerful relations, who were quite ready to help the boy, and so, when he was eleven years old, he left the quiet castle of Chavaniac and went to a school for young noblemen, the College du Plessis at Paris.

Lafayette’s mother’s uncle, taking a liking to the boy, had him enrolled as a cadet in one of the famous regiments of France, “The Black Musketeers,” and this gave the boy a proud position at school, and many a day he took some of his new friends to see the Musketeers drill and learn something of the Manual of Arms. The company of other boys, both at the College du Plessis in Paris and then at the Academy at Versailles, as well as the interest he took in his gallant Black Musketeers, made Lafayette less shy and awkward than he had been at Chavaniac, though he was still much more reserved and thoughtful than most boys of his age. He learned to write his own language well, and his compositions in school showed the practical common sense of his country bringing-up. He wrote a paper on the horse, and the chief point he brought out in it was that if you try to make a horse do too many things well he is sure to get restless and throw you, a bit of wisdom he had doubtless learned in Auvergne.

The boy Marquis was at school in Paris when, in 1770, his devoted mother and the rich granduncle who had had him appointed a cadet of the Musketeers both died. The little Lafayette was now very much alone; his grandmother in the distant castle in the mountains was his nearest relation, and, though only a boy of thirteen, he had to decide important questions for himself. But the granduncle had been very fond of the lad, and in his will he left Lafayette all his fortune and estates. The fortune was very large, and as a result the boy Marquis, instead of being only a poor young country nobleman from Auvergne, became a very rich and important person.

Immediately the proud and luxury-loving society of the French court took a great interest in Gilbert Motier de Lafayette. Every father and mother who had a daughter they wished to marry turned their attention to the boy. And Lafayette, who, like most boys of his age, paid little attention to girls, was beset with all sorts of invitations to parties and balls.

In Europe in those days marriages were arranged by parents with little regard to the wishes of their children. Sometimes babies of noble families were betrothed to each other while they were still in the cradle. It was all a question of social standing and of money. So Lafayette’s guardians put their heads together and looked around for the most suitable girl for him to marry.

The guardians chose the second daughter of the Duke d’Ayen, Mademoiselle Marie-Adrienne-Françoise de Noailles, a girl twelve years old. The Duke was pleased with the proposal; the Marquis de Lafayette would make a most desirable husband for his daughter. But the little girl’s mother had strong ideas of her own. When the Duke told her of the husband selected for Marie-Adrienne she objected.

“It is too great a risk to run for Adrienne,” she said. “The Marquis de Lafayette is very young, very rich, and very wilful. He seems to be a good boy, so far as his standing at school and his conduct in society are concerned; but with no one to guide him, no one to look after his fortune and hold him back from extravagance and foolishness, without a near relative, and with his character as yet unformed and uncertain, our daughter’s marriage to him is out of the question, and I will not agree to it.”

Both the Duke and the Duchess were strong-willed; Adrienne’s father insisted on the match and her mother opposed it more and more positively. At last they actually quarreled and almost separated over this question of the marriage of two children, neither of whom had been consulted in regard to their own feelings. At last, however, the Duke suggested a compromise; the marriage should not take place for two years, Adrienne should not leave her mother for three years, and in the meantime the Duke would look after the education of the boy and see that he became a suitable husband for their daughter.

This suited the Duchess better. “If the boy is brought up in our home where I can see and study him,” she said, “I will agree. Then, having taken all precautions, and having no negligence wherewith to reproach ourselves, we need do nothing but peacefully submit to the will of God, who knows best what is fitting for us.”

The shy boy came to the Duke’s house and met the little girl. Adrienne was very attractive, sweet-natured, pretty, and delightful company. Before the two knew the plans that had been made concerning them they grew to like each other very much, became splendid companions, and were glad when they learned that they were to marry some day. As for Adrienne’s mother, the more she saw of the boy the better she liked him; she took him into her house and heart as if he were her own son, trying to make up to him for the loss of his own mother. The Duke kept his agreement. He saw that Lafayette was properly educated at the Academy at Versailles where young noblemen were taught military duties and that in proper time he obtained his commission as an officer in the royal regiment of the Black Musketeers.

Then, on April 11, 1774, Lafayette and Adrienne were married. The groom was sixteen years old and the bride fourteen, but those were quite proper ages for marriage among the French nobility. For a year the young husband and wife lived at the great house of the Duke d’Ayen in Paris, still under the watchful eye of the careful Duchess, and then they took a house for themselves in the capital, going occasionally to the old castle of Chavaniac in Auvergne.

The boy Marquis never regretted his marriage to Adrienne. Through all the adventures of his later life his love for her was strong and enduring. And she was as fine and noble and generous a woman as Lafayette was a brave, heroic man.

Rich, a marquis in his own right, married to a daughter of one of the greatest houses of France, Lafayette had the entrance to the highest circles at court, to the innermost circle in fact, that of the young King Louis XVI. and his Queen Marie Antoinette. And never was there a gayer court to be found; the youthful King and his beautiful wife and all their friends seemed to live for pleasure only; they were gorgeous butterflies who flitted about the beautiful gardens of the Palace at Versailles and basked in continual sunshine.

But the boy of seventeen, son of a line of rugged Auvergne fighters, men of independent natures, did not take readily to the unceasing show and luxury of court. Balls and dramas, rustic dances and dinners and suppers, all the extravagant entertainments that the clever mind of the young Queen could devise, followed in endless succession. True it was that some of the courtiers had the fashion of talking a good deal about the rights of man and human liberty, but that was simply a fashion in a country where only the nobles had liberty and the talk of such things only furnished polite conversation in drawing-rooms. To Lafayette, however, liberty meant more than that; young though he was, he had seen enough of the world to wish that there might be less suffering among the poor and more liberality among the wealthy. The constant stream of pleasures at Versailles often gave him food for thought, and though he was very fond of the King and Queen and their youthful court, he had less and less regard for the older nobles, who appeared to him as vain and stiff and foolish as so many strutting peacocks.

Sometimes, however, for all his thoughtfulness, he joined whole-heartedly in the revels the Queen devised. On one midsummer night Marie Antoinette gave a fête at Versailles, and Lafayette led the revels. The Queen had declared that she meant to have a fête champêtre in the gardens that should be different from anything the court of France had ever seen. All her guests should appear either as goblins or as nymphs. They should not be required to dance the quadrille or any other stately measure, but would be free to play any jokes that came into their heads. As Marie Antoinette outlined these plans to him Lafayette shook his head in doubt.

“What will the lords in waiting say to this?” he asked, “and your Majesty’s own ladies?”

The pretty Queen laughed and shrugged her shoulders. “Who cares?” she answered. “As long as Louis is King I shall do what pleases me.”

Then a new idea occurred to her and she clapped her hands with delight. “I shall go to Louis,” she said, “and have him issue a royal order commanding every one who comes to the fête to dress as a goblin or a nymph. He will do it for me, I know.”

King Louis was too fond of his wife to deny her anything, so he issued the order she wanted, much though he feared that it might affront the older courtiers. And the courtiers were affronted and horrified. The Royal Chamberlain and the Queen’s Mistress of the Robes went to the King in his workshop, for Louis was always busy with clocks and locks and keys, and told him that such a performance as was planned would make the court of France appear ridiculous.

Louis listened to them patiently, and when they had left he sent for Marie Antoinette and her friends. They described how absurd the courtiers would look as nymphs and goblins and the King laughed till he cried. Then he dismissed the whole matter and went back to the tools on his work-table.

So Marie Antoinette had her party, and the gardens of Versailles saw the strange spectacle of tall, stiff goblins wearing elaborate powdered wigs and jeweled swords, and stout wood-nymphs with bare arms and shoulders and glittering with gems. The Queen’s friends, a crowd of hobgoblins, swooped down upon the stately Mistress of the Robes and carried her off to a summer-house on the edge of the woods, where they kept her a prisoner while they sang her the latest ballads of the Paris streets. The court was shocked and indignant, and the next day there was such a buzzing of angry bees about the head of the King that he had to lecture the Queen and her friends and forbid any more such revels.

As the older courtiers regained their influence over Louis the young Lafayette went less and less often to Versailles. He was too independent by nature to bow the knee to the powdered and painted lords and ladies who controlled the court. Instead of seeking their society he spent more and more time with his regiment of Musketeers. But this did not satisfy his father-in-law, the Duke d’Ayen, who was eager for Lafayette to shine in the sun of royal favor. So the Duke went to the young Count de Segur, Lafayette’s close friend and cousin, and begged him to try and stir the Marquis to greater ambition.

The Count, who knew Lafayette well, had to laugh at the words of the Duke d’Ayen. “Indifferent! Indolent! Faith, my dear marshal, you do not yet know our Lafayette! I should say he has altogether too much enthusiasm. Why, it was only yesterday that he almost insisted on my fighting a duel with him because I did not agree with him in a matter of which I knew nothing, and of which he thought I should know everything. He is anything but indifferent and indolent, I can assure you!”

Pleased with this information, and feeling that he had much misunderstood his son-in-law, the Duke made plans to have Lafayette attached to the suite of one of the princes of France, and picked out the Count of Provence, the scapegrace brother of Louis XVI. This Prince was only two years older than Lafayette, and famous for his overbearing manners. As a result, when the Duke told his son-in-law of the interview he had arranged for him with the Count of Provence, Lafayette at once determined that nothing should make him accept service with so arrogant a fellow.

Having decided that he wanted no favors from that particular Prince, Lafayette set about to make his decision clear. His opportunity soon came. The King and Queen gave a masked ball at court, and the youthful Marquis was one of their guests. With his mask concealing his face he went up to the King’s brother, the Count of Provence, and began to talk about liberty and equality and the rights of man, saying a great deal that he probably did not believe in his desire to make the Count angry.

The plan succeeded beautifully. The Count tried to answer, but every time he opened his mouth Lafayette said more violent things and made more eloquent pleas for democracy. At last the young Prince could stand the tirade no longer. “Sir,” said he, lifting his mask and staring at his talkative companion, “I shall remember this interview.”

“Sir,” answered the young Marquis, also lifting his mask and bowing gracefully, “memory is the wisdom of fools.”

It was a rash remark to make to a royal prince, but it had the effect that Lafayette desired. With an angry gesture the Count of Provence turned on his heel and made it clear to every one about him that the Marquis was in disgrace. In later days the Count showed that he had remembered Lafayette’s words to him.

News of what the Marquis had said quickly flew through the court and speedily reached the ears of the Duke d’Ayen. He was horrified; his son-in-law had not only insulted the Prince and so lost his chance of becoming a gentleman of his suite, but had also made himself a laughing-stock. The Duke lectured the boy, and told him that he was throwing away all his chances for worldly advancement. But Lafayette answered that he cared nothing for princely favor and meant to follow the dictates of his own nature.

So the Duke, finally despairing of doing anything with so independent a fellow, had him ordered to join his regiment, and Lafayette left Paris to seek his fortune elsewhere. Already, although he was only seventeen, the boy Marquis had shown that he was a true son of Auvergne, not a parasite of the King’s court, as were most of his friends, but an independent, liberty-loving man.

II
“WAKE UP! I’M GOING TO AMERICA TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM!”

Although the young Marquis had deliberately given up a career at court, there was every promise of his having a brilliant career in the army. Soon after his famous speech to the King’s brother, in August, 1775, he was transferred from his regiment of Black Musketeers to a command in what was known as the “Regiment de Noailles,” which had for its colonel a young man of very distinguished family, Monseigneur the Prince de Poix, who was a cousin of Lafayette’s wife.

The “Regiment de Noailles” was stationed at Metz, a garrison city some two hundred miles to the east of Paris. The commander of Metz was the Count de Broglie, a marshal and prince of France, who had commanded the French armies in the Seven Years’ War, in one of the battles of which Lafayette’s father had been killed. The Count de Broglie had known Lafayette’s father and had greatly admired him, and he did all he could to befriend the son, inviting him to all the entertainments he gave.

It happened that early in August the Count de Broglie gave a dinner in honor of a young English prince, the Duke of Gloucester, and Lafayette, in the blue and silver uniform of his rank, was one of the guests at the table. The Duke of Gloucester was at the time in disgrace with his brother, King George the Third of England, because he had dared to marry a wife whom King George disliked. The Duke was really in exile from England, and in the company of the French officers he had no hesitation in speaking his mind about his royal brother and even in poking fun at some of his plans. And the Duke made a special point of criticizing King George for his policy toward the colonists in America.

In that very year of the dinner-party at Metz, in the spring of 1775, a rebellion had broken out in the colonies, and there had actually been a fight between American farmers and British regulars at the village of Lexington in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The Duke had received word of the obstinate resistance of the farmers—peasants, he called them—at Lexington and Concord, and of the retreat of Lord Percy and his troops to Boston. The Duke told the dinner-party all about the discomfiture of his royal brother, laughing heartily at it, and also related how in that same seaport of Boston the townspeople had thrown a cargo of tea into the harbor rather than pay the royal tax on it.

The Duke talked and Lafayette listened. The Duke spoke admiringly of the pluck of the American farmers, but pointed out that it was impossible for the colonists to win against regular troops unless experienced officers and leaders should help them. “They are poor, they are ill led,” said the Duke, “they have no gentlemen-soldiers to show them how to fight, and the king my brother is determined to bring them into subjection by harsh and forcible methods if need be. But my letters say that the Americans seem set upon opposing force with force, and, as the country is large and the colonies scattered, it certainly looks as if the trouble would be long and serious. If but the Americans were well led, I should say the rebellion might really develop into a serious affair.”

Most of the officers knew little about America; even Lafayette had only a vague idea about the colonies on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. But the Duke’s words stirred him deeply; he sat leaning far forward, his eyes shining with interest, his face expressing the closest attention.

Finally, as the guests rose from the table, Lafayette burst forth impetuously. “But could one help these peasants over there beyond the seas, monseigneur?” he asked the Duke.

The English prince smiled at the young Frenchman’s eagerness. “One could, my lord marquis, if he were there,” he answered.

“Then tell me, I pray you,” continued Lafayette, “how one may do it, monseigneur. Tell me how to set about it. For see, I will join these Americans; I will help them fight for freedom!”

Again the Duke smiled; the words seemed extravagant on the lips of a French officer. But a glance at Lafayette’s face showed how much the boy was in earnest. The words were no idle boast; the speaker plainly meant them. So the Duke answered, “Why, I believe you would, my lord. It wouldn’t take much to start you across the sea,—if your people would let you.”

Lafayette smiled to himself. He had already done one thing that his family disapproved of, and he did not intend to let them prevent his embarking on such an enterprise as this, one that appealed so intensely to his love of liberty. He asked the Duke of Gloucester all the questions he could think of, and the Duke gave him all the information he had about America.

The dinner-party broke up, and most of the officers soon forgot all the conversation; but not so the young Marquis; that evening had been one of the great events of his life. As he said afterward, “From that hour I could think of nothing but this enterprise, and I resolved to go to Paris at once to make further inquiries.”

His mind made up by what he had heard at Metz, Lafayette set off for Paris. But once there, it was hard to decide where he should turn for help. His father-in-law, he knew, would be even more scandalized by his new plan than he had been by the affront the young man had given the King’s brother. His own wife was too young and inexperienced to give him wise counsel in such a matter. Finally he chose for his first real confidant his cousin and close friend, the Count de Segur. Lafayette went at once to his cousin’s house, though it was only seven o’clock in the morning, was told that the Count was not yet out of bed, but, without waiting to be announced, rushed upstairs and woke the young man.

The Count saw his cousin standing beside him and shaking him by the arm. In great surprise he sat up. “Wake up! wake up!” cried Lafayette. “Wake up! I’m going to America to fight for freedom! Nobody knows it yet; but I love you too much not to tell you.”

The Count sprang out of bed and caught Lafayette’s hand. “If that is so, I will go with you!” he cried. “I will go to America too! I will fight with you for freedom! How soon do you start?”

It was easier said than done, however. The two young men had breakfast and eagerly discussed this momentous matter. The upshot of their discussion was to decide to enlist a third friend in their cause, and so they set out to see Lafayette’s brother-in-law, the Viscount Louis Marie de Noailles, who was a year older than the Marquis.

The young Viscount, like the Count de Segur, heard Lafayette’s news with delight, for he also belonged to that small section of the French nobility that was very much interested in what was called “the rights of man.” So here were three young fellows,—hardly more than boys,—for none of the three was over twenty years old, all of high rank and large fortune, eager to do what they could to help the fighting farmers of the American colonies.

At the very start, however, they ran into difficulties. France and England, though not on very friendly terms at that particular time, were yet keeping the peace between them, and the French prime minister was afraid that if the English government should learn that a number of young French aristocrats were intending to aid the rebellious American colonists it might cause ill-feeling between France and England. The prime minister, therefore, frowned on all such schemes as that of Lafayette, and so the three young liberty-loving conspirators had to set about their business with the greatest secrecy.

Lafayette’s next step was to hunt out a man who had been sent over to France from the American colonies as a secret agent, a representative of what was known as the American Committee of Secret Correspondence, of which Benjamin Franklin was a member. This man was Silas Deane of the colony of Connecticut. Deane was secretly sending arms and supplies from France to America, but he was so closely watched by the agents of the English Ambassador, Lord Stormont, that it was very difficult to see him without rousing suspicions.

While the Marquis was studying the problem of how to get in touch with Deane he confided his secret to the Count de Broglie, his superior officer at Metz and his very good friend. The Count was at once opposed to any such rash venture. “You want to throw your life away in that land of savages!” exclaimed De Broglie. “Why, my dear Lafayette, it is the craziest scheme I ever heard of! And to what purpose?”

“For the noblest of purposes, sir,” answered the Marquis. “To help a devoted people win their liberty! What ambition could be nobler?”

“It is a dream, my friend, a dream that can never be fulfilled,” said the old soldier. “I will not help you to throw your life away. I saw your uncle die in the wars of Italy, I witnessed your brave father’s death at the battle of Hastenbeck, and I cannot be a party to the ruin of the last of your name, the only one left of the stock of the Lafayettes!”

But even the old Marshal could not withstand the ardor and enthusiasm of the youth. So vehemently did Lafayette set forth his wishes that finally the Count promised that he would not actively oppose his plans, and presently agreed to introduce the Marquis to a Bavarian soldier named De Kalb, who might be able to help him.

“I will introduce you to De Kalb,” said the Count. “He is in Paris now, and perhaps through him you may be able to communicate with this American agent, Monsieur Deane.”

De Kalb was a soldier of fortune who had been to America long before the Revolution and knew a great deal about the colonies. At present he was in France, giving what information he could to the government there. And the upshot of Lafayette’s talk with the Count de Broglie was that the latter not only gave the Marquis a letter to De Kalb but also actually asked De Kalb to go to America and see if he could arrange things so that he, the Count de Broglie, might be invited by the American Congress to cross the ocean and become commander-in-chief of the American army! Perhaps it was natural that the veteran Marshal of France should think that he would make a better commander-in-chief than the untried George Washington.

The Baron de Kalb arranged that the Count de Broglie should see Silas Deane of Connecticut. Silas Deane was impressed with the importance of securing such a powerful friend and leader for his hard-pressed people, and he at once agreed to see what he could do for De Broglie, and promised Baron de Kalb the rank of major-general in the American army and signed an agreement with him by which fifteen French officers should go to America on a ship that was fitting out with arms and supplies.

This fell in beautifully with Lafayette’s wishes. De Broglie introduced the Marquis to De Kalb, and De Kalb presented him to Silas Deane. This was in December, 1776, and Lafayette, only nineteen, slight of figure, looked very boyish for such an enterprise. But he plainly showed that his whole heart was in his plan, and, as he said himself, “made so much out of the small excitement that my going away was likely to cause,” that the American agent was carried away by his enthusiasm, and in his own rather reckless fashion, wrote out a paper by which the young Marquis was to enter the service of the American colonies as a major-general.

Deane’s enthusiasm over Lafayette’s offer of his services may be seen from what he wrote in the agreement. The paper he sent to Congress in regard to this volunteer ran as follows: “His high birth, his alliances, the great dignities which his family holds at this court, his considerable estates in this realm, his personal merit, his reputation, his disinterestedness, and, above all, his zeal for the liberty of our provinces, are such as have only been able to engage me to promise him the rank of major-general in the name of the United States. In witness of which I have signed the present this seventh of December, 1776. Silas Deane, Agent for the United States of America.”

By this time the colonies had issued their Declaration of Independence, and called themselves, as Silas Deane described them, the United States of America.

Imagine Lafayette’s joy at this result of his meeting with Silas Deane! It seemed as if his enthusiasm had already won him his goal. But there were other people to be considered, and his family were not as much delighted with his plans as the man from Connecticut had been.

As a matter of fact his father-in-law, the powerful Duke d’Ayen, was furious, and so were most of the others of his family. His cousin, the Count de Segur, described the feelings of Lafayette’s relations. “It is easy to conceive their astonishment,” he wrote, “when they learned suddenly that this young sage of nineteen, so cool and so indifferent, had been so far carried away by the love of glory and of danger as to intend to cross the ocean and fight in the cause of American freedom.” There was more of a storm at home than when the self-filled young Marquis had of his own accord disgraced himself at court.

But his wife Adrienne, girl though she was, understood him far better than the rest of the family, and even sympathized with his great desire. “God wills that you should go,” she said to her husband. “I have prayed for guidance and strength. Whatever others think, you shall not be blamed.”

Others, however, did have to be reckoned with. Lafayette’s two friends, the Count de Segur and the Viscount de Noailles, both of whom had been so eager to go with him, had found that their fathers would not supply them with the money they needed and that the King would not consent to their going to America. Reluctantly they had to give up their plans. But Lafayette was rich, he had no need to ask for funds from any one; there was no difficulty for him on that score.

He was, however, an officer of France, and it was on that ground that his father-in-law tried to put an end to his scheme. He went to the King with his complaint about the wilful Marquis. At the same time the English Ambassador, who had got wind of the matter, also complained to King Louis. And Louis XVI., who had never concerned himself much about liberty and took little interest in the rebel farmers across the Atlantic, said that while he admired the enthusiasm of the Marquis de Lafayette, he could not think of permitting officers of his army to serve with the men of America who were in rebellion against his good friend the King of England. Therefore he issued an order forbidding any soldier in his service taking part in the Revolution in America.

The Duke d’Ayen was delighted. He went to Lafayette, and trying to put the matter on a friendly footing, said, “You had better return to your regiment at Metz, my dear son.”

Lafayette drew himself up, his face as determined as ever. “No Lafayette was ever known to turn back,” he answered. “I shall do as I have determined.”

One of Lafayette’s ancestors had adopted as his motto the words “Cur non,” meaning “Why not?” and the Marquis now put these on his own coat of arms, the idea being, as he himself said, that they should serve him “both as an encouragement and a response.”

By this time the young republic in America had sent Benjamin Franklin to help Silas Deane in Paris. Franklin heard of Lafayette’s desires and knew how much help his influence might bring the new republic. So he set about to see what he could do to further Lafayette’s plans.

At that moment things looked gloomy indeed for the Americans. Their army had been badly defeated at the battle of Long Island, and their friends in Europe were depressed. That, however, seemed to Lafayette all the more reason for taking them aid as quickly as he could, and when he heard that Benjamin Franklin was interested in him he made an opportunity to see the latter.

Franklin was perfectly fair with Lafayette. He gave the young Frenchman the exact news he had received from America, information that Washington’s army of three thousand ragged and suffering men were retreating across New Jersey before the victorious and well-equipped troops of General Howe. He pointed out that the credit of the new republic was certain to sink lower and lower unless Washington should be able to win a victory and that at present it looked as if any such event was far away. And in view of all this Franklin, and Silas Deane also, was frank enough to tell Lafayette that his plan of aiding the United States at that particular time was almost foolhardy.

The Frenchman thanked them for their candor. “Until this moment, gentlemen,” said he, “I have only been able to show you my zeal in your struggle; now the time has come when that zeal may be put to actual use. I am going to buy a ship and carry your officers and supplies to America in it. We must show our confidence in the cause, and it is in just such a time of danger as this that I want to share whatever fortune may have in store for you.”

Franklin was immensely touched by the generosity of the young Marquis and told him so. But, practical man as he was, although he gladly accepted Lafayette’s offer, he pointed out that as the American agents were closely watched in Paris it would be better for Lafayette to work through third parties and in some other place than the French capital, if possible.

Lafayette took these suggestions. At once he found that it was extremely difficult to secure a ship without discovery by the English Ambassador. Here the Count de Broglie again gave him aid. He introduced the Marquis to Captain Dubois, the brother of his secretary, an officer in one of the King’s West Indian regiments, who happened to be at home on furlough at the time, and Lafayette engaged him as his agent. He sent him secretly to Bordeaux, the French seaport that was supposed to be safest from suspicion, and gave him the money to buy and supply a ship, the plan being that Captain Dubois should appear to be fitting out the vessel for the needs of his own regiment in the West Indies.

The needed repairs to the ship would take some time, and meanwhile, in order to escape all possible suspicion of his plans, Lafayette arranged with his cousin, the Prince de Poix, to make a journey to England. The Marquis de Noailles, Lafayette’s uncle, was the French Ambassador to England, and he welcomed the two young noblemen with delight. Every one supposed that Lafayette had at last given up his wild schemes, and all the great houses of London were thrown open to him. He wrote of the amusement he felt at being presented to King George III., and of how much he enjoyed a ball at the house of Lord George Germain, the secretary for the colonies. At the opera he met Sir Henry Clinton, with whom he had a pleasant, friendly chat. The next time Sir Henry and he were to meet was to be on the field of arms at the Battle of Monmouth.

But he never took advantage of his hosts. He kept away from the English barracks and shipyards, though he was invited to inspect them. He was careful to a degree to avoid any act that might later be considered as having been in the nature of a breach of confidence. And after three weeks in the gay world of London he felt that he could brook no longer delay and told his uncle the Ambassador that he had taken a fancy to cross the Channel for a short visit at home.

His uncle opposed this idea, saying that so abrupt a departure would be discourteous to the English court, but Lafayette insisted. So the Marquis de Noailles finally offered to give out the report that his nephew was sick until the latter should return to London. Lafayette agreed. “I would not have proposed this stratagem,” he said later, “but I did not object to it.”

The voyage on the Channel was rough and Lafayette was seasick. As soon as he reached France he went to Paris and stayed in hiding at the house of Baron de Kalb. He had another interview with the American agents and sent out his directions to the men who were to sail with him. Then he slipped away to Bordeaux, where he found the sloop Victory, bought by Captain Dubois with Lafayette’s money, and now ready for the voyage across the Atlantic.

Lafayette, however, could not sail away from France under his own name, and as a permit was required of every one leaving the country, a special one had to be made out for him. This is still kept at Bordeaux, and describes the passenger on the sloop as “Gilbert du Mottie, Chevalier de Chavaillac, aged about twenty, rather tall, light-haired, embarking on the Victory, Captain Lebourcier commanding, for a voyage to the Cape on private business.” His name was not very much changed, for he was really Gilbert du Motier and also the Chevalier de Chavaniac, but probably a careless clerk, who had no concern in this particular young man’s affairs, made the mistakes in spelling, and so aided Lafayette’s disguise.

But all was not yet smooth sailing. Lord Stormont, the English Ambassador, heard of Lafayette’s departure from Paris and also of his plans to leave France, and at once protested to the King. Lafayette’s father-in-law likewise protested, and no sooner had the young nobleman arrived in Bordeaux than royal officers were on his track. The French government did not want him to sail, no matter how much it might secretly sympathize with the young republic across the ocean.

Having come so far, however, the intrepid Marquis did not intend to be stopped. He meant to sail on his ship, he meant to carry out the brave words he had spoken to his cousin. “I’m going to America to fight for freedom!” he had said, and he was determined to accomplish that end.

III
HOW LAFAYETTE RAN AWAY TO SEA

Lafayette did actually run away to sea, with the officers of King Louis XVI. hot-foot after him. When he learned that his plans were known and that he would surely be stopped if he delayed he ordered the captain of the Victory to set sail from Bordeaux without waiting for the necessary sailing-papers. His intention was to run into the Spanish port of Las Pasajes, just across the French frontier on the Bay of Biscay, and there complete his arrangements for crossing the Atlantic, for the sloop still needed some repairs before starting on such a voyage.

At Las Pasajes, however, he found more obstacles and difficulties. Instead of the sailing-papers he expected letters and orders and French officers were waiting for him. The letters were from his family, protesting against his rash act, the orders were from Louis XVI.’s ministers, and charged him with deserting the army, breaking his oath of allegiance to the King, and involving France in difficulties with England. And the officers were from the court, with documents bearing the King’s own seal, and commanding Lieutenant the Marquis de Lafayette of the regiment of De Noailles to go at once to the French port of Marseilles and there await further orders.

The news that affected the runaway nobleman most was contained in the letters from home. He had had to leave Paris without telling his intentions to his wife, much as he hated to do this. He knew that she really approved of his plans and would do nothing to thwart them, but the letters said that she was ill and in great distress of mind. He would have braved the King’s order of arrest and all the other threats, but he could not stand the idea of his wife being in distress on his account. So, with the greatest reluctance he said good-bye to his plans, left his ship in the Spanish port, and crossed the border back to France.

It looked as if this was to be the end of Lafayette’s gallant adventure. The Baron de Kalb, very much disappointed, wrote to his wife, “This is the end of his expedition to America to join the army of the insurgents.”

It might have been the end with another man, but not with Lafayette. He rode back to Bordeaux, and there found that much of the outcry raised against him was due to the wiles of his obstinate father-in-law, the Duke d’Ayen. It was true that the English Ambassador had protested to King Louis’ ministers, but there was no real danger of Lafayette’s sailing disturbing the relations between England and France. New letters told Lafayette that his wife was well and happy, though she missed him. The threats and the orders were due, not to the anger of his own government, but to the determination of the Duke that his son-in-law should not risk his life and fortune in such a rash enterprise.

When he learned all this the Marquis determined to match the obstinacy of the Duke with an even greater obstinacy of his own. His first thought was to join his ship the Victory at once, but he had no permit to cross into Spain, and if he should be caught disobeying the King’s orders a second time he might get into more serious trouble. His father-in-law was waiting to see him at Marseilles, and so he now arranged to go to that city.

In Bordeaux Lafayette met a young French officer, named Du Mauroy, who had also received from Silas Deane a commission in the American army, and who was very anxious to reach the United States. The two made their plans together, and the upshot of it was that they presently set out together in a post-chaise for Marseilles.

They did not keep on the road to Marseilles long, however. No sooner were they well out of Bordeaux than they changed their course and drove in the direction of the Spanish border. In a quiet place on the road Lafayette slipped out of the chaise and hid in the woods. There he disguised himself as a post-boy or courier, and then rode on ahead, on horseback, as if he were the servant of the gentleman in the carriage.

His companion, Du Mauroy, had a permit to leave France, and the plan was that he should try to get the Marquis across the Spanish frontier as his body-servant. The chaise went galloping along as fast as the horses could pull it, because the young men had good reason to fear that French officers would speedily be on their track, if they were not already pursuing them. They came to a little village, St. Jean de Luz, where Lafayette had stopped on his journey from Las Pasajes to Bordeaux a short time before, and there, as the Marquis, disguised as the post-boy, rode into the stable-yard of the inn the daughter of the innkeeper recognized him as the same young man she had waited on earlier.

The girl gave a cry of surprise. “Oh, monsieur!” she exclaimed.

Lafayette put his finger to his lips in warning. “Yes, my girl,” he said quickly. “Monsieur my patron wants fresh horses at once. He is coming just behind me, and is riding post-haste to Spain.”

The girl understood. Perhaps she was used to odd things happening in a village so close to the border of France and Spain, perhaps she liked the young man and wanted to help him in his adventure. She called a stable-boy and had him get the fresh horses that were needed, and when the disguised Marquis and his friend were safely across the frontier and some French officers came galloping up to the inn in pursuit of them she told the latter that the post-chaise had driven off by the opposite road to the one it had really taken.

At last, on April seventeenth, Lafayette reached the Spanish seaport of Las Pasajes again and went on board of his sloop the Victory. After six months of plotting and planning and all sorts of discouragements he was actually free to sail for America, and on the twentieth of April, 1777, he gave the order to Captain Leboucier to hoist anchor and put out to sea. On the deck of the Victory with him stood De Kalb and about twenty young Frenchmen, all, like their commander, eager to fight for the cause of liberty. The shores of Spain dropped astern, and Lafayette and his friends turned their eyes westward in the direction of the New World.

When news of Lafayette’s sailing reached Paris it caused the greatest interest. Though the King and the older members of his court might frown and shake their heads the younger people were frankly delighted. Coffee-houses echoed with praise of the daring Lieutenant, and whenever his name was mentioned in public it met with the loudest applause. In the world of society opinions differed; most of the luxury-loving nobility thought the adventure of the Marquis a wild-goose chase. The Chevalier de Marais wrote to his mother, “All Paris is discussing the adventure of a young courtier, the son-in-law of Noailles, who has a pretty wife, two children, fifty thousand crowns a year,—in fact, everything which can make life here agreeable and dear, but who deserted all that a week ago to join the insurgents. His name is M. de Lafayette.”

And the Chevalier’s mother answered from her château in the country, “What new kind of folly is this, my dear child? What! the madness of knight-errantry still exists! It has disciples! Go to help the insurgents! I am delighted that you reassure me about yourself, for I should tremble for you; but since you see that M. de Lafayette is a madman, I am tranquil.”

A celebrated Frenchwoman, Madame du Deffand, wrote to the Englishman Horace Walpole, “Of course it is a piece of folly, but it does him no discredit. He receives more praise than blame.” And that was the opinion of a large part of France. If a young man chose to do such a wild thing as to become a knight-errant he might be criticized for his lack of wisdom, but on the whole he was not to be condemned.

Meantime, as the Victory was spreading her sails on the broad Atlantic, Benjamin Franklin was writing to the American Congress. This was what he said: “The Marquis de Lafayette, a young nobleman of great family connections here and great wealth, is gone to America in a ship of his own, accompanied by some officers of distinction, in order to serve in our armies. He is exceedingly beloved, and everybody’s good wishes attend him. We cannot but hope he may meet with such a reception as will make the country and his expedition agreeable to him. Those who censure it as imprudent in him, do, nevertheless, applaud his spirit; and we are satisfied that the civilities and respect that may be shown him will be serviceable to our affairs here, as pleasing not only to his powerful relations and the court, but to the whole French nation. He has left a beautiful young wife; and for her sake, particularly, we hope that his bravery and ardent desire to distinguish himself will be a little restrained by the General’s prudence, so as not to permit his being hazarded much, except on some important occasion.”

The Victory was not a very seaworthy ship. Lafayette had been swindled by the men who had sold the sloop to his agent; she was a very slow craft, and was poorly furnished and scantily armed. Her two small cannon and small stock of muskets would have been a poor defense in case she had been attacked by any of the pirates who swarmed on the high seas in those days or by the English cruisers who were looking for ships laden with supplies for America.

In addition to the defects of his ship Lafayette soon found he had other obstacles to cope with. He discovered that the captain of the Victory considered himself a much more important person than the owner and meant to follow his own course.

The papers with which the ship had sailed from Spain declared that her destination was the West Indies. But ships often sailed for other ports than those they were supposed to, and Lafayette wanted to reach the United States as quickly as he could. He went to the captain and said, “You will please make your course as direct as possible for Charlestown in the Carolinas.”

“The Carolinas, sir!” exclaimed the captain. “Why, I cannot do that. The ship’s papers are made out for the West Indies and will only protect us if we sail for a port there. I intend to sail for the West Indies, and you will have to get transportation across to the colonies from there.”

Lafayette was amazed. “This ship is mine,” he declared, “and I direct you to sail to Charlestown.”

But the captain was obstinate. “I am the master of this ship, sir,” said he, “and responsible for its safety. If we should be caught by an English cruiser and she finds that we are headed for North America with arms and supplies, we shall be made prisoners, and lose our ship, our cargo, and perhaps our lives. I intend to follow my sailing-papers and steer for the West Indies.”

No one could be more determined than Lafayette, however. “You may be master of the Victory, Captain Leboucier,” said he, “but I am her owner and my decision is final. You will sail at once and by the directest course for the port of Charlestown in the Carolinas or I shall deprive you instantly of your command and place the mate in charge of the ship. I have enough men here to meet any resistance on your part. So make your decision immediately.”

The captain in his turn was surprised. The young owner was very positive and evidently not to be cajoled or threatened. So Leboucier complained and blustered and argued a little, and finally admitted that it was not so much the ship’s papers as her cargo that he was troubled about. He owned that he had considerable interest in that cargo, for he had smuggled eight or nine thousand dollars’ worth of goods on board the Victory and wanted to sell them in the West Indies and so make an extra profit on the side for himself. The real reason why he didn’t want to be caught by an English cruiser was the danger of losing his smuggled merchandise.

“Then why didn’t you say so at first?” Lafayette demanded. “I would have been willing to help you out, of course. Sail for the port of Charlestown in the Carolinas; and if we are captured, searched, robbed, or destroyed by any English cruisers or privateers I will see that you don’t lose a sou. I will promise to make any loss good.”

That satisfied Captain Leboucier. As long as his goods were safe he had no hesitation on the score of danger to the ship, and so he immediately laid his course for the coast of the Carolinas. Lafayette, however, realizing that the Victory might be overtaken by enemy warships, arranged with one of his men, Captain de Bedaulx, that in case of attack and capture the latter should blow up the ship rather than surrender. With this matter arranged the Marquis went to his cabin and stayed there for two weeks, as seasick as one could be.

The voyage across the Atlantic in those days was a long and tedious affair. It took seven weeks, and after Lafayette had recovered from his seasickness he had plenty of time to think of the hazards of his new venture and of the family he had left at home. He was devoted to his family, and as the Victory kept on her westward course he wrote long letters to his wife, planning to send them back to France by different ships, so that if one was captured another might carry his message to Adrienne safely to her. In one letter he wrote, “Oh, if you knew what I have suffered, what weary days I have passed thus flying from everything that I love best in the world!” And then, in order to make his wife less fearful of possible dangers that might beset him, he said, “The post of major-general has always been a warrant of long life. It is so different from the service I should have had in France, as colonel, for instance. With my present rank I shall only have to attend councils of war.... As soon as I land I shall be in perfect safety.”

But this boy, nineteen years old, though he called himself a major-general, was not to be content with attending councils of war and keeping out of danger, as later events were to show. He was far too eager and impetuous for that, too truly a son of the wild Auvergne Mountains.

And he showed that he knew that himself, for later in the same letter to Adrienne he compared his present journey with what his father-in-law would have tried to make him do had Lafayette met the Duke d’Ayen at Marseilles. “Consider the difference between my occupation and my present life,” he wrote, “and what they would have been if I had gone upon that useless journey. As the defender of that liberty which I adore; free, myself, more than any one; coming, as a friend, to offer my services to this most interesting republic, I bring with me nothing but my own free heart and my own good-will,—no ambition to fulfil and no selfish interest to serve. If I am striving for my own glory, I am at the same time laboring for the welfare of the American republic. I trust that, for my sake, you will become a good American. It is a sentiment made for virtuous hearts. The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and worthy asylum of virtue, integrity, tolerance, equality, and peaceful liberty.”

This, from a boy not yet twenty years old, showed the prophetic instinct that burned like a clear flame in the soul of Lafayette.

He knew very little of the English tongue, but that was the language of the people he was going to help, and so on shipboard he set himself to study it. “I am making progress with that language,” he wrote to his wife. “It will soon become most necessary to me.”

The North Atlantic was stormy, the Victory met with head winds, and through April and May she floundered on, her passengers eagerly scanning the horizon for a sight of land. On the seventh of June the Marquis wrote in a letter to Adrienne, “I am still out on this dreary plain, which is beyond comparison the most dismal place that one can be in.... We have had small alarms from time to time, but with a little care, and reasonably good fortune, I hope to get through without serious accident, and I shall be all the more pleased, because I am learning every day to be extremely prudent.”

Then, on a June day, the Victory suddenly became all excitement. The lookout reported to Captain Leboucier that a strange vessel was bearing down in their direction.

Leboucier instantly crowded on sail and tried to run from the strange ship. But the Victory was not built for fast sailing, and it was soon clear that the stranger would quickly overhaul her.

“It’s an English man-of-war!” was the message that ran from lip to lip. In that case the only choice would be between resistance and surrender. Leboucier looked doubtful as to the wisest course to pursue, but Lafayette and his companions made ready to fight. The two old cannon were loaded, the muskets distributed, and the crew ordered to their stations.

The stranger drew nearer and nearer, sailing fast, and the Victory floundered along in desperation. Lafayette and De Bedaulx stood at the bow of the sloop, their eyes fixed on the rapidly-gaining pursuer. Then, just as escape appeared utterly out of the question, the oncoming ship went about, and as she turned she broke out from her peak a flag of red, white and blue, the stars and stripes of the new United States of America. A wild cheer greeted that flag, and the colors of France were run up to the peak of the Victory in joyful greeting to the flag of Lafayette’s ally.

The Victory headed about and tried to keep up with the fleet American privateer, but in a very short time two other sails appeared on the horizon. The American ship ran up a danger signal, declaring these new vessels to be English cruisers, scouting along the coast on the watch for privateers and blockade runners. Having given that information the American ship signaled “good-bye,” and drew away from the enemy on a favoring tack.

The Victory could not draw away so easily, however, and it was clear that her two cannon would be little use against two well-armed English cruisers. In this new predicament luck came to the aid of the little sloop. The wind shifted and blew strongly from the north. This would send the Victory nearer to the port of Charlestown, the outlines of which now began to appear on the horizon, and would also be a head wind for the pursuing cruisers. Captain Leboucier decided to take advantage of the shift in the wind, and instead of heading for Charlestown run into Georgetown Bay, which opened into the coast of the Carolinas almost straight in front of him.

Fortune again favored him, for, although he knew very little of that coast, and nothing of these particular shoals and channels, he found the opening of the South Inlet of Georgetown Bay and sailed his ship into that sheltered roadstead. The English vessels, working against the north wind, soon were lost to sight. On the afternoon of June 13, 1777, Lafayette’s little sloop ran past the inlet and up to North Island, one of the low sand-pits that are a fringe along the indented shore of South Carolina.

The long sea-voyage was over, and Lafayette looked at last at the coast of the country he had come to help.

IV
THE YOUNG FRENCHMAN REACHES AMERICA

The Victory had anchored off North Island, a stretch of sand on the South Carolina coast, but neither the captain nor the owner nor the crew of the sloop knew much more about their location than that it was somewhere in North America. Charlestown they believed was the nearest port of any size, but it might be difficult to navigate through these shoal waters without a pilot who knew the channels. So Lafayette suggested to Baron de Kalb that they should land in one of the sloop’s boats and see if they could get information or assistance.

Early in the afternoon Lafayette, De Kalb, and a few of the other officers were rowed ashore in the Victory’s yawl. But the shore was merely a sand-flat, with no sign of human habitation. They put out again and rowed farther up the bay, keeping a sharp lookout for any house or farm. They found plenty of little creeks and islands, but the shores were simply waste stretches of sand and scrub-bushes and woods. The mainland appeared as deserted as though it had been a desert island far out in the sea.

All afternoon they rowed about, poking the yawl’s nose first into one creek and then into another, and nightfall found them still exploring the North Inlet. Then, when they had about decided that it was too dark to row further and that they had better return to the sloop, they suddenly saw a lighted torch on the shore. Heading for this they found some negroes dragging for oysters. Baron de Kalb, who knew more English than the others, called out and asked if there was good anchorage for a ship thereabouts and whether he could find a pilot to take them to Charlestown.

The negroes, very much surprised at the sudden appearance of the yawl, thought the men on board might be Englishmen or Hessians, and instantly grew suspicious. One of them answered, “We belong to Major Huger, all of us belongs to him. He’s our master.”

“Is he an officer in the American army?” De Kalb called back.

The negro said that he was, and added that there was a pilot on the upper end of North Island, and then volunteered to show the men in the yawl where the pilot lived and also to take them to the house of the Major.

Lafayette thought it would be best to find Major Huger at once; but the tide was falling fast, and when the rowers, unused to these shoals, tried to follow the negroes in the oyster-boat, they discovered that they were in danger of beaching their yawl. The only alternative was for some of them to go in the oyster-boat, and so Lafayette and De Kalb and one other joined the negroes, while the crew of the yawl rowed back to the Victory.

Over more shallows, up more inlets the negroes steered their craft, and about midnight they pointed out a light shining from a house on the shore. “That’s Major Huger’s,” said the guide, and he ran his boat up to a landing-stage. The three officers stepped out, putting their feet on American soil for the first time on this almost deserted coast and under the guidance of stray negro oystermen.

But this desolate shore had already been the landing-place of English privateersmen, and the people who lived in the neighborhood were always in fear of attack. As Lafayette and his two friends went up toward the house the loud barking of dogs suddenly broke the silence. And as they came up to the dwelling a window was thrown open and a man called out, “Who goes there? Stop where you are or I’ll fire!”

“We are friends, sir; friends only,” De Kalb hurriedly answered. “We are French officers who have just landed from our ship, which has come into your waters. We have come to fight for America and we are looking for a pilot to steer our ship to a safe anchorage and are also hunting shelter for ourselves.”

No sooner had the master of the house heard this than he turned and gave some orders. Lights shone out from the windows, and almost immediately the front door was unbarred and thrown open. The owner stood in the doorway, his hands stretched out in greeting, and back of him were a number of negro servants with candles.

“Indeed, sirs, I am very proud to welcome you!” he said; and then stopped an instant to call to the dogs to stop their barking. “I am Major Huger of the American army, Major Benjamin Huger, and this is my house on the shore where we camp out in the summer. Please come in, gentlemen. My house and everything in it is at the service of the brave and generous Frenchmen who come to fight for our liberties.”

There was no doubt of the warmth of the strangers’ welcome. The Major caught De Kalb’s hand and shook it strenuously, while his small son, who had slipped into his clothes and hurried down-stairs to see what all the noise was about, seized Lafayette by the arm and tried to pull him into the lighted hall.

“You are most kind, Major Huger,” said De Kalb. “Let me introduce my friends. This gentleman is the leader of our expedition, the Seigneur Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette; this is Monsieur Price of Sauveterre, and I am Johann Kalb.”

“He is the Baron de Kalb, monsieur,” put in Lafayette. “A brigadier in the army of the King of France and aid to the Marshal the Count de Broglie.”

Major Huger had heard of the Marquis de Lafayette, for already news of the Frenchman’s determination to fight for the young republic had crossed the Atlantic. He caught Lafayette by both hands. “The Marquis de Lafayette!” he cried. “My house is indeed honored by your presence! We have all heard of you. You have only to command me, sir, and I will do your bidding. I will look after your ship and your pilot. But to-night you must stay here as my guests, and to-morrow I will see to everything. This is my son, Francis Kinloch Huger. Now please come into my dining-room, gentlemen, and let me offer you some refreshment.”

Small Francis, still holding Lafayette’s hand, drew the Marquis in at the door. The three guests, delighted at their welcome, went to the dining-room, and there toasts were drunk to the success of the cause of liberty. America was not so inhospitable to the weary travelers after all, and with the glow of the Major’s welcome warming them, Lafayette and his two friends went to their rooms and slept in real beds for the first time in many weeks.

Lafayette naturally was delighted at safely reaching his haven, and, as he put it in his own words, “retired to rest rejoiced that he had at last attained the haven of his wishes and was safely landed in America beyond the reach of his pursuers.” Weary from his long voyage on the Victory, he slept soundly, and woke full of enthusiasm for this new country, which was to be like a foster-mother to him. “The next morning,” he wrote, “was beautiful. The novelty of everything around me, the room, the bed with its mosquito curtains, the black servants who came to ask my wishes, the beauty and strange appearance of the country as I could see it from my window clothed in luxuriant verdure,—all conspired to produce upon me an effect like magic and to impress me with indescribable sensations.”

Major Huger had already sent a pilot to the Victory and had done everything he could to assist Lafayette’s companions. All the Major’s family were so kind and hospitable that they instantly won Lafayette’s heart. He judged that all Americans would be like them, and wrote to his wife, “the manners of this people are simple, honest, and dignified. The wish to oblige, the love of country, and freedom reign here together in sweet equality. All citizens are brothers. They belong to a country where every cranny resounds with the lovely name of Liberty. My sympathy with them makes me feel as if I had been here for twenty years.” It was well for him that his first reception in America was so pleasant and that he remembered it with such delight, for he was later to find that some Americans were not so cordial toward him.

If he was delighted with the Hugers, the Major and his son Francis were equally delighted with the young Frenchman. And, strangely enough, the little boy Francis, who had seized Lafayette’s hand on that June night in 1777, was later to try to rescue his hero from a prison in Europe.

The Marquis and his friends thought they had had quite enough of life on shipboard for the present, and so decided to go to Charlestown over the country roads. The pilot that had been furnished by Major Huger came back with word that there was not sufficient water for the Victory to stay in Georgetown Bay, and Lafayette ordered the ship, in charge of the pilot, to sail to Charlestown. Meantime he and his companions, with horses of the Major’s, rode to that seaport. As soon as he arrived there he heard that there were a number of English cruisers on that part of the coast, and so he at once sent word to Captain Leboucier to beach the Victory and burn her, rather than let her be captured by the cruisers.

The Victory, however, sailed safely into Charlestown without sighting a hostile sail, and the captain unloaded Lafayette’s supplies and his own private cargo. Later the sloop was loaded with rice and set sail again, but was wrecked on a bar and became a total loss.

No welcome could have been warmer than that Lafayette received in Charlestown. A dinner was given him, where the French officers met the American generals Gulden, Howe, and Moultrie. All houses were thrown open to him, and he was taken to inspect the fortifications and driven through the beautiful country in the neighborhood. How pleased he was he showed in a letter to Adrienne. “The city of Charlestown,” he wrote, “is one of the prettiest and the best built that I have ever seen, and its inhabitants are most agreeable. The American women are very pretty, very unaffected, and exhibit a charming neatness,—a quality which is most studiously cultivated here, much more even than in England. What enchants me here is that all the citizens are brethren. There are no poor people in America, nor even what we call peasants. All the citizens have a moderate property, and all have the same rights as the most powerful proprietor. The inns are very different from those of Europe: the innkeeper and his wife sit at table with you, do the honors of a good repast, and on leaving, you pay without haggling. When you do not choose to go to an inn, you can find country houses where it is enough to be a good American to be received with such attentions as in Europe would be paid to friends.”

That certainly speaks well for the hospitality of South Carolina!

He did not mean to tell his plans, however, until he should reach Philadelphia, where the Congress of the United States was sitting. “I have every reason to feel highly gratified at my reception in Charlestown,” he wrote, “but I have not yet explained my plans to any one. I judge it best to wait until I have presented myself to the Congress before making a statement as to the projects I have in view.”

He had only one difficulty in the seaport town. When he started to sell the Victory and her cargo he found that the men who had sold him the ship and Captain Leboucier had so entangled him with agreements and commissions, all of which he had signed without properly reading in his haste to sail from Bordeaux, that, instead of receiving any money, he was actually in debt. To pay this off and get the needed funds to take his companions and himself to Philadelphia he had to borrow money, but fortunately there were plenty of people in Charlestown who were ready to help him out of that difficulty.

With the money borrowed from these well-disposed people Lafayette bought horses and carriages to take his party over the nine hundred miles that lay between Charlestown and Philadelphia. On June twenty-fifth the expedition started. In front rode a French officer dressed in the uniform of a hussar. Next came a heavy open carriage, in which sat Lafayette and De Kalb, and close behind it rode Lafayette’s body-servant. Then there followed a chaise with two colonels, the counselors of the Marquis, another chaise with more French officers, still another with the baggage, and finally, as rear-guard, a negro on horseback.

The country roads were frightful for travel; indeed for much of the way they could scarcely be called roads at all, being simply primitive clearings through the woods. The guide kept losing his way, and the carriages bumped along over roots and logs in a hot, blistering sun. As far as this particular journey went, the Frenchmen must have thought that travel was very much easier in their own country. One accident followed another; within four days the chaises had been jolted into splinters and the horses had gone lame. The travelers had to buy other wagons and horses, and to lighten their outfit kept leaving part of their baggage on the way. Sometimes they had to walk, often they went hungry, and many a night they slept in the woods. They began to appreciate that this new country, land of liberty though it was, had many disadvantages when it came to the matter of travel.

From Petersburg in Virginia Lafayette wrote to Adrienne. “You have heard,” said he, “how brilliantly I started out in a carriage. I have to inform you that we are now on horseback after having broken the wagons in my usual praiseworthy fashion, and I expect to write you before long that we have reached our destination on foot.”

Yet, in spite of all these discomforts, the Marquis was able to enjoy much of the journey. He studied the language of the people he met, he admired the beautiful rivers and the great forests, and he kept pointing out to his companions how much better the farmers here lived than the peasants of his own country. At least there was plenty of land for every one and no grasping overlords to take all the profits.

The journey lasted a month. The party paid a visit to Governor Caswell in North Carolina and stopped at Petersburg and Annapolis, where Lafayette met Major Brice, who later became his aide-de-camp. On July twenty-seventh the travel-worn party reached Philadelphia, which was then the capital of the United States.

The outlook for the Americans was gloomy enough then. New York was in the hands of the enemy, Burgoyne’s army had captured Ticonderoga and was threatening to separate New England from the rest of the country, and Howe was preparing to attack Philadelphia with a much larger army than Washington could bring against him. It would have seemed just the time when any help from abroad should have been doubly welcome, and yet as a matter of fact the Congress was not so very enthusiastic about it.

The reason for this was that already a great number of adventurers had come to America from the different countries of Europe and asked for high commands in the American army. Many of them were soldiers of considerable experience, and they all thought that they would make much better officers than the ill-trained men of the new republic. Some of them also quickly showed that they were eager for money, and one and all insisted on trying to tell Congress exactly what it ought to do. Quite naturally the Americans preferred to manage affairs in their own way.

George Washington had already sent a protest to Congress. “Their ignorance of our language and their inability to recruit men,” he said, “are insurmountable obstacles to their being ingrafted into our continental battalions; for our officers, who have raised their men, and have served through the war upon pay that has hitherto not borne their expenses, would be disgusted if foreigners were put over their heads; and I assure you, few or none of these gentlemen look lower than field-officers’ commissions. To give them all brevets, by which they have rank, and draw pay without doing any service, is saddling the continent with vast expense; and to form them into corps would be only establishing corps of officers; for, as I have said before, they cannot possibly raise any men.”

It was true that Silas Deane had been instructed to offer commissions to a few French officers, whose experience might help the Americans, but he had scattered commissions broadcast, and some of these men had proved of little use. One of them, Du Coudray, had arrived and insisted on commanding the artillery with the rank of major-general, and had aroused so much opposition that Generals Greene, Sullivan, and Knox had threatened to resign if his demands were granted. Congress was therefore beginning to look askance at many of the men who bore Silas Deane’s commissions.

That was the state of affairs when Lafayette, confident of a warm welcome, reached Philadelphia and presented himself and his friends to John Hancock, the president of Congress. Hancock may have received letters concerning the young Frenchman from Deane and Benjamin Franklin in Paris, but, if he had, he had paid little attention to them, and was inclined to regard this young man of nineteen as simply another adventurer from Europe. With a scant word of welcome Hancock referred Lafayette to Gouverneur Morris, who, he said, “had such matters in charge.”

The Frenchmen went to see Morris, but to him also they appeared only a new addition to the many adventurers already hanging about, looking for high commands. He put off dealing with Lafayette and De Kalb. “Meet me to-morrow at the door of Congress, gentlemen,” said he. “I will look over your papers in the meantime and will see what I can do for you.”

The two new arrivals kept the appointment promptly, but Morris was not on hand. After they had cooled their heels for some time he appeared, bringing with him Mr. Lovell, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. “Matters that concern France are in Mr. Lovell’s charge,” said Morris. “Please deal with him after this.”

Lovell bowed to the strangers. “I understand, gentlemen,” said he, “that you have authority from Mr. Deane?”

“Certainly, sir,” De Kalb answered. “Our papers and agreements show that.”

Lovell frowned. “This is very annoying,” said he. “We authorized Mr. Deane to send us four French engineers, but instead he has sent us a number of engineers who are no engineers and some artillerists who have never seen service. Mr. Franklin, however, has sent us the four engineers we wanted. There is nothing for you to do here, gentlemen. We needed a few experienced officers last year, but now we have plenty, and can promise no more positions. I must bid you good-morning.”

Here was a dashing blow to all their eager wishes. Surprise and disappointment showed in their faces.

“But, sir,” began De Kalb, “Mr. Deane promised——”

“Well, Mr. Deane has exceeded his authority,” declared Lovell. “He has promised too much and we cannot recognize his authority. We haven’t even a colonel’s commission to give to any foreign officers, to say nothing of a major-general’s. The Congress is very much annoyed by these constant demands, and General Washington says he won’t be disturbed by any more requests. I am sorry to disappoint you, but under the circumstances I can promise you nothing. Again I must bid you good-morning.”

Lovell returned to Congress, leaving the Frenchmen much discomfited. De Kalb began to storm, and finally spoke angrily of the way they had been treated by Deane. “It is not to be borne!” he cried. “I will take action against Deane! I will have damages for this indignity he has put upon us!”

Fortunately Lafayette was more even-tempered. In spite of this rebuff at the outset he meant to achieve his goal. He turned to the angry De Kalb and laid his hand restrainingly on the latter’s arm. “Let us not talk of damages, my friend,” he said. “It is more important for us to talk of doing. It is true that Congress didn’t ask us to leave our homes and cross the sea to lead its army. But I will not go back now. If the Congress will not accept me as a major-general, I will fight for American liberty as a volunteer!”

V
“I WILL FIGHT FOR AMERICAN LIBERTY AS A VOLUNTEER!”

Lafayette, standing outside the door of the American Congress in Philadelphia, refused the commission in the American army that had been promised him by Silas Deane, spoke these words of encouragement to his disappointed and indignant friends who had crossed with him from France. “If the Congress will not accept me as a major-general, I will fight for American liberty as a volunteer!” he said; and, having come to this decision, he immediately proceeded to put it into effect. He went to his lodgings and wrote a letter to John Hancock, president of Congress.

Lafayette’s letter explained the reasons why he had come to the United States and recounted the many difficulties he had had to overcome. He stated that he thought that the promise he had received from Silas Deane, the approval of Benjamin Franklin, and the sacrifices he had himself made ought to lead Congress to give a friendly hearing to his request. He said that he understood how Congress had been besieged by foreign officers seeking high rank in the army, but added that he only asked two favors. These were, in his own words, “First, that I serve without pay and at my own expense; and, the other, that I be allowed to serve at first as a volunteer.”

This letter was a great surprise to John Hancock and the other leaders of Congress. Here was a young French officer of family and wealth who was so deeply interested in their cause that he was eager to serve as an unpaid volunteer! He was a different type from the others who had come begging for favors. Hancock looked up the letter that Franklin had written about the Marquis, and read, “Those who censure him as imprudent do nevertheless applaud his spirit, and we are satisfied that the civilities and respect that may be shown him will be serviceable to our affairs here, as pleasing not only to his powerful relations and to the court, but to the whole French nation.”

Hancock was impressed; perhaps they had made a mistake in treating this Marquis de Lafayette in such cavalier fashion. So he sent another member of Congress to see the young Frenchman and instructed him to treat Lafayette with the greatest courtesy. And the result of this interview was that Hancock’s emissary was quickly convinced of Lafayette’s absolute honesty of purpose and intense desire to help the United States.

Having reached this conclusion Hancock decided to make amends and do the honorable thing, and so, on July 31, 1777, Congress passed the following resolution: “Whereas, the Marquis de Lafayette, out of his great zeal to the cause of liberty, in which the United States are engaged, has left his family and connections, and, at his own expense, come over to offer his services to the United States, without pension or particular allowance, and is anxious to risk his life in our cause, therefore, Resolved, that his services be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family, and connections, he have the rank and commission of major-general in the army of the United States.”

How fortunate it was that Lafayette had not been daunted at the outset, or discouraged as De Kalb and his companions had been! His great dream had come true as a result of perseverance; he had been welcomed by Congress, and was, at nineteen, a major-general in the army of liberty!

But he did not forget those companions who had crossed the sea with the same desires as his own. In the letter he wrote to Congress, penned in his own quaint English,—a letter now in the State Department at Washington,—after thanking “the Honorable mr. Hancok,” as he spelled it, and expressing his gratitude to Congress, he said, “it is now as an american that I’l mention every day to congress the officers who came over with me, whose interests are for me as my own, and the consideration which they deserve by their merit, their ranks, their state and reputation in france.”

He was unable, however, to do much for these friends, though one of them said, “He did everything that was possible for our appointment, but in vain, for he had no influence. But if he had his way, De Kalb would have been major-general and we should all have had places.”

Congress felt that it could not give them all commissions. Captain de Bedaulx, who was a veteran officer, was made a captain in the American army, one other was engaged as a draughtsman and engineer, and Lafayette kept two as his own aides-de-camp. Most of the others were sent back to France, their expenses being paid by Congress. As for De Kalb, he had given up his plans for high rank and preferment and was on his way to take passage on a ship for Europe when a messenger reached him with word that Congress, voting for one more major-general in the army, had elected him.

Lafayette, in his letter to Hancock, had said that he wished to serve “near the person of General Washington till such time as he may think proper to entrust me with a division of the army.” Events soon gave him the chance to meet the commander-in-chief. The arrival of Howe’s fleet at the mouth of the Delaware River seemed to threaten Philadelphia, and Washington left his camp in New Jersey to consult with Congress. Lafayette was invited to a dinner in Philadelphia to meet the commander-in-chief, and accepted eagerly. The Frenchman was greatly impressed. “Although General Washington was surrounded by officers and private citizens,” he wrote, “the majesty of his countenance and of his figure made it impossible not to recognize him; he was especially distinguished also by the affability of his manners and the dignity with which he addressed those about him.”

Washington had already heard of Lafayette and found a chance for a long talk with him. On his part he was at once strongly attracted by the young Marquis. “You have made the greatest sacrifices for our cause, sir,” Washington said, “and your evident zeal and generosity interest me deeply. I shall do my part toward making you one of us. I shall be greatly pleased to have you join my staff as a volunteer aid, and beg you to make my headquarters your home, until events place you elsewhere. I beg you to consider yourself at all times as one of my military family, and I shall be glad to welcome you at the camp as speedily as you think proper. Of course I cannot promise you the luxuries of a court, but, as you have now become an American soldier, you will doubtless accommodate yourself to the fare of an American army, and submit with a good grace to its customs, manners, and privations.”

The next day Washington invited Lafayette to accompany him on a tour of inspection of the fortifications about Philadelphia.

The General liked the Marquis, but was not quite certain how the latter could best be employed. He wrote to Benjamin Harrison, who was a member of Congress, “As I understand the Marquis de Lafayette, it is certain that he does not conceive that his commission is merely honorary, but is given with a view to command a division of this army. It is true he has said that he is young and inexperienced; but at the same time he has always accompanied it with a hint that, so soon as I shall think him fit for the command of a division, he shall be ready to enter upon his duties, and in the meantime has offered his services for a smaller command. What the designs of Congress respecting this gentleman were, and what line of conduct I am to pursue to comply with their design and his expectations—I know not and beg to be instructed.... Let me beseech you, my good sir, to give me the sentiments of Congress on this matter, that I may endeavor, as far as it is in my power, to comply with them.”

Mr. Harrison answered that Congress intended Lafayette’s appointment to be regarded merely as an honorary one, and that the commander-in-chief was to use his own judgment concerning him.

In the meantime Lafayette set out from Philadelphia to join Washington’s army. That army, early in August, had begun its march eastward, hoping to cut off any British move about New York; but the appearance of the British fleet off the Delaware had brought them to a halt, and Washington ordered them into camp near the present village of Hartsville, on the old York Road leading out of Philadelphia. Here, on August twenty-first, Lafayette joined the army, just as the commander, with Generals Stirling, Greene, and Knox, was about to review the troops.

It was indeed a sorry-looking army, according to the standards of Europe. There were about eleven thousand men, poorly armed and wretchedly clad. Their clothes were old and ragged, hardly any two suits alike, and the men knew little enough about military tactics. Courage and resolution had to take the place of science; but there was no lack of either bravery or determination. Yet some of the foreign officers who had seen the American army had spoken very slightingly of it, and Washington said to Lafayette, “It is somewhat embarrassing to us to show ourselves to an officer who has just come from the army of France.”

Lafayette, always tactful, always sympathetic, smiled. “I am here to learn and not to teach, Your Excellency,” he answered.

A council of war followed the review, and the commander asked the Marquis to attend it. The council decided that if the British were planning to invade the Carolinas it was unwise to attempt to follow them south, and that the army had better try to recapture New York. But at that very moment a messenger brought word that the British fleet had sailed into Chesapeake Bay, and, hearing this, Washington concluded to march his army to the south of Philadelphia and prepare to defend that city.

Ragged and out-at-elbows as the small American army was, it marched proudly through the streets of Philadelphia. With sprigs of green branches in their hats the soldiers stepped along to the tune of fife and drum, presenting, at least in the eyes of the townspeople, a very gallant appearance. Lafayette rode by the side of Washington, glad that the opportunity had come for him to be of service.

Very soon he had a chance to share danger with his commander. When the troops arrived on the heights of Wilmington, Washington, with Lafayette and Greene, made a reconnaissance, and, being caught by a storm and darkness, was obliged to spend the night so near to the British lines that he might easily have been discovered by a scout or betrayed into the hands of the enemy.

Meantime General Howe and Lord Cornwallis had landed eighteen thousand veteran troops near what is now Elkton in Maryland, and was advancing toward Philadelphia. To defend the city Washington drew up his forces on September ninth at Chadd’s Ford on the Brandywine. One column of Howe’s army marched to this place and on September eleventh succeeded in driving across the river to the American camp. The other column, under command of Cornwallis, made a long détour through the thickly wooded country, and bore down on the right and rear of Washington’s army, threatening its total destruction.

The American commander at once sent General Sullivan, with five thousand men, to meet this force on the right. Realizing that most of the fighting would be done there, Lafayette asked and was given permission to join General Sullivan. Riding up as a volunteer aid, he found the half-formed wings of the American army attacked by the full force under Cornwallis. The Americans had to fall back, two of General Sullivan’s aids were killed, and a disorderly retreat began. Lafayette leaped from his horse, and, sword in hand, called on the soldiers to make a stand.

He checked the retreat for a few moments; other troops came up, and the Americans offered gallant resistance. Lafayette was shot through the calf of the leg, but, apparently unconscious of the wound, continued to encourage his men. Then Cornwallis’s brigades swept forward again, and Sullivan’s troops had to give ground before the greater numbers. The battle became a general rout. Gimat, Lafayette’s aid, saw that the young man was wounded, and helped him to mount his horse. The wounded man then tried to rejoin Washington, but soon after he had to stop to have his leg bandaged.

The first British column had driven the American troops from Chadd’s Ford, and the latter, together with Sullivan’s men, fell back along the road to Chester. Washington attempted to cover the retreat with rear-guard fighting, but night found him pursued by both divisions of the enemy. In the retreat Lafayette came to a bridge, and made a stand until Washington and his aids reached him. Then together they rode on to Chester, and there the Frenchman’s wound was properly dressed by a surgeon.

The battle had been in one sense a defeat for the Americans, but it had shown General Howe the fine fighting quality of Washington’s men, and the American commander had been able to save the bulk of his army, when Howe had expected to capture it entire. Today a little monument stands on a ridge near the Quaker meeting-house outside Chadd’s Ford, erected, so the inscription says, “by the citizens and school children of Chester County,” because, “on the rising ground a short distance south of this spot, Lafayette was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777.” And the monument also bears these words of Lafayette: “The honor to have mingled my blood with that of many other American soldiers on the heights of the Brandywine has been to me a source of pride and delight.”

The battle-field of the Brandywine was only about twenty-six miles from Philadelphia, and the cannonade had been clearly heard in the city. The word the couriers brought filled the people with alarm; many citizens began to fly from the city and Congress took its departure, to meet at the town of York, one hundred miles to the west. The Americans wounded at the Brandywine were sent to Philadelphia, and Lafayette was conveyed there by water. From that city he was sent up the Delaware River to Bristol. There he met Henry Laurens, who had succeeded John Hancock as the president of Congress, and Laurens, being on his way to York, took Lafayette with him in his own carriage to the Old Sun Inn at Bethlehem, the quiet home of a people called the Moravians, fifty miles to the north of Philadelphia. In later times Henry Laurens, by one of those strange turns of the wheel of fate, became a prisoner in the Tower of London, and Madame de Lafayette repaid his kindness to her husband by seeking the aid of the French government to secure his release.

There could have been no better place for a wounded man to recover his strength than in the peaceful little Moravian community at Bethlehem. For six weeks he stayed there, and the people tended him like one of themselves. He could not use his leg, but he spent part of his enforced idleness drawing up plans for the invasion of the British colonies in the West Indies. He also wrote long letters to his wife in France. “Be entirely free from anxiety as to my wound,” he said in one of these, “for all the doctors in America are aroused in my behalf. I have a friend who has spoken for me in a way to ensure my being well taken care of; and that is General Washington. That estimable man, whose talents and whose virtues I admired before, whom I venerate the more now as I learn to know him, has been kind enough to me to become my intimate friend. His tender interest in me quickly won my heart.... When he sent his surgeon-in-chief to me, he directed him to care for me as I were his son, because he loved me so much; and having learned that I wanted to join the army too soon again, he wrote me a letter full of tenderness in which he admonished me to wait until I should be entirely well.”

Wonderful it was that Washington, beset and harassed with all the burdens of a commander-in-chief, could yet find the time to pay so much attention to his wounded French aid!

Lafayette knew well that matters looked dark then for the American republic. In another letter to Adrienne he said, “Now that you are the wife of an American general officer, I must give you a lesson. People will say, ‘They have been beaten.’ You must answer, ‘It is true, but with two armies equal in number, and on level ground, old soldiers always have an advantage over new ones; besides, the Americans inflicted a greater loss than they sustained.’ Then, people will add, ‘That’s all very well; but Philadelphia, the capital of America, the highroad of liberty, is taken.’ You will reply politely, ‘You are fools! Philadelphia is a poor city, open on every side, of which the port was already closed. The presence of Congress made it famous, I know not why; that’s what this famous city amounts to, which, by the way, we shall retake sooner or later.’ If they continue to ply you with questions, send them about their business in terms that the Vicomte de Noailles will supply you with.”

It was true that General Howe had taken Philadelphia while Lafayette had to nurse his wounded leg at Bethlehem. It was not until the latter part of October that the Marquis was able to rejoin the army, and then his wound had not sufficiently healed to allow him to wear a boot. The battle of Germantown, by which Washington hoped to dislodge the British from Philadelphia, had been fought, and the year’s campaign was about to close. Two battles had been lost by the Americans in the south, but in the north the British general Burgoyne had been obliged to surrender. Washington’s headquarters were now at Methacton Hill, near the Schuylkill River, and there Lafayette went, hoping for active service.

His chance for service came soon. Cornwallis had entered New Jersey with five thousand men, and General Greene was sent to oppose him with an equal number. Lafayette joined Greene as a volunteer, and at Mount Holly he was ordered to reconnoitre. On November twenty-fifth he found the enemy at Gloucester. Their forage wagons were crossing the river to Philadelphia, and Lafayette, in order to make a more thorough examination of their position, went dangerously far out on a tongue of land. Here he might easily have been captured, but he was quick enough to escape without injury. Later, at four o’clock in the afternoon, he found himself before a post of Hessians, four hundred men with cannon. Lafayette had one hundred and fifty sharpshooters under Colonel Butler, and about two hundred militiamen and light-horse. He did not know the strength of the enemy, but he attacked, and drove them back so boldly that Cornwallis, thinking he must be dealing with all of Greene’s forces, allowed his troops to retreat to Gloucester with a loss of sixty men.

This was the first real opportunity Lafayette had had to show his skill in leading men, and he had done so well that General Greene was delighted. In the report he sent to Washington he said, “The Marquis is charmed with the spirited behavior of the militia and rifle corps. They drove the enemy about a mile and kept the ground until dark.... The Marquis is determined to be in the way of danger.”

Lafayette had shown himself to be a daring and skilful officer; more than that, he had endeared himself to the men under his command. And this was more than could be said for most of the foreign officers in the American army; many of them devoted the larger part of their time to criticizing everything about them. Baron de Kalb expressed his opinion of these adventurers from across the Atlantic in forceful terms. “These people,” said he, “think of nothing but their incessant intrigues and backbitings. They hate each other like the bitterest enemies, and endeavor to injure each other whenever an opportunity offers. Lafayette is the sole exception.... Lafayette is much liked and is on the best of terms with Washington.”

It was natural, therefore, that Washington, having had such a good account of the young Frenchman at the skirmish at Gloucester, should be willing to gratify his desire for a regular command in the army. So the commander-in-chief wrote to Congress concerning the Marquis. “There are now some vacant positions in the army,” said Washington, “to one of which he may be appointed, if it should be the pleasure of Congress. I am convinced he possesses a large share of that military ardor that characterizes the nobility of his country.”

And Congress agreed with Washington, and voted that “the Marquis de Lafayette be appointed to the command of a division in the Continental Army.” On December 4, 1777, the Frenchman was given the command of the Virginia division. He was twenty years old, and it was only a little more than a year since he had first heard from the Duke of Gloucester about the fight of the American farmers for liberty. He had accomplished a great deal in that year, and had won his spurs by pluck, by perseverance, and by ability.

Naturally he was delighted at this evidence of the confidence that Washington and the American Congress placed in him. He wrote to his father-in-law, the Duke d’Ayen, the man who had tried his best to keep him from coming to America, “At last I have what I have always wished for,—the command of a division. It is weak in point of numbers; it is almost naked, and I must make both clothes and recruits; but I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and upon the result of all this I make an effort to form my opinion and to put into it as much common sense as I can ... for I do not want to disappoint the confidence that the Americans have so kindly placed in me.”

Events were soon to test both his ability and his mettle.

VI
LAFAYETTE WINS THE FRIENDSHIP OF WASHINGTON

In December, 1777, Washington’s army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. That winter was to test the courage and endurance of the soldiers, for they were ill-clad, ill-provisioned, and the road to victory appeared a long and weary one. Fortunately the commander-in-chief was a man of intrepid soul, one who could instill confidence into the men about him.

Lafayette quickly found that all the people of the young republic were not in agreement about the war. Men called Tories joined the British army, and in countless other ways hampered the work of Congress. Business was at such a standstill that it was almost impossible to obtain clothing, shoes, and the other supplies that were so urgently needed, and as Congress had no power to impose and collect taxes it was hard to raise any money. The different states had each its jealousies of the others and each its own ends to serve, and indeed in 1777 the union was so loosely knitted that it was a wonder that it held together at all.

Washington had chosen Valley Forge as his winter quarters because from there he could watch the enemy, keep the British to their own picket lines, and cut off supplies going into Philadelphia. Otherwise, however, the place had little to recommend it. The farmhouses in the neighborhood could hold only a few of the two thousand men who were on the sick-list, whose shoeless feet were torn and frozen from marching and who were ill from hunger and exposure. For the rest the soldiers had to build their own shelters, and they cut logs in the woods, covered them with mud, and made them into huts, each of which had to house fourteen men. There the American troops, lacking necessary food and blankets, shivered and almost starved during the long winter.

There were times when Washington would have liked to make a sortie or an attack on the enemy, but his men were not in condition for it. Constantly he wrote to Congress, urging relief for his army. Once a number of members of Congress paid a visit to Valley Forge, and later sent a remonstrance to the commander-in-chief, urging him not to keep his army in idleness but to march on Philadelphia. To this Washington answered, “I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room, by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them; and from my soul I pity those miseries, which it is neither in my power to relieve nor prevent.”

All those hardships Lafayette also shared, setting his men an example of patience and fortitude that did much to help them through the rigorous winter, and winning again and again the praise of his commander for his devotion.

In the meantime some men of influence, known as the “Conway Cabal,” from the name of one of the leaders, plotted to force Washington from the chief command, and put General Greene in his place. They wanted to use Lafayette as a catspaw, and decided that the first step was to separate him from Washington’s influence. With this object in view they planned an invasion of Canada, the command of the expedition to be given to Lafayette. But Lafayette saw through the plotting, and refused to lead the expedition except under Washington’s orders and with De Kalb as his second in command. He also showed where he stood when he was invited to York to meet some of the members of Congress and generals who were opposing his leader. At a dinner given in his honor he rose, and, lifting his glass, proposed a toast to “The health of George Washington, our noble commander-in-chief!” The party had to drink the toast, and they saw that the Frenchman was not to be swerved from his loyalty to his chief.

Congress had decided on the expedition to Canada, though the conspirators now saw that their plot had failed, and so Lafayette set out for Albany in February, 1778, to take command of the army of invasion. But when he got there he found that nothing had been done by way of preparation, and that none of those in authority were able to help him. Twelve hundred ill-provided men were all he could raise, altogether too few and too poorly armed for such an ambitious enterprise. Very much disappointed, he had to give up the idea of leading such an army. More and more he grew convinced that all the hopes of America rested on Washington.

That Washington might know his feelings, Lafayette wrote to him. “Take away for an instant,” he said, “that modest diffidence of yourself (which, pardon my freedom, my dear general, is sometimes too great, and I wish you could know, as well as myself, what difference there is between you and any other man), and you would see very plainly that, if you were lost for America, there is no one who could keep the army and the revolution for six months.... I am now fixed to your fate, and I shall follow it and sustain it as well by my sword as by all means in my power. You will pardon my importunity in favor of the sentiment which dictated it.”

Washington was no less devoted to Lafayette. When the latter returned disappointed from Albany the commander said to him, “However sensibly your ardor for glory may make you feel this disappointment you may be assured that your character stands as fair as it ever did, and that no new enterprise is necessary to wipe off an imaginary stain.”

And Washington’s view was now so strongly held by Congress that it immediately voted that it had “a high sense of the prudence, activity, and zeal of the Marquis de Lafayette,” and that it was “fully persuaded nothing has, or would have been, wanting on his part or on the part of the officers who accompanied him to give the expedition the utmost possible effect.”

Lafayette went back to Valley Forge to cheer his soldiers, and there, early in May, 1778, news came that Benjamin Franklin had succeeded in his efforts in France and that the government of Louis XVI. had decided on “armed interference” in the affairs of America, and that a treaty of alliance had been signed between the United States and the French king.

The army at Valley Forge was wild with delight at this news. How it must have cheered Lafayette to know that his own country now stood with the young republic of the west! Washington proclaimed a holiday and held a review of his troops. Then the commander planned a new and more vigorous campaign.

The British, now foreseeing possible French as well as American attack, decided to give up Philadelphia and fall back on New York. Washington learned of this, and in order to keep a check on the movements of his opponents, he sent Lafayette with a strong force of two thousand picked men to keep as close to the British lines as possible.

Lafayette joyfully led his command to a ridge called Barren Hill that overlooked the Schuylkill. From here he could watch the road from Philadelphia, and he at once fortified his camp. British scouts brought reports of this to their generals, and the latter decided it would be a capital plan to defeat the Frenchman’s forces and capture the Marquis. This they considered so easy to accomplish that Generals Howe and Clinton sent out invitations to their friends to a dinner at their headquarters “to meet Monsieur the Marquis de Lafayette.”

On the morning of May twentieth eight thousand British and Hessian soldiers with fifteen pieces of artillery marched out of Philadelphia by one road to take Lafayette in the rear, while by another road a force of grenadiers and cavalry marched to attack his right wing, and a third column, commanded by Generals Howe and Clinton in person, with the admiral, Lord Howe, accompanying them as a volunteer, took a third road to attack the Marquis in front. In this way the enemy forces were completely surrounding the American position, except on the side of the river, by which they considered escape impossible.

Lafayette was talking with a young woman who had agreed to go into Philadelphia and try to obtain information on the pretext of visiting her relations there, when word was brought him that redcoats had been seen in the rear. He was expecting a small force of dragoons, and his first idea was that it was these who were approaching. But, being a prudent commander, he at once sent out scouts, and these quickly reported the advance of a large force. Immediately he made a change of front under cover of the stone houses and the woods. Then messengers dashed up with news of the real state of affairs. His little command was about to be attacked in a three-cornered fight by an overwhelming number of the enemy.

It was a ticklish position, and Lafayette came within a hair’s breadth of being trapped and captured. His men called out to him that he was completely surrounded. In the confusion of the moment he had to keep on smiling, as he afterward said. It was a test fit to try the skill of a much more experienced general than the young Frenchman. But this one had studied his ground thoroughly, and lost not a moment in deciding on his course. Back of his men was a road, hidden from the British by trees, which led to a little-used crossing known as Matson’s Ford, a place unknown to the enemy, though they were, as a matter of fact, much nearer to it than Lafayette was.

The Marquis quickly threw out “false heads of columns,” that is, a few men here and there, who were to march through the woods at different points, and give the impression that his whole army was advancing to battle. The British general saw these “false heads” and, taking them to be the advance guards of the Americans, halted to form his lines. Meantime Lafayette sent all his other troops at the double-quick down the hidden road and across the ford, bringing up the rear himself and waiting until he was joined by the men who had formed the false columns.

The small American army was almost all across the ford before the enemy realized his mistake and began to attack. Then, as the three British columns climbed the hill to crush the Americans according to their plans, they met only each other. They tried to make an attack on Lafayette’s rear, but by that time he was out of their reach. He crossed the Schuylkill and reached the camp at Valley Forge without the loss of a single man, to the great delight and relief of Washington, who had heard of the danger in which Lafayette stood and had ordered signal guns fired to warn him of it.

Lafayette had a good story to tell the commander-in-chief on his return. A small body of Indian warriors had been stationed in ambush to attack any stray parties of the enemy. As the Indians lay in the bushes they saw a company of grenadiers in tall bearskin hats and scarlet coats coming up the road. Never having seen such men as these before the Indians were seized with terror, threw down their arms, and yelling as loud as they could, made a dash for the river. The grenadiers, on their part, seeing the painted faces and hearing the yells, thought they had come on a crowd of devils, and hurried away as fast as they could in the opposite direction.

Washington complimented Lafayette on what had really amounted to a victory, the bringing his men in safety from an attack by overwhelming forces, and advised Congress of the Frenchman’s “timely and handsome retreat in great order.”

And so Generals Howe and Clinton were unable to present to their guests at the dinner at their headquarters that evening “Monsieur the Marquis de Lafayette,” as they had intended.

If the British generals meant to use their armies in the field it was clear that they could not stay in Philadelphia indefinitely. As Franklin said, instead of their having taken Philadelphia, Philadelphia had taken them. They had spent the winter there in idleness, and unless they purposed to spend the summer there in the same fashion they must be on the move. Washington foresaw this, and called a council of war to decide on plans for his forces, and at this council General Charles Lee, who was then second in command, insisted that the Americans were not strong enough to offer effective opposition to the enemy, although Generals Greene, Wayne, Cadwalader, and Lafayette expressed contrary opinions. Then, early in the morning of June 18, 1778, General Howe’s army evacuated Philadelphia, and crossed the Delaware on their way to New York.

Washington instantly prepared to follow. General Maxwell was sent out in advance with a division of militia to impede the enemy’s progress by burning bridges and throwing trees across the roads. The bulk of the American army followed, and when they arrived near Princeton, in New Jersey, Washington called another council. Here Lafayette made a stirring plea for immediate action. But Lee again opposed this, and the council decided, against Washington’s own judgment, not to bring on a general engagement with the enemy.

Almost immediately, however, the advance of General Clinton threatened one of the American detachments, and Lee was ordered to check this. He declined to do so, saying it was contrary to the decision of the council of war. At once the command was given to Lafayette, who took the appointment with the greatest eagerness.

But the Marquis had hardly more than planned his advance when General Lee interfered again. The latter saw that if the movement was successful all the honor of it would go to Lafayette, and this was not at all according to his wishes. So he appealed to Washington to replace him in his command, and also went to Lafayette and asked the latter to retire in his favor. “I place my fortune and my honor in your hands,” he said; “you are too generous to destroy both the one and the other.”

He was right; Lafayette was too chivalrous to refuse such a request. Lee had placed Washington in an awkward situation, but the Frenchman’s tact and good-feeling, qualities which had already greatly endeared him to all the Americans he had met, relieved the commander-in-chief of the need of offending Lee. Lafayette immediately wrote to Washington, “I want to repeat to you in writing what I have told to you; which is, that if you believe it, or if it is believed, necessary or useful to the good of the service and the honor of General Lee to send him down with a couple of thousand men or any greater force, I will cheerfully obey and serve him, not only out of duty, but out of what I owe to that gentleman’s character.”

No wonder Washington liked a man who could be so unselfish as that! He gave the command back to Lee, and arranged that Lafayette should lead the advance.

Early the following morning Washington ordered an attack on the British at Monmouth Court House, and on June 28, 1778, the battle of Monmouth was fought. The result might have been very different if Lafayette, and not Lee, had been in command. For Lee delayed, and when he did finally move forward he assaulted what he thought was a division of the enemy, but what turned out to be the main body. He was driven back, tried another attack, got his officers confused by his contradictory orders, and at last gave the word for a retreat, which threatened to become a rout. At this point Washington rode up, questioned the officers, got no satisfactory answer as to what had happened, and was so indignant that when he reached General Lee he took the latter to task in the strongest terms. Then he gave instant orders to make a stand, and by his superb control of the situation succeeded in having his men repulse all further attacks.

Lafayette meantime had led his cavalry in a charge, had done his best to stem the retreat, and when Washington arrived reformed his line upon a hill, and with the aid of a battery drove back the British. By his efforts and those of the commander-in-chief the day was finally partly saved and the American army manœuvred out of disaster.

Night came on and the troops camped where they were. Washington, wrapped in his cloak, slept at the foot of a tree, with Lafayette beside him. And when they woke in the morning they found that the enemy had stolen away, leaving their wounded behind them.

So the honors of war at Monmouth, in spite of General Lee, lay with Washington. The enemy, however, escaped across New Jersey and reached New York without any further attacks by the Americans.

When Sir Henry Clinton arrived near Sandy Hook he found the English fleet riding at anchor in the lower bay, having just come from the Delaware. Heavy storms had broken through the narrow strip of sand that connects Sandy Hook with the mainland, and it was now divided by a deep channel. A bridge was made of the ships’ boats, and Clinton’s army crossed over to the Hook, and was distributed on Long Island, Staten Island, and in New York. In the meantime Washington moved his troops from Monmouth to Paramus, where the Americans rested.

Now a French fleet of fourteen frigates and twelve battle-ships, under the command of Count d’Estaing, reached the mouth of the Delaware at about that time. Monsieur Gérard, the minister sent to the United States by the court of France, and Silas Deane, were on board, and when D’Estaing heard that Lord Howe’s squadron had left the Delaware he sent Gérard and Deane up to Philadelphia in a frigate, and sailed along the coast to Sandy Hook, where he saw the English fleet at anchor inside. He had considerable advantage over Lord Howe in point of strength, and at once prepared to attack the enemy squadron. Anticipating this, Washington crossed the Hudson River at King’s Ferry, and on July twentieth took up a position at White Plains.

The French fleet, however, could not make the attack. They could find no pilots who were willing to take the large ships into New York harbor, for all the pilots agreed that there was not enough water there, and the French admiral’s own soundings confirmed their opinion.

Washington and D’Estaing therefore agreed on a joint expedition against Newport, in Rhode Island. Washington sent orders to General Sullivan at Providence to ask the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to supply enough militia to make up an army of five thousand men. At the same time he sent Lafayette with two thousand men from the Hudson to Providence to support the French naval attack.

On July twenty-ninth the French fleet reached Point Judith and anchored about five miles from Newport. General Sullivan and Lafayette and some other officers went on board to make plans for the joint attack. The British troops numbered about six thousand men, and they were strongly intrenched. The allies had some four thousand men on the French ships and between nine and ten thousand Americans at Providence.