Martha Foote Crow

“ The American and French troops, fifteen or sixteen thousand in number, arrived and took their places. General Washington was in supreme command. America had never before seen such an army. The Americans had done their utmost. That part of the French army that had come down from Connecticut with Rochambeau had astonished the people of Philadelphia as they marched through the city by the brilliancy of their rose-and-violet-faced uniforms, and by the display of their graceful and accurate military movements. ”

“ It was liberty itself—the revolt against tyranny in every realm of life—that interested him from the first. Lafayette was against whatever stood for tyranny, against whatever appeared to be an institution that could foster despotism. He believed that the well-being of society would be advanced by giving the utmost freedom to all, high and low, educated and uneducated. He saw a world in chains only waiting for some hero to come along and strike off the fetters. ”

“ For a man so possessed by a great, world-wide idea, so fearless, so constant, it is quite fitting that monuments should be erected and that his birthday should be celebrated. Probably there is no man in all history who has had so many cities, counties, townships, boulevards, arcades, mountains, villages, and hamlets named for him, in a country to which he was not native-born, as has the Frenchman Lafayette in the United States of America. ”

“ Looking still further, he would have seen the day when the people of France would unite with their one-time foe in various endeavors both peaceful and warlike. A strange planet is this, for the shifting of national loyalties and the rending and intertwining of bonds of union! If history could make the human race amenable to receiving any instruction whatever, we should learn that war never yet decided any problem that could not have been better settled in some other way. ”

“ He represented the people on the great day of the oath of loyalty to the new constitution. For a time he was riding on the top wave of popularity.
Lafayette believed in freedom for all people and to every man his rights. But he thought that France was not yet ready for the form of government that was succeeding in America. For France he believed the constitutional monarchy to be the best. He thought—and every one now thinks—that Louis XVI was a man of good intentions, and he believed these good intentions would show that monarch what was for the welfare and happiness of the people. ”

“ General Washington, with his customary prudence, looked closely at the nineteen-year-old volunteer, and wondered whether the stuff was to be found in that slight figure and intent gaze that would make a helper of value to the colonies, one whose judgment and loyalty could be relied upon. It must be that his decision was favorable to the youth, for after the dinner he drew him aside and conversed with him in the friendliest way. ”

“ The only real encounter of that serio-comic day's adventures took place between the band of Iroquois and a company of Hessians in the pay of the British. The Indians were concealed in the brush at the side of the road when the Hessians, with waving black plumes in their tall hats and mounted on spirited horses, came along. The Indians rose as if from under the ground, giving their war whoop as they sprang. ”

“ To the long and eager conversations that followed the news brought by the guest of the evening, Lafayette eagerly listened, and afterwards requested the duke to explain the situation more fully. His curiosity was deeply excited, his heart was at once enlisted. The idea of a people fighting against oppression stirred his imagination. From what he learned from the duke, the cause appealed to his sense of justice; it seemed the noblest that could be offered to the judgment of man. ”

“ If the British commander in chief had wished to fill the men of the Continental army with a fire that would make them unconquerable, this was the way to do it, and this was the man against [Pg 102] whom they most desired to fight. On the other hand, General Washington chose a leader for the defense who was so well beloved by his men, and who was himself filled with so fiery an enthusiasm for the cause, that this alone would have been enough to bring into effect all the strength of those drained and exhausted men and to energize them for prodigies of valor. This leader was Lafayette. ”

“ Whatever be the complexion of the enslaved, it does not, in my opinion, alter the complexion of the crime which the enslaver commits, a crime much blacker than any African face. It is to me a matter of great anxiety and concern, to find that this trade is sometimes carried on under the flag of liberty, our dear and noble stripes, to which virtue and glory have been constant standard-bearers. ”

“ It was originally intended that the statue of Bonaparte should occupy the center of that beautiful court, but it is the statue of Lafayette that stands there—the "Boy" Cornwallis could not catch, the man Napoleon could not intimidate. No one can tell us just how Lafayette's statue happened to be assigned the place intended for Napoleon's; but however it was, the fact is a luminous example of how a man who loved people only to master and subjugate them did not reach the heart of the world so directly as the man who loved human beings for their own sakes and to do them good. ”

“ Said Chateaubriand, "No one has seen anything who has not seen the pomp of Versailles." And no one dreamed that the end was nearing, or realized that no nation can live when [Pg 24] the great mass of the people are made to toil, suffer, and die, in order that a favored few may have luxuries and amusement.
Into this Vanity Fair the young Marquis de Lafayette was now plunged. The grand world flowed to the feet of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette. More than that, the queen at once took the tall, distinguished-looking young chevalier into the circle of her special friends. ”

“ But there was no use in trying to keep the impressionable French people from worshiping a hero after their hearts had been captured by him. The gallantry and the human-heartedness of Lafayette, as well as the ideals he held—ideals that were becoming more and more captivating to the fancy and to the reason of the French nation—contributed to make him the favorite of the hour. A passage from a certain play never failed to receive enthusiastic applause from the audiences because it was held by all to be susceptible of direct application to Lafayette ”

“ The war being over, Washington, as every one knows, retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, an act incomprehensible to some, but fully understood by his "adopted son," Lafayette, who wrote:
"Your return to a private station is called the finishing stroke of an unparalleled character. Never did a man exist who stands so honorably in the opinion of mankind, and your name if possible will become greater to posterity. Everything that is great and everything that is good were never hitherto united in one man ”

“ Lafayette was definitely committed to the American cause to which, as he said in his answer to Congress, the feelings of his heart had engaged him; a cause whose import concerned the honor, virtue, and universal happiness of mankind, as well as being one that drew from him the warmest affection for a nation who, by its resistance of tyranny, exhibited to the universe so fine an example of justice and courage.
Lafayette's letter to Congress asked that he might be placed as near to General Washington as possible and serve under his command. ”

“ And it was not merely the dignity of self-possession, which early familiarity with society and early habits of command may give even to an ordinary man, but that elevation of manner which springs from an habitual elevation of thought, bearing witness to the purity of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy cheek bear witness to the purity of the air you daily breathe. ”

“ This daughter was named, in the grand fashion of the French nobility, Marie-Adrienne-Françoise de Noailles. In her family she was called simply Adrienne.
Adrienne de Noailles was not old enough to give promise of the greatness of character of which she later showed herself possessed; but, as it proved, Lafayette found that in her he had a companion who was indeed to be his good genius. She became the object of the unwavering devotion of his whole life; and she responded with an affection that was without limit; she gave a quick and perfect understanding to all his projects and his ideals ”

“ Think of a lad of nineteen being a general in our Revolutionary War, and the trusted friend and helper of Washington! Lafayette was present at the surrender of Cornwallis, boyishly happy at the achievements of the American soldiery, and taking especial pride in his own American regiment. This period was followed by a worthy career in France, but for five years—from his thirty-fifth year to his fortieth—he was unjustly imprisoned in a grim old Austrian fortress. ”

“ This was Lafayette's real spirit and his secret counsel to himself; and we can but wonder that a young man so impetuous, so enthusiastic, one who had had the courage to start out on this hazardous enterprise, should have combined with those qualities so cool and steady a judgment and so rigid a self-control. ”

“ He said that Bollman should take the horse and follow Lafayette, for Bollman knew German and could give more help than he could. Alarm guns were beginning to be fired from the battlements, and trains of soldiers were seen issuing from the gates; but these portentous signs did not influence him. Bollman was persuaded; he mounted, put spurs to his horse, and was soon out of sight. Young America stood alone on this wide, dangerous plain; the shadow of that ominous fortress fell gloomily on its border. The guards came down. Between two rows of fixed bayonets Huger passed into the fortress. ”

“ While Lafayette was languishing in the dungeon at Olmütz, one of his great anxieties was for his Cayenne charge. He would have been even more unhappy if he had known that when the revolutionists took possession of his property, they caused that estate to be sold, together with all the slaves, who thus went back into slavery—a great inconsistency in those same revolutionists who imagined they were working for liberty and enfranchisement! ”

“ Many wonderful visitors came to La Grange, and in later years to the Paris home of the Lafayettes. There were Irish guests to tell tales of romance; there were Poles to plead the cause of their country; misguided American Indians were sometimes stranded there; Arabs from Algeria; negro officers in uniform from the French West Indies—all people who had the passion for freedom in their hearts naturally and inevitably gravitated to Lafayette. ”

“ In one respect the private tastes of Washington and Lafayette were similar; both dearly loved a farm. No one can visit Mount Vernon without feeling the presence there of a lover of growing things. From this productive place fine hams and bacon were forwarded to Lafayette and his family in France and were there eaten with the keenest relish. Fine birds were also sent—ducks, pheasants, and red partridges. In return Lafayette dispatched by request some special breeds of wolf hounds and a pair of jackasses; also, strange trees and plants, together with varied gifts such as Paris only could devise. ”