Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Rochambeau

“ Luckier than many of his companions in arms of the American war, than Lauzun, Custine, d'Estaing, Broglie, Dillon, and others, Rochambeau escaped the scaffold. He lived long enough to see rise to glory that young man who was teaching the world better military tactics than even the book of Count de Guibert, Bonaparte, now First Consul of the French Republic. Bonaparte had great respect for the old marshal, who was presented to him by the minister of war in 1803 ”

“ All wanted to see him, and as soon as permission to travel was granted several managed to reach his camp. For all of them, different as they might be in rank and character, the impression was the same and fulfilled expectation, beginning with Rochambeau, who saw him for the first time at the Hartford conferences, in September, 1780, when they tried to draw a first plan for a combined action. A friendship then commenced between the two that was long to survive those eventful years. ”

“ Rochambeau thought he had extinguished the fire of the little redoubt, and would fain storm it. The blacks had protected it by an abatis ten feet deep and three in height, in which our gallant ally of the Revolution entangled himself, and was held there till he had lost three hundred men, and gained nothing.
"Thus the Crête-à-Pierrot, in which (and in the small redoubt) there were hardly twelve hundred men, [34] had already cost us more than fifteen hundred in sheer loss. ”

“ A distinguished veteran of three wars in Europe, Rochambeau came to America at the head of 5,000 French regulars to succor the Thirteen Colonies in their struggle for liberty. A more experienced soldier and an older man than Washington, the French general, with admirable spirit and magnanimity, placed himself and his troops unreservedly under the American commander-in-chief, serving as an integral part of the colonial forces. ”

“ Rochambeau had fought at the second battle of Minden, where the father of La Fayette had fallen, and he had for the ardent young Frenchman the amiable regard of a father and sometimes rebuked his impulsiveness in that spirit. He studied the 231 problem in America with the insight of a trained leader. ”

“ Rochambeau availed himself of his leisure to visit the accessible parts of the country, give calls and dinners to his neighbors, study the manners and resources of the inhabitants, go fox-hunting "through the woods, accompanied by some twenty sportsmen. We have forced more than thirty foxes; the packs of hounds of the local gentlemen are perfect," states Closen. The different usages of the French and the Americans are for each other a cause of merri [100] ment. ”

“ I have the honor to send to your Excellency an open packet for the Count de Rochambeau. You will there find the copy of a letter to me from M. Destouches. I lament the ill success of an expedition, 461 which, if it had succeeded, would have been doubly agreeable to us by its utility to our allies, and by the honor it would have reflected upon the arms of the King. As to the rest, it appears that our commanders have fulfilled this latter point, and all the world is satisfied, that, having a superior force to contend against, the manner of the contest has been highly honorable to them. ”

“ On the 21st of August a committee of the General Assembly of the State, at that time in session at Newport, presented Rochambeau and De Ternay with a formal address of welcome. De Rochambeau's reply was full of manliness and good-will. He said, "The French troops are restrained by the strictest discipline, and, acting under General Washington, will live with the Americans as their brethren. I assure the General Assembly that as brethren not only my life, but the lives of the troops under my command, are entirely devoted to their service." ”

“ A happy marriage with annals brief When still very young, Rochambeau had contracted one of those marriages so numerous in the eighteenth, as in every other, century, of which nothing is said in the memoirs and letters of the period, because they were what they should be—happy ones. Every right-minded and right-hearted man will find less pleasure in the sauciest anecdote told by Lauzun than in the simple and brief lines written in his old age by Rochambeau: “My good star gave me such a wife as I could desire ”

“ The officers of Count de Rochambeau had nothing better to do [after Yorktown] , I believe, than to visit the country. When one thinks of the false ideas of government and philanthropy with the virus of which these youths were infected in America, and which they were to enthusiastically propagate in France, with such lamentable success—since that mania for imitation has powerfully helped toward the Revolution, without being its unique cause—people will agree that all those red-heeled young philosophers had much better, for their sake and ours, have stayed at court.... ”

“ The British army did not come out with drums beating, colours flying, and all the honours of war, but was forced to defile between a double row of French and Americans, and lay down their arms, to the shame and confusion of their brave and unfortunate soldiers. Marquis Cornwallis wished to give up his sword to Comte de Rochambeau, but the French general made a sign with his hand to show that the honour of receiving it belonged to Washington as the commander-in-chief. ”

“ The approach of the French fleet favoured a plan of attack which might result in a general and decisive engagement, and Comte de Rochambeau at last left Rhode Island. Washington's army embarked, joined the French forces, and we hemmed in the principal British army which then occupied Virginia and was in position at York Town. ”

“ Women are very pretty, “of charming manners, and very well dressed, even in French fashion.” Benezet, the French Quaker, one of the celebrities of the city, is found to be full of wisdom, and La Luzerne, “who keeps a state worthy of his sovereign,” gives a dinner to one hundred and eighty guests.
From Philadelphia to Chester, on the 5th of September, Rochambeau and his aides took a boat. As they were nearing the latter city, “we saw in the distance,” says Closen, “General Washington shaking his hat and a white handkerchief, and showing signs of great joy.”
Great news! De Grasse had come! ”

“ A man did I say? An angel, a patriot, a true patriot; none of your swearing, drinking, hiccupping, lolloping loafers, who think if they consume enough strong liquor that the reign of liberty will come floating down their throats of itself. He is a worker this one; sober and industrious is our Citizen Dangeau, and a Deputy of the Commune, too, no less."
Mlle de Rochambeau, slightly dazed by this flow of conversation, felt a cold chill pass over her. Commissioners of the Commune, Deputies of the Commune! Was Paris full of them? And till this morning she had never heard of the Commune ”

“ Rosalie's fat shoulders went shrugging up to Rosalie's thick, red ears.
"Is what true?" she asked. "It is certainly true that you have slept fourteen hours, no less; long enough to dream anything. They called it laziness when I was young, my girl."
Mlle de Rochambeau joined both hands about her wrist. "Tell me—only tell me, Madame—I heard—oh, God!—I heard a man in the street—he said"—shuddering—"he said the prisoners were all murdered—and my cousin—oh, my poor cousin!" Words brought her tears, and she covered her face from Rosalie's convincing nod. ”

“ There is also a statue of Marshal Rochambeau, born at Vendôme in 1725. There are some interesting houses of the 15th and 16th centuries. Vendôme has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance. The river supplies motive power to flouMnills, and the town manufactures gloves, paper and carved mouldings; and carries on tanning and nursery-gardening together with trade in butter and cheese. ”

“ The Duke de Rochefoucauld died with philosophic tranquillity, at Paris, in 1680, in his sixty-eighth year. This nobleman wrote "Mémoires de la Règne d'Anne d'Autriche," 2 vols. 12mo., 1713, an energetic and faithful representation of that fretful predicament as Macihiavelli with regard to political morality. J. J. Rousseau, who was certainly not free from selfishness, has abused La Rochefoucauld's maxims, and yet, in his "Emile," he observes that "selfishness is the mainspring of all our actions;" ”

“ Irritated and disgusted, Rochefoucauld went with the Duc d'Enghein, who was then joining the army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was the cause of his taking the side of Condé in the subsequent civil war. Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. ”

“ Duncombe was a good-looking and agreeable man, popular alike in society and in his constituency of Finsbury. He had the reputation of being the best-dressed man in the house, and was a fluent, though eccentric, speaker. ”

“ If he had died when he was thirty, or at the close of the career of Richelieu, nothing would have distinguished him from the mob of violent noblemen who made the streets of Paris a pandemonium.
To understand the influence of La Rochefoucauld it is even more needful than in most similar cases to form a clear idea of his character, and this can only be obtained by an outline of his remarkable career. François VI. Duke of La Rochefoucauld, as a typical Parisian, was born in the ducal palace in the rue des Petits-Champs, on September 15, 1613. ”

“ Yet it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so many contradictory opinions been given.
"Few books," says Mr. Hallam, "have been more highly extolled, or more severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, and that not only here, but also in France." Rousseau speaks of it as, "a sad and melancholy book," though he goes on to say "it is usually so in youth when we do not like seeing man as he is." ”

“ Duncombe made three unsuccessful attempts to enter parliament as member for the city of London, and then represented Downton a second time from 1702 until his death. In 1699 he was knighted, and in 1709 he served as lord mayor of London. Upon retiring from business in 1695 Duncombe caused some stir by giving the representatives of the duke of Buckingham a high price for an estate at Helmsley in Yorkshire, where he built a magnificent house. ”

“ The physicians impressed upon Lady Roehampton that this night-work must absolutely cease. A neglect of their advice must lead to serious consequences; following it, there was no reason why her husband should not live for years, and continue to serve the State. Lord Roehampton must leave the House of Commons; he must altogether change the order of his life; he must seek more amusement in society, and yet keep early hours ”

“ Roccabocca, by laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to commence that happy initiation of courtship when every man, be he ever so much a philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as time and nature will allow. ”

“ Lord Roxham was a fluent if not a brilliant talker, and under the animating influence of his lively rattle, Franceline’s spirits rose, and her hosts, who had hitherto seen her rather willing to be amused than amusing, were surprised to see with what graceful spirit she kept the ball going, bandying light repartee with Lord Roxham, and pricking Ponsonby into joining in the game with a liveliness that astonished him and enchanted his mother. The dowager chuckled inwardly, and applauded herself on the success of her little matrimonial scheme ”

“ From the time he ceased to take part in public life, Rochefoucauld's real glory began. Having acted the various parts of soldier, politician, and lover with but small success, he now commenced the part of moralist, by which he is known to the world.
Living in the most brilliant society that France possessed, famous from his writings, distinguished from the part he had taken in public affairs, he formed the centre of one of those remarkable French literary societies, a society which numbered among its members La Fontaine, Racine, Boileau. ”

“ Among the leaders of the Mountain, Danton aimed at the creation of a central Revolutionary Government, armed with absolute powers for the prosecution of the war; and he attacked the Girondins only when they themselves had rejected his support. Robespierre, himself the author of little beyond destruction, was the idol of those whom Rousseau's writings had filled with the idea of a direct exercise of sovereignty by the people. It was in the trial of the King that the Gironde first confessed its submission to the democracy of Paris. The Girondins in their hearts desired to save the King ”

“ He died at Paris on the 17th of March 1680, of the disease which had so long tormented him.
La Rochefoucauld’s character, if considered without the prejudice which a dislike to his ethical views has sometimes occasioned, is thoroughly respectable and even amiable. Like almost all his contemporaries, he saw in politics little more than a chessboard where the people at large were but pawns. ”

“ Rohscheimer!" exclaimed Adeler, in blank wonderment, "have you not been to bed?"
"What time?" muttered Rohscheimer, "what time——"
Sir Richard Haredale, who evidently thought that the financier had had one of his "heavy nights," smiled discreetly.
"Pull yourself together, Rohscheimer!" he said. "Just put your head under the tap and jump into a dressing-gown. The green one with golden dragons is the most unique. You'll have to hold an informal reception here in your dressing-room. We can't keep the Marquess waiting."
"The Marquess?" groaned Rohscheimer, clutching at his head. "The Marquess?" ”