For one year more Rochambeau remained in America. Peace was a
possibility, not a certainty. In London, where so late as November 20,
the most encouraging news continued to be received, but where that of
the catastrophe, brought by the _Rattlesnake_, arrived on the 25th,
George III and his ministers refused to yield to evidence, Lord Germain
especially, for whom the shock had been great, and who was beseeching
Parliament "to proceed with vigor in the prosecution of the war and not
leave it in the power of the French to tell the Americans that they had
procured their independence, and were consequently entitled to a
preference, if not an exclusive right, in their trade." This was not to
know us well; our treaty of commerce had been signed three years before,
at a time when anything would have been granted to propitiate France,
but there was not in it, as we saw, one single advantage that was not
equally accessible to any one who chose, the English included.
As for King George, he decided that the 8th of February, 1782, would be
a day of national fasting, to ask pardon for past sins, and implore
Heaven's assistance in the prosecution of the war. Franklin was still
beseeching his compatriots to be on their guard: "It seems the [English]
nation is sick of [the war] ... but the King is obstinate.... The
ministry, you will see, declare that the war in America is for the
future to be only _defensive_. I hope we shall be too prudent to have
the least dependence on this declaration. It is only thrown out to lull
us; for, depend upon it, the King hates us cordially, and will be
content with nothing short of our extirpation."[56]
With his French _admiratrices_ the sage exchanged merry, picturesque
letters. Madame Brillon writes, in French, from Nice on the 11th of
December, 1781: "My dear Papa, I am sulky with you ... yes, Mr. Papa, I
am sulky. What! You capture whole armies in America, you burgoynize
Cornwallis, you capture guns, ships, ammunition, men, horses, etc.,
etc., you capture everything and of everything, and only the gazette
informs your friends, who go off their heads drinking your health, that
of Washington, of independence, of the King of France, of the Marquis de
Lafayette, of Mr. de Rochambeau, Mr. de Chastellux, etc., and you give
them no sign of life!..."
With his valiant pen, which feared nothing, not even French grammar,
Franklin answered: "Passy, 25 Décembre 1781.--Vous me boudés, ma chère
amie, que je n'avois pas vous envoyé tout de suite l'histoire de notre
grande victoire. Je suis bien sensible de la magnitude de notre avantage
et de ses possibles bonnes conséquences, mais je ne triomphe pas.
Sçachant que la guerre est pleine de variétés et d'incertitudes, dans la
mauvaise fortune j'espère la bonne, et dans la bonne je crains la
mauvaise."
The future continued doubtful. In June Washington was still writing: "In
vain is it to expect that our aim is to be accomplished by fond wishes
for peace, and equally ungenerous and fruitless will it be for one State
to depend upon another to bring this to pass."[57] French and American
regiments remained, therefore, under arms and waited, but scarcely did
anything on the continent but wait. For if George III was still for war,
the mass of his people were not. 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
merriment. "On New Year's Day the custom of the French to embrace, even
in the street, caused much American laughter," but, the young aide
observes with some spite, "their _shake hands_, on the other side, those
more or less prolonged and sometimes very hard-pressed twitchings of the
hands are certainly on a par with European embracings."
Rochambeau had established himself at Williamsburg, the quiet and
dignified capital of the then immense State of Virginia, noted for its
"Bruton church," its old College of William and Mary, designed by Sir
Christopher Wren, and the birthplace of the far-famed Phi Beta Kappa
fraternity, its statue of the former English governor, Lord
Botetourt,[58] in conspicuous marble wig and court mantle. "America,
behold your friend," the inscription on the pedestal reads.
That other friend of America, Rochambeau, took up his quarters in the
college, one of the buildings of which, used as a hospital for our
troops, accidentally took fire, but was at once paid for by the French
commander. Seeing more of the population, Rochambeau was noting a number
of traits which were to be taken up again by Tocqueville, the diffusion
of the ideas of religious tolerance, the absence of privileges, equality
put into practise. "The husbandman in his habitation is neither a
castellated lord nor a tenant, but a landowner." It takes him thirty to
forty years to rise from "the house made of logs and posts," with the
house "of well-joined boards" as an intermediary stage, to the "house in
bricks, which is the acme of their architecture." Labor is expensive and
is paid a dollar a day. The country has three million inhabitants, but
will easily support a little more than thirty, which was not such a bad
guess since the thirteen States of Rochambeau's day have now
thirty-seven. Men are fond of English furniture, and women "have a great
liking for French fashions." In every part where the ravages of the war
have not been felt people live at their ease, "and the little negro is
ever busy clearing and laying the table."
Faithful Closen, who had been proposed for promotion on account of his
gallant conduct at the siege, accompanied the general everywhere, and
also explored separately, on his own account, led sometimes by his
fondness for animals, of which he was making "a small collection, some
living and some stuffed ones, only too glad if they can please the
persons for whom I destine them." He takes notes on raccoons,
investigates opossums, and visits a marsh "full of subterranean
habitations of beavers," and he sees them at work. He is also present at
one of those cock-fights so popular then in the region, "but the sight
is a little too cruel to allow one to derive enjoyment from it."
Sent to Portsmouth with letters for Mr. de Vaudreuil, in command of our
fleet, Closen becomes acquainted "with a very curious animal which the
people of the region call a musk-cat, but which I believe to be the
_puant_" (the stinking one), and a careful description shows that, in
any case, the name well fitted the animal. He also studies groundhogs on
the same occasion. The charm and picturesqueness of wild life in
American forests is a trait which French officers noted with amused
curiosity in their journals. Describing his long journey on foot from
the Chesapeake, where he had been shipwrecked, to Valley Forge, where he
was to become aide to his Auvergnat compatriot, Lafayette, youthful
Pontgibaud, with no luggage nor money left, sleeping in the open, writes
of the beauty of birds, and the delightful liveliness of innumerable
little squirrels, "who jumped from branch to branch, from tree to tree,
around me. They seemed to accompany the triumphal march of a young
warrior toward glory.... It is a fact that, with their jumps, their
gambols, that quantity of little dancers, so nimble, so clever, retarded
my walk.... Such is the way with people of eighteen; the present moment
makes them forget all the rest."[59]
Rochambeau, his son, and two aides, one of whom was Closen, journey to
visit at Monticello the already famous Jefferson; they take with them
fourteen horses, sleep in the houses where they chance to be at
nightfall, a surprise party which may, at times, have caused
embarrassment, but this accorded with the customs of the day. The
hospitality is, according to occasions, brilliant or wretched, "with a
bed for the general, as ornamented as the canopy for a procession," and
elsewhere "with rats which come and tickle our ears." They reach the
handsome house of the "philosopher," adorned with a colonnade, "the
platform of which is very prettily fitted with all sorts of mythological
scenes."
The lord of the place dazzles his visitors by his encyclopædic
knowledge. Closen describes him as "very learned in belles-lettres, in
history, in geography, etc., etc., being better versed than any in the
statistics of America in general, and the interests of each particular
province, trade, agriculture, soil, products, in a word, all that is of
greatest use to know. The least detail of the wars here since the
beginning of the troubles is familiar to him. He speaks all the chief
languages to perfection, and his library is well chosen, and even rather
large in spite of a visit paid to the place by a detachment of
Tarleton's legion, which has proved costly and has greatly frightened
his family."
Numerous addresses expressing fervent gratitude were received by
Rochambeau, from Congress, from the legislatures of the various States,
from the universities, from the mayor and inhabitants of Williamsburg,
the latter offering their thanks not only for the services rendered by
the general in his "military capacity," but, they said, "for your
conduct in the more private walks of life, and the happiness we have
derived from the social, polite, and very friendly intercourse we have
been honored with by yourself and the officers of the French army in
general, during the whole time of your residence among us." The
favorable impression left by an army permeated with the growing
humanitarian spirit, is especially mentioned in several of those
addresses: "May Heaven," wrote "the Governor, council and
representatives of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
in General Assembly convened," "reward your exertions in the cause of
humanity and the particular regard you have paid to the rights of the
citizens."
Writing at the moment when departure was imminent, the Maryland Assembly
recalled in its address the extraordinary prejudices prevailing shortly
before in America against all that was French: "To preserve in troops
far removed from their own country the strictest discipline and _to
convert into esteem and affection deep and ancient prejudices_ was
reserved for you.... We view with regret the departure of troops which
have so conducted, so endeared, and so distinguished themselves, and we
pray that the laurels they have gathered before Yorktown may never fade,
and that victory, to whatever quarter of the globe they direct their
arms, may follow their standard."
The important result of a change in American sentiment toward the
French, apart from the military service rendered by them, was confirmed
to Rochambeau by La Luzerne, who wrote him: "Your well-behaved and brave
army has not only contributed to put an end to the success of the
English in this country, but has destroyed in three years prejudices
deep-rooted for three centuries."[60]
The "President and professors of the University of William and Mary,"
using a style which was to become habitual in France but a few years
later, desired to address Rochambeau, "not in the prostituted language
of fashionable flattery, but with the voice of truth and republican
sincerity," and, after thanks for the services rendered and the payment
made for the building destroyed "by an accident that often eludes all
possible precaution," they adverted to the future intellectual
intercourse between the two nations, saying: "Among the many
substantial advantages which this country hath already derived, and
which must ever continue to flow from its connection with France, we are
persuaded that the improvement of useful knowledge will not be the
least. A number of distinguished characters in your army afford us the
happiest presage that science as well as liberty will acquire vigor from
the fostering hand of your nation."
They concluded: "You have reaped the noblest laurels that victory can
bestow, and it is, perhaps, not an inferior triumph to have obtained the
sincere affection of a grateful people."
In order to "foster," as the authors of the address said, such
sentiments as to a possible intellectual intercourse, the French King
sent to this university, as the college was then called, "two hundred
volumes of the greatest and best French works," but, La Rochefoucauld
adds after having seen them in 1796, they arrived greatly damaged,
"because the Richmond merchant who had undertaken to convey them to the
college forgot them for a pretty long time in his cellar in the midst of
his oil and sugar barrels." Fire has since completed the havoc, so that
of the two hundred only two are now left, exhibited under glass in the
library-museum of the college. They are parts of the works of Bailly,
then of European fame as an astronomer and scientist, who was, however,
to count in history for something else than his _Traité sur l'Atlantide
de Platon_, for he was the same Bailly who a few years later presided
over the National Assembly, sending to the royal purchaser of his works
the famous reply: "The nation assembled can receive no orders," and who,
two days after the fall of the Bastille, was acclaimed by the crowd
mayor of Paris, while Lafayette was acclaimed commander-in-chief of the
National Guard.
Another gift of books was sent, with the same intent, by the King of
France to the University of Pennsylvania, and, though many have
disappeared, the fate of this collection has been happier. A number of
those volumes are still in use at Philadelphia, works which had been
selected as being likely to prove of greatest advantage, on science,
surgery, history, voyages, and bearing the honored names of Buffon, of
Darwin's forerunner, Lamarck, of Joinville, Bougainville, the
Bénédictins (_Art de vérifier les Dates_), and the same Bailly.
Rochambeau, who had begun learning English, set himself the task of
translating the addresses received by him, and several such versions in
his handwriting figure among his papers.
Closen, intrusted with the care of taking to Congress the general's
answer to its congratulations, rode at the rate of over one hundred
miles a day, slept "a few hours in a bed not meant to let any one
oversleep himself, thanks either to its comfort or to the biting and
abundant company in it," met by chance at Alexandria "the young,
charming, and lovely daughter-in-law of General Washington," Mrs.
Custis, and the praise of her is, from now on, ceaseless: "I had already
heard pompous praise of her, but I confess people had not exaggerated.
This lady is of such a gay disposition, so prepossessing, with such
perfect education, that she cannot fail to please everybody." He hands
his despatches to Congress, some to Washington, returns at the same rate
of speed, having as guide a weaver, so anxious to be through with his
job (two couriers had just been killed), that he rode at the maddest
pace. He reached Williamsburg on the 11th of May, having covered,
deduction made of the indispensable stoppings, "nine hundred and eighty
miles in less than nine times twenty-four hours."
As the summer of 1782 was drawing near, the French army, which had
wintered in Virginia, moved northward in view of possible operations.
This was for Closen an occasion to visit Mount Vernon, where Rochambeau
had stopped with Washington the year before when on their way to
Yorktown. "The house," says the aide, "is quite vast and perfectly
distributed, with handsome furniture, and is admirably kept, without
luxury. There are two pavilions connected with it, and a number of farm
buildings.... Behind the pavilion on the right is an immense garden,
with the most exquisite fruit in the country."
Mrs. Washington gracefully entertains the visitor, as well as Colonel de
Custine, the same who was to win and lose battles and die beheaded in
the French Revolution. Some ten officers of the Saintonge regiment,
which was in the neighborhood, are also received. "Mr. de Bellegarde
came ahead of Mr. de Custine, and brought, on his behalf, a porcelain
service, from his own manufacture, at Niderviller, near Phalsbourg, of
great beauty and in the newest taste, with the arms of General
Washington, and his monogram surmounted by a wreath of laurel.[61] Mrs.
Washington was delighted with Mr. de Custine's attention, and most
gracefully expressed her gratitude."
All leave that same evening except Closen, who had again found there the
incomparable Mrs. Custis (whose silhouette he took and inserted in his
journal), and who remained "one day more, being treated with the utmost
affability by these ladies, whose society," he notes, "was most sweet
and pleasant to me." He leaves at last, "rather sad."
Moving northward by night marches, the troops again start not later than
two o'clock in the morning, as in the previous summer; the French
officers notice the extraordinary progress realized since their first
visit. At Wilmington, says Closen, "some fifty brick houses have been
built, very fine and large, since we first passed, which gives a
charming appearance to the main street." At Philadelphia La Luzerne is
ready with another magnificent entertainment; a Dauphin has been born to
France, and a beautiful hall has been built on purpose for the intended
banquet by "a French officer serving in the American corps of
Engineers," Major L'Enfant, the future designer of the future "federal
city."
On the 14th of August Washington and Rochambeau were again together, in
the vicinity of the North River, and the American troops were again
reviewed by the French general. They are no longer in tatters, but well
dressed, and have a fine appearance; their bearing, their manoeuvres are
perfect; the commander-in-chief, "who causes his drums," Rochambeau
relates, "to beat the French March," is delighted to show his soldiers
to advantage; everybody compliments him.
During his stay at Providence, in the course of his journey north,
Rochambeau gave numerous fêtes, a charming picture of which, as well as
of the American society attending them, is furnished us by Ségur: "Mr.
de Rochambeau, desirous to the very last of proving by the details of
his conduct, as well as by the great services he had rendered, how much
he wished to keep the affection of the Americans and to carry away their
regrets, gave in the city of Providence frequent assemblies and numerous
balls, to which people flocked from ten leagues around.
"I do not remember to have seen gathered together in any other spot more
gayety and less confusion, more pretty women and more happily married
couples, more grace and less coquetry, a more complete mingling of
persons of all classes, between whom an equal decency allowed no
untoward difference to be seen. That decency, that order, that wise
liberty, that felicity of the new Republic, so ripe from its very
cradle, were the continual subject of my surprise and the object of my
frequent talks with the Chevalier de Chastellux."[62]