[1] Concerning his American campaign, in which he greatly distinguished
himself, he wrote later: "In itself, war did not interest me, but its
object interested me keenly, and I willingly took part in its labors. I
said to myself: 'I want the end; I must adopt the means.'" _OEuvres_,
1865, I, 11. He was wounded and promoted.
[2] _Magazine of American History_, March, 1880, ff.
[3] A quite handsome house, now the offices of the Ministry of Labor.
The gardens no longer exist.
[4] _Mémoires militaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau,
ancien maréchal de France et grand officier de la Légion d'honneur_,
Paris, 1809, 2 vols., I, 235.
[5] "On a soutenu," said Pontgibaud, later Comte de Moré, one of
Lafayette's aides, in a conversation with Alexander Hamilton, "que
l'intérêt bien entendu de la France était de rester neutre et de
profiter de l'embarras de l'Angleterre pour se faire restituer le
Canada." But this would have been going against the general trend of
public opinion, and a contrary course was followed. _Mémoires du Comte
de Moré_, Paris, 1898, p. 169.
[6] _Mémoires, souvenirs et anecdotes_, Paris, 1824, 3 vols., I, 140.
English translation, London, 1825.
[7] _OEuvres_, vol. IX, Paris, 1810, pp. 377 ff.
[8] _OEuvres_, IX, 417.
[9] January, 1781.
[10] He ends his dedication stating that he may fail and may have
dreamed a mere dream, but he should not be blamed: "Le délire d'un
citoyen qui rêve au bonheur de sa patrie a quelque chose de
respectable." _Essai Général de Tactique précédé d'un Discours sur
l'état actuel de la politique et de la science militaire en Europe_,
London, 1772; Liége, 1775.
[11] _Writings_, Smythe, VIII, 390, 391.
[12] Both signed at Paris on the same day, February 6, 1778.
[13] Vergennes had written in the same way to the Marquis de Noailles,
French ambassador in London: "Our engagements are simple; they are
aggressive toward nobody; we have desired to secure for ourselves no
advantage of which other nations might be jealous, and which the
Americans themselves might regret, in the course of time, to have
granted us." Doniol, _Participation de la France à l'établissement des
Etats Unis_, II, 822.
[14] 1 November 11, 1778.
[15] _Souvenirs du Lieutenant Général Comte Mathieu-Dumas, de 1770 à
1836_, Paris, 3 vols., I, 36.
[16] _Literary Diary_, September 11, 1779; New York, 1901, 3 vols.
[17] Wooden shoes, a nickname for a ship of mean estate.
[18] So called after its owner, Samuel Fraunces (Francis or François)
from the French West Indies, nicknamed "Black Sam" for the color of his
skin.
[19] _Nouveau Voyage dans l'Amérique Septentrionale en l'année 1781 et
campagne de l'armée de M. le comte de Rochambeau_, Philadelphia, 1782.
[20] _Literary Diary_, New York, 1901, II, 454.
[21] To Rochambeau; n.d., but 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[22] Writing to the president of Yale, July 29, 1778, Silas Deane, just
about to return to France, recommended the creation of a chair of
French: "This language is not only spoke in all the courts, but daily
becomes more and more universal among people of business as well as men
of letters, in all the principal towns and cities of Europe." Ezra
Stiles consulted a number of friends; the majority were against or in
doubt, "Mr. C---- violently against, because of popery." _Literary
Diary_, August 24, 1778, New York, 1901, II, 297. See also, concerning
the prevalent impressions about the French the _Mémoires du Comte de
Moré_, 1898, p. 69.
[23] August 8, 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
[24] August 3, 1780. (_Ibid._)
[25] Stiles's _Literary Diary_, II, 458.
[26] Rodney "has left here two months ago without our being able to
guess whither he was going.... Maybe you know better than I do where he
may presently be....
"We have just suffered from a terrible tornado, which has been felt in
all the Windward Islands; it has caused cruel havoc. A convoy of
fifty-two sails, arrived the day before in the roadstead of
Saint-Pierre, Martinique, has been driven out to sea, and has
disappeared for now a fortnight; five ships only returned here, the
others may have reached San Domingo or must have perished. An English
ship of the line of 44 guns, the _Endymion_, and two frigates, the
_Laurel_ and the _Andromeda_, of the same nationality, have perished on
our coasts; we have saved some of their sailors." Marquis de Bouillé to
Rochambeau, Fort Royal (Fort de France), October 27, 1780. (Rochambeau
papers.)
[27] Three Saint-Simons took part in the American War of Independence,
all relatives of the famous duke, the author of the memoirs: the Marquis
Claude Anne (1740-1819), the Baron Claude (retired, 1806), and the Count
Claude Henri (1760-1825), then a very young officer, the future founder
of the Saint-Simonian sect, and first philosophical master of Auguste
Comte.
[28] January 7, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)
[29] _Histoire des Troubles de l'Amérique Anglaise_, by Soulès;
Clinton's copy, in the Library of Congress, p. 360.
[30] January 15, 1781.
[31] Specimens exhibited by the doctor's descendant in the Fraunces's
Tavern Museum.
[32] In English in the original.
[33] _Voyages de M. le Marquis de Chastellux dans l'Amérique
Septentrionale, dans les années 1780, 1781 et 1782_, Paris, 1786, 2
vols., I, 118.
[34] Now the property of the Charity Organization Society. See _A
History of the Vernon House_, by Maud Lyman Stevens, Newport, R.I.,
1915. Illustrated.
[35] To Rochambeau, June 30, 1781.
[36] This island's aspect fifteen years later is thus described by Duke
de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: "Enfin nous sommes arrivés à King's
Bridge dans l'île de New York, où le terrain, généralement mauvais, est
encore en mauvais bois dans les parties les plus éloignées de la ville,
et où il est cependant couvert de fermes et surtout de maisons de
campagne dans les six ou sept milles qui s'en approchent davantage et
dans les parties qui avoisinent la rivière du Nord et le bras de mer qui
sépare cette île de Long Island." _Voyage_, V, 300.
[37] The convoy was carrying to England the enormous booty taken by
Rodney at St. Eustatius. Eighteen of its ships were captured by La
Motte-Picquet (May 2, 1781) and thus reached France instead of England.
Toward the Hessians, however, the feeling was different. Some had
deserted to enlist in Lauzun's legion, but they almost immediately
counterdeserted, upon which Rochambeau wrote to Lauzun: "You have done
the best in deciding never to pester yourself again with Hessian
deserters, of whom, you know, I never had a good opinion." Newport,
December 22, 1780.
[38] July 8, 1781.
[39] April 13, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)
[40] July 14, 1781.
[41] In June, 1867, by S.A. Green, who printed it with an English
translation: _My Campaigns in America, a journal kept by Count William
de Deux-Ponts_, Boston, 1868.
[42] The house at the entrance of the Pont-Neuf, where the _Petit
Dunkerque_ was established, being then the most famous "magasin de
frivolités" in existence, survived until July, 1914. The sign of the
shop, a little ship with the inscription, "Au Petit Dunkerque," was
still there. It has been preserved and is now in the Carnavalet Museum.
[43] Washington's joy was in proportion to the acuteness of his
anxieties; only three days before he was writing to Lafayette: "But, my
dear marquis, I am distressed beyond expression to know what has become
of Count de Grasse, and for fear that the English fleet, by occupying
the Chesapeake, toward which, my last accounts say, they were steering,
may frustrate all our prospects in that quarter.... Adieu, my dear
marquis; if you get anything new from any quarter, send it, I pray you,
_on the spur of speed_, for I am almost all impatience and anxiety."
Philadelphia, September 2, 1781.
[44] September 7, 1781.
[45] Graves had rightly supposed that, to have been able to start so
quickly, de Grasse must have caused some of his ships to cut their
anchors' cables, marking the spot with buoys. The two frigates had been
sent to gather those buoys, and were bringing several as a prize to the
English admiral, when they were captured. (_Journal Particulier_, by
Count de Revel, sublieutenant in the regiment of "Monsieur-Infanterie,"
p. 131.) On the 15th of September Washington wrote to de Grasse: "I am
at a loss to express the pleasure which I have in congratulating your
Excellency ... on the glory of having driven the British fleet from the
coast and taking two of their frigates."
[46] _History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1787_, by Lieutenant-Colonel
Tarleton, commandant of the late British Legion, Dublin, 1787, pp. 403
ff.
[47] A minute "Journal of the Siege" was kept by Mr. de Ménonville, aide
major-general, a translation of which is in the _Magazine of American
History_, 1881, VII, 283.
[48] The city of Gloucester consisted of "four houses on a promontory
facing York," but very well defended by trenches, ditches, redoubts,
manned by a garrison of 1,200 men. (Count de Revel, _Journal
Particulier_, p. 171.) A detailed account of the Gloucester siege is in
this journal. Choisy "had previously won a kind of fame by his defense
of the citadel of Cracow, in Poland." (_Ibid._, p. 139.)
[49] As early as 1796, when La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visited it, the
city, formerly a prosperous one, had become a borough of 800
inhabitants, two-thirds of which were colored. "The inhabitants," says
the traveller, "are without occupation. Some retail spirits or cloth;
some are called lawyers, some justices of the peace. Most of them have,
at a short distance from the town, a small farm, which they go and visit
every morning, but that scarcely fills the mind or time; and the
inhabitants of York, who live on very good terms with each other, occupy
both better in dining together, drinking punch, playing billiards; to
introduce more variety in this monotonous kind of life, they often
change the place where they meet.... The name of Marshal de Rochambeau
is still held there in great veneration." _Voyage dans les Etats-Unis_,
Paris, "An VII," vol. VI, p. 283.
[50] _Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United
States_, Philadelphia, 1812, II, 343. In the same spirit Pontgibaud
notes that the British army laid down its arms "to the noble confusion
of its brave and unfortunate soldiers." _Mémoires du Comte de Moré_
(Pontgibaud), 1898, p. 104.
[51] Same good feeling on the Gloucester side. After the surrender, "les
officiers anglais vinrent voir nos officiers qui étaient de service,
leur firent toutes les honnêtetés possible, et burent à leur santé."
(Revel, _Journal Particulier_, p. 168.) The British fleet appeared only
on the 27th of October, at the entrance of the capes; thirty-one sails
were counted on that day and forty-four on the next; after the 29th they
were no longer seen. "Nous avons su depuis," Revel writes, "que l'Amiral
Graves avait dans son armée le général Clinton, avec des troupes venues
de New York pour secourir lord Cornwallis. Mais il était trop tard; la
poule était mangée, et l'un et l'autre prirent le parti de s'en
retourner." (_Ibid._, p. 178.)
[52] The work of Gabriel Brizard, a popular writer in his day: _Fragment
de Xenophon, nouvellement trouvé dans les ruines de Palmyre par un
Anglois et déposé au Museum Britannicum--Traduit du Grec par un
François_, Paris, 1783.
[53] General Eliott, later Lord Heathfield, defender of Gibraltar, well
known in France not only as an enemy, but as a former pupil of the
military school at La Fère.
[54] Mathieu-Dumas availed himself of his stay in Boston before sailing
to go and visit, with some of his brother officers, several of the
heroes of independence--Hancock, John Adams, Doctor Cooper: "We listened
with avidity to the latter, who, while applauding our enthusiasm for
liberty, said to us: 'Take care, take care, young men, that the triumph
of the cause on this virgin soil does not influence overmuch your hopes;
you will carry away with you the germ of these generous sentiments, but
if you attempt to fecund them on your native soil, after so many
centuries of corruption, you will have to surmount many more obstacles;
it cost us much blood to conquer liberty; but you will shed torrents
before you establish it in your old Europe.' How often since, during our
political turmoils, in the course of our _bad days_, did I not recall to
mind the prophetic leave-taking of Doctor Cooper. But the inestimable
prize which the Americans secured in exchange for their sacrifices was
never absent from my thought." (_Souvenirs du Lieutenant-Général Comte
Mathieu-Dumas, publiés par son fils_, I, 108.) The writer notices the
early formation of a "national character, in spite of the similitude of
language, customs, manners, religion, principles of government with the
English." (_Ibid._, 113.)
[55] _OEuvres_, 1865, I, 12.
[56] To Robert Livingston, Passy, March 4, 1782.
[57] To Archibald Cary, June 15, 1782.
[58] White marble; signed and dated, Richard Hayward, London, 1773.
[59] _Mémoires du Comte de Moré_ (formerly Chevalier de Pontgibaud),
1898, p. 56; first ed., Paris, 1827, one of Balzac's ventures as a
printer.
[60] October 8, 1782. This letter, as well as the addresses, in the
Rochambeau papers.
[61] A large bowl from the original set is preserved in the National
Museum (Smithsonian Institution) at Washington. It bears only the
monogram and not the family arms. The wreath is of roses with a foliage
which may be laurel.
[62] _Mémoires, souvenirs et anecdotes_, I, 402.
[63] On which occasion the Marquis de Vaudreuil, in command of the
fleet, wrote him from Boston, November 18, 1782: "Je suis vraiment
touché, Monsieur, de ne pouvoir pas avoir l'honneur de vous voir ici; je
m'estimais heureux de renouveler la connaissance que j'avais faite avec
vous à Brest chez M. d'Orvilliers. Mais je ne puis qu'applaudir au parti
que vous prenez d'éviter la tristesse des adieux et les témoignages de
la sensibilité de tous vos officiers en se voyant séparés de leur chef
qu'ils respectent et chérissent sincèrement." (Rochambeau papers.)
[64] An anecdote in the _Autobiography_ of John Trumbull, the painter,
well shows how lasting were the feelings for the land and the people
taken home with them by the French. The artist tells of his reaching
Mulhouse in 1795, finding it "full of troops," with no accommodation of
any sort. He is taken to the old general in command:
"The veteran looked at me keenly and asked bluntly: 'Who are you, an
Englishman?'
"'No, general, I am an American of the United States.'
"'Ah! do you know Connecticut?'
"'Yes, sir, it is my native State.'
"'You know, then, the good Governor Trumbull?'
"'Yes, general, he is my father.'
"'Oh! mon Dieu, que je suis charmé.... Entrez, entrez!'"
And all that is best is placed at the disposal of the newcomer by the
soldier, who turns out to be a former member of the Lauzun legion. The
artist adds: "The old general kept me up almost all night, inquiring of
everybody and of everything in America." Some papers are brought for him
to sign, which he does with his left hand, and, Trumbull noticing it,
"'Yes,' said he, 'last year, in Belgium, the Austrians cut me to pieces
and left me for dead, but I recovered, and, finding my right hand
ruined, I have learned to use my left, and I can write and fence with it
tolerably.'
"'But, sir,' said I, 'why did you not retire from service?'
"'Retire!' exclaimed he. 'Ha! I was born in a camp, have passed all my
life in the service, and will die in a camp, or on the field.'
"This is," Trumbull concludes, "a faithful picture of the military
enthusiasm of the time--1795."
[65] "... An inscription engraved on them, expressive of the occasion.
I find a difficulty in getting the engraving properly executed. When it
will be finished, I shall with peculiar pleasure put the cannon into
your possession." Washington to Rochambeau, February 2, 1782.
[66] De Grasse died in January, 1788. "The Cincinnati in some of the
States have gone into mourning for him." Washington to Rochambeau, April
28, 1788.
[67] Jefferson seems to have feared that the souvenir of Rochambeau
might soon fade. He wrote to Madison, February 8, 1786: "Count
Rochambeau, too, has deserved more attention than he has received. Why
not set up his bust, that of Gates, Greene, Franklin in your new
Capitol?" No bust was placed in the Capitol, but the raising of the
statue in Lafayette Square, Washington, in 1902, has proved that, after
so many years, Rochambeau was not forgotten in America.
[68] May 28, 1788.
[69] In a letter of July 31, 1789, Rochambeau informs Washington of
Barlow's arrival, "and I made him all the good reception that he
deserves by himself and by the honorable commendation that you give to
him." In Rochambeau's English; Washington papers.
[70] Fr., "en petit comité"--a small party of friends.
[71] January 7, 1786. Washington papers.
[72] Paris, June, 1785 (_ibid._)
[73] "Rochambeau near Vendôme, April 11, 1790."
[74] Here is this letter in full:
Paris the 18th November, 1790.