(1757-1834)
[Illustration: Marquis de la Fayette.]
Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de la Fayette,[5]
one of the most celebrated men that France ever produced, was born
at Chavaignac, in Auvergne, on September 6, 1757, of a noble family,
with a long line of illustrious ancestors. Left an orphan at the age
of thirteen, he married, three years later, his cousin Anastasie,
Countess de Noailles. Inspired from the earliest age with a love of
freedom and aversion to constraint, the impulses of childhood became
the daydreams of youth and the realities of maturer life. Filled
with enthusiastic sympathy for the struggling colonies of America in
their contest with Great Britain, he offered his services to the
United States, and, though his enterprise was forbidden by the
French Government, hired a vessel, sailed for this country, landed
at Charleston in April, 1777, and proceeded to Philadelphia. His
advances having been treated by Congress with some coldness, by
reason of the incessant application of other foreigners for
commissions, he offered to serve as a volunteer and at his own
expense. Congress may be excused for having taken him at his word;
on July 31st it appointed him major-general, without pay the titular
honor, which carried with it no command, being, perhaps, the highest
ever given in America to a young man of nineteen years. Having
accepted the cordial invitation of General Washington, the
commander-in-chief, to live at his head-quarters and to serve on his
staff, Lafayette was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of
the Brandywine, on September 11th, and the intrepidity he displayed
in that engagement was equalled by the fortitude that he evinced
during the following winter, in which he shared the privations of
the American army in the wretched camp at Valley Forge. His fidelity
to Washington at this time, when the latter was maligned by secret
foes and conspired against by Conway's cabal, cemented the
friendship between those great men. Lafayette was soon afterward
detached to take command of an expedition that was to set out from
Albany, cross Lake Champlain on the ice, and invade Canada; but, on
arriving at the intended starting-point, and finding that no
adequate preparations had been made, he refused to repeat the
unfortunate experiment of Montgomery and Arnold of two years before,
and waited for suitable supplies to be sent to him before setting
out. These came not, the ice melted in March, and he returned to
Valley Forge, with the thanks of Congress for his forbearance in
abstaining from risking the loss of an army in order to acquire
personal glory. France having declared war against England, May 2,
1778, and at the same time effected an alliance with the colonies,
Lafayette returned home in January, 1779; on his arrival at Paris he
was lionized and fêted, and during his stay there he received from
the United States Congress a sword with massive gold handle and
mounting, presented to him in appreciation of his services and
particularly of his gallantry at the battle of Monmouth, on June
28th, in the preceding year. The high reputation that he had
acquired in America increased his influence at home to such a degree
that he was able to accomplish the object of his mission and procure
money and troops from the ministry of war. These followed him to
this country in the following year, but little was accomplished
thereby, D'Estaing, the commander of the fleet, being blockaded in
the harbor of Newport, and Washington being unwilling to undertake
the contemplated attack on New York, even with the assistance of the
French military force, without naval co-operation. In February,
1781, Lafayette was sent with a division into Virginia, where he
soon found himself arrayed against the British general, Lord
Cornwallis. That distinguished officer, the best, perhaps, of all on
that side of the conflict, expected to make short work of his
youthful antagonist, but Lafayette, who had learned from Washington
the art of skilful retreat combined with cautious advance,
succeeded, after a long series of skirmishes, in shutting Cornwallis
up in Yorktown. In September, the French fleet, under the Count de
Grasse, appeared and landed a force of 3,000 men under the Marquis
de St. Simon. Lafayette was urged to make the assault at once and
gain the glory of an important capture, but a feeling of honor,
combined possibly with prudential considerations, impelled him to
wait for the arrival of the main allied army under Washington and
Rochambeau. They came a fortnight later, the investment was
regularly made, and on October 14th Lafayette successfully led the
Americans to the assault of one of the redoubts, while another was
taken by the French under the Baron de Viomesnil. The surrender of
Cornwallis, with his army of 7,000, took place on the 19th, which
ended, practically, the American war of independence, though the
final treaty of peace was not signed till January 20, 1783, the
first knowledge of which came to Congress by a letter from
Lafayette, who had returned to Europe in the meantime. Revisiting
the United States in 1784, he was treated with great consideration
by his old comrades in arms, and the next year he travelled through
Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in the last of which he attended the
military reviews of Frederick the Great in company with that
renowned soldier.
[Footnote 5: The condensed form of the name, when used apart
from the title, is preferable to the open, for, though he
employed the conventional style, De La Fayette, up to the
time of the French Revolution, he then abandoned it, and
always afterward wrote it as one word, Lafayette, which is
now the family name.]
From this time Lafayette's history is bound up with that of his
country. Beginning by formulating plans for meliorating the
condition of the slaves on his plantation in French Guiana, his
philanthropic thoughts soon turned homeward. He saw France groaning
under oppression and the people suffering from a thousand antiquated
abuses. Some of these he succeeded in mitigating, in his capacity of
member of the Assembly of the Notables, in 1787, but, as nothing of
permanent value was accomplished by that body, he urged the
convocation of the States General. In this assemblage, which met at
Versailles, on May 4, 1789, he sat at first among the nobility, but
when the deputies of the people declared themselves to be the
National Assembly--afterward called the Constituent Assembly--he was
one of the earliest of his order to join them and was elected one of
the vice-presidents. On July 14th the Bastille was taken by the mob,
and on the following day Lafayette was chosen commandant of the
National Guard of Paris; an irregular body, partly military, partly
police, having no connection with the royal army and in full
sympathy with the people, from which its ranks were filled. On the
17th King Louis XVI. came into the city, where he was received by
the populace with the liveliest expressions of attachment and
escorted to the Hôtel de Ville, where Lafayette and Mayor Bailly
awaited him at the foot of the staircase, up which he passed under
an arch of steel formed by the uplifted swords of the members of the
Municipal Council. Bailly offered to the king a tricolor cockade,
which had been recently adopted as the national emblem, Lafayette,
in devising it, having added white, the Bourbon color, to the red
and blue that were the colors of Paris, to show the fidelity of the
people to the institution of royalty. The king accepted the badge,
pinned it to his breast, appeared with it on the balcony before the
vast throng, and returned to Versailles with the feeling, on his
part and that of others, that the reconciliation between all parties
was complete and that the era of popular government had begun.
Instead of that, the troubles continually increased, and Lafayette
was placed in a most trying position, equally opposed to the
encroachments of the destructionists and to the intrigues of the
court, and longing as eagerly for the retention of the monarchy as
for the establishment of the constitution. The brutal murder of
Foulon, the superintendent of the revenue, and of his son-in-law
Berthier, who were torn in pieces by the enraged populace on the
22d, in spite of the commands, entreaties, and even tears of
Lafayette, so disgusted him that he resigned his command, and
resumed it only when the sixty districts of Paris agreed to support
him in his efforts to maintain order. On October 5th a mob of
several thousand women set out from Paris to march to Versailles,
with vague ideas of extorting from the National Assembly the passage
of laws that should remove all distresses, of obtaining in some way
a supply of food that should relieve the immediate needs of the
capital, and of bringing back with them the royal family. The
National Guard were urgent to accompany the women, partly from a
desire to protect them in case of a possible collision with the
royal troops, but still more to bring on a conflict with a regiment
lately brought from the frontier, and to exterminate the body-guard
of the king, the members of which had, at a supper given a few
nights before, been so indiscreet as to trample the tricolor under
their feet and pin the white cockade to their lapels. Lafayette did
all in his power to prevent the march of the National Guard, sitting
on his horse for eight hours in their midst, and refusing all their
entreaties to give the word of command, till the Municipal Council
finally issued the order and the troops set forth. Arrived at
Versailles he posted one of his regiments in different parts of the
palace, to protect it in case it were really attacked by rioters,
and then, in the early morning, repairing to his head-quarters in an
adjoining street, he threw himself on a bed, for a short season of
necessary repose. Monarchical writers generally have reproached him
for this act, calling it his "fatal sleep," the source of unnumbered
woes, the beginning of the downfall; but it is difficult to see
wherein he can justly be blamed for yielding, wearied out with
fatigue, to the imperative demand of nature, after providing as far
as possible for the preservation of order. Awakened in a few minutes
by the report that the worst had happened, he hurried to the scene
and found that the mob, having broken down the iron railings of the
courtyard, had invaded the palace and massacred two of the
body-guard, and that the lives of the king and queen were in instant
peril. With characteristic courage, activity, and address he
prevented the further effusion of blood, and the entire royal
family, together with the Assembly, migrated to Paris the same day,
escorted by the citizen soldiers and a turbulent mob both male and
female. July 14, 1790, was memorable for the Oath of Federation,
taken in the Champ de Mars, with imposing ceremonies, upon a
platform of earth raised by the voluntary labors of all the
citizens. Lafayette, as representative of the nation, and
particularly of the militia, was the first to take the oath to be
faithful to the law and the king and to support the constitution
then under consideration by the Assembly. With a shout of
affirmation from all of the National Guard, the taking of the entire
oath by the president of the Assembly and the king, followed by a
roar of assent from nearly half a million of spectators, and the
joyful spreading of the news throughout the country by prearranged
signals, the dream of peace and harmony came back again, as bright
and as fleeting as the year before. Three days later the National
Guard of France, outside of the city, united in an address to
Lafayette, expressive of their confidence in his ability and his
patriotism, and regretting their inability to serve under him, for,
by the terms of a law proposed by himself, the commander of the
militia of Paris was to have no authority over other troops. In
September the municipality made a strong appeal to him to revoke his
declaration that he would accept no pay or salary or indemnity of
any kind, but he refused fixedly, saying that his fortune was
considerable, that it had sufficed for two revolutions and that it
would be devoted to a third, if one should arise, for the benefit of
the people. By the death of Mirabeau, April 2, 1791, the last chance
of a compromise between the court party and the radicals was taken
away. Two weeks later the royal family attempted to leave the
Tuileries for St. Cloud, in order to pass the Easter holidays there
and to hear mass in the royal chapel; but the populace blocked the
way, and even a portion of the National Guard, in a state of
semi-mutiny, threatened to interfere if the other battalions fired
on the people. This, nevertheless, Lafayette offered to do, and to
force a passage at all hazards, but the king positively forbade the
shedding of blood on his account, and resumed his virtual
imprisonment in the palace. Lafayette was so chagrined by the
seditious behavior of his troops that he again threw down his
commission, whereupon an extraordinary revulsion of feeling took
place; the municipality and the citizens were terror-stricken lest
universal anarchy should ensue, and even the National Guard,
repentant of their disgraceful conduct, cast themselves at the feet
of their general, joining their voices to those of others in
entreating him to resume his office, which, after three days, he
consented to do, upon promise of obedience in the future.
[Illustration: The Arch of Steel.]
This was the meridian of Lafayette's career, when his popularity and
his influence were at their height. Power we can hardly call it, for
that implies some voluntary deed of assumption, and he always acted
in obedience to others, to some authority constituted at least under
the forms of law, or, in the absence of that, to the sovereign
people. From this time difficulties thickened around him and he was
constantly environed by suspicion and by intrigues of all kinds
against his character and his life, but he never swerved from the
line of his duty. Not one of the political parties gave him its
entire confidence, and each in turn conspired against him, only to
be baffled by the underlying conviction, on the part of the masses,
of his supreme patriotism and integrity. After the flight of the
king and his family, on June 20th, Lafayette was violently denounced
in the Jacobin club as a friend to royalty, and accused of having
assisted in the evasion; but the attempt to proscribe him in the
Assembly failed utterly, and that body appointed six commissioners
to protect him from the sudden fury of the people. The royal
fugitives having been stopped at Varennes and brought back to the
Tuileries on the 25th, he saved them, by his personal efforts, from
being torn in pieces by the mob, but was compelled to guard them
much more strictly than before. On July 17th a disorderly assemblage
gathered in the Champ de Mars to petition for the overthrow of the
monarchy, and, in the tumult that ensued on the appearance of the
troops, Lafayette ordered a volley of musketry, whereby the rioters
were dispersed with a loss of several killed and wounded, but
whereby, also, while that act of firmness elicited commendation from
all lovers of order, occasion was given for further intrigues on the
part of his enemies and the shattering of his influence among the
lower classes. A momentary gleam of sunshine broke forth in
September, when, the king having accepted the new constitution,
Lafayette took advantage of the general state of good feeling
thereby produced to propose a comprehensive act of amnesty for all
offences committed on either side during the revolution, which was
passed by the Constituent Assembly just before its final adjournment
on the 30th. On that day he resigned, permanently, the command of
the National Guard, and retired to his estate at Chavaignac, being
followed by the most gratifying testimonials of public regard, among
them a sword and a marble statue of Washington, presented by the
city of Paris, and a sword cast from one of the bolts of the
Bastille, given by his old soldiers. Contrary to his personal
wishes, his friends and his patriotism persuaded him, in November,
to stand as a candidate for the mayoralty of Paris, with the result
that might have been foreseen, for Pétion, being supported both by
the Jacobins and by the court party, was elected by a large
majority. This defeat did not prevent Lafayette's appointment, a
month later, to the command of one of the three armies formed to
defend the frontier against an expected invasion of the Austrians,
the rank of lieutenant-general being given to him, with the exalted
honor of marshal of France. War was declared against Austria, April
20, 1792, and hostilities began, but even the active service in
which he was engaged could not keep his thoughts from the political
condition of the country, and on June 16th he wrote to the
Legislative Assembly, which had succeeded the Constituent in the
previous autumn, a letter in which he pointed out the dangers that
menaced the nation and denounced the Jacobins as the faction whose
growing power was full of peril to the state. Four days later the
mob invaded the Tuileries and passed riotously through all the
rooms, insulting in the grossest manner the royal family, who were
compelled to stand before them and undergo this humiliation for
three hours. On hearing of this event Lafayette hurried from his
camp and appeared before the Assembly, entreating the punishment of
the instigators of the outrage. His sublime audacity in thus
opposing his own personality to the machinations of his enemies, and
that, too, before a body already irritated by his unasked advice,
paralyzed the fury of his adversaries, while his eloquence charmed
the hearts of his hearers; but all was in vain, and the only result
of this heroic action was that a decree of accusation was brought in
against him, which was rejected by a vote of 406 to 224. Upon the
massacre of the Swiss Guards, on August 10th, followed by the actual
deposition and imprisonment of the king, Lafayette sounded his army
to ascertain if they would march to Paris in defence of
constitutional government, but he found them vacillating and
untrustworthy. His own dismissal from command came soon after:
orders were sent for his arrest, and nothing remained for him but
flight.
On August 19th he left the army and attempted to pass through
Belgium on his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian
soldiers near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank
as an officer in the army and should be considered as a private
citizen; but his rights were not respected in either capacity, for
he was not treated as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as
a criminal. On the contrary, without any charges being preferred
against him, and without the formality of a trial of any kind, he
was immediately thrown into prison and was detained in various
Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails and fortresses for more than
five years, the last three being passed in close confinement at
Olmutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased the severity of
his detention, and he nearly lost his life through the hardships and
privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters came, in
1795, and voluntarily shared his incarceration. The only reason for
the savage treatment that he received, unjustified by any forms of
international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain
in the fact that he had been a member of the National Assembly and
prominent in the constitutional struggle for liberty. A feeling of
revenge, as mean as it was groundless--for he had done everything in
his power to protect the dignity as well as the life of Marie
Antoinette, the sister of the Austrian emperor--joined with a fear
that other peoples might follow the lead of the French and overthrow
monarchical institutions unless deterred by some world-shocking
example, formed the mainspring of this atrocious procedure. Efforts
were made in this country and in England to procure the release of
the prisoner, but no governmental action was taken in that
direction, the United States Congress declining to pass a resolution
to that effect, so that President Washington was left alone in his
unceasing attempts, by instructions to our ministers abroad and by a
personal letter to the emperor, to repay some of the debt that he
and the whole country owed to our adopted citizen. It was not till
the successes of the French republican armies enabled General
Bonaparte, at the instance of the Directory, to insist upon the
liberation of Lafayette as one of the conditions of the treaty of
Campo Formio, that he was discharged on September 19, 1797, the
Austrian Government pretending that this was done out of regard for
the United States of America. Passing into Denmark and Holland he
resided in those countries for two years, when he returned to France
only to receive from Bonaparte a significant message recommending to
him a very quiet life, a piece of advice which, as it accorded with
his own desires, he followed, settling down at Lagrange, an estate
inherited by his wife, as his own property had been confiscated by
the National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative
Assembly. True to the principles that he had always entertained, he
cast his vote, in 1802, with less than nine thousand others, and in
opposition to the suffrages of more than three-and-a-half millions,
against the decree to make Bonaparte consul for life, writing after
his name on the polling register the statement that he could not
vote for such a measure till public freedom was sufficiently
guaranteed. This insured the continued displeasure of the military
despot, who revenged himself by refusing to Lafayette's only son,
George Washington, the promotion that he had earned by his brilliant
exploits in the army. President Jefferson's offer in 1803, of the
governorship of the province of Louisiana, just after its purchase
from France, was rejected by Lafayette, who continued in his
retirement through the time of the empire and after the first
restoration of the Bourbons, till the return from Elba, in March,
1815, of Napoleon, who used every exertion to conciliate him and win
his support. All these overtures he declined, but, on the other
hand, accepted an election to the popular branch of the Legislature,
of which he was chosen vice-president. After the battle of Waterloo,
on June 18th, Napoleon returned to Paris and proposed to his council
the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and the assumption of
absolutely dictatorial power; a desperate project which was
frustrated only by the alertness, vigor, and energy of Lafayette,
whose eloquent appeals induced the Legislature to compel the final
abdication of the emperor, under the alternative threat of
forfeiture and expulsion. Five commissioners, with Lafayette at the
head, appointed by the chambers, proceeded to the head-quarters of
the allied sovereigns, at Haguenau, to treat for peace; but, while
negotiations were pending, the foreign armies pushed on toward the
capital, and he returned on July 3d, to find that Paris had
capitulated and was at the mercy of the conquerors, who dictated
their own terms, forcibly dissolved the Corps Législatif, and
replaced Louis XVIII. on the throne. Lafayette retired to Lagrange,
but was again elected, in 1817, a deputy, in spite of the strenuous
opposition of the Government, and exerted his influence in favor of
liberal measures, though with indifferent success. In 1824, on the
invitation of President Monroe, he revisited this country, travelled
through every State, was received with the highest honors by
Congress (which voted him $200,000 and a township of land for his
services), by legislatures, by colleges, by corporations of cities,
by societies of all kinds by his surviving comrades of the
revolution, and by the whole nation; took part in the laying of the
corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument June 17, 1825, and sailed
for home in September, on the United States frigate Brandywine,
which had been put at his disposal by the Government. Soon after his
return to France he was re-elected to the Corps Législatif, and
served as a member for most of the remainder of his life. The stupid
tyranny of King Charles X. having caused an outbreak of the
Parisians in July, 1830, Lafayette unhesitatingly espoused the
popular cause, and, though nearly seventy-three years old, accepted
the command of the National Guard; after a conflict of three days
the royal troops gave way, the king abdicated, to be succeeded by
the Duke of Orleans as King Louis Philippe, and Lafayette had the
satisfaction of contributing largely to the establishment of what he
had advocated so strongly forty years before--a constitutional
monarchy. He died at his home, in the country, on May 20, 1834, but
his remains were taken to Paris for interment, and as the funeral
train passed through the streets the lamentations on every hand
attested the affection and the sorrow of the people. Few men have
lived who present a figure so attractive to the eye of the student;
fewer still, so prominent on the theatre of history, who will bear,
with so little possibility of censure, the closest scrutiny, the
severest judgment. His actions were visible to all the world, his
motives were transparent, his sentiments were unconcealed, his life
was blameless. To the physical endowments of dignity of person and
resistless charm of manner he added all desirable qualities of head
and heart, a dauntless courage, an enthusiasm beautiful and yet
consistent, a sublime patriotism, a disinterested generosity. If,
with all these, he seems to have failed of achieving the highest
success, it was because not of what he lacked but of what he
possessed in the fullest degree, a lofty integrity that forbade him
to pander to the passions of the mob, a supreme regard for the
rights of the community and of the individual. He might have
snatched the sovereign power, but in doing it he would have lost his
self-respect. In place, then, of glittering success, he obtained the
quiet admiration of mankind and the loving gratitude of two nations.
[Signature: William F. Peck.]