States, stepped upon the scene. He had already advanced Madame Lafayette
large sums of money, when her property had been confiscated; now when
he heard that she was to be condemned to the guillotine by the butchers
of the Revolution he immediately bearded those butchers in their den.
He wrote to the authorities, the Committee of Safety, as the officials
grotesquely called it, and told them that the execution of Madame
Lafayette would make a very bad impression in America.
The Committee of Safety were not disposed to listen to reason from any
quarter. Yet, when they heard Gouverneur Morris say, “If you kill the
wife of Lafayette all the enemies of the Republic and of popular liberty
will rejoice; you will make America hostile, and justify England in
her slanders against you,” they hesitated and postponed ordering her
execution. But, because of his protests against such violent acts of
the Reign of Terror, Gouverneur Morris was sent back to America, on the
ground that he had too much sympathy with the victims of “liberty!”
Madame Lafayette was brought into court, and the Committee of Safety did
its best to insult her. Said the Chief Commissioner, “I have old scores
against you. I detest you, your husband, and your name!”
Madame Lafayette answered him fearlessly, “I shall always defend my
husband; and as for a name--there is no wrong in that.”
“You are insolent!” shouted the Commissioner, and was about to order her
execution when he remembered Morris’s words and sent her back to her
prison instead.
With her husband in prison in Austria, her young children left
unprotected and far away from her, the plight of Madame Lafayette was
hard indeed. But she was very brave, though she knew that any day might
take her to the scaffold. Almost all the old nobility were brave.
While Robespierre and his rabble made liberty and justice a mockery
the prisoners maintained their old contempt for their jailers and
held their heads as high as in the old days when they had taken their
pleasure at Versailles.
On July 22, 1794, Madame Lafayette’s grandmother, the Maréchale de
Noailles, her mother, the Duchess d’Ayen, and her sister, the Vicomtesse
de Noailles, were beheaded by the guillotine, victims of the popular
rage against all aristocrats. A few days later the Reign of Terror came
to a sudden end, the prey of the very excesses it had committed.
The people were sick of blood; even the judges and executioners were
weary. On July twenty-eighth Robespierre and his supporters were
declared traitors and were carted off to the guillotine in their turn.
The new revolution opened the prison doors to most of the captives,
but it was not until February, 1795, that Madame Lafayette obtained
her freedom, and then it was largely owing to the efforts of the new
Minister of the United States, James Monroe. At once she flew to her
children, and sent her son George to America to be under the protection
of Washington. A friend had bought Chavaniac and gave it back to her,
but another Reign of Terror seemed imminent and Madame Lafayette
wanted to leave France. A passport was obtained for her, and with her
daughters she went by sea to Hamburg. There the American consul gave her
another passport, made out in the name of “Madame Motier, of Hartford,
in Connecticut.” Then she went to Austria and at Vienna presented
herself to the grand chamberlain, the Prince of Rosemberg, who was an
old acquaintance of her family. He took her to the Emperor, and from the
latter she finally won permission to share her husband’s captivity at
Olmutz.
Meantime Lafayette’s health had suffered under his long imprisonment. In
the dark damp fortress, deprived of exercise, of company, of books, he
had passed many weary days. But the Fourth of July he remembered as the
birthday of American freedom and spent the hours recollecting the happy
time he had known in the young republic across the Atlantic.
At last his wife and daughters joined him in his prison and told him
of what had happened in France. Imprisonment was easier to bear now
that his family was with him, but the confinement was hard on all of
them, and presently the prison authorities, seeing Lafayette in need of
exercise, gave him more liberty, allowing him to walk or ride each day,
but always strongly guarded.
His friends in America were not idle. Washington had earlier sent
a letter to Prussia asking the liberation of Lafayette as a favor.
But the prisoner had already been transferred to Austria. In May,
1796, Washington wrote to the Emperor of Austria, and the American
Minister, John Jay, presented the letter. “Permit me only to submit
to your Majesty’s consideration,” wrote Washington, “whether his long
imprisonment and the confiscation of his estate and the indigence and
dispersion of his family, and the painful anxieties incident to all
these circumstances, do not form an assemblage of sufferings which
recommend him to the mediation of humanity. Allow me, sir, on this
occasion, to be its organ; and to entreat that he may be permitted to
come to this country, on such conditions and under such instructions as
your Majesty may think it expedient to prescribe.”
Austria, however, did not intend to release the prisoner. She had too
much fear of him as a leader of liberty. When at an earlier time a
friend of Lafayette had asked for his release an official of Frederick
the Great had refused the request on the same ground that Austria’s
emperor now took. “Monsieur de Lafayette,” said this official, “is too
fanatic on the subject of liberty; he does not hide it; all his letters
show it; he could not keep quiet, if out of prison. I saw him when he
was here, and still remember a statement of his, which surprised me very
much at that time: ‘Do you believe,’ said he to me, ‘that I went to
America to make a military reputation for myself? I went for the sake of
liberty. When a man loves it, he can rest only when he has established
it in his own country.’”
Before Madame Lafayette had joined her husband in the prison at Olmutz a
friend had tried to help the captive to escape. At the time the Austrian
officials were allowing Lafayette a little more freedom, although he
was practically never out of the watchful sight of guards. The friend
was a young man who had come to Vienna to try to find out where the
famous Frenchman was imprisoned, the young American, Francis Kinloch
Huger, who, as a small boy, had stood in the doorway of his father’s
house in South Carolina at midnight and helped to welcome Lafayette and
his companions when they first reached American soil. Francis Huger’s
father had been attached to Lafayette’s command during the campaign in
Virginia, and the son had retained so deep an admiration for his hero
that he had come to Europe to help him if he could.
After he had been in Vienna some time Francis Huger met a German
physician, Doctor Bollman, who was as great an admirer of Lafayette as
the young American. Bollman said to Francis Huger, “Lafayette is in
Olmutz,” and then explained how he had found out the place where their
hero was hidden. He had become acquainted with the physician who was
visiting the Frenchman in prison, and had used this doctor, who knew
nothing of his plans, as a go-between. By means of chemically-prepared
paper and sympathetic ink he had actually communicated with Lafayette
and had arranged a method of escape to be attempted some day when the
prisoner was outdoors.
Francis Huger entered eagerly into the plot, and the two conspirators
made ready their horses and signals and other preparations for escape.
Lafayette had learned part of their plans. As he rode out one day in
November, 1794, accompanied by an officer and two soldiers, his two
friends were ready for him. Lafayette and the officer got out of the
carriage to walk along the road. The carriage, with the two soldiers,
drove on. When it was far ahead, Huger and Bollman, who had been
watching from their saddles, charged on the officer, while Lafayette
turned on the latter, snatched at his unsheathed sword, and tried to
disarm him.
The Austrian officer fought gamely, and while Huger held the horses
Bollman ran to the aid of the Frenchman, whose strength had been sapped
by his long imprisonment. The two soldiers, alarmed at the sudden
assault, made no effort to help their officer, but drove away for aid.
Meantime the officer was thrown to the ground and held there by Doctor
Bollman.
Francis Huger, holding the restive horses with one hand, helped to gag
the Austrian officer with his handkerchief. Then one of the horses
broke from his grasp and dashed away. Bollman thrust a purse full
of money into Lafayette’s hand, and, still holding the struggling
Austrian, called to Lafayette in English, so that the officer should not
understand, “Get to Hoff! Get to Hoff!”
Lafayette, who was very much excited, was too intent on escaping to pay
special attention to Bollman’s directions. He thought the latter was
merely shouting, “Get off; get off!” and so, with the help of Francis
Huger, he sprang to the saddle of the remaining horse and galloped away
as fast as he could go. He did not take the road to Hoff, where his
rescuers had arranged to have fresh horses waiting, but took another
road which led to Jagerndorf on the German frontier. Before he reached
Jagerndorf his horse gave out, and while he was trying to get a fresh
mount he was recognized, arrested, and taken back to his prison at
Olmutz.
So the attempted escape failed. Huger and Bollman were arrested while
they were hunting for the lost Lafayette. They were thrown into
prison, put in chains, and nearly starved to death. And for some time
after that the officials made Lafayette’s life in prison even more
uncomfortable than it had been before.
Fortunately neither Huger nor Bollman died in their Austrian prison.
After eight months in their cells they were set free and sent out of
the country. Both went to America, where in time Doctor Bollman became
a political adventurer and aided Aaron Burr in those schemes which
ultimately brought Burr to trial for treason. Then Bollman might have
been punished had not Lafayette remembered what he had done at Olmutz
and begged President Jefferson to set him free. Francis Huger was among
the Americans who welcomed Lafayette to the United States in 1824.
The Frenchman, however, had to continue in prison in Austria. After his
wife and daughters joined him the imprisonment grew less hard. But after
a time his daughters fell ill of prison-fever, and soon their mother was
sick also. She appealed to the Emperor for permission to go to Vienna to
see a doctor. The Emperor answered that she could go to Vienna “only on
condition that you do not go back to Olmutz.”
She would not desert her husband. “I will never expose myself to the
horrors of another separation from my husband,” she declared; and so
she and her daughters stayed with Lafayette, enduring all manner of
privations and sufferings for his sake.
The world, however, had not forgotten Lafayette. America worked
constantly to free him, Washington and Jefferson and Jay, Morris and
Marshall and Monroe used all their influence with Austria, but America
was not loved in the tyrannical court of Vienna and the appeals of her
statesmen passed unheeded. England was generous also toward the man
who had once fought against her. The general who had commanded the
forces against him at the Brandywine moved Parliament again and again
to interfere on behalf of the French hero, and Charles James Fox,
the great English orator, pleaded in favor, as he said, “of a noble
character, which will flourish in the annals of the world, and live in
the veneration of posterity, when kings, and the crowns they wear, will
be no more regarded than the dust to which they must return.”
Help finally came from his own land, though in a very strange guise.
While Lafayette lay in his cell at Olmutz a new star was rising in the
skies, a planet succeeding to the confusion of the Reign of Terror in
France. A Corsican officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, was winning wonderful
laurels as a general. From victory he strode to victory, and by the
spring of 1797 he had broken the power of Austria, had crossed the
Italian Alps, and in sight of the Emperor’s capital was ready to
dictate the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio. Then he remembered
that a Frenchman, Lafayette, was still in an Austrian dungeon. Neither
Bonaparte nor the Directory that now governed France wanted Lafayette
to return to that country, but both were determined that Austria must
give him up. Napoleon wrote that demand into the treaty. The Austrian
Emperor objected, but Napoleon insisted and finally threatened, and he
held the upper hand. The Emperor sent an officer to demand a written
acknowledgment of his past good treatment from Lafayette and a promise
never to enter Austria again. Lafayette refused to say anything about
his past treatment but agreed to the second condition. Dissatisfied
with this the Austrians represented to General Bonaparte that the
prisoner had been set free and urged him to sign the treaty. Bonaparte
saw through the ruse. He sent an officer to see that Lafayette was
liberated, and only when he was satisfied of this would he make peace
with the crafty Emperor.
On September 17, 1797, Lafayette, after five years in prison, walked out
of Olmutz with his wife and daughters a free man. Even then, however,
the Emperor did not hand him over to the French; instead he had him
delivered to the American consul, with the statement that “Monsieur the
Marquis de Lafayette was released from imprisonment simply because of
the Emperor’s desire to favor and gratify America.”
The French Revolution had swept away Lafayette’s estates and fortune,
but his friends came to his assistance and helped to provide for him.
Especially Americans were eager to show their appreciation of what
he had done for their country. Washington, who had been caring for
Lafayette’s son at Mount Vernon, now sent him back to Europe, with a
letter showing that the great American was as devoted as ever to the
great Frenchman.
Lafayette knew that his liberation was due to the brilliant young
general, Bonaparte, and he wrote a letter to the latter expressing his
gratitude. But there was considerable jealousy in the French government
at that time; the letter was distasteful to some of the Directory, and
they took their revenge by confiscating the little property that still
belonged to Lafayette. Two Englishwomen, however, had left money to the
Frenchman as a tribute to his “virtuous and noble character,” and this
enabled him to tide over the period until he could get back some of his
native estates.
The Netherlands offered Lafayette a home, and he went to the little
town of Vianen, near Utrecht, to live. Here he wrote many letters to
his friends in America, studied the amazing events that had happened
in France since the day on which the States-General had first met at
Versailles, and watched the wonderful course of the new leader, Napoleon
Bonaparte, across the fields of Europe. Bonaparte puzzled him; he was
not sure whether the Corsican was a liberator or a despot; but he saw
that the General was restoring order to a France that was greatly in
need of it, and hoped that he might accomplish some of the ends for
which Lafayette and his friends had worked. Presently the time came when
the exile felt that he might safely return to his home.
XII
IN THE DAYS OF NAPOLEON
After the treaty of Campo Formio with Austria, which had secured the
liberation of Lafayette, Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris the
leading man of France. The government in Paris, which had gone through
one change after another since the end of the Reign of Terror, was now
in the hands of what was known as the Directory. But the members of
this, divided in their views, were not very popular with the people,
who were so tired of disorder that they desired above everything else a
strong hand at the helm of the state. The people were already looking to
the brilliant young general as such a helmsman, and the Directors knew
this, and so grew increasingly jealous of Bonaparte.
Having settled his score with Austria Bonaparte suggested to the
French government that he should strike a blow at England by invading
Egypt. The Directory, glad to have him out of the country, agreed to
this, and in May, 1798, Bonaparte departed on such an expedition. As
soon as Bonaparte was safely away the enemies of France resumed their
attacks, and when the French people saw that the Corsican was their
surest defender they began to clamor more loudly against the Directory.
Bonaparte kept himself informed of what was happening at home, and when
he thought that the proper moment had come he left his army in Egypt
and appeared in France. His welcome there made it clear that the people
wanted him for their leader; they were weary of turmoil and constant
changes in government, they were ready for a strong and able dictator.
France had known ten years of disorder, bloodshed, anarchy, democratic
misrule, financial ruin, and political failure, and the people were no
longer so much concerned about liberty as they had once been. Bonaparte
was crafty; he pretended that he wanted power in order to safeguard
the principles that had been won in the Revolution. He went to Paris,
and there, on November 9, 1799, was made First Consul, and the real
dictator of France. The country was still a republic in name, but at
once the First Consul began to gather all the reins of authority in his
own hands.
Under the Directory Lafayette had been an exile, forbidden to enter
French territory. But with Napoleon in power conditions changed.
Lafayette felt the greatest gratitude to the man who had freed him from
Olmutz, he had the deepest admiration for the general who had won so
many brilliant victories for France, and he was disposed to believe that
Napoleon really intended to secure liberty for the country. When he
heard of Napoleon’s return from Egypt he wrote to his wife, who was in
France at the time, “People jealous of Bonaparte see in me his future
opponent; they are right, if he wishes to suppress liberty; but if he
have the good sense to promote it, I will suit him in every respect. I
do not believe him to be so foolish as to wish to be only a despot.”
He also sent a letter to Napoleon, in which he said, “The love of
liberty and country would suffice for your arrival to fill me with joy
and hope. To this desire for public happiness is joined a lively and
profound sentiment for my liberator. Your greetings to the prisoners of
Olmutz have been sent to me by her whose life I owe to you. I rejoice in
all my obligations to you, citizen-general, and in the happy conviction
that to cherish your glory and to wish your success is an act of civism
as much as of attachment and gratitude.”
Friends procured the exile a passport and he returned to Paris. But
Bonaparte was not glad to have him come back; the First Consul was in
reality no friend of the principles of the Revolution, and he felt
that such a man as Lafayette must inevitably oppose him and might even
prejudice the people against him. He showed his anger unreservedly when
friends told him of Lafayette’s arrival, and the friends immediately
advised the latter that he had better return to the Netherlands. But
Lafayette, having made up his mind to come, would not budge now. “You
should be sufficiently acquainted with me,” he said to the men who
brought him the news from the First Consul, “to know that this imperious
and menacing tone would suffice to confirm me in the course which I have
taken.” And he added, “It would be very amusing for me to be arrested
at night by the National Guard of Paris and imprisoned in the Temple the
next day by the restorer of the principles of 1789.”
Madame Lafayette called on the First Consul, who received her kindly.
She pleaded so eloquently for her husband, pointing out his natural
desire to be in France, that Napoleon’s anger vanished. He said that
he regretted Lafayette’s return only because it would “retard his
progress toward the reëstablishment of Lafayette’s principles, and
would force him to take in sail.” “You do not understand me, madame,”
he continued, “but General Lafayette will understand me; and not having
been in the midst of affairs, he will feel that I can judge better than
he. I therefore conjure him to avoid all publicity; I leave it to his
patriotism.” Madame Lafayette answered that that was her husband’s wish.
Believing that Lafayette had no desire to oppose him, Napoleon soon
restored him to citizenship. Different as the two men were, each admired
the strong qualities of the other. The First Consul could appreciate
Lafayette’s devotion to the cause of liberty, and Lafayette said to
Napoleon, “I have but one wish, General,--a free government and you at
the head of it.”
Napoleon, however, had no real liking for a free government. He had
forgotten any belief in liberty that he might have had in the days
when he was a poor and obscure lieutenant. He had tasted power, and
was already looking forward to the time when he should be not only the
most powerful man in France but in the whole world. To do that he must
make his countrymen forget their recently won liberties. He must keep
Lafayette, the greatest apostle of freedom, in the background, and
not allow him to remind the people of his liberal dreams. So Napoleon
adopted a policy of silence toward Lafayette. In February, 1800, the
celebrated French orator Fontanes delivered a public eulogy on the
character of Washington, who had lately died. Napoleon forbade the
orator to mention the name of Lafayette in his address, and saw to it
that Lafayette was not invited to the ceremony, nor any Americans. The
bust of Washington was draped in banners that the First Consul had taken
in battle.
Lafayette’s son George applied for and was given a commission in one of
Napoleon’s regiments of hussars. When his name was erased from the list
of exiles Lafayette himself was restored to his rank of major-general
in the French army, but he did not ask for any command. He went to
Lagrange, an estate that his wife had inherited from her mother, and
set himself to the work of trying to pay off the debts that had piled
up while he was in prison in Austria. Like all the old aristocracy
that returned to France after the Revolution he found that most of his
property had been taken by the state and now had new owners and that the
little that was left was burdened by heavy taxes.
Chavaniac and a few acres near it came into his possession, but there
were relatives who needed it as a home more than he did and he let them
live there. He himself cultivated the farm at Lagrange, and was able in
a few years to pay off his French creditors. But he was still greatly
in debt to Gouverneur Morris and other Americans who had helped his
wife with money when she had need of it, and these were loans that were
difficult to pay.
Lafayette was living quietly on his farm when Napoleon returned with
fresh triumphs from Italy. The man who had been a general could not help
but admire the great military genius of the First Consul. The latter
felt that he had little now to fear from Lafayette, and the relations
between the two men became quite friendly. Had they only been able to
work together they might have accomplished a great deal for the good of
France, but no two men could have been more fundamentally different in
their characters and ideals than Lafayette and Napoleon.
Occasionally they discussed their views on government, and Lafayette
once said to the First Consul, “I do not ignore the effect of the crimes
and follies which have profaned the name of liberty; but the French are,
perhaps, more than ever in a state to receive it. It is for you to give
it; it is from you that it is expected.” Napoleon smiled; he had his own
notions about liberty, and he felt himself strong enough to force those
notions upon France.