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True Stories Of Great Americans
LAFAYETTE
[Illustration: Publisher's Logo]
The MacMillan Company
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MacMillan & Co., Limited
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Melbourne
The MacMillan Co. of Canada, Ltd.
Toronto
[Illustration: PORTAIT OF LAFAYETTE.
From an authentic portrait.
This shows Lafayette as a youthful general.]
LAFAYETTE
by
MARTHA FOOTE CROW
And what gave he to us?
He gave his starry youth,
His quick, audacious sword,
His name, his crested plume.
And what gave we?
We gave--a nation's heart!
New York
The MacMillan Company
1918
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1916,
by The MacMillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1916.
Reprinted October, 1917.
Norwood Press
J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY 1
CHAPTER II
COLLEGE AND COURT 10
CHAPTER III
A BOY'S IDEALS 21
CHAPTER IV
THE GREAT INSPIRATION 27
CHAPTER V
FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA 42
CHAPTER VI
LAFAYETTE AT THE BRANDYWINE 52
CHAPTER VII
A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE 62
CHAPTER VIII
LAFAYETTE AT MONMOUTH 73
CHAPTER IX
THE RETURN TO FRANCE 86
CHAPTER X
LAFAYETTE IN VIRGINIA 100
CHAPTER XI
THE TWO REDOUBTS 111
CHAPTER XII
THE SURRENDER OF YORKTOWN 119
CHAPTER XIII
LIONIZED BY TWO WORLDS 128
CHAPTER XIV
GATHERING CLOUDS 137
CHAPTER XV
LAFAYETTE IN PRISON 144
CHAPTER XVI
AN ATTEMPTED RESCUE 154
CHAPTER XVII
A WELCOME RELEASE 171
CHAPTER XVIII
A TRIUMPHAL TOUR 179
CHAPTER XIX
LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE 193
* * * * *
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PORTRAIT OF LAFAYETTE _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE THE COUNCIL AT HOPEWELL 78
THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS 126
FRANCIS KINLOCH HUGER 160
A CARRIAGE IN WHICH LAFAYETTE RODE 186
THE CHILDREN'S STATUE OF LAFAYETTE 196
LAFAYETTE
CHAPTER I
A BOY OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY
Among the rugged Auvergne Mountains, in the southern part of France,
stands a castle that is severe and almost grim in its aspect. Two bare
round towers flank the building on the right and on the left. Rows of
lofty French windows are built across the upper part of the front, and
the small, ungenerous doorway below has a line of portholes on either
side that suggest a thought of warlike days gone by.
This castle, built in the fourteenth century, is called the Château de
Chaviniac de Lafayette. Though it was burned to the ground in 1701, it
was rebuilt as nearly like the earlier structure as possible; hence it
represents, as it stands, the chivalrous days of the crusading period
and so forms a fitting birthplace for a hero. In this half-military
château was born one of the most valiant champions of liberty that
any country has ever produced--the Marquis de Lafayette.
The climate of the Haute-Loire--the highlands of Auvergne--is harsh;
it has been called the French Siberia. There are upland moors like
deserts across which sweep fierce winds, where the golden broom and
the purple heather--flowers of the barren heights--are all that will
flourish. There are, indeed, secluded valleys filled with muskmallows
and bracken, but these are often visited by wild tempests, and sudden
floods may make the whole region dreary and dangerous.
In Lafayette's time the violence of the elements was not the only
thing to be dreaded. When the children wandered too near the edge of
the forest, they might catch sight of a wild boar nozzling about for
mushrooms under the dead oak leaves; and if it had been a severe
winter, it was quite within possibility that wolves or hyenas might
come from their hiding places in the rocky recesses of the mountains
and lurk hungrily near the villages.
The family living in the old château was one whose records could be
traced to the year one thousand, when a certain man by the name of
Motier acquired an estate called Villa Faya, and thereafter he became
known as Motier de la Fayette. In 1240 Pons Motier married the noble
Alix Brun de Champetières; and from their line descended the famous
Lafayettes known to all Americans. Other Auvergne estates were added
to the Chaviniac acres as the years went by, some with old castles
high up in the mountains behind Chaviniac, and all these were
inherited by the father of America's famous champion.
Lafayette's father was a notable warrior, as _his_ father had
been--and his--and his--away back to the days of the Crusades. Pons
Motier de la Fayette fought at Acre; Jean Motier de la Fayette fell at
Poitiers. There were marshals who bore the banner in many a combat of
olden times when the life of the country was at stake. It was a
Lafayette who won the battle at Beaugé in 1421, when the English Duke
of Clarence was defeated and his country was compelled to resign hope
of a complete conquest of France. Among other men who bore the name,
there were military governors of towns and cities, aids to kings in
war, captains and seneschals. Many of them spent their lives in camps
and on battlefields. One of them saw thirty years of active service;
another found that after thirty-eight years of military life he had
been present at no less than sixty-five sieges besides taking part in
many pitched battles. Lafayette's grandfather was wounded in three
battles; and his uncle, Jacques Roch Motier, was killed in battle at
the age of twenty-three.
During the summer before Lafayette's birth, his father, the young
chevalier and colonel, not then twenty-five, had been living quietly
in the Château Chaviniac. But a great conflict was going on--the Seven
Years' War was being waged. He heard the call of his country and he
felt it his duty to respond.
There was a sad parting from his beautiful young wife; then he dashed
down the steep, rocky roadway from the château to the village, and so
galloped away--over the plains, through fords and defiles, toward the
German border--never to return.
Lafayette's ancestors on his mother's side were equally distinguished
for military spirit. His mother was the daughter of the Comte de la
Rivière, lieutenant general and captain of the second company of the
King's Musketeers.
But this "hero of two worlds" inherited something more than military
spirit. The ancestors from which he descended formed a line of true
gentlefolk. For hundreds of years they had been renowned throughout
the region of their Auvergne estates for lofty character and a kindly
attitude toward their humble peasant neighbors. It was only natural
that this most famous representative of the line should become a
valiant champion of justice and freedom.
This great man was destined to have as many adventures as any boy of
to-day could wish for. To recount them all would require not one book,
but a dozen. Think of a lad of nineteen being a general in our
Revolutionary War, and the trusted friend and helper of Washington!
Lafayette was present at the surrender of Cornwallis, boyishly happy
at the achievements of the American soldiery, and taking especial
pride in his own American regiment. This period was followed by a
worthy career in France, but for five years--from his thirty-fifth
year to his fortieth--he was unjustly imprisoned in a grim old
Austrian fortress. At the age of sixty-seven he made a wonderful tour
through our country, being received with ceremonies and rejoicings
wherever he went; for every one remembered with deep gratitude what
this charming, courteous, elderly man had done for us in his youth. He
lived to the ripe age of seventy-seven, surrounded by children and
grandchildren, and interested in the work of the world up to the very
last.
The birth of Lafayette is recorded in the yellow and timeworn parish
register of Chaviniac. This ancient document states that on September
6, 1757, was born that "very high and very puissant gentleman
Monseigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier de Lafayette,
the lawful son of the very high and the very puissant Monseigneur
Michel-Louis-Christophe-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier, Marquis de Lafayette,
Baron de Wissac, Seigneur de Saint-Romain and other places, and of the
very high and very puissant lady Madame Marie-Louise-Julie de la
Rivière."
But it was only on official documents that Lafayette's full name,
terrifying in its length, was used. Reduced to republican simplicity,
the Marquis de Lafayette's name was Gilbert Motier, although he was
always proud of the military title, "General," bestowed on him by our
country. To tell the truth, imposing names meant little to this friend
of liberty, who was a true republican at heart and who, during the
French Revolution, voluntarily resigned all the titles of nobility he
had inherited.
During his earliest childhood Lafayette was somewhat delicate. The
child first opened his eyes in a sorrowful home at the old Château
Chaviniac, for word had come, only a month before, that Lafayette's
father had been killed at the battle of Minden, leaving the young
mother a widow. The boy, however, grew in strength with the years.
Naturally, all was done that could be done to keep him in health. At
any rate, either through those mountain winds, or in spite of them, he
developed a constitution so vigorous as to withstand the many strains
he was to undergo in the course of his long and adventurous life.
The supreme characteristic of the man showed early in the boy when, at
only eight years of age, he became possessed of an unselfish impulse
to go out and perform a feat which for one so young would have been
heroic. It was reported in the castle that a dangerous hyena was
prowling about in the vicinity of the estate, terrifying everybody.
The boy's sympathy was roused, and, from the moment he first heard of
it, his greatest longing was to meet the cruel creature and have it
out with him.
It is not recorded that the eight-year-old boy ever met that wild
animal face to face, and it is well for the world that he did not. He
was preserved to stand up against other and more significant spoilers
of the world's welfare.
His education was begun under the care of his mother, assisted by his
grandmother, a woman of unusually strong character; these, together
with two aunts, formed a group whose memory was tenderly revered by
Lafayette to the end of his life.
The boy Lafayette cared a great deal for hunting. Writing back to a
cousin at home after he had been sent to Paris to school, he told her
that what he would most like to hear about when she wrote to him would
be the great events of the hunting season. His cousin, it appears, had
written him an account of a hunt in the neighborhood, but she had not
written enough about it to satisfy his desire. Why did she not give
details? he asked. He reproachfully added that if he had been writing
to her of a new-fashioned cap, he would have taken compass in hand and
described it with mathematical accuracy. This she should have done
concerning the great hunt if she had really wished to give him
pleasure!
This fortunate boy could select any career he liked; courtier, lawyer,
politician, writer, soldier--whatever he chose. Never came opportunity
more richly laden to the doorway of any youth.
He chose to be a soldier. The double-barred doors of iron, the lofty,
protected windows, the military pictures on the walls of his home--all
spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and conflict. There was the
portrait of his father in cuirass and helmet. There were far-away
ancestors in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was also the
military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de Lafayette who was marshal
in the time of Charles VII, and whose motto "Cur non" (Why not?) was
chosen by Lafayette for his own when he started on his first voyage.
The instinct for warfare, for the organization of armies, for struggle
and conquest, were strong in him, and were fostered and nourished by
every impression of his boyhood's home.