LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE
Mingled with the joys of Lafayette's visit to the United States in
1824 there was one profound sorrow; he no longer saw here the great
man to whom he had given such whole-hearted devotion. President
Washington died in 1799; and one of the most affecting moments of all
the journey of 1824 was when General Lafayette and his son, George
Washington Lafayette, stood together by the tomb of the man whom both
regarded as a father.
On the centennial anniversary of the birth of Washington, in 1832, the
27th Regiment State Artillery of New York sent Lafayette a magnificent
commemorative medal. In acknowledgment of this gift Lafayette wrote to
the Committee, calling the gift "a new testimony of that persevering
affection which has been, during nearly sixty years, the pride and
delight of my life to be the happy object. The only merit on my part
which it does not exceed is to be found in the warmth of my gratitude
and the patriotic devotion that binds to the United States the loving
heart of an adopted son. The honor was enhanced by the occasion--the
birthday of the matchless Washington, of whom it is the most gratifying
circumstance to have been the beloved and faithful disciple."
This attitude Lafayette never failed to hold. The relation between the
two men was from beginning to end honorable to both in the highest
degree. It was one of the great friendships of history.
In one respect the private tastes of Washington and Lafayette were
similar; both dearly loved a farm. No one can visit Mount Vernon
without feeling the presence there of a lover of growing things. From
this productive place fine hams and bacon were forwarded to Lafayette
and his family in France and were there eaten with the keenest relish.
Fine birds were also sent--ducks, pheasants, and red partridges. In
return Lafayette dispatched by request some special breeds of wolf
hounds and a pair of jackasses; also, strange trees and plants,
together with varied gifts such as Paris only could devise. The
visitor to Mount Vernon finds in the family dining room Lafayette's
ornamental clock and rose jars, and his mahogany chair in Mrs.
Washington's sitting room. The key to the Bastille, which he sent in
1789, is shown under a glass cover on the wall by the staircase in the
entrance hall, and a model of that ancient fortress of tyranny, made
from a block of stone from the renowned French prison, sent over in
1793, stands in happy irony in the banquet hall. A bedchamber on the
second floor is pointed out as the room in which Lafayette slept. It
still bears his name.
After Lafayette returned to France, he lived for years in semi-exile on
an estate known as La Grange, that Madame de Lafayette had inherited. It
lay about forty miles east of Paris, in a beautiful country covered with
peach orchards and vineyards. At the time it was, from an agricultural
point of view, in a sadly neglected condition; and it was not by any
means the least of the achievements of Lafayette that he turned his hand
cleverly to the great task of developing this estate into a really
productive farm, and succeeded. Beginning with a single plow--for he was
too poor at first to buy numerous appliances--he gradually developed the
estate into a valuable property. After a time he supplied himself with
fine breeds of cattle, sheep, and pigs; indeed, specimens of various
kinds from all zones of the earth were sent him by his friends the
American shipmasters, who, it must be remembered, appreciated the
ardent efforts he had made to establish American commerce. To
Washington, who was a good farmer as well as a good President, every
detail of these labors would have been interesting if he had been
living.
In patriarchal happiness Lafayette carried on the estate of eight
hundred French acres, with all its industries, in a perfect system. In
a fine old mansion built in the days of Louis IX, Lafayette lived with
his two daughters and their families under an efficient household
system. Sometimes twelve cousins, brothers and sisters, would be there
together. The combined family formed a perfect little academy of its
own; and just to live at La Grange was an education in itself. The
walls were covered with pictures and memorabilia, to know which would
mean to understand European and American history for a century past. A
picture of Washington had the place of honor. The Declaration of
Independence and the Declaration of Rights were hung side by side. A
miniature of Francis Kinloch Huger in a frame of massive gold was
among the treasures. Dress swords, gifts of many kinds, symbols of
honors, and rich historical records decorated the whole house. Even
the name of the estate, La Grange, was American, for it was so called
in honor of the Manhattan Island home of his friend Alexander
Hamilton.
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S STATUE OF LAFAYETTE.
This spirited statue, by the sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett,
was a gift to France from five millions of American school
children. (See page 201.)]
There was one room in the château at La Grange that was more sacred
than any other; it was the room in which Madame de Lafayette had died.
This chamber was never entered except on the anniversary of her death,
and then by her husband alone, who cherished her memory tenderly and
faithfully as long as he lived.
Many wonderful visitors came to La Grange, and in later years to the
Paris home of the Lafayettes. There were Irish guests to tell tales of
romance; there were Poles to plead the cause of their country;
misguided American Indians were sometimes stranded there; Arabs from
Algeria; negro officers in uniform from the French West Indies--all
people who had the passion for freedom in their hearts naturally and
inevitably gravitated to Lafayette. His house was a modern Babel, for
all languages of the world were spoken there.
And Americans! So many Americans came along the Rosay Road that little
boys learned the trick of meeting any foreign-looking persons who
spoke bad French, and announced themselves as guides of all the
"Messieurs Americains"; they would capture the portmanteau, swing it
up to a strong shoulder, and then set out for the château at the
regular jog trot of a well-trained porter.
One of these American guests was the grandson of General Nathanael
Greene with whom Lafayette had had cordial relations during the
Virginia campaign. In the year 1828 this grandson visited La Grange
and wrote an account full of delightful, intimate touches, which was
printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1861. Of Lafayette himself he
said:
"In person he was tall and strongly built, with broad shoulders, large
limbs, and a general air of strength.... He had more dignity of
bearing than any man I ever saw. And it was not merely the dignity of
self-possession, which early familiarity with society and early habits
of command may give even to an ordinary man, but that elevation of
manner which springs from an habitual elevation of thought, bearing
witness to the purity of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy cheek
bear witness to the purity of the air you daily breathe. In some
respects he was the mercurial Frenchman to the last day of his life;
yet his general bearing, that comes oftenest to my memory, was of calm
earnestness, tempered and mellowed by quick sympathies."
The death of Lafayette, on the 20th of May, 1834, set the bells
a-tolling in many lands, but in none was the mourning more sincere
than in our own. Members of Congress were commanded to wear the badge
of sorrow for thirty days, and thousands of the people joined them in
this outward expression of the sincere grief of their hearts.
His services to his own country and to ours were many and valuable.
But his personal example of character, integrity, and constancy was
even more to us and to the world than his distinct services. What he
_was_ endeared him to us, even more than the things he did. He gave
his whole soul in youth to his world-wide dream of freedom--freedom
under a constitution guaranteeing it, through public order, to every
human being. He found himself in a world where monarchical government
seemed the destiny and habit of mankind. He thought it a bad
habit--one that ought to be broken. Sincerely and passionately
believing this, he was willing to die in the service of any people who
were ready to make the struggle against the existing national
traditions. He made mistakes; he made the mistake of trusting Louis
Philippe. In doing this he had with him the whole French people. But
let it be said on the other hand that he did not make the mistake of
trusting Bonaparte, whose blandishments he resisted during the whole
passage of that meteor. And he was making no mistake when, to the
very end of his life, he remained true to his love for the land he had
aided in his youth. His visions did not all come true in exactly the
shape he devised, but to the last he retained a glorious confidence
that they would ultimately be realized in full.
Lafayette was absolutely fearless. He had physical bravery; he was
equally indomitable in moral and intellectual realms. He had the power
of courage. He could decide quickly and then stand by the decision to
the bitter end. The essence of his bold, adventurous youth is
expressed in the motto he then chose, "Cur non." But the confirmed and
tried spirit of his full manhood is more truly set forth in another
motto: "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra." "Do what you ought,
let come what may."
For a man so possessed by a great, world-wide idea, so fearless, so
constant, it is quite fitting that monuments should be erected and
that his birthday should be celebrated. Probably there is no man in
all history who has had so many cities, counties, townships,
boulevards, arcades, mountains, villages, and hamlets named for him,
in a country to which he was not native-born, as has the Frenchman
Lafayette in the United States of America. Also, many notable statues
of Lafayette stand in city squares and halls of art, both in our
country and in his own. Among them there is one special statue in
which the young people of America have a peculiar interest. On the
19th of October, 1898, five millions of American school children
contributed to a Lafayette Monument Fund. With this sum a bronze
statue was made and presented to the French Republic. Mr. Paul Wayland
Bartlett was the sculptor intrusted with this work. The statue was
completed in 1908 and placed in a court of the Louvre in Paris. It was
originally intended that the statue of Bonaparte should occupy the
center of that beautiful court, but it is the statue of Lafayette that
stands there--the "Boy" Cornwallis could not catch, the man Napoleon
could not intimidate. No one can tell us just how Lafayette's statue
happened to be assigned the place intended for Napoleon's; but however
it was, the fact is a luminous example of how a man who loved people
only to master and subjugate them did not reach the heart of the world
so directly as the man who loved human beings for their own sakes and
to do them good.
Printed in the United States of America.
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Transcriber's note:
List of Illustrations and Illustration Captions have been made
consistent to each other as follows.
"Portrait of Lafayette"--Caption has been extended from "Lafayette".
"A Carriage in which Lafayette Rode" entry in the List of
Illustrations has been extended from "Lafayette's Carriage".
On page 109 "Yorktown was now familar to Lafayette" has been corrected
to "Yorktown was now familiar to Lafayette".
In the song quoted on page 141 the last line "Et qui s'abaisse, on
l'évèra." has been changed to "Et qui s'abaisse, on l'élèvera."
All other spelling, punctuation, grammatical and typesetting errors
have been left as they were in the original book.