"The Lafayettes die young, but die fighting," was a saying in that part
of France where they had been people of consequence for seven hundred
years before the most famous of them came into the world. The family
name was Motier, but, after the custom of the time, they were better
known by the name of their estate, La Fayette, in Auvergne, a region
which had been called the French Siberia. Although situated in central
southern France, fully three hundred and fifty miles from Paris, it is
a high wind-swept country of plains and cone-shaped hills, among whose
rugged summits storms break to send destruction rushing down into the
valleys. Unexpected, fertile, sheltered spots are to be found among
these same hills, but on the whole it is not a gentle nor a smiling
land.
The history of France during the Middle Ages bears not a little
[Pg 2]resemblance to this region of Auvergne, so full of sharp
contrasts, often of disaster. Through all the turbulent centuries the
men of the house of Lafayette bore their part, fighting gallantly for
prince and king. Family tradition abounded in stories telling how
they had taken part in every war since old Pons Motier de Lafayette,
the Crusader, fought at Acre, in Palestine, in 1250. Jean fell at
Poictiers in 1356. There was a Claude--exception to the rule that they
died young--who took part in sixty-five sieges and no end of pitched
battles. Though most of them fought on land, there was an occasional
sailor to relieve the monotony; notably a vice-admiral of the reign
of Francis First, who held joint command with Andrea Doria when that
soldier of fortune went to the relief of Marseilles, and who sank or
burned four Spanish galleons in the naval battle at the mouth of the
Var.
But the Lafayette who occupied most space in family tradition and
written history was Gilbert, who was head of the family about the
time Columbus discovered America. It was he who took for motto upon
his coat of arms the words, "_Cur non?_" "Why not?" and by energetic
deeds satisfactorily answered his own question. "Seneschal of the
Bourbonnaise," "Lieutenant-General," "Governor of Dauphigny," and
"Marshal of France" were a few of the titles and honors he gathered
in the course of a long life, for he was another exception to the
family rule. He was eighty-two before he passed away, ready to fight
to the last. Although it is not true that he slew the English Duke of
Clarence with his own hands at the battle of Baugé, it is true that he
[Pg 3]fought under the banner of Joan of Arc at Orléans, and that he
had many adventures on many fields. When there was no foreign enemy
to battle against, he worked hard to subdue the bandits who infested
France and made travel on the highroads more exciting than agreeable to
timid souls in the reign of Charles VII.
In time the Motiers de Lafayette divided into two branches, the elder
keeping the estate and name and most of the glory; the younger, known
as the Motiers of Champetières, enjoying only local renown. The women
of the family also made a place for themselves in history. One, who had
beauty, had also courage and wit to oppose the great Cardinal Richelieu
himself. Another, less known in politics than in literature, though
she tried her hand at both, became famous as a novelist. It was her
grand-daughter who inherited part of the property at a time when there
were no more men of the elder branch to carry on the name. In order
that it might not die out, she arranged to have the estates pass back
to the younger branch, which in time inherited the title also.
The Lafayettes went on fighting and losing their lives early in battle.
Thus it happened that a baby born to a young widow in the grim old
manor-house of Chavaniac on the 6th of September, 1757, was the last
male representative of his race, a marquis from the hour of his birth.
His father had been made Chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis and
Colonel of Grenadiers at the early age of twenty-two, and fell before
[Pg 4]he was twenty-five, leading his men in an obscure engagement of
the Seven Years' War. This was about a month before his son was born.
His family believed that the gallant colonel's life was sacrificed by
the recklessness of his commanding officer.
According to the old parish register, still preserved, "The very high
and puissant gentleman, Monseigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert
Dumotier de Lafayette, the lawful son of the very high and 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," was baptized in the little parish
church of Chavaniac twenty-four hours after his birth. Besides this
terrifying name and the title, all the traditions and responsibilities
of both branches of the family descended upon his infant shoulders.
Being such a scrap of a baby, however, he was mercifully ignorant
of responsibilities and ancient names. The one given him in baptism
was shortened for daily use to Gilbert, the name of the old Marshal
of France; but a time came when it was convenient to have a number,
rightfully his, from which to choose. For his signature "La Fayette"
covered the whole ground.
His only near relatives were his young mother, his grandmother (a
stately lady of strong character), and two aunts, sisters of his dead
father, who came to live at Chavaniac. It was by this little group of
[Pg 5]aristocratic Frenchwomen that the champion of liberty was brought
up during those early years when character is formed. That he did not
become hopelessly spoiled speaks well for his disposition and their
self-control. He was not a strong baby, and they must have spent many
anxious hours bending over him as he lay asleep, however much they
concealed their interest at other times for fear of doing him moral
harm.
Until he was eleven they all lived together in the gloomy old château
where he was born. This has been described as "great and rather heavy."
It had been fortified in the fourteenth century. Two round towers with
steep, pointed roofs flanked it on the right and left. Across its front
high French windows let in light to the upper floors. From them there
was a far-reaching view over plain and river, and steep hills dotted
with clumps of trees. But loopholes on each side of an inhospitable
narrow doorway told of a time when its situation had been more prized
for defense than for mere beauty of scenery. It had a dungeon and other
grim conveniences of life in the Middle Ages, which must have stamped
themselves deep on the mind of an impressionable child. The castles of
Wissac and Saint-Romain, of which the boy was also lord, could be seen
higher up among the hills. There were glimpses, too, of peasant homes,
but these were neither neat nor prosperous. Bad laws, and abuse of law
that had been going on for centuries, had brought France to a point
where a few people were growing inordinately rich at the expense of all
[Pg 6]the rest. The king suffered from this as well as the peasants.
The country was overrun by an army of tax-collectors, one for every
one hundred and thirty souls in France, each of them bent on giving up
as little as possible of the money he collected. To curry favor with
the great nobles, who were more powerful than the king himself, their
property was not taxed so heavily as it should have been, while poorer
people, especially the peasants, were robbed to make up the difference.
"The people of our country live in misery; they have neither furniture
nor beds; during part of the year the most of them have no nourishment
except bread made of oats and barley, and even this they must snatch
from their own mouths and those of their children in order to pay the
taxes." That was written about this very region of Auvergne a few years
before Lafayette was born. In self-defense the peasants made their
homes look even more wretched than they really were. On occasion, when
convinced that the stranger knocking at their door was no spy, they
could bring a wheaten loaf and a bottle of wine from their secret store
and do the honors most hospitably.
The La Fayettes were not rich, though they were the great people of
their neighborhood. Only one Frenchman in a hundred belonged to the
nobility, but that one received more consideration than all the other
ninety-nine combined. When the boy marquis rode out with his mother,
or that stately lady his grandmother, the peasants in the little
village which had grown up around the walls of Chavaniac, clinging to
it for protection, bowed down as though the child were a sovereign.
[Pg 7]Some of them knelt in the dust as the coach passed by. Truly it
was strange soil for the growth of democratic ideas. It was well for
the boy's soul that in spite of lands and honor the household was of
necessity a frugal one. The wide acres were unproductive. Men who had
fought so often and so well for their princes had found little leisure
to gather wealth for their children. Besides, it was thought out of the
question for a nobleman to engage in gainful pursuits. The wealth such
men enjoyed came through favor at court; and in this household of women
there was no longer any one able to render the kind of service likely
to be noticed and rewarded by a king.
[Illustration: THE MANOR-HOUSE OF CHAVANIAC