The first period of Gilbert's life came to an end when he was eleven
years old. His mother was by no means ignorant of the ways of the world
and she had powerful relatives at court. She realized how much they
could do to advance her boy's career by speaking an occasional word in
his behalf; and also how much truth there is in the old saying "Out
of sight, out of mind." They might easily forget all about her and
her boy if they remained hidden in the provinces. So they went up to
Paris together, and she had herself presented at court and took up her
residence in the French capital, while Gilbert became a student at the
Collège Du Plessis, a favorite school for sons of French noblemen. His
mother's uncle, the Comte de la Rivière, entered his name upon the army
lists as member of a regiment of Black Mousquetaires, to secure him the
benefit of early promotion. He was enrolled, too, among the pages of
Marie Leszczynska, the Polish wife of King Louis XV, but his duties,
as page and soldier, were merely nominal. He does not say a word about
[Pg 10]being page in his _Memoirs_. Of the regiment he merely says that
it served to get him excused from classes when there was to be a parade.
He remained three years at Du Plessis. He found studying according to
rule decidedly irksome, and very different from the solitary lessons at
Chavaniac, where the few rules in force had been made for his benefit,
if not for his convenience. He tells us that he was "distracted from
study only by the desire to study without restraint," and that such
success as he gained was "inspired by a desire for glory and troubled
by the desire for liberty." Sometimes the latter triumphed. It amused
him, when he was old, to recall how, being ordered to write an essay on
"the perfect steed," he sacrificed a good mark and the praise of his
teachers to the pleasure of describing a spirited horse that threw his
rider at the very sight of a whip.
The Collège Du Plessis must have been almost like a monastery. Each
boy had a stuffy little cell into which he was locked at night. No
member of a student's family might cross the threshold, and the many
careful rules for health and diet were quite the opposite of those
now practised. This period of Lafayette's school-days was a time when
men's ideas on a variety of subjects were undergoing vast change. The
old notion that learning was something to be jealously guarded and
made as difficult and disagreeable as possible died hard. It is true
that the good Fénelon, who believed in teaching children to read from
books printed in French instead of in Latin, and who thought it could
[Pg 11]do them no harm if the books were "well bound and gilded on
the edge," had gone to his reward half a century before; but he had
been writing about the education of girls! When Lafayette was only
five years old one Jean Jacques Rousseau had published a fantastic
story called _Émile_, which was nothing in the world but a treatise on
education in disguise. In this he objected to the doctrine of original
sin, holding that children were not born bad; and he reasoned that they
did not learn better nor more quickly for having knowledge beaten into
them with rods. But this man Rousseau was looked upon as an infidel
and a dangerous character. Probably at Du Plessis the discipline and
course of study belonged to the old order of things, though there
were concessions in the way of teaching the young gentlemen manners
and poetry and polite letter-writing, which they would need later in
their fashionable life at court. History as taught them was hopelessly
tangled up in heraldry, being all about the coats of arms and the
quarrels of nobles in France and neighboring countries. When something
about justice and liberty and the rights of the people did creep into
the history lesson the tall young student from Auvergne fell upon it
with avidity. Perhaps it was because of such bits scattered through
the pages of Roman authors that he learned considerable Latin, and
learned it well enough to remember it forty years later, when he found
it useful to piece out his ignorance of German in talking with his
Austrian jailers.
In spite of queer notions about hygiene, like those which bade him
[Pg 12]shut out fresh air from his room at night and avoid the risk of
eating fresh fruit, he grew in body as well as in mind during the years
at Du Plessis, and he had almost reached his man's height of five feet
eleven inches, when one day in 1770 a messenger came to the college,
bringing the news that his mother had just died. A very few days later
her death was followed by that of her father, who was wealthy and had
made the boy his heir. Thus, almost within a week, he found himself
infinitely poorer than he had ever been before, yet very rich, deprived
of those dearest to him and in possession of a large fortune.
People began to take a sudden lively interest in him. The son of a
young widow studying in the Collège Du Plessis was of consequence only
to himself and his mother. But the young Marquis de Lafayette, of such
old and excellent family, such good disposition, such a record in his
studies, such a very large income--above all, a generous young man with
no near relatives to give meddling advice about how he should spend his
money, became fair prey for all the fortune-hunters prowling around the
corrupt court of old Louis XV.
These were many. The king was bored as well as old. His days were
filled with a succession of tiresome ceremonies. A crowd of bowing
courtiers was admitted to his bedroom before he got up in the morning.
Crowds attended him at every turn, even assisting in his toilet at
night. Frederick the Great had said, "If I were king of France, the
first thing I would do would be to appoint another king to hold court
[Pg 13]in my place"! But indolent old Louis had not the energy even to
break down customs which had come to him from the days of kings long
dead. "He cared for nothing in this life except to hunt, and feared
nothing in the life to come except hell." When not hunting, his one
desire was to be let alone to pursue whatever evil fancy entered his
brain.
The people at court had two desires--to flatter the king and to get
money. The first was the surest means to the second. Everybody, good
and bad, seemed in need of money, for the few rich nobles had set a
style of living which not even the king could afford to follow. It
was all part of the same tangle, the result of accidents and crimes
and carelessness extending through many reigns, which had brought
about ever-increasing visits of the tax-collectors and reduced the
peasants to starvation. One after another important concessions had
been given away as a mark of royal favor, or else had been sold
outright. A clever man in the reign of Louis XIV had remarked that
whenever his Majesty created an office the Lord supplied a fool to buy
it. In the reign of his grandson, Louis XV, things were even worse. A
high-sounding official title, carrying with it a merely nominal duty
and some privilege that might be turned into coin, was the elegant way
of overcoming financial difficulty. Even the wax candles burned in
the sconces at Versailles were sold for the benefit of the official
who had charge of their lighting. He saw to it that plenty of candles
were lighted, and that none of them burned too long before going to
swell his income. What the great nobles did lesser ones imitated; and
[Pg 14]so on, down a long line. No wonder that young Lafayette, having
inherited his fortune, became suddenly interesting.
Of course, not everybody was corrupt, even at court. There were people
who could not possibly be classed as fortune-hunters. Even to these
the fact that the young heir was tall and silent and awkward, not
especially popular at school, and not likely to shine in a society
whose standards were those of dancing-school manners and lively wit,
did not weigh for a moment against the solid attraction of his wealth.
To fathers and mothers of marriageable daughters both his moral and
material qualifications appealed. He was barely fourteen years old
when proposals of marriage began to be made in the careful French
way, which assumes that matrimony is an affair to be arranged between
guardians, instead of being left to the haphazard whim of young people.
An early letter of Lafayette's written about this time was partly
upon this subject. It might have been penned by a world-wise man of
thirty. The Comte de la Rivière appears to have been the person to
whom these proposals were first addressed. He, and possibly the Abbé
Feyon, discussed them with Lafayette in a business-like way; and the
young man, not being in love, either with a maid or with the idea
of matrimony, listened without enthusiasm, suggesting that better
matches might be found among the beauties of Auvergne. New duties and
surroundings engrossed him. He had left Du Plessis for the Military
Academy at Versailles, where there was more army and less cloister in
his training; where he spent part of his money upon fine horses and
[Pg 15]lent them generously to friends; and where, for amusement in his
hours of leisure, he could watch the pageant of court life unrolling at
the very gates of the academy. Matrimony could wait.
Among those more interested in providing a wife for him than he was in
finding one for himself was the lively Duc d'Ayen, a rich and important
nobleman, the father of five daughters. The eldest of these was fully a
year younger than Lafayette, while the others descended toward babyhood
like a flight of steps. Even in that day of youthful marriages it
seemed early to begin picking out husbands for them. But there were
five, and the duke felt he could not begin better than by securing
this long-limbed boy for a son-in-law. He suggested either his eldest
daughter, Louise, or the second child, Adrienne, then barely twelve,
as a future Marquise de Lafayette. He did not care which was chosen,
but of course it must be one of the older girls, since the bridegroom
would have to wait too long for the others to grow up. The match was
entirely suitable, and was taken under favorable consideration by the
bridegroom's family; but when it occurred to the duke to mention the
matter to his wife, he found opposition where it was least expected.
Madame d'Ayen absolutely refused her consent. These two were quite
apt to hold different views. The husband liked the luxury of the
court and chuckled over its shams. His wife, on the contrary, was of
a most serious turn of mind and had very little sense of humor. The
frivolities of court life really shocked her. She looked upon riches as
[Pg 16]a burden, and fulfilled the social duties of her position only
under protest as part of that burden. The one real joy of her life lay
in educating her daughters. She studied the needs of their differing
natures. She talked with them much more freely than was then the
custom, and did all in her power to make of them women who could live
nobly at court and die bravely when and wherever their time came.
She had no fault to find with young Lafayette. Her opposition was a
matter of theory and just a little selfish, for her married life had
not been happy enough to make her anxious to see her girls become wives
of even the best young men. As for this Motier lad, she thought him
particularly open to temptation because of his youth and loneliness and
great wealth. He had lacked the benefit of a father's training. So, for
that matter, had her own children. Their father was almost always away
from home.
The duke's airy manner hid a persistent spirit, and, in spite of his
worldliness, he esteemed the good character of the boy. The discussion
lasted almost a year and developed into the most serious quarrel of
their married life. No wonder, under the circumstances, that the duke
did not, as his daughter expressed it, "like his home." The little
girls knew something was wrong, and shared their mother's unhappiness
without guessing the cause. The duke's acquaintances, on the other
hand, to whom the cause was no secret, looked upon the contest of wills
as a comedy staged for their benefit. One of them said in his hearing
that no woman of Madame d'Ayen's strength of character, who had gone
[Pg 17]so far in refusal, would ever consent to the marriage. At this
the duke warmly rushed to the defense of his wife and answered that a
woman of her character, once convinced that she was wrong, would give
in completely and utterly.
That was exactly what happened. After months of critical observation
she found herself liking Lafayette better and better. The duke assured
her that the marriage need not take place for two years, and that
meantime the young man should continue his studies. She gave her
consent and took the motherless boy from that moment into her heart;
while the little girls, sensitive to the home atmosphere, felt the joy
of reconciliation without even yet knowing how nearly it concerned them.
It was decided among the elders that Adrienne, the second daughter, was
to become Madame Lafayette, because the young Vicomte de Noailles, a
cousin to whom Louise had been partial from babyhood, had made formal
proposals for her hand. This cousin was a friend and schoolfellow of
Lafayette's, and during the next few months the youths were given the
opportunity of meeting their future wives apparently by chance while
out walking, and even under the roof of the duke; but for a year
nothing was said to the girls about marriage. Their mother did not
wish to have their minds distracted from their lessons or from that
important event in the lives of Catholic maidens, their first communion.
Two months before her marriage actually took place Louise was told
that she was to be the bride of Noailles; and at the time of that
wedding Adrienne was informed of the fate in store for her. She found
[Pg 18]nothing whatever to question in this. It seemed altogether
delightful, and far simpler than deciding about the state of her own
soul. The truth was that her heart had already begun to feel that love
for Gilbert de Motier which was to grow and become the controlling
factor of her life. Girl-like, her head was just a little turned by
the momentous news of her engagement. Her mother tried to allay her
excitement, but she also took care to let Adrienne know how much she
liked the young man and to repeat to her all the good things she had
found out about him. And to her joy, Adrienne found that Lafayette felt
for the elder lady "that filial affection" which also grew as the years
went on.
How he felt about marriage as the day approached we do not know;
neither do we know the details of the wedding which must have been
celebrated with some splendor on the 11th of April, 1774. The bride was
not yet fifteen, the groom was sixteen. He was given leave of absence
from his regiment, and the newly wedded pair took up their residence in
the wonderful Paris home of Adrienne's family, the Hotel de Noailles.
Although not far from the Tuileries, in the very heart of the city, it
possessed a garden so large that a small hunt could be carried on in
it, with dogs and all. John Adams is authority for this. He visited the
Lafayettes there some time later, and found it unbelievably vast and
splendid.
[Pg 19]III