But hope grew. On the very day of Chasteler's visit the prisoners
learned that negotiations for peace, already begun, contained a
clause which would set them free. These negotiations were being
directed in part--a very important part--by a remarkable man who had
been only an unknown second lieutenant when the troubles began in
France, but whose name was now on everybody's lips and whose power was
rapidly approaching that of a dictator. The elder De Ségur, father
of Lafayette's friend, had started him on his spectacular career by
placing him in the military academy. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte. A
man even less sagacious than he would have seen the advantage of making
friends rather than enemies of Lafayette's supporters in Europe and
America.
Thus it was partly because of repeated demands for his release coming
from England and France and America, and largely because Napoleon
willed it, that Lafayette was finally set free. Also there is little
doubt that Austria was heartily tired of being his jailer. Tourgot
[Pg 247]said that Lafayette would have been released much earlier if
anybody had known what on earth to do with him, but that neither Italy
nor France would tolerate him within its borders. Tourgot supposed the
emperor would raise no objection to the arrangement he had concluded to
turn over "all that caravan" to America as a means of getting rid of
him; "of which I shall be very glad," he added. The American consul at
Hamburg was to receive the prisoners, and he promised that they should
be gone in ten days. This time Lafayette was not given a chance to say
Yes or No.
On September 18, 1797, five years and a month after he had been
arrested, and two years lacking one month from the time Madame
Lafayette and the girls joined him, the gates of Olmütz opened and
he and his "caravan" went forth: Latour Maubourg, Bureaux de Pusy,
the faithful Felix, and other humble members of their retinue who had
shared imprisonment with them. Louis Romeuf, the aide-de-camp, who
had taken down Lafayette's farewell words to France and who had been
zealous in working for his relief, rode joyously to meet them, but so
long as Austria had authority the military kept him at arm's-length.
The party had one single glimpse of him, but it was not until they had
reached Dresden that he was permitted to join them.
Gradually sun and wind lost their feeling of strangeness on
prison-blanched cheeks. Gradually the crowds that gathered to watch
them pass dared show more interest. Lafayette's face was not unknown to
all who saw him. An Austrian pressed forward to thank him for saving
[Pg 248]his life in Paris on a day when Lafayette had set his wits
against the fury of the mob. When the party reached Hamburg Gouverneur
Morris and his host, who was an imperial minister, left a dinner-party
to go through the form of receiving the prisoners from their Austrian
guard, thus "completing their liberty." The short time spent in Hamburg
was devoted to writing letters of thanks to Huger, to Fitzpatrick, and
the others who had worked for their release.
The one anxiety during this happy journey had been caused by the
condition of Madame Lafayette, who showed, now that the strain was
removed, how very much the prison months had cost her. She did her best
to respond to the demands made upon her strength by the friendliness
of the crowds; but it was evident that in her state of exhaustion a
voyage to America was not to be thought of. From Hamburg, therefore,
the Lafayettes went to the villa of Madame Tessé on the shores of Lake
Ploën in Holstein. Here they remained several weeks in happy reunion
with relatives and close friends; and it was here a few months later
that Anastasie, Lafayette's elder daughter, was married to a younger
brother of Latour de Maubourg, to the joy of every one, though to the
mock consternation of the lively, white-haired Countess of Tessé,
who declared that these young people, ruined by the Revolution, were
setting up housekeeping in a state of poverty and innocence unequaled
since the days of Adam and Eve.
The Lafayettes and the Maubourgs took together a large castle at
[Pg 249]Lhemkulen, not far from Madame de Tessé, where Lafayette
settled himself to wait until he should be allowed to return to France.
It was here that George rejoined his family. He had been a child when
his father saw him last; he returned a man, older than Lafayette had
been when he set out for America. Washington had been very kind to
him, but his years in America had not been happy. Probably he felt
instinctively the constraint in regard to him.
Washington had been much distressed by Lafayette's misfortune and
had taken every official step possible to secure his release. It
was through the good offices of the American minister at London
that Lafayette had learned that his wife and children still lived.
Washington had sent Madame Lafayette not only sympathetic words, but
a check for one thousand dollars, in the hope that it might relieve
some of her pressing necessities. He even wrote the Austrian emperor
a personal letter in Lafayette's behalf. When he heard that George
was to be sent him he "desired to serve the father of this young man,
and to become his best friend," but he did not find the godfatherly
duty entirely easy. It threatened to conflict with his greater duty
as father of his country, strange as it seems that kindness to one
innocent, unhappy boy could have that effect. Washington was President
of the United States at the time and it behooved the young nation to
be very circumspect. Diplomacy is a strange game of many rules and
pitfalls; and it might prove embarrassing and compromising to have
as member of his family the son of a man who was looked upon by [Pg
250]most of the governments of Europe as an arch criminal.
Washington wrote to George in care of the Boston friend to whose house
the youth would go on landing, advising him not to travel farther,
but to enter Harvard and pursue his studies there. But M. Frestel
also came to America, by another ship and under an assumed name, and
George continued his education with him instead of entering college.
He possessed little of his father's faculty for making friends, though
the few who knew him esteemed him highly. The most impressionable
years of his life had been passed amid tragic scenes, and his natural
reserve and tendency to silence had been increased by anxiety about
his father's fate. After a time he went to Mount Vernon and became
part of the household there. One of Washington's visitors wrote: "I
was particularly struck with the marks of affection which the general
showed his pupil, his adopted son, son of the Marquis de Lafayette.
Seated opposite to him, he looked at him with pleasure and listened
to him with manifest interest." A note in Washington's business
ledger shows that the great man was both generous and sympathetic in
fulfilling his fatherly duties. It reads: "By Geo. W. Fayette, gave for
the purpose of his getting himself such small articles of clothing as
he might not choose to ask for, $100." It was at Mount Vernon that the
news of his real father's release came to George. He rushed out into
the fields away from everybody, to shout and cry and give vent to his
emotion unseen by human eyes.
[Pg 251]His father was pleased by the development he noted in him;
pleased by the letter Washington sent by the hand of "your son, who
is highly deserving of such parents as you and your estimable lady."
Pleased, too, that George had the manners to stop in Paris on the
way home long enough to pay his respects to Napoleon, and that, in
the absence of the general, he had been kindly received by Madame
Bonaparte. Natural courtesy as well as policy demanded that the
Lafayettes fully acknowledge their debt to Napoleon. One of Lafayette's
first acts on being set free had been to write him the following joint
letter of thanks with Maubourg and Pusy:
"CITIZEN GENERAL: The prisoners of Olmütz, happy in owing their
deliverance to the good will of their country and to your
irresistible arms, rejoiced during their captivity in the thought
that their liberty and their lives depended upon the triumphs of
the Republic and of your personal glory. It is with the utmost
satisfaction that we now do homage to our liberator. We should have
liked, Citizen General, to express these sentiments in person, to
look with our own eyes upon the scenes of so many victories, the army
which won them, and the general who has added our resurrection to the
number of his miracles. But you are aware that the journey to Hamburg
was not left to our choice. From the place where we parted with our
jailers we address our thanks to their victor.
"From our solitary retreat in the Danish territory of Holstein, where
[Pg 252] we shall endeavor to re-establish the health you have saved
to us, our patriotic prayers for the Republic will go out united with
the most lively interest in the illustrious general to whom we are
even more indebted for the services he has rendered liberty and our
country than for the special obligation it is our glory to owe him,
and which the deepest gratitude has engraved forever upon our hearts.
"Greetings and respect.
"LA FAYETTE,