To those who have been wont to think of this American triumphal
progress of Lafayette's as steady and slow, stopping only for
demonstrations of welcome and rarely if ever doubling on its tracks,
it is a relief to learn that Lafayette did occasionally rest. He
made Washington, the capital of the country, his headquarters, and
set out from there on longer or shorter journeys. The town had not
existed, indeed had scarcely been dreamed of, for a decade after
his first visit. What he thought of the straggling place, with its
muddy, stump-infested avenues, we shall never know. He had abundant
imagination--which was one reason the town existed; for without
imagination he would never have crossed the ocean to fight for American
liberty. Among the people he saw about him in Washington during the
official ceremonies were many old friends and many younger faces
mysteriously like them. To that striking sentence in Henry Clay's
[Pg 264]address of welcome in the House of Representatives, "General,
you find yourself here in the midst of posterity," he could answer,
with truth and gallantry, "No, Mr. Speaker, posterity has not yet begun
for me, for I find in these sons of my old friends the same political
ideals and, I may add, the same warm sentiments toward myself that I
have already had the happiness to enjoy in their fathers."
His great friend Washington had gone to his rest; but there were
memories of Washington at every turn. He made a visit to Mount Vernon
and spent a long hour at his friend's tomb. He entered Yorktown
following Washington's old campaign tent, a relic which was carried
ahead of the Lafayette processions in that part of the country, in
a spirit almost as reverent as that the Hebrews felt toward the Ark
of the Covenant. At Yorktown the ceremonies were held near the Rock
Redoubt which Lafayette's command had so gallantly taken. Zachary
Taylor, who was to gain fame as a general himself and to be President
of the United States, presented a laurel wreath, which Lafayette turned
from a compliment to himself to a tribute to his men. "You know, sir,"
he said, "that in this business of storming redoubts with unloaded
arms and fixed bayonets, the merit of the deed lies in the soldiers
who execute it," and he accepted the crown "in the name of the light
infantry--those we have lost as well as those who survive."
Farther south, at Camden, he laid the corner-stone of a monument to his
friend De Kalb; and at Savannah performed the same labor of love for
[Pg 265]one erected in honor of Nathanael Greene and of Pulaski. At
Charleston, also, he met Achille Marat, come from his home in Florida
to talk with Lafayette about his father, who met his death at the hands
of Charlotte Corday during the French Revolution. There were many
meetings in America to remind him of his life abroad. Francis Huger
joined him for a large part of his journey; he saw Dubois Martin, now
a jaunty old gentleman of eighty-three. It was he who had bought _La
Victoire_ for Lafayette's runaway journey. In New Jersey he dined with
Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, who was living there quietly
with his daughter and son-in-law.
Both on the Western frontier and at the nation's capital he met Indian
chiefs with garments more brilliant and manners quite as dignified
as kings ever possessed. In a time of freshet in the West he became
the guest of an Indian named Big Warrior and spent the night in his
savage home. On another night he came near accepting unwillingly the
hospitality of the Ohio River, for the steamboat upon which he was
traveling caught fire, after the manner of river boats of that era,
and "burned a hole in the night" and disappeared. He lost many of his
belongings in consequence, including his hat, but not his serenity or
even a fraction of his health, though the accident occurred in the
pouring rain.
Everywhere, particularly in the West, he came to towns and counties
bearing his own name. In the East he revisited with his son spots made
memorable in the Revolution. On the Hudson he rose early to point out
[Pg 266]to George the place where André had been taken and the house
to which he and Washington had come so soon after Arnold's precipitate
flight. At West Point he reviewed the cadets, slim and straight and
young, while General Scott and General Brown, both tall, handsome
men, looking very smart indeed in their plumes and dress uniforms,
stood beside their visitor, who was almost as tall and military in his
bearing and quite as noticeable for the neatness and plainness of his
civilian dress.
Lafayette was broader of shoulder and distinctly heavier than he had
been forty years before. Even in his youth he had not been handsome,
though he possessed for Americans the magnetism his son so sadly
lacked. His once fair complexion had turned brown and his once reddish
hair had turned gray, but that was a secret concealed under a chestnut
wig. He carried a cane and walked with a slight limp, which Americans
attributed enthusiastically to his wound in their service, but which
was really caused by that fall upon the ice in 1803. Despite his
checkered fortunes his sixty-eight years had passed lightly over his
head. Perhaps he did not altogether relish being addressed as Venerable
Sir by mayors and town officials, any more than he liked to have laurel
wreaths pulling his wig awry, but he knew that both were meant in
exquisite politeness.
And, true Frenchman that he was, he never allowed himself to be outdone
in politeness. Everywhere incidents occurred, trivial enough, but very
charming in spirit, that have been treasured in memory and handed down
to this day. In New London two rival congregations besought him to [Pg
267]come to their churches and listen to their pastors. He pleased
them both. He led blind old ladies gallantly through the minuet. He
held tiny girls in his arms and, kissing them, said they reminded him
of his own little Virginia. He chatted delightfully with young men
who accompanied him as governors' aides in turn through the different
states; and if he extracted local information from these talks to use
it again slyly, with telling effect, in reply to the very next address
of welcome, that was a joke between themselves which they enjoyed
hugely. "He spoke the English language well, but slower than a native
American," one of these young aides tells us. He was seldom at a loss
for a graceful speech, though this was a gift that came to him late in
life. And his memory for faces seldom played him false. When William
Magaw, who had been surgeon of the old First Pennsylvania, visited him
and challenged him for recognition, Lafayette replied that he did not
remember his name, but that he knew very well what he had done for
him--he had dressed his wound after the battle of the Brandywine!
The processions and celebrations in Lafayette's honor culminated in
the ceremony for which he had crossed the Atlantic, the laying of the
corner-stone at Bunker Hill. Pious people had said hopefully that
the Lord could not let it rain on such a day; and their faith was
justified, for the weather was perfect. We are told that on the 17th of
June "everything that had wheels and everything that had legs" moved in
the direction of the monument. Accounts tell of endless organizations
[Pg 268]and of "miles of spectators," until there seemed to be not room
for another person to sit or stand. The same chaplain who had lifted up
his young voice in prayer in the darkness on Cambridge Common before
the men marched off to battle was there in the sunlight to raise his
old hands in blessing. Daniel Webster, who had not been born when the
battle was fought, was there to make the oration. He could move his
hearers as no other American has been able to do, playing upon their
emotions as upon an instrument, and never was his skill greater than
upon that day. He set the key of feeling in the words, "Venerable men,"
addressed to the forty survivors of the battle, a gray-haired group,
sitting together in the afternoon light. Lafayette had met this little
company in a quiet room before the ceremonies began and had greeted
each as if he were in truth a personal friend. After his part in the
ceremony was over he elected to sit with them instead of in the place
prepared for him. "I belong there," he said, and there he sat, his
chestnut wig shining in the gray company.
While Webster's eloquence worked its spell, and pride and joy and pain
even to the point of tears swept over the thousands of upturned faces
as cloud shadows sweep across a meadow, Lafayette must have remembered
another scene, a still greater assembly, even more tense with feeling,
in which he had been a central figure: that fête of the Federation on
the Champs de Mars. Surely no other man in history has been allowed to
feel himself so intimately a part of two nations in their moments of
patriotic exaltation.
[Pg 269]XXVIII