his own age at Versailles, he could not endure the stiff court nor look
with any satisfaction to the formal life which most of the young men of
the time led. He was naturally too independent to bow and scrape as was
required. In spite of his careful training he found that he had not
acquired the endless flow of frivolous talk which was popular at court.
He was usually silent in company, and more and more given to going away
by himself, in order to escape the affectations of the life about him.
His only chance seemed to lie in the army, and therefore he spent a
great deal of his time with his regiment of Black Musketeers, and began
to plan for a military career.
He had been made a cadet of the old French regiment called the Black
Musketeers when he was only twelve years old. Then he was a slight
little chap with bright reddish hair and very fair complexion, and much
too small to carry a man's arms; but he was so fond of the
splendid-looking set of men that whenever they paraded he was sure to be
somewhere near at hand to watch them. The boy's name had been placed on
the Musketeers' rolls, though not as a regular cadet, very soon after
his birth, because his great-uncle had been a member of the regiment and
was eager to have his family name connected with it.
It happened that this twelve-year-old cadet was already a very important
person in the kingdom of France. He had been baptized by the names of
Marie Paul Joseph Roche Ives Gilbert de Mottier, and held the title of
Marquis of Lafayette. His father had been killed at the battle of Minden
when he was only twenty-four years old, but had already won a great name
for bravery. His mother died soon afterward, and so the young Marquis
was left almost alone in his great castle of Chavaniac in the Auvergne
Mountains of southern France.
He must have been very lonely with no playmates of his own age and only
masters and governesses about him. He was what people called "land
poor," which meant that although he owned a large part of French
territory, it brought him in but small profit, and he had little money
to spend.
To make up for his lack of playmates, his masters spent much time
drilling the boy Marquis in the etiquette of the French nobility.
High-born French youths at that time had many things to learn, but they
were such things as would make the boy an ornamental piece of furniture
at court. He must be able to enter a drawing-room with perfect dignity,
to compliment a lady, to pick up a fan, to offer his arm with an air of
gallantry, to take part in the formal dances of the period, to draw his
sword in case his honor should require it.
The little boys and girls of Louis XVI's reign were dressed in stiff
court clothes almost as soon as they were old enough to talk, and were
taught bows and curtsies, gallant words and dancing steps when other
children would have been playing out-of-doors. As a result they grew up
much alike, most of them merely fashion plates to decorate the royal
palace at Versailles.
Fortunately for the boy his lonely life in the mountains ended when he
was twelve years old. Then his great uncle sent for him to come to
Paris, and placed him at the College du Plessis, where a great many
other young courtiers were being educated. The school taught him very
little of history, of foreign languages, or sciences, but a great deal
about riding and fencing and dancing, and how to write a letter which
should be full of worldly wisdom. At about the same time his grandfather
died, and he inherited a very large fortune, so that the small boy bore
not only one of the oldest titles in the kingdom but possessed enough
money to do exactly as he pleased. There was only one course open to
him--the life of a courtier at Versailles.
In that age of ceremony marriage was quite as much a formal matter as
other affairs of life. The young Marquis's guardians, according to the
custom of the time, immediately looked about for a girl of equal rank
who might marry their boy. They decided on little Marie Adrienne de
Noailles, daughter of a great peer of France. The girl was only twelve
years old, and her mother was very unwilling to have her married to a
boy whose character was unformed, and whose fortune would allow him to
become as wild as he chose. Her father, however, liked the match, and
her mother finally agreed, insisting, however, that the children should
wait two years before their wedding.
When these arrangements had all been made and the engagement was
formally announced, the boy Marquis was taken to call at the house of
his future wife, and was presented to her in the garden. Formal paths
wound under a row of chestnut-trees, carefully tended flower-beds were
arranged with mathematical precision, a few peacocks strutted across the
lawn, and here and there a marble statue or a great stone jar from Italy
gave a classic touch to the scene.
The small boy, dressed in court clothes of velvet, his fair hair in long
curls, his three-cornered hat held beneath his arm, his court rapier
hanging at his side, bright silver buckles at knees and on shoes,
advanced down the walk to the little lady who was waiting for him. She
was in flowered satin, her long, yellow hair falling to her shoulders,
her light-blue eyes looking timidly at the boy, and her pale cheeks
flushing as he approached. As he stood before her, she held out her
hand, and he delicately lifted it with his and touched his lips to her
fingers. She blushed redder, then he paid her a few stately compliments,
and they walked down the path laughing shyly at this new intimacy. She
had seen few boys before, and he had known few girls, and yet their
guardians had destined them for man and wife.
It was a curious, old-world picture that the two children made, but the
scene was quite characteristic of the age.
At the time he lived at Versailles and made one of the group about the
little King and Queen, the guardians of the young Marquis expected to
find him growing more and more popular with the royal court, and they
were very much surprised when they learned how reserved he was becoming
and how little he seemed interested in the pursuits of his age. When
they heard of his being one of the ringleaders at the Queen's party,
they were horrified. They determined to try and make him more like
themselves, and so sought to get him a place in the household of one of
the royal family, the Duc de Provence.
Lafayette was very much disturbed at the thought, and secretly
determined to defeat the plan. Before the position was finally offered
him he went to a masked ball, and learning which was the Duc de Provence
in disguise, went up to him and spoke republican sentiments which were
not at all to the nobleman's liking. Then the boy allowed the masked man
to recognize him. The Duc said sharply that he should remember the
interview. Thereupon young Lafayette made him a profound bow and replied
calmly that memory was often called the wit of fools. This, of course,
ended the chance of his preferment in the royal household, and the boy
was freed from what he considered an irksome task.
As a result however he was no longer popular at court, and soon asked
that he might be allowed to go back to his distant castle in Auvergne
until he was old enough to take his place in the army. His guardians
were glad to have him safely out of the way for a time, and granted his
request.
So for a year the little Marie Jean Paul de Lafayette went back to his
mountain home and browsed in his father's library and rode over his
estates. He liked the peasants in the country. They were a brighter
race, not so sullen and discontented as the people in the streets of
Paris, but even here, far from Versailles, the boy heard much of the
frightful poverty of the people and the gross extravagance of the court.
It made him think, and the more he considered the matter the more he
thought the people's claims were just.
At the end of a year the boy went back to Paris and married the girl to
whom he had been betrothed. He was sixteen, she fourteen, but the
Duchess considered that the boy had shown that he was neither a
spendthrift nor a fool, and that her daughter could be trusted to him.
So the two, scarcely more than school children, opened their residence
in Paris, and took their place in that gay world which was riding so
rapidly to its downfall.
Meanwhile news was constantly coming to France concerning the glorious
stand which the American colonists were making against England. The love
of liberty was strong in the boy's heart, and the desire to help the
colonists soon came to be his greatest wish. Beneath his reserved manner
and his silent habits there lay the greatest enthusiasm, and the most
determined character.
He soon had concluded that there was little hope of winning laurels in
the regiment of Black Musketeers, and he cast his eyes longingly across
the seas to where real fighting was taking place; but when he told his
wish to his friends they all opposed him. He went to an old general who
had long been a friend of his family, and urged him to help him in his
plan to go to America.
"Ah, my boy!" said the general, "I have seen your uncle die in the
Italian wars. I saw your father killed at Minden. I will not help in the
ruin of the last member of your family. You would only risk life and
fortune over there without any chance of reward."
That was exactly what Lafayette was anxious to do, and he would not give
up his plan. He crossed the Channel to London, and there met some of the
men who were interested in the colonial cause. He went to a secret
meeting, and heard them discuss plans to help the Americans. They, on
their part, at first looked askance at the tall, slender, reddish-haired
young Frenchman, who had so little to say himself, and who seemed so
easily embarrassed. But when they learned that he had a great fortune,
and that if he should aid their cause other young noblemen would follow
him, they did their best to win his help. They little knew how
invaluable his rare spirit would prove in winning freedom for their
land.
As he was an officer in the French army, the young Marquis found it very
difficult to leave France without the consent of the government, and
this he could not gain. He and a friend, named Baron de Kalb, made their
plans to escape secretly from Paris to Bordeaux. When he reached the
port he found that his ship was not ready, and before he could sail two
officers arrived from court, bearing peremptory orders forbidding him to
go to America or to assist the colonists.
[Illustration: LAFAYETTE TELLS OF HIS WISH TO AID AMERICA]
He would not give up his great desire, and so although he pretended
that he was willing to obey the command, he planned secretly to escape
across the Spanish border and sail from a Spanish port. He and a friend
left Bordeaux in a post-chaise, announcing that they were on their way
to the French city of Marseilles. As soon as their carriage reached the
open country the young Marquis stepped out, and, now disguised as a
courier, mounted one of the horses and rode on ahead, ordering the
relays. When they reached the road which led toward Spain they changed
their course. The officers who had been set to spy upon him, however,
now were giving chase, and at the next inn Lafayette was obliged to hide
in the straw of a stable until the pursuers should pass.
It so happened that he had ridden over that road a little time before,
and the innkeeper's daughter knew him by sight. When he rode into the
courtyard she exclaimed, "There comes the Marquis de Lafayette!" and he
was much alarmed, lest some of the bystanders should give away his
secret. He made them understand, however, that he was traveling in
disguise, so that when the pursuers arrived and asked questions, the
people of the inn all agreed that no such gentleman as Lafayette had
been seen in the neighborhood.
By means of alternate hiding and sudden rapid riding, the Marquis
finally crossed the Spanish border, and reached the little town of
Passage. There, on April 20, 1777, he set sail in a boat happily named
_La Victoire_, heading for North America.
America owes a great deal to this gallant young Frenchman who crossed
the seas to aid the colonies. He was among the first of those
foreigners who showed the colonists that the love of liberty was as wide
as the world. He came when hope was low, and his coming meant much to
the brave men who had to undergo the long, discouraging winter at Valley
Forge, and the days when it seemed as though time would prove them only
rebels and not patriots. He brought ships, and men, and money to aid in
the great cause, but more than all these were his own magnetic
personality and the buoyant spirit that refused to be cast down.
The War of Independence came to an end, and Lafayette returned home.
Trouble was brewing there. The old nobility had grown too overbearing;
the men and women who tilled the soil were considered hardly better than
mere beasts of burden. Such a state could not last, and so the time came
when the mobs of Paris broke into the beautiful gardens of Versailles,
stormed the Palace of the Tuilleries, scattered some of the vain and
foolish old courtiers, but imprisoned many more, and brought to trial
the hapless King Louis and the charming Marie Antoinette.
Lafayette, friend of their early days, stood by them through the height
of the storm, but there was little he could do against the people's
fury. The Revolution rolled over King and Queen, crushing them and their
resplendent court, and when it had passed a different type of men and
women governed France.
Only a few of the old nobility were left, and they had learned their
lesson. Lafayette and his wife were of that number. Lover of liberty as
he was, these great events could scarcely have surprised him. The
people had done much the same as had he when, a boy at Versailles, he
rebelled against the selfish court that trod down all opposition with a
heel of iron.
XI
Horatio Nelson
The Boy of the Channel Fleet: 1758-1805
It was a dark, rainy autumn afternoon, and the small boy, who was
trudging along the post-road that led to the English river town of
Chatham, was wet to the skin, and thoroughly tired into the bargain. He
was thin and pale, with big-searching eyes, and coal black hair that
hung tangled over his forehead. He had been traveling all day, and had
had only a roll to eat since early morning.
Sometimes he was tempted to stop and ask people he met how far it still
was to the town on the Medway, but he overcame the temptation, because
he knew that he could reach his destination by six o'clock, and that
thinking of the distance still to go would not help him.
Occasionally he would stop, fling his arms about his body for warmth,
and stamp his feet hard to drive away the chill. But his stops were not
frequent, because he was in a hurry to end his journey.
On such an autumn day night sets in early, and the road ahead was simply
a gray blur by the time the boy had reached the outskirts of the town.
But when he did see the first straggling houses he could not help giving
a little cry of satisfaction. He met a pedlar going the other way.
"Is this Chatham?" the boy asked, half fearing that the answer would be
"No."
"Yes, this here's Chatham."
"And where are the docks, the war-ship docks?" asked the boy.
"Keep straight on this road and you'll walk clean into the water, and
there's the ships," said the man.
Doubtless he wondered what the boy wanted of the war-ships, but the lad
gave him no chance to satisfy his curiosity. He was hurrying on as fast
as he could go.
Soon the houses grew more numerous and the post-road had become a street
heading through the heart of an old-fashioned town. The boy had never
been to Chatham before, but he did not stop to look at any of the
curious houses he passed. He saw a pasty-cook's window filled with buns
and tarts, and he remembered how long it had been since breakfast, but
even that thought did not make him loiter. He must reach the docks
before all the men-o'-war's men had left for the night.
Soon a whiff of fresh air blew in his face. He knew what that meant; he
loved that breath of the water; it nerved him to cover the last lap of
his long journey at a quick step. Then to his delight, he found himself
at last arrived at the water's edge, and before him a shore covered with
boats, and the wide river with the dim outlines of the men-o'-war.
He stood still, peering at the great ships, until an old sailor passed
near him. "Do those ships belong to the Channel Fleet?" asked the boy.
The mariner nodded his head. "That's part of his Majesty's Channel
Squadron, my lad. Be you thinkin' of shippin' before the mast?"
"Perhaps. Could you tell me where to find an officer of the fleet? Are
there any still ashore?"
The sailor glanced at a landing-stage near by. "Aye, there's an
officer's gig, and there's the very man you're lookin' for. The one in
the cocked hat with the gold trimmin' yonder."
"Thank you," said the boy, and started on the run for the landing-stage,
completely forgetting how tired his legs had been.
The man in the cocked hat found himself a moment later facing a small
delicate-looking boy, who was asking which vessel was the _Raisonnable_.
He looked the boy over and then pointed out the frigate which bore that
name. "What do you want with her?" he asked, amused at the eagerness
with which the boy looked through the sea of masts at the ship he
sought.
"My uncle's her commander, and I'm to serve on her," came the answer.
"How can I get on board?"
"I'll look after that," said the young lieutenant. "She's my ship too."
Again his eyes ran over the small, slender figure before him. "What's
your name?" he asked.
"Horatio Nelson, sir."
"Well, Nelson, you look starved, and more like a drowned rat than a
midshipman. How long since you had a square meal?"
"Since breakfast."
"And why didn't you stop in the town and have a bite on your way here?"
"I promised my father to come straight on to the docks, sir, and report
for duty. I said I wouldn't stop until I got here."
"So nothing could have kept you back, eh? Well, you've reported for duty
now, as I'm your superior officer. I don't have to be on board ship for
half an hour, so my first order to you is that you come with me to a
cook-shop and have some of the roast beef of old England before you set
out to sea."
Nothing loath, now that his promise was kept, Nelson went with the
lieutenant into one of the small, winding Chatham streets, and entered
an inn much frequented by sailors. Here the officer ordered a hot
supper, and sat by the boy while the latter ate it. Nelson was nearly
famished; it was a delight to the lieutenant to watch the satisfying of
such an appetite.
A little later the officer and the boy were rowed out to the frigate,
and Nelson duly delivered by his new friend into the care of the ship's
commander. His uncle looked at the boy askance; he seemed very pale and
delicate and undersized, even for a boy of thirteen, but the uncle had
promised to take him on trial as midshipman, and so, though with much
misgiving, he found him his berth.
He little knew what the sight of that Channel Fleet and the smell of the
salt water meant to the new midshipman.
The boy's uncle, Captain Suckling by name, who was in command of this
sixty-four gun man-o'-war, had been trained in the principles of the
old English navy, which were that hardship was good for a sailor, and
that the more a man was battered about in time of peace the better he
would fight in time of war.
Everything above decks was spick and span, and young Horatio gazed with
wondering admiration at the neatness of the white decks continually
scraped and holystoned until they fairly glistened in the sun, at the
imposing size and length of the long lines of black cannon, the special
pride of every officer, and at the symmetry and the wonderful height of
spars and sails and rigging, forming a very network in the sky.
He had loved boats since the days when he had pumped water into the
horse-trough before his father's house in order that he might sail paper
boats in it, and now it seemed almost impossible to believe that he
stood on the deck of a ship of his Majesty's service and was to have a
hand in caring for all this cannon and rigging. He looked wonderingly at
the sailors, a bronzed, hardy lot, in their white jackets and trousers
that flared widely at the bottom, wearing their hair according to the
custom of the day in long pig-tails down their backs.
But when he went below decks he found the picture very different.
Everything there was dirt and gloom, foul odors and general misery. The
cat-o'-nine-tails was the favorite punishment for sailors. Many a back
was deeply scored with the lash, and, worse yet, many a man had been
forced into the service against his will, seized at night by the
press-gang, cudgeled into insensibility and carried on board to wake up
later and find himself destined to serve at sea. The food was chiefly
salt beef, and in most respects the men were treated little better than
so many cattle. As a result they might be hardy, but they were also as
surly and vicious a lot as could be found anywhere.
The poor boy had a hard time growing accustomed to such companionship.
He had longed for the glory of the sailor's life without knowing
anything about its wretchedness, and now he saw all these horrors spread
before his eyes. His uncle, believing that the best way to bring him up
was to let him entirely alone to fight his own battles, paid little or
no attention to him, and the boy, brought up in the country home of a
clergyman in Norfolk, was very homesick, and often longed for the people
and the comforts he had left; but he had a stout heart, and before a
great while had conquered this homesickness and set about to see what
work he could find to do.
At first both officers and men regarded Horatio as simply a sickly boy
and totally unfit for life at sea, but it was not long before he
managed, in a quiet way peculiarly his own, to make a name and place for
himself on board the _Raisonnable_.
The story got around that when he was a small boy he had one day escaped
from his nurse and run off into some dense woods near his father's
house. He had lost his way and finally, coming to a brook too wide for
him to cross, had sat down on a stone on one bank and waited. It was
some time after dark when his distracted family found him.
"I should think you'd have been frightened to death," his grandmother
was reported to have said.
"What's that?" asked the boy.
"Why, fear at being alone, and the dark coming on."
"Fear," said he, "I don't know what you mean by that. I've never seen
it."
His uncle told the story one day to another officer, and within a week
young Nelson had been christened "Dreadnaught."
When he was still a very new midshipman he went for a cruise in the
polar seas. One afternoon some of the men were allowed on the arctic
shore, and Nelson started on a little expedition of his own. The first
any one else knew of it was when another midshipman happened to glance
across the field of ice, and caught sight of the huge white body of a
polar bear within a few yards of Nelson.
He called to his mates and pointed to the boy. They were too far off to
help. They saw Nelson level his musket and saw the wicked head of the
bear raised in front of him. They held their breath waiting for the
shot. In the still air they caught the click of the hammer, but heard no
report. For some reason the gun had not gone off. With a shout they
scrambled over the ice to help him, knowing he was now at the wild
beast's mercy.
The boy, however, had turned his musket and raised the butt end in
defense when a gun on the ship boomed out the signal for all hands to go
aboard. The signal woke the echoes and thundered over the field of ice,
and the bear, frightened, turned tail and ran off as fast as his short
legs could carry him. Nelson, his musket still raised, ran after the
animal, but by this time the rescue party had come up with him.
"What do you mean by hunting polar bears all alone, Dreadnaught?" asked
the other midshipman. "Didn't you see him coming?"
"Yes," said the boy, "but I wanted his skin to take back home to my
father. I might have had him if that gun hadn't sent him away. Now he's
lost forever."
"Well, I vow," said the other. "I don't believe there's another chap in
the navy with half your pluck."
Such incidents as these showed the young sailor's courage, and he had
continual chances to show how rapidly he was learning seamanship.