Lafayette Part 1

Lafayette.

by Martha Foote Crow.

CHAPTER I

A BOY OF THE FRENCH n.o.bILITY

Among the rugged Auvergne Mountains, in the southern part of France, stands a castle that is severe and almost grim in its aspect. Two bare round towers flank the building on the right and on the left. Rows of lofty French windows are built across the upper part of the front, and the small, ungenerous doorway below has a line of portholes on either side that suggest a thought of warlike days gone by.

This castle, built in the fourteenth century, is called the Chateau de Chaviniac de Lafayette. Though it was burned to the ground in 1701, it was rebuilt as nearly like the earlier structure as possible; hence it represents, as it stands, the chivalrous days of the crusading period and so forms a fitting birthplace for a hero. In this half-military chateau was born one of the most valiant champions of liberty that any country has ever produced--the Marquis de Lafayette.

The climate of the Haute-Loire--the highlands of Auvergne--is harsh; it has been called the French Siberia. There are upland moors like deserts across which sweep fierce winds, where the golden broom and the purple heather--flowers of the barren heights--are all that will flourish. There are, indeed, secluded valleys filled with muskmallows and bracken, but these are often visited by wild tempests, and sudden floods may make the whole region dreary and dangerous.

In Lafayette's time the violence of the elements was not the only thing to be dreaded. When the children wandered too near the edge of the forest, they might catch sight of a wild boar nozzling about for mushrooms under the dead oak leaves; and if it had been a severe winter, it was quite within possibility that wolves or hyenas might come from their hiding places in the rocky recesses of the mountains and lurk hungrily near the villages.

The family living in the old chateau was one whose records could be traced to the year one thousand, when a certain man by the name of Motier acquired an estate called Villa Faya, and thereafter he became known as Motier de la Fayette. In 1240 Pons Motier married the n.o.ble Alix Brun de Champetieres; and from their line descended the famous Lafayettes known to all Americans. Other Auvergne estates were added to the Chaviniac acres as the years went by, some with old castles high up in the mountains behind Chaviniac, and all these were inherited by the father of America's famous champion.

Lafayette's father was a notable warrior, as _his_ father had been--and his--and his--away back to the days of the Crusades. Pons Motier de la Fayette fought at Acre; Jean Motier de la Fayette fell at Poitiers. There were marshals who bore the banner in many a combat of olden times when the life of the country was at stake. It was a Lafayette who won the battle at Beauge in 1421, when the English Duke of Clarence was defeated and his country was compelled to resign hope of a complete conquest of France. Among other men who bore the name, there were military governors of towns and cities, aids to kings in war, captains and seneschals. Many of them spent their lives in camps and on battlefields. One of them saw thirty years of active service; another found that after thirty-eight years of military life he had been present at no less than sixty-five sieges besides taking part in many pitched battles. Lafayette's grandfather was wounded in three battles; and his uncle, Jacques Roch Motier, was killed in battle at the age of twenty-three.

During the summer before Lafayette's birth, his father, the young chevalier and colonel, not then twenty-five, had been living quietly in the Chateau Chaviniac. But a great conflict was going on--the Seven Years' War was being waged. He heard the call of his country and he felt it his duty to respond.

There was a sad parting from his beautiful young wife; then he dashed down the steep, rocky roadway from the chateau to the village, and so galloped away--over the plains, through fords and defiles, toward the German border--never to return.

Lafayette's ancestors on his mother's side were equally distinguished for military spirit. His mother was the daughter of the Comte de la Riviere, lieutenant general and captain of the second company of the King's Musketeers.

But this "hero of two worlds" inherited something more than military spirit. The ancestors from which he descended formed a line of true gentlefolk. For hundreds of years they had been renowned throughout the region of their Auvergne estates for lofty character and a kindly att.i.tude toward their humble peasant neighbors. It was only natural that this most famous representative of the line should become a valiant champion of justice and freedom.

This great man was destined to have as many adventures as any boy of to-day could wish for. To recount them all would require not one book, but a dozen. Think of a lad of nineteen being a general in our Revolutionary War, and the trusted friend and helper of Washington!

Lafayette was present at the surrender of Cornwallis, boyishly happy at the achievements of the American soldiery, and taking especial pride in his own American regiment. This period was followed by a worthy career in France, but for five years--from his thirty-fifth year to his fortieth--he was unjustly imprisoned in a grim old Austrian fortress. At the age of sixty-seven he made a wonderful tour through our country, being received with ceremonies and rejoicings wherever he went; for every one remembered with deep grat.i.tude what this charming, courteous, elderly man had done for us in his youth. He lived to the ripe age of seventy-seven, surrounded by children and grandchildren, and interested in the work of the world up to the very last.

The birth of Lafayette is recorded in the yellow and timeworn parish register of Chaviniac. This ancient doc.u.ment states that on September 6, 1757, was born that "very high and very puissant gentleman Monseigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier de Lafayette, the lawful son of the very high and the 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 Riviere."

But it was only on official doc.u.ments that Lafayette's full name, terrifying in its length, was used. Reduced to republican simplicity, the Marquis de Lafayette's name was Gilbert Motier, although he was always proud of the military t.i.tle, "General," bestowed on him by our country. To tell the truth, imposing names meant little to this friend of liberty, who was a true republican at heart and who, during the French Revolution, voluntarily resigned all the t.i.tles of n.o.bility he had inherited.

During his earliest childhood Lafayette was somewhat delicate. The child first opened his eyes in a sorrowful home at the old Chateau Chaviniac, for word had come, only a month before, that Lafayette's father had been killed at the battle of Minden, leaving the young mother a widow. The boy, however, grew in strength with the years.

Naturally, all was done that could be done to keep him in health. At any rate, either through those mountain winds, or in spite of them, he developed a const.i.tution so vigorous as to withstand the many strains he was to undergo in the course of his long and adventurous life.

The supreme characteristic of the man showed early in the boy when, at only eight years of age, he became possessed of an unselfish impulse to go out and perform a feat which for one so young would have been heroic. It was reported in the castle that a dangerous hyena was prowling about in the vicinity of the estate, terrifying everybody.

The boy's sympathy was roused, and, from the moment he first heard of it, his greatest longing was to meet the cruel creature and have it out with him.

It is not recorded that the eight-year-old boy ever met that wild animal face to face, and it is well for the world that he did not. He was preserved to stand up against other and more significant spoilers of the world's welfare.

His education was begun under the care of his mother, a.s.sisted by his grandmother, a woman of unusually strong character; these, together with two aunts, formed a group whose memory was tenderly revered by Lafayette to the end of his life.

The boy Lafayette cared a great deal for hunting. Writing back to a cousin at home after he had been sent to Paris to school, he told her that what he would most like to hear about when she wrote to him would be the great events of the hunting season. His cousin, it appears, had written him an account of a hunt in the neighborhood, but she had not written enough about it to satisfy his desire. Why did she not give details? he asked. He reproachfully added that if he had been writing to her of a new-fashioned cap, he would have taken compa.s.s in hand and described it with mathematical accuracy. This she should have done concerning the great hunt if she had really wished to give him pleasure!

This fortunate boy could select any career he liked; courtier, lawyer, politician, writer, soldier--whatever he chose. Never came opportunity more richly laden to the doorway of any youth.

He chose to be a soldier. The double-barred doors of iron, the lofty, protected windows, the military pictures on the walls of his home--all spoke to the Chaviniac child of warfare and conflict. There was the portrait of his father in cuira.s.s and helmet. There were far-away ancestors in glistening armor and laced jackets. There was also the military portrait of that Gilbert Motier de Lafayette who was marshal in the time of Charles VII, and whose motto "Cur non" (Why not?) was chosen by Lafayette for his own when he started on his first voyage.

The instinct for warfare, for the organization of armies, for struggle and conquest, were strong in him, and were fostered and nourished by every impression of his boyhood's home.

CHAPTER II

COLLEGE AND COURT

In the year 1768 the boy Lafayette, then eleven years old, left his mountain home and went to Paris, where he was placed by his mother in the College du Plessis, a school for boys of the n.o.bility.

The arrangements for the student in a French college at that time were simple. A room scarcely wider than a cell was a.s.signed to each boy. It was locked at night; but holes were cut in the door so that the fresh air might come in. This, at least, was the theory. Practically, however, the little cell must have been very stuffy, for the windows in the halls were shut tight in order that the health of the pupils might not be injured by currents of damp air from outside.

Special attention was given to diet, care being taken that the boys should not eat any uncooked fruit lest it should injure them. Parents might come to visit their children, but they were not allowed to pa.s.s beyond the threshold--a familiar chat on home matters might interfere with the studious mood of the scholars.

What were the studies of this young aristocrat?

First and foremost, heraldry. From earliest days his tutors had instilled into him the idea that the study of the coats of arms of reigning and n.o.ble families, together with all that they stood for, was first in importance.

Then the young student must dance, write, and draw. He must be able to converse wittily and with apt repartee. Fencing and vaulting were considered essential, as well as riding with grace and skill and knowing all about the management of the horse.

As far as books were concerned, the Latin masters--Caesar, Sall.u.s.t, Virgil, Terence, Cicero--were carefully studied. The boys were obliged to translate from Latin into French and from French into Latin.

Occasionally this training proved useful. It is related that one of the French soldiers who came to New England and who could not speak English resorted to Latin and found to his joy that the inhabitant of Connecticut, from whom he wished to purchase supplies for his regiment, could be communicated with by that obsolete medium; and what would Lafayette have done when imprisoned in an Austrian dungeon if he had not been able to converse with his official jailers in the Latin tongue!

In historical studies the greatest attention was given to wars and treaties and acquisitions of territory. The royal families of his native country and of neighboring kingdoms were made familiar. History was taught as if it were a record of battles only. Swords and coats of mail decorated the mantelpieces in the school and the latest methods of warfare were studied.

In addition to all these military matters, a great deal of attention must have been given to acquiring the power of clear and forcible expression in the French language. While Lafayette can never be included among the great orators of the world, he possessed a wonderfully pellucid and concise diction. He was a voluminous writer.

If all the letters he sent across the ocean from America could be recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic, there would be enough to make several large volumes. Sometimes he dispatched as many as thirty letters at one time. He sent them by way of Spain, by way of Holland, or by any other roundabout route that offered promise of final delivery. But privateersmen frequently captured the boats that carried them, and very often the letter-bags were dropped overboard. Still another circ.u.mstance deprived the world of many of his writings. When revolutionists took possession of the Lafayette home in Chaviniac, they sought in every nook and cranny to find evidence that they would have been glad to use against these representatives of the n.o.bility.

Madame de Lafayette had carefully stuffed all the letters she could find into the maw of the immense old range in the castle kitchen.

Other treasures were buried in the garden, there to rot before they could be found again.

Of the extant writings of Lafayette there are six volumes in French, made up of letters and miscellaneous papers, many of them on weighty subjects, while numerous letters of Lafayette are to be found among the correspondence of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and other statesmen and generals of Revolutionary days.

Of the English language Lafayette's knowledge was mainly gained during the six long weeks of his first voyage to America. And what he acquired he at once put into practice. He learned the language from books, and from good books. As a result his English, both spoken and written, had a special polish.

At the College du Plessis Lafayette was an industrious student. All his life he regarded time as a gift of which the best use was to be made, and, according to his own expression, he was "not at liberty to lose it himself, and still less to be the occasion of the loss of it to others." Therefore he would not, unless it was absolutely unavoidable, be unpunctual to engagements, or keep people waiting his pleasure. As a boy in college he never had to be urged to study; neither was he in any way an unmanageable boy. In spite of the intensity of his nature, he never deserved to be chastised.

It should be understood that corporal chastis.e.m.e.nt was the rule in the schools of that time. In the year 1789 one simple-hearted old school-master solemnly reported that during the fifty years of his experience as teacher he administered nine hundred thousand canings, twenty thousand beatings, one hundred thousand slaps, and twenty thousand switchings. Among smaller items he mentions ten thousand fillips and a million and a quarter raps and hits. He hurled a Bible, a catechism, or a singing-book at some hapless child twelve thousand times, and caused seven hundred to kneel on peas as a punishment. Then he punished eight hundred thousand for not learning their lessons and seventy-six thousand for not learning their Bible verses. So much for one teacher a half century before Lafayette's day! And people still talk and write about "the good old times"!

The surroundings of Lafayette during his youth must have been of a kind to develop strength of character. He was to be one of the historical personages against whom scandalmongers have not been able to unearth a ma.s.s of detraction. His close companions during army days testified that they never heard him swear or use gross language of any kind. As Edward Everett in his great eulogy said, from Lafayette's home, his ancestry, his education, his aristocratic marriage, and his college life, he "escaped unhurt."

Lafayette's mother took up her residence in Paris in order to be near her son. She allowed herself to be presented at court that she might be in touch with what was going on and give her boy all the aid possible. She saw to it that her uncle should place him in the army lists that he might secure the advantage of early promotion.

After a while the tall boy was entered in the regiment of the Black Musketeers, and it became a favorite occupation of his to watch the picturesque reviews of those highly trained soldiers. This entertainment was for holidays, however, and did not interfere with his studies.

It was not for very many years that Lafayette was to profit by his highborn mother's devoted care and foresight. In 1770, when her son was only thirteen years old, she died in Paris. In a painting on the walls of the chateau to-day the face of that aristocratic lady shines out in its delicate beauty. A pointed bodice of cardinal-colored velvet folds the slender form and loose sleeves cover the arms. In the romantic fashion of the pre-revolutionary period, the arm is held out in a dramatic gesture, and one tiny, jeweled hand clasps the shepherd's crook, the consecrated symbol of the story-book lady of that period.