Chapter 20

LAST DAYS OF LAFAYETTE

Mingled with the joys of Lafayette's visit to the United States in 1824 there was one profound sorrow; he no longer saw here the great man to whom he had given such whole-hearted devotion. President Washington died in 1799; and one of the most affecting moments of all the journey of 1824 was when General Lafayette and his son, George Washington Lafayette, stood together by the tomb of the man whom both regarded as a father.

On the centennial anniversary of the birth of Washington, in 1832, the 27th Regiment State Artillery of New York sent Lafayette a magnificent commemorative medal. In acknowledgment of this gift Lafayette wrote to the Committee, calling the gift "a new testimony of that persevering affection which has been, during nearly sixty years, the pride and delight of my life to be the happy object. The only merit on my part which it does not exceed is to be found in the warmth of my gratitude and the patriotic devotion that binds to the United States the loving heart of an adopted son. The honor was enhanced by the occasion--the birthday of the matchless Washington, of whom it is the most gratifying circumstance to have been the beloved and faithful disciple."

This attitude Lafayette never failed to hold. The relation between the two men was from beginning to end honorable to both in the highest degree. It was one of the great friendships of history.

In one respect the private tastes of Washington and Lafayette were similar; both dearly loved a farm. No one can visit Mount Vernon without feeling the presence there of a lover of growing things. From this productive place fine hams and bacon were forwarded to Lafayette and his family in France and were there eaten with the keenest relish. Fine birds were also sent--ducks, pheasants, and red partridges. In return Lafayette dispatched by request some special breeds of wolf hounds and a pair of jackasses; also, strange trees and plants, together with varied gifts such as Paris only could devise. The visitor to Mount Vernon finds in the family dining room Lafayette's ornamental clock and rose jars, and his mahogany chair in Mrs. Washington's sitting room. The key to the Bastille, which he sent in 1789, is shown under a glass cover on the wall by the staircase in the entrance hall, and a model of that ancient fortress of tyranny, made from a block of stone from the renowned French prison, sent over in 1793, stands in happy irony in the banquet hall. A bedchamber on the second floor is pointed out as the room in which Lafayette slept. It still bears his name.

After Lafayette returned to France, he lived for years in semi-exile on an estate known as La Grange, that Madame de Lafayette had inherited. It lay about forty miles east of Paris, in a beautiful country covered with peach orchards and vineyards. At the time it was, from an agricultural point of view, in a sadly neglected condition; and it was not by any means the least of the achievements of Lafayette that he turned his hand cleverly to the great task of developing this estate into a really productive farm, and succeeded. Beginning with a single plow--for he was too poor at first to buy numerous appliances--he gradually developed the estate into a valuable property. After a time he supplied himself with fine breeds of cattle, sheep, and pigs; indeed, specimens of various kinds from all zones of the earth were sent him by his friends the American shipmasters, who, it must be remembered, appreciated the ardent efforts he had made to establish American commerce. To Washington, who was a good farmer as well as a good President, every detail of these labors would have been interesting if he had been living.

In patriarchal happiness Lafayette carried on the estate of eight hundred French acres, with all its industries, in a perfect system. In a fine old mansion built in the days of Louis IX, Lafayette lived with his two daughters and their families under an efficient household system. Sometimes twelve cousins, brothers and sisters, would be there together. The combined family formed a perfect little academy of its own; and just to live at La Grange was an education in itself. The walls were covered with pictures and memorabilia, to know which would mean to understand European and American history for a century past. A picture of Washington had the place of honor. The Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Rights were hung side by side. A miniature of Francis Kinloch Huger in a frame of massive gold was among the treasures. Dress swords, gifts of many kinds, symbols of honors, and rich historical records decorated the whole house. Even the name of the estate, La Grange, was American, for it was so called in honor of the Manhattan Island home of his friend Alexander Hamilton.

There was one room in the chateau at La Grange that was more sacred than any other; it was the room in which Madame de Lafayette had died. This chamber was never entered except on the anniversary of her death, and then by her husband alone, who cherished her memory tenderly and faithfully as long as he lived.

Many wonderful visitors came to La Grange, and in later years to the Paris home of the Lafayettes. There were Irish guests to tell tales of romance; there were Poles to plead the cause of their country; misguided American Indians were sometimes stranded there; Arabs from Algeria; negro officers in uniform from the French West Indies--all people who had the passion for freedom in their hearts naturally and inevitably gravitated to Lafayette. His house was a modern Babel, for all languages of the world were spoken there.

And Americans! So many Americans came along the Rosay Road that little boys learned the trick of meeting any foreign-looking persons who spoke bad French, and announced themselves as guides of all the "Messieurs Americains"; they would capture the portmanteau, swing it up to a strong shoulder, and then set out for the chateau at the regular jog trot of a well-trained porter.

One of these American guests was the grandson of General Nathanael Greene with whom Lafayette had had cordial relations during the Virginia campaign. In the year 1828 this grandson visited La Grange and wrote an account full of delightful, intimate touches, which was printed in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1861. Of Lafayette himself he said:

"In person he was tall and strongly built, with broad shoulders, large limbs, and a general air of strength.... He had more dignity of bearing than any man I ever saw. And it was not merely the dignity of self-possession, which early familiarity with society and early habits of command may give even to an ordinary man, but that elevation of manner which springs from an habitual elevation of thought, bearing witness to the purity of its source, as a clear eye and ruddy cheek bear witness to the purity of the air you daily breathe. In some respects he was the mercurial Frenchman to the last day of his life; yet his general bearing, that comes oftenest to my memory, was of calm earnestness, tempered and mellowed by quick sympathies."

The death of Lafayette, on the 20th of May, 1834, set the bells a-tolling in many lands, but in none was the mourning more sincere than in our own. Members of Congress were commanded to wear the badge of sorrow for thirty days, and thousands of the people joined them in this outward expression of the sincere grief of their hearts.

His services to his own country and to ours were many and valuable. But his personal example of character, integrity, and constancy was even more to us and to the world than his distinct services. What he _was_ endeared him to us, even more than the things he did. He gave his whole soul in youth to his world-wide dream of freedom--freedom under a constitution guaranteeing it, through public order, to every human being. He found himself in a world where monarchical government seemed the destiny and habit of mankind. He thought it a bad habit--one that ought to be broken. Sincerely and passionately believing this, he was willing to die in the service of any people who were ready to make the struggle against the existing national traditions. He made mistakes; he made the mistake of trusting Louis Philippe. In doing this he had with him the whole French people. But let it be said on the other hand that he did not make the mistake of trusting Bonaparte, whose blandishments he resisted during the whole passage of that meteor. And he was making no mistake when, to the very end of his life, he remained true to his love for the land he had aided in his youth. His visions did not all come true in exactly the shape he devised, but to the last he retained a glorious confidence that they would ultimately be realized in full.

Lafayette was absolutely fearless. He had physical bravery; he was equally indomitable in moral and intellectual realms. He had the power of courage. He could decide quickly and then stand by the decision to the bitter end. The essence of his bold, adventurous youth is expressed in the motto he then chose, "Cur non." But the confirmed and tried spirit of his full manhood is more truly set forth in another motto: "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra." "Do what you ought, let come what may."

For a man so possessed by a great, world-wide idea, so fearless, so constant, it is quite fitting that monuments should be erected and that his birthday should be celebrated. Probably there is no man in all history who has had so many cities, counties, townships, boulevards, arcades, mountains, villages, and hamlets named for him, in a country to which he was not native-born, as has the Frenchman Lafayette in the United States of America. Also, many notable statues of Lafayette stand in city squares and halls of art, both in our country and in his own. Among them there is one special statue in which the young people of America have a peculiar interest. On the 19th of October, 1898, five millions of American school children contributed to a Lafayette Monument Fund. With this sum a bronze statue was made and presented to the French Republic. Mr. Paul Wayland Bartlett was the sculptor intrusted with this work. The statue was completed in 1908 and placed in a court of the Louvre in Paris. It was originally intended that the statue of Bonaparte should occupy the center of that beautiful court, but it is the statue of Lafayette that stands there--the "Boy" Cornwallis could not catch, the man Napoleon could not intimidate. No one can tell us just how Lafayette's statue happened to be assigned the place intended for Napoleon's; but however it was, the fact is a luminous example of how a man who loved people only to master and subjugate them did not reach the heart of the world so directly as the man who loved human beings for their own sakes and to do them good.

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Transcriber's note:

List of Illustrations and Illustration Captions have been made consistent to each other as follows.

"Portrait of Lafayette"--Caption has been extended from "Lafayette".

"A Carriage in which Lafayette Rode" entry in the List of Illustrations has been extended from "Lafayette's Carriage".

On page 109 "Yorktown was now familar to Lafayette" has been corrected to "Yorktown was now familiar to Lafayette".

In the song quoted on page 141 the last line "Et qui s'abaisse, on l'evera." has been changed to "Et qui s'abaisse, on l'elevera."

All other spelling, punctuation, grammatical and typesetting errors have been left as they were in the original book.