With Americans Of Past And Present Days

WITH AMERICANS OF
PAST AND PRESENT DAYS

WITH AMERICANA OF
PAST AND PRESENT DAYS

BY
J. J. JUSSERAND

AMBASSADOR OF TRANCE TO THE UNITED STATES

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1917

T, I0l6, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published May, 1916

Second Impression, June 22, 1916

Third Impression, August 2, 1916

Fourth Impression, September 18, 19x6

Fifth Impression, October 16, 19x6

Sixth Impression, January, 1917

Seventh Impression, March, 1917

DEDICATION

This day, thirteen years ago, a new French am
bassador presented his credentials. The ambassador
was not very old for an ambassador. The President
was very young for a president, the youngest, in
fact, the United States ever had. Both, according to
custom, read set speeches, and there followed a first
conversation, which had a great many successors,
touching on a variety of subjects not connected, all
of them, with diplomacy. In which talk took part
the genial, learned, and warm-hearted author of the
"Pike County Ballads" and of the Life of Lincoln,
present at the meeting as Secretary of State of the
United States.

This was the first direct impression the newcomer
had of broad-minded, strenuous America, his earliest
ones, as a child, having been derived from the illus
trated weekly paper received by his family, and which

DMaCATION

pictures of the battles between
the bearded soldiers of Grant and Lee, the "poilus " of
those days; another impression was from Cooper's
tales, Deerslayer sharing with Ivanhoe the enthu
siasm of the young people at the family hearth.
Another American impression was received by them
a little later, when, the Republic having been pro
claimed, the street where the family had their winter
home ceased to be catted "Rue de la Reine" and be
came "Rue Franklin''

Thirteen years is a long space of time in an
ambassadors life; it is not an insignificant one
in the life of such a youthful nation as the United
States; I have now witnessed the eleventh part of
that life. Something like one-fourth or one-fifth of
the population has been added since I began service
here. There were forty-five States then instead of
forty-eight; the commercial intercourse with France
was half of what it is now; the tonnage of the
American navy was less than half what it is at
present; the Panama Canal was not yet American;
the aeroplane was unknown; the automobile prac-

DEDICATION vii

tically unused. Among artists, thinkers, humorists,
critics, scientists, shone La Farge, McKim, Saint-
Gaudens, William James, Mark Twain, Furness,
Newcomb, Weir Mitchell, who, leaving a lasting
fame, have all passed away.

The speech at the White House was followed by
many others. Little enough accustomed, up to then,
to addressing any assembly at any time, I did not
expect to have much to do in that line; but I had.
I soon found that it was not a question of taste and
personal disposition, but one of courtesy and friend
liness. The quick-witted, kindly-disposed, warm
hearted audiences of America, ever ready to show
appreciation for any effort, greatly facilitated mat
ters.

I was thus led by degrees to address gatherings of
many kinds, in many places, on many subjects, from
the origins of the War of Independence to refores
tation in America, and from the Civil War to in
fantile mortality. Many such speeches had to be
delivered impromptu; others, luckily for both orator
and listeners, were on subjects which the former had

vili DEDICATION

studied with as much care as the fulfilling of a vari
ety of tasks and duties had allowed him.

An examination of the development of the two coun
tries will y I believe, lead any impartial mind to the
conclusion that, with so many peculiar ties between
them in the past, a similar goal ahead of them, and, to
a great extent, similar hard problems to solve, it cannot
but be of advantage to themselves and to the liberal
world that the two Republics facing each other across
the broad ocean, one nearly half a century old, the
other three times as much, should ever live on terms
of amity, not to say intimacy, comparing experiences,
of help to one another whenever circumstances allow:
this they have been on more than one occasion, and
will doubtless be again in the future. During our
present trials the active generosity of American men
and women has exerted itself in a way that can never
be forgotten.

The dean now, not only of the diplomatic corps in
Washington, but of all my predecessors from the
early days, when, on a raised platform in Inde
pendence Hall, my diplomatic ancestor, Gerard de

DEDICATION ix

Rayneval, presented to Congress the first credentials
brought here from abroad (and Gerard was then, he
alone, the whole diplomatic body), I have presumed
to gather together a few studies on some of the men
or events of most interest from the point of view of
Franco-American relations. Three addresses are
added, just as they were delivered. May these
pages find among readers the same indulgent recep
tion their author found among listeners.

And so, having now lived in America thirteen
years, offering good wishes to the forty-eight of
to-day, I dedicate, in memory of former times, the
following pages

TO
THE THIRTEEN ORIGINAL STATES.

J. J. JUSSERAND.

WASHINGTON, February 7, 1916. ;

CONTENTS

PACE

DEDICATION v

ROCHAMBEAU AND THE FRENCH IN AMERICA,

FROM UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS ... 3

MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 137

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 199

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 277

THE FRANKLIN MEDAL 309

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS 319

FROM WAR TO PEACE 333

ROCHAMBEAU AND THE FRENCH IN
AMERICA

FROM UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS

ROCHAMBEAU AND THE FRENCH IN
AMERICA

FROM UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS

THE American war had been for five years
in progress; for two years a treaty of alli
ance, having as sole object "to maintain
effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and indepen
dence, absolute and unlimited, of the United
States/' bound us French to the " insurgents";
successes and reverses followed each other in
turn: Brooklyn, Trenton, Brandywine, Saratoga.
Quite recently the news had come of the double
victory at sea and on land of d'Estaing at Grenada,
and Paris had been illuminated. The lights were
scarcely out when news arrived of the disaster
of the same d'Estaing at Savannah. All France
felt anxious concerning the issue of a war which
had lasted so long and whose end continued to
be doubtful.

When, in the first months of 1780, the report
went about that a great definitive effort was to
be attempted, that it was not this time a question
of sending ships to the Americans, but cf sending
an army, and that the termination of the great
drama was near, the enthusiasm was unbounded.

s

4 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

All wanted to take part. There was a prospect
of crossing the seas, of succoring a people fight
ing for a sacred cause, a people of whom all our
volunteers praised the virtues; the people led by
Washington, and represented in Paris by Franklin.
An ardor as of crusaders inflamed the hearts of
French youths, and the intended expedition was,
in fact, the most important that France had
launched beyond the seas since the distant time
of the crusades. The cause was a truly sacred
one, the cause of liberty, a magical word which
then stirred the hearts of the many. "Why is
liberty so rare?" Voltaire had said "Because
the most valuable of possessions."

All those who were so lucky as to be allowed
to take part in the expedition were convinced
that they would witness memorable, perhaps
unique, events, and it turned out, indeed, that
they were to witness a campaign which, with the
battle of Hastings, where the fate of England was
decided in 1066, and that of Bouvines, which
made of France in 1214 a great nation, was to be
one of the three military actions with greatest
consequences in which for the last thousand
years the French had participated.

A striking result of this state of mind is that
an extraordinary number of those who went noted
down their impressions, kept journals, drew
sketches. Never perhaps during a military cam-

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 5

paign was so much writing done, nor were so
many albums filled with drawings.

Notes, letters, journals, sketches have come
down to us in large quantities, and from all man
ner of men, for the passion of observing and nar
rating was common to all kinds of people: jour
nals and memoirs of army chiefs like Rochambeau,
or chiefs of staff like Chastellux, a member of
the French Academy, adapter of Shakespeare,
and author of a Felicite PuUique, which, Franklin
said, showed him to be "a real friend of human
ity "; narratives of a regimental chaplain, like
Abbe Robin, of a sceptical rake like the Duke de
Lauzun, the new Don Juan, whose battle stories
alternate with his love reminiscences, handsome,
impertinent, licentious, an excellent soldier withal,
bold and tenacious, marked, like several of his
companions, to mount the revolutionary scaffold;
journals of officers of various ranks, like Count de
Deux-Ponts, Prince de Broglie, he, too, marked for
the scaffold; Count de Segur, son of the marshal,
himself afterward an Academician and an ambas
sador; Mathieu-Dumas, future minister of war of
a future King of Naples, who bore the then un
known name of Joseph Bonaparte; the Swedish
Count Axel de Fersen, one of Rochambeau's aides,
who was to organize the French royal family's
flight to Varennes, and to die massacred by the
mob in his own country; notes, map, and sketches

6 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

of Baron Cromot-Dubourg, another of Rocham-
beau's aides; journal, too, among many others, of a
modest quartermaster like Blanchard, who gives a
note quite apart, observes what others do not,
and whose tone, as that of a subordinate, is in
contrast with the superb ways of the "seigneurs"
his companions.

From page to page, turning the leaves, one sees
appear, without speaking of Lafayette, Kosciusko,
and the first enthusiasts, many names just emerg
ing from obscurity, never to sink into it again:
Berthier, La P6rouse, La Touche-Treville, the
Lameth brothers, Bougainville, Custine, the
Bouill6 of the flight to Varennes, the La Cloche-
terie of the fight of La Belle Poule, the Duportail
who was to be minister of war under the Constit
uent Assembly, young Talleyrand, brother of the
future statesman, young Mirabeau, brother of
the orator, himself usually known for his portly
dimensions as Mirabeau-tonneau, ever ready with
the cup or the sword, young Saint-Simon, not yet
a pacifist, and not yet a Saint-Simonian, 1 Suf-
fren, in whose squadron had embarked the future
Director Barras, an officer then in the regiment of
Pondichery. All France was really represented,

1 Concerning his American campaign, in which he greatly distin
guished himself, he wrote later: "In itself, war did not interest me,
but its object interested me keenly, and I willingly took part in its
labors, I said to myself: f I want the end; I must adopt the means.' "
(Euvres, 1865, 1, n. He was wounded and promoted.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 7

to some extent that of the past, to a larger one
that of the future.

Many of those journals have been published
(Cromot-Dubourg's only in an English version
printed in America 1 ) ; others have been lost; others
remain unpublished, so that after all that has been
said, and well said, it still remains possible, with
the help of new guides and new documents, to
follow Washington and Rochambeau once more,
and in a different company, during the momen
tous journey which led them from the Hudson to
the York River. The Washington papers and the
Rochambeau papers, used only in part, are pre
served in the Library of Congress. A juvenile
note, in contrast with the quiet dignity of the
official reports by the heads of the army, is given
by the imprinted journal, a copy of which is
also preserved in the same library, kept by one
more of Rochambeau's aides, Louis Baron de
Closen, an excellent observer, gay, warm-hearted,
who took seriously all that pertained to duty,
and merrily all the rest, especially mishaps. Use-
fid information is also given by some imprinted
letters of George Washington, some with the
superscription still preserved: "On public service
to his Excellency, Count de Rochambeau, Wil-
liamsburg, Virginia," the whole text often in the
great chief's characteristic handwriting, clear and
1 Magazine of American History, March, 1880, ff.

8 KOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

steady, neither slow nor hasty, with nothing
blurred and nothing omitted, with no trepidation,
no abbreviation, the writing of a man with a
clear conscience and clear views, superior to for
tune, and the convinced partisan, in every cir
cumstance throughout life, of the straight line.

The British Government has, moreover, most
liberally opened its archives, so that, both through
the recriminatory pamphlets printed in London
after the disaster and the despatches now acces
sible, one can know what was said day by day in
New York and out of New York, in the redoubts
at Yorktown, and in the French and American
trenches around the place.

Lieutenant-General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de
Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, aged then fifty-
five, and Washington's senior by seven years, was
in his house, still in existence, Rue du Cherche-
Midi, Paris, 1 at the beginning of March, 1780;
he was ill and about to leave for his castle of Ro
chambeau in Vendomois; post-horses were in
readiness when, in the middle of the night, he re
ceived, he says in his memoirs, 2 a "courtier bring
ing him the order to go to Versailles and receive
the instructions of his Majesty." For some time
rumors had been afloat that the great attempt
would soon be made. He was informed that the
news was true, and that he would be placed at
the head of the army sent to the assistance of the
Americans.

The task was an extraordinary one. He would
have to reach the New World with a body of
troops packed on slow transports, to avoid the
English fleets, to fight in a country practically un-

1 A quite handsome house, now the offices of the Ministry of Labor.
The gardens no longer exist.

* M&moires mttitaires, historiques et politiques de Rochambeau, ancien
marSchal de France et grand officier de la L&gion cFhonneur, Paris,

1809, 2 VOls., I, 235,

10 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

known, by the side of men not less so, and whom
we had been accustomed to fight rather than be
friend, and for a cause which had never before
elicited enthusiasm at Versailles, the cause of re
publican liberty.

This last point was the strangest of all, so
strange that even Indians, friends of the French in
former days, asked Rochambeau, when they saw
him in America, how it was that his King could
think fit to help other people against "their own
father," their King. Rochambeau replied that
the latter had been too hard on his subjects, that
they were right, therefore, in shaking off the yoke,
and we in helping them to secure "that natural
liberty which God has conferred on man.*'

This answer to "Messieurs les Sauvages," is an
enlightening one; it shows what was the latent
force that surmounted all obstacles and caused
the French nation to stand as a whole, from be
ginning to end, in favor of the Americans, to ap
plaud a treaty of alliance which, while entailing
the gravest risks, forbade us all conquest, and to
rejoice enthusiastically at a peace which after a
victorious war added nothing to our possessions.
This force was the increasing passion among the
French for precisely "that natural liberty which
God has conferred on man."

Hatred of England, quickened though it had
been by the harsh conditions of the treaty of

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 11

Paris bereaving us of Canada, in 1763, had much
less to do with it than is sometimes alleged. Such
a feeling existed, it is true, in the hearts of some
of the leaders, but not of all; it did in the minds
also of some of the officers, but again not of all.
What predominated in the mass of the nation,
irrespective of any other consideration, was sym
pathy for men who wanted to fight injustice and
to be free. The cause of the insurgents was pop
ular because it was associated with the notion of
liberty; people did not look beyond. 1

It is often forgotten that this time was not in
France a period of Anglophobia, but of Anglo
mania. Necker, so influential, and who then held
the purse-strings, was an Anglophile; so was
Prince de Montbarey, minister of war; so was
that Duke de Lauzun who put an end for a time
to his love-affairs and came to America at the head
of his famous legion. All that was English was
admired and, when possible, imitated: manners,
philosophy, sports, clothes, parliamentary insti
tutions, Shakespeare, just translated by Le Tour-
neur, with the King and Queen as patrons of the

1 " On a soutenu," said Pontgibaud, later Comte de More", one of
Lafayette's aides, in a conversation with Alexander Hamilton,
"que I'inte're't bien entendu de la France 6tait de rester neutre et
de pronter de Fembarras de 1'Angleterre pour se faire restituer le
Canada." But this would have been going against the general
trend of public opinion, and a contrary course was followed. M t~
moires du Comte de More, Paris, 1898, p. 169.

12 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

undertaking; but, above all, wrote Count de
S6gur, "we were all dreaming of the liberty, at
once calm and lofty, enjoyed by the entire body
of citizens of Great Britain/ 71

Such is the ever-recurring word. Liberty, phi
lanthropy, natural rights, these were the magic
syllables to conjure with. "All France," read we
in Grimm and Diderot's correspondence, "was
filled with an unbounded love for humanity," and
felt a passion for "those exaggerated general max
ims which raise the enthusiasm of young men and
which would cause them to run to the world's
end to help a Laplander or a Hottentot." The
ideas of Montesquieu, whose Esprit des Lois had
had twenty-two editions in one year, of Voltaire,
of d'Alembert were in the ascendant, and liberal
thinkers saw in the Americans propagandists for
their doctrine. General Howe having occupied
New York in 1776, Voltaire wrote to d'Alembert:
"The troops of Doctor Franklin have been beaten
by those of the King of England. Alas ! philos
ophers are being beaten everywhere. Reason and
liberty are unwelcome in this world."

Another of the master minds of the day, the
economist, thinker, and reformer Turgot, the one
whose advice, if followed, would have possibly
secured for us a bloodless revolution, was of the

1 Mtmoires, souvenirs et anecdotes, Paris, 1824, 3 vols., 1, 140. Eng
lish translation, London, 1825.

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 13

same opinion. In the famous letter written by
him on the 226. of March, 1778, to his English
friend, Doctor Price, Turgot showed himself, just
as the French nation was, ardently pro- American,
but not anti-English. He deplored the impend
ing war, which ought to have been avoided by
England's acknowledging in time "the folly of its
absurd project to > subjugate the Americans. . . .
It is a strange thing that it be not yet a common
place truth to say that no nation can ever have
the right to govern another nation; that such a
government has no other foundation than force,
which is also the foundation of brigandage and
tyranny; that a people's tyranny is, of all tyran
nies, the most cruel, the most intolerable, and
the one which leaves the least resources to the
oppressed ... for a multitude does not calculate,
does not feel remorse, and it bestows on itself
glory when all that it deserves is shame/'

The Americans, according to Turgot, must be
free, not only for their own sake, but for the sake
of humanity; an experiment of the utmost import
is about to begin, and should succeed. He added
this, the worthy forecast of a generous mind: "It
is impossible not to form wishes for that people to
reach the utmost prosperity it is capable of.
That people is the hope of mankind. It must
show to the world by its example, that men can
be free and tranquil, and can do without the chains

14 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

that tyrants and cheats of all garb have tried to
lay on them tinder pretense of public good. It
must give the example of political liberty, religious
liberty, commercial and industrial liberty. The
shelter which it is going to offer to the oppressed
of all nations will console the earth. The ease
with which men will be able to avail themselves
of it and escape the effects of a bad government
will oblige governments to open their eyes and to
be just. The rest of the world will perceive by
degrees the emptiness of the illusions on which
politicians have festered." Toward England Tur-
got has a feeling of regret on account of its poli
cies, but no trace of animosity; and, on the con
trary, the belief that, in spite of what some people
of note were alleging, the absolutely certain loss
of her American colonies would not result in a
diminution of her power. "This revolution will
prove, maybe, as profitable to you as to America/' 1
Not less characteristic of the timfes and of the
same thinker's turn of mind is a brief memorial
written by him for the King shortly after, when
Captain Cook was making his third voyage of
discovery, the one from which he never returned.
"Captain Cook/' Turgot said, "is probably on
his way back to Europe. His expedition having
no other object than the progress of human knowl
edge, and interesting, therefore, all nations, it
1 (Euvres, vol. IX, Paris, 1810, pp. 377 ff,

ROCHAMBEATJ IN AMERICA 15

vould be worthy of the King's magnanimity not
;o allow that the result be jeopardized by the
chances of war." Orders should be given to all
French naval officers "to abstain from any hos
tile act against him or his ship, and allow him to
Freely continue his navigation, and to treat him
in every respect as the custom is to treat the offi
cers and ships of neutral and friendly countries/' 1
The King assented, and had our cruisers notified
of the sort of sacred character which they would
have to recognize in that ship of the enemy: a
small fact in itself, but showing the difference be
tween the wars in those days and in ours, when
we have had to witness the wanton destruction of
the Louvain library, the shelling of the Reims
cathedral, and the Arras town hall.

An immense aspiration was growing in France
for more equality, fewer privileges, simpler lives
among the great, less hard ones among the lowly,
more accessible knowledge, the free discussion by
all of the common interests of all. A fact of
deepest import struck the least attentive: French
masses were becoming more and more thinking
masses. One should not forget that between the
end of the American Revolution and the begin
ning of the French one only six years elapsed, be
tween the American and the French Constitu
tions but four years. At the very time of the

s, DC, 417.

16 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Yorktown campaign Necker was issuing his cele
brated Compte Rendu, which he addressed, "pro
forma" to the King, and in reality to the nation. 1
This famous account of the condition of France,
the piece of printed matter which was most widely
read in those days, began, "Sire," but ended:
"In writing this I have proudly counted on that
public opinion which evil-minded persons may try
to crush or to distort, but which, in spite of their
efforts, Truth and Justice carry along in their
wake."

To which may be added as another token of
the same state of mind that the then famous
Count de Guibert had some time before printed
his Essay on Tactics, so full of advanced ideas,
notably on the necessary limitation of the power
of kings, that it had been suppressed by the au
thorities; and he had dedicated it not to a prince
nor to any man, but to his mother country: U A
ma Patrie." 2

Six years after the end of the American war, on
January 24, 1789, the King of France ordered
the drawing up of the famous Cahiers, desiring,

1 January, 1781.

2 He ends his dedication stating that he may fail and may have
dreamed a mere dream, but he should not be blamed: "Le delire d'un
citoyen qui reve au bonheur de sa patrie a quelque chose de respec
table," Essai General de Tactigue prScedt d'un Discours sur Vital
actuel de la politique et de la science militaire en Europe, London,
1772 ; Lie*ge, 1775.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 17

he said, that "from the extremities of his kingdom
and the most unknown habitations every one
should be assured of a means of conveying to
him his wishes and complaints. ' ' And the Cahiers,
requesting liberties very similar to those of the
Americans, came indeed from the remotest parts
of France, the work of everybody, of quasi-peasants
sometimes, who would offer excuses for their wild
orthography and grammar. The notes and let
ters of the volunteers of our Revolution, sons of
peasants or artisans, surprise us by the mass of
general ideas and views which abound in them.
It was not, therefore, a statement of small import
that Franklin had conveyed to Congress when he
wrote from France: "The united bent of the
nation is manifestly in our favor." And he de
plored elsewhere that some could think that an
appeal to France's own interest was good policy:
"Telling them their commerce will be advantaged
by our success and that it is their interest to help
us, seems as much as to say: 'Help us and we shall
not be .obliged to you.' Such indiscreet and im
proper language has been sometimes held here by
some of our people and produced no good effect."
The truth is, he said also, that "this nation is
fond of glory, particularly that of protecting the
oppressed." 1
The treaty of commerce, accompanying the

1 Writings, Smythe, VEH, 390, 391.

18 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

treaty of alliance of I778, 1 had been in itself a
justification of this judgment. Help from abroad
was so pressingly needed in America that almost
any advantages requested by Prance as a condi
tion would have been granted; but that strange
sight was seen: advantages being offered, unasked,
by one party, and declined by the other. France
decided at once not to accept anything as a recom
pense, not even Canada, if that were wrested from
the English, in spite of Canada's having been
French from the first, and having but recently
ceased to be such. The fight was not for recom
pense but for liberty, and Franklin could write
to Congress that the treaty of commerce was one
to which all the rest of the world, in accordance
with France's own wishes, was free to accede,
when it chose, on the same footing as herself,
England included. 2

This was so peculiar that many had doubts;
John Adams never lost his; Washington himself
had some, and when plans were submitted to him
for an action in Canada he wondered, as he wrote,
whether there was not in them "more than the

1 Both signed at Paris on the same day, February 6, 1778.

2 Vergennes had written in the same way to the Marquis de Noailles,
French ambassador in London: "Our engagements are simple; they
are aggressive toward nobody; we have desired to secure for our
selves no advantage of which other nations might be jealous, and
which the Americans themselves might regret, in the course of time,
to have granted us." Doniol, Participation de la France d I'ttablisse-
ment des Etats Unis, II, 822.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 19

disinterested zeal of allies." 1 What would take
place at the peace, if the allies were victorious ?
Would not France require, in one form or another,
some advantages for herself? But she did not;
her peace was to be like her war, pro-American
rather than anti-English.

Another striking trait in the numerous French
accounts which have come down to us of this cam
paign against the English is the small space that
the English, as a nation, occupy in them. The
note that predominates is enthusiasm for the
Americans, not hatred for their enemies. "In
France," wrote Segur in his memoirs, "in spite
of the habit of a long obedience to arbitrary power,
the cause of the American insurgents fixed the
attention and excited the interest of all. From
every side public opinion was pressing the royal
government to declare itself in favor of republican
liberty, and seemed to reproach it for its slowness
and timidity." Of any revenge to be taken on
the enemy, not a word. "No one among us," he
said further, "thought of a revolution in France,
but it was rapidly taking place in our minds.
Montesquieu had brought to light again the long-
buried title-deeds consecrating the rights of the
people. Mature men were studying and envying
the laws of England."

Summing up che motives of the new crusaders,
1 November n, 1778,

20 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

who were "starting off to the war in the name of
philanthropy," he found two: "One quite reason
able and conscientious, the desire to well serve
King and country . . . another more unique, a
veritable enthusiasm for the cause of American
liberty." Ministers hesitated, on account of the
greatness of the risk, "but they were, little by
little, carried away by the torrent." During the
sea voyage only the chiefs knew exactly whither
they were going; some officers thought at one
time they might have to fight elsewhere than in
America. One of Rochambeau's officers, the afore
mentioned Mathieu-Dumas, confided his misgiv
ings to his journal: "Above all," he wrote, "I
had heartily espoused the cause of the inde
pendence of the Americans, and I should have
felt extreme regret at losing the honor of combat
ing for their liberty." 1 Of the English, again, not
a word; what he longed for, like so many others,
was less to fight against the English than for the
Americans.

More striking, perhaps, than all the rest:
shortly after we had decided to take part in the
war, the question of our motives and of a possible
annihilation of England as a great power was
plainly put, in the course of a familiar conversa
tion, by the president of Yale University to the

1 Souvenirs du Lieutenant Central Comte Mathieu-Dumas, de 1770
a 1836, Paris, 3 vols., I, 36.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 21

future signer of the Louisiana Treaty, Barb6-
Marbois, then secretary of our legation in the
United States. "Mons. Marbois," Ezra Stiles
confided to his diary, on the occasion of the French
minister, La Luzerne, and his secretary's visit to
Yale, "is a learned civilian, a councillor of the
Parliament of Metz, set. 35, as I judge; speaks
English very tolerably, much better than his Ex
cellency the minister. He was very inquisitive
for books and American histories. . . . Among
other things I asked Mons. Marbois whether the
Powers of Europe would contentedly see Great
Britain annihilated.

"He said, no; it would be for the interest of
Europe that Britain should have weight in the
balances of power. . . . France did not want to
enlarge her dominions by conquest or otherwise." 1

For the French diplomat, a man of great ability
and well informed, addressing, as he was, one to
whom a "yes" instead of a "no" would have
caused no pain, far from it, the motive of our
actions was neither a prospective loss by England
of her rank nor the increase of our own posses
sions, but simply American independence.

1 Literary Diary, September n, 1779; New York, 1901, 3 vols.

II

Aware of the importance and difficulty of the
move it had decided upon, the French Govern
ment had looked for a trained soldier, a man of
decision and of sense, one who would understand
Washington and be understood by him, would
keep in hand the enthusiasts under his orders,
and would avoid ill-prepared, risky ventures. The
time of the d'Estaings was gone; definitive results
were to be sought. The government considered
it could do no better than to select Rochambeau.
It could, indeed, do no better.

The future marshal of France had been first
destined to priesthood for no other reason than
that he was a second son, and he was about to
receive the tonsure when his elder brother died,
and Bishop de Crussol, who had been supervising
Donatien's ecclesiastical studies, came one day to
him and said: "You must forget all I have told
you up to now; you have become the eldest of
your family and you must now serve your coun
try with as much zeal as you would have served
God in the ecclesiastical state."

Rochambeau did so. He was appointed an
officer and served on his first campaign in Ger-

28

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 23

many at sixteen, fought under Marshal de Saxe,
was a colonel at twenty-two (Washington was to
become one also at twenty-two), received at Lau-
feldt his two first wounds, of which he nearly died.
At the head of the famous Auvergne regiment,
"Auvergne sans tache" (Auvergne the spotless),
as it was called, he took part in the chief battles
of the Seven Years' War, notably in the victory
of Klostercamp, where spotless Auvergne had 58
officers and 800 soldiers killed or wounded, the
battle made memorable by the episode of the
Chevalier d'Assas, who went to his heroic death
in the fulfilment of an order given by Rochambeau.
The latter was again severely wounded, but, lean
ing on two soldiers, he could remain at his post
till the day was won.

On the opposite side of the same battle-fields
were fighting many destined, like Rochambeau
himself, to take part in the American war; it was
like a preliminary rehearsal of the drama that
was to be. At the second battle of Minden, in
1759, where the father of Lafayette was killed,
Rochambeau covered the retreat, while in the
English ranks Lord Cornwallis was learning his
trade, as was too, but less brilliantly, Lord George
Germain, the future colonial secretary of the
Yorktown period. At Johannisberg, in the same
war, Clinton, future commander-in-chief at New
York, was wounded, while here and there in the

24 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

French army such officers distinguished them
selves as Bougainville, back from Ticonderoga,
and not yet a sailor, Chastellux, already a colonel,
no longer a secretary of embassy, not yet an Acad
emician, and my predecessor, La Luzerne, an offi
cer of cavalry, not yet a diplomat, who was to
be the second minister ever accredited to America,
where his name is not forgotten.

When still very young Rochambeau had con
tracted one of those marriages so numerous in
the eighteenth, as in every other century, of
which nothing is said in the memoirs and letters
of the period, because they were what they should
be, happy ones. Every right-minded and right-
hearted man will find less pleasure in the sauciest
anecdote told by Lauzun than in the simple and
brief lines written in his old age by Rochambeau :
"My good star gave me such a wife as I could
desire; she has been for me a cause of constant
happiness throughout life, and I hope, on my
side, to have made her happy by the tenderest
amity, which has never varied an instant during
nearly sixty years." The issue of that union,
Viscount Rochambeau, from his youth the com
panion in arms of his father, an officer at four
teen, accompanied him to the States, and was,
after a career of devotion to his country, to die a
general at Leipzig, in the " Battle of Nations.' 1

Informed at Versailles of the task he would

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 25

have to perform, the exact nature of which was
kept a secret from the troops themselves now
gathered at Brest, Rochambeau hastened to for
get his "rhumatisme inflammatoire" and set to
work to get everything in readiness, collecting in
formation, talking with those who knew America,
and noting down in his green-garbed registers,
which were to accompany him in his campaign,
the chief data thus secured. He also addressed
to himself, as a reminder, a number of useful
recommendations such as these: "To take with
us a quantity of flints, , . , much flour and bis
cuit; have bricks as ballast for the ships, to be
used for ovens; to try to bring with us all we
want and not to have to ask from the Americans
who are themselves in want ... to have a copy
of the Atlas brought from Philadelphia by Mr.
de Lafayette ... to have a portable printing-
press, like that of Mr. d'Estaing, handy for proc
lamations . . . siege artillery is indispensable."
Some of the notes are of grave import and were
not lost sight of throughout the campaign : "Noth
ing without naval supremacy,"

To those intrusted with the care of loading the
vessels he recommends that all articles of the
same kind be not placed on the same ship, "so
that in case of mishap to any ship the whole sup
ply of any kind of provisions be not totally lost."

As to the pay for himself and his officers, he

26 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

writes to the minister that he leaves that to him:
"Neither I nor mine desire anything extravagant;
we should like to be able to go to this war at our
own expense." But the government did not
want him to be hampered by any lack of funds,
and allotted him the then considerable sum of
twelve thousand francs a month, and four thou
sand a month the generals under him.

At Brest, where he now repaired, Rochambeau
found that the ships were not so numerous as
expected, so that only the first division of his
army could embark under Admiral Chevalier
de Ternay: a sad blow for the commander-in-
chief . He prescribed that care be at least taken
to select for the passage the most robust men,
and, in order to save space, that all horses be left
behind, himself giving the example. "I have/'
Rochambeau writes to Prince de Montbarey, the
minister of war, "to part company with two battle-
horses that I can never replace, I do so with the
greatest sorrow, but I do ,not want to have to re
proach myself with their having taken up the
room of twenty men who could have embarked
in their stead." Officers, soldiers, ammunition,
artillery, spare clothing for the troops, and even
the printing-press go on board at last. Men and
things are dose-packed, but end by shaking down
into place; all will go well, Rochambeau writes to
the minister, ''without any overcrowding of the

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 27

troops; the rule for long journeys having been ob
served, namely one soldier for every two tons
burden."

When all were there, however, forming a total
of 5,000 men, the maximum was so truly reached
that a number of young men, some belonging to
the best-known French families, who were arriv
ing at Brest from day to day, in the hope of being
added to the expedition, had to be sent back.
The fleet was already on the high seas when a
cutter brought the government's last instructions
to Rochambeau. On the boat were two brothers
called Berthier, who besought to be allowed to
volunteer. "They have joined us yesterday, " the
general writes to the minister, "and have handed
us your letters. . . . They were dressed in linen
vests and breeches, asking to be admitted as mere
sailors." But there was really no place to put
them. "Those poor young men are interesting
and in despair." They had, nevertheless, to be
sent back, but managed to join the army later,
and so it was that Alexander Berthier began in
the Yorktown campaign a military career which
he was to end as marshal of France, and Prince
of Wagram and Neufchatel.

The departure, which it was necessary to hasten
while the English were not yet ready, was beset
with difficulties. Tempests, contrary winds and
other mishaps had caused vexatious delay; the

28 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Comtesse de Noailles and the Conquerant had come
into collision and had had to be repaired. ' ' Luck
ily," wrote Rochambeau to Montbarey, with his
usual good humor, "it rains also on Portsmouth/'
At last, on the 26. of May, 1780, the fleet of seven
ships of the line and two frigates conveying thirty-
six transports, weighed anchor for good. "We
shall have the start of Graves," the general wrote
again, "for he will have to use the same wind to
leave Portsmouth/' and he added, with a touch
of emotion at this solemn moment : " I recommend
this expedition to the friendship of my dear old
comrade, and to his zeal for the good of the state."

At sea now for a long voyage, two or three
months, perhaps, with the prospect of calms, of
storms, of untoward encounters, of scurvy for the
troops. On board the big Due de Bourgogne, of
eighty guns, with Admiral de Ternay, Rocham
beau adds now and then paragraphs to a long
report which is a kind of journal, assuring the
minister, after the first fortnight, that all is well
on board: "We have no men sick other than
those which the sea makes so, among whom the
Marquis de Laval and my son play the most
conspicuous part." He prepares his general in
structions to the troops,

On board the smaller craft life was harder and
numerous unflattering descriptions have come
down to us in the journals kept by so many

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 29

officers of the army, especially in that of the afore
mentioned young captain, Lotus Baron de Closen,
later one of the aides of Rochambeau.

He confesses, but with no undue sentimentalism,
that he was saddened at first to some extent at
the prospect of an absence that might be a long
one, particularly when thinking "of a charming
young fiancee, full of wit and grace. . . . My
profession, however, does not allow me to yield
too much to sensibility; so I am now perfectly
resigned." He was assigned to the Comtesse de
Noailles, of three hundred tons (the Ecureuil,
that kept her company, was of only one hundred
and eighty). Each officer had received fifty
francs for extra purchases; they found it was
little, but when they had made their purchases
they found that it had been much, so great was
the difficulty in stowing their possessions on the
ship. At last, "after much trouble and many
words a few crowns here and there each of us
succeeded in squeezing himself and his belong
ings in those so-detested sabots." 1 Closen, for
his part, had provisioned himself with " sugar,
lemons, and syrups in quantity."

The crew consisted of forty-five men, "half of

them Bretons, half Provencals," speaking their

own dialect, "and who, little accustomed to the

language used by their naval officers when giving

1 Wooden shoes, a nickname for a ship of mean estate.

30 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

their orders/' were apt to misunderstand them,
hence the bad manoeuvring which sent the Com-
tesse de Noailles right across the Conquerant. A
sad case; would they be left behind, and miss
taking part in the expedition? By great luck
4 'there were but the bowsprit, the spritsails, and
the figure of the charming countess which were
broken to pieces." Repairs are begun with all
speed. Mr. de Deux-Ponts promises fifteen louis
to the workmen if the ship is ready the next day
at noon. "One more reassuring circumstance
was that Mr. de Kersabiec, a very expert naval
officer, was intrusted with the care of looking
after the workmen." He never left them, and
"encouraged them by extra distributions. I was
intimate with all the family, having spent the
winter at Saint-Pol-de-Leon; the souvenir of
which still gives me pleasure." The next day all
was right once more: "After eleven, the amiable
countess was taken again with no head, it is
true, like so many other countesses beyond the
harbor chain." It was possible to start with the
rest of the fleet : the high fortifications overlook
ing the harbor, the villages along the coast, so
many sails curved by a wind " joli-frais," the clear
sky, "all united to form the most beautiful pic
ture at the time of our start. ... So many
vessels tinder way offered a truly imposing sight."
Every-day life now begins on the small craft;

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 31

it is hard at first to get accustomed, so tight-
packed is the ship, but one gets inured to it, in
spite of the " buzzing of so numerous a company, "
of the lack of breathing-space, and of what peo
ple breathe being made unpleasant by all sorts
of "exhalations" from the ship, the masses of hu
manity on board, "and a few dogs." Closen has
the good luck not to be inconvenienced by the
sea, settles in his corner, and from that moment
till the end takes pleasure in watching life around
him. He learns how to make nautical observa
tions, describes his companions in his journal, and
especially the captain, a typical old tar who has
an equal faith in the efficacy of hymns and of
oaths. "Prayer is said twice a day on the deck,
which does not prevent there being much irre-
ligion among seamen. I have often heard our
captain swear and curse and freely use the worst
sailors' language, while he was praying and chant
ing:

Je mets ma confiance,
Vierge, en votre secours,
Et quand ma derniere heure
Viendra, guidez mon sort;
Obtenez que je meure
De la plus sainte mort."

Various incidents break the monotony of the
journey. On the i8th of June the Surveillante

32 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

captures an English corsair, which is a joy, but
they learn from her the fall of Charleston and
the surrender of Lincoln, which gives food for
thought. Nothing better shows the difference
between old-time and present-time navigation
than the small fact that while on the way they
indulge in fishing. On board the Comtesse de
Noailles they capture flying-fishes, which are
"very tender and delicious to eat, fried in fresh
butter, like gudgeons."

An occasion offers to open fight, with the ad
vantage of numerical superiority, on six English
vessels; some shots are exchanged, but with great
wisdom, and, in spite of the grumblings of all his
people, Ternay refuses to really engage them, and
continues his voyage. "He had his convoy too
much at heart," says Closen, "and he knew too
well the importance of our expedition, his positive
orders being that he must make our army arrive
as quickly as possible, for him not to set aside
all the entreaties of the young naval officers
who, I was told, were very outspoken on that
score, as well as most of the land officers, who
know nothing of naval matters."

The event fully justified Ternay, for Graves,
whose mission it had been to intercept him and
his slow and heavy convoy, missed his oppor
tunity by twenty-four hours only, reaching New
York, where he joined forces with Arbuthnot

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 33

just as our own ships were safe at Newport. The
slightest delay on Ternay's part might have been
fatal.

The more so since, when nearing the coast our
fleet had fallen into fogs. "Nothing so sad and
dangerous at sea as fogs," Closen sententiously
writes; "besides the difficulty of avoiding col
lisions in so numerous a fleet, each vessel, in order
to shun them, tries to gain space; thus one may
chance to get too far from the centre. The stand
ing orders for our convoy were, in view of avoid
ing those inconveniences, to beat the drums every
quarter of an hour or fire petards. The men-of-
war fired their guns or sent rockets. The speed-
limit was three knots during the fog, so that each
vessel might, as far as possible, continue keeping
company with its neighbor." In spite of all
which the lie de France was lost, and there was
great anxiety; she was not seen again during the
rest of the journey, but she appeared later, quite
safe, at Boston.

The landing orders of Rochanibeau, making
known now to all concerned the intentions of the
government, were clear and peremptory. Drawn
up by him on board the Due de Bowgogne, he had
caused copies to be carried to the chiefs of the
several corps on board the other ships:

"The troops which his Majesty is sending to
America are auxiliary to those of the United

34 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

States, his allies, and placed under the orders of
General Washington, to whom the honors of a
marshal of France will be rendered. The same
with the President of Congress/' which avoided
the possibility of any trouble as to precedence,
no one in the French army having such a rank.
"In case of an equality of rank and duration of
service, the American officer will take command.
. . . The troops of the King will yield the right
side to the allies; French troops will add black to
their cockades, black being the color of the United
States," and some such hats, with black and
white cockades, are still preserved at Fraunces*
Tavern, 1 New York. "The intention of his
Majesty," the general continues, "is that there
be perfect concert and harmony between the gen
erals and officers of the two nations. The severest
discipline will be observed. ... It is forbidden
to take a bit of wood, a sheaf of straw, any kind
of vegetables, except amicably and in paying. . . .
All faults of unruliness, disobedience, insubordina
tion, ill-will, brutal and sonorous drunkenness
. . . will be punished, according to ordinances
with strokes of the flat of the sword/ 1 Even
"light faults of lack of cleanliness or attention"
will be punished. "To make the punishment the

1 So called after its owner, Samuel Fraunces (Francis or Francois),
from the French West Indies, nicknamed "Black Sam" for the
color of his skin.

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 33

harder for the French soldier, he will be barred
from military service during his detention."

The army, but not the fleet, had been placed
under the orders of Washington. Ternay's in
structions specified, however, that while his
squadron had no other commander than himself,
it was expected that he would ''proffer all assis
tance that might facilitate the operations of the
United States/' and that he would allow the use
of our ships "on every occasion when their help
might be requested." Good-will was obviously
the leading sentiment, and the desire of all was
to give as little trouble and bring as much useful
help as possible.

Ill

On the nth day of July the fleet reached New
port, after seventy days at sea, which was longer
than Columbus had taken on his first voyage, but
which was nothing extraordinary. Abbe Robin,
a chaplain of the army, arrived later, after a jour
ney of eighty-five days, none the less filled with
admiration for those " enormous machines with
which men master the waves" 1 a very mi
nute enormity from our modern point of view.
"There were among the land troops," says Closen,
"endless shouts of joy" at the prospect of being
on terra firma again. The troops, owing to their
having been fed on salt meat and dry vegetables,
with little water to drink (on board the Comtesse
de Noailles water had become corrupt; it was
now and then replaced by wine, "but that heats
one very much"), had greatly suffered. Scurvy
had caused its usual ravages; 600 or 700 soldiers
and 1,000 sailors were suffering from it; some had
died.

They were now confronted by the unknown.
What would that unknown be ? Rochambeau

l Nouveau Voyage dans VAmerique $eptentrionale en Vannee 1781
et campagne de Vannee de M. le comte de Rochambeau, Philadelphia,
1782.

30

ROCHAMBEATJ IN AMERICA 37

had only his first division with him; would he be
attacked at once by the English, who disposed of
superior naval and land forces about New York ?
And what would be the attitude of the Americans
themselves ? Everybody was for them in France,
but few people had a real knowledge of them.
Lafayette had, but he was young and enthusi
astic. Would the inhabitants, would their leader,
Washington, would their army answer his descrip
tion? On the arrival of the fleet Newport had
fired "thirteen grand rockets" and illuminated its
windows, but that might be a mere matter of
course: of these iUuminations the then president
of Yale, Ezra Stiles, has left a noteworthy record:
"The bell rang at Newport till after midnight,
and the evening of the i2th Newport illuminated;
the Whigs put thirteen lights in the windows, the
Tories or doubtfuls four or six. The Quakers
did not choose their lights should shine before
men, and their windows were broken/' 1

The game was, moreover, a difficult one, and
had to be played on an immense chess-board, in
cluding North and South Boston, New York,
Charleston, and the Chesapeake including even
"the Isles," that is, the West Indies; and what
took place there, which might have so much im
portance for continental operations, had constantly
to be guessed or imagined, for lack of news.

1 Literary Diary, New York, 1901, II, 454.

38 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Worse than all, the reputation of the French was,
up to then, in America such as hostile English
books and caricatures, and inconsiderate French
ones, had made it. We knew it, and so well,
too, that the appropriateness of having our troops
winter in our colonies of the West Indies was, at
one time, considered. Our minister, Gerard, was
of that opinion: "The Americans are little accus
tomed to live with French people, for whom they
cannot have as yet a very marked inclination." 2
"The old-time prejudice kept up by the English/'
wrote Mathieu-Dumas in his Souvenirs, "about
the French character was so strong that, at the
beginning of the Revolution, the most ardent
minds and several among those who most desired
independence, rejected the idea of an alliance
with France." "It is difficult to imagine/' said
Abbe Robin, "the idea Americans entertained
about the French before the war. They consid
ered them as groaning under the yoke of despot
ism, a prey to superstition and prejudices, almost
idolatrous in their religion, 2 and as a kind of light,

1 To Rochambeau; n. d., but 1780. (Rochambeau papers.)
3 Writing to the president of Yale, July 29, 1778, Silas Deane,
just about to return to France, recommended the creation of a chair
of French: "This language is not only spoke in all the courts, but
daily becomes more and more universal among people of business
as well as men of letters, in all the principal towns and cities of
Europe." Ezra Stiles consulted a number of friends; the majority

were against or in doubt, "Mr. C violently against, because

of popery." Literary Diary, August 24, 1778, New York, 1901, n,

KOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 39

brittle, queer-shapen mechanisms, only busy friz
zling their hair and painting their faces, without
faith or morals.' ' How would thousands of such
mechanisms be received ?

With his usual clear-headedness, Rochambeau
did the necessary thing on each point. To begin
with, in case of an English attack, which was at
first expected every day, he lost no time in forti
fying the position he occupied, "having/' wrote
Mathieu-Dumas, "personally selected the chief
points to be defended, and having batteries of
heavy artillery and mortars erected along the chan
nel, with furnaces to heat the balls." During "the
first six days," says Closen, "we were not quite
at our ease, but, luckily, Messieurs les Anglais
showed us great consideration, and we suffered
from nothing worse than grave anxieties." After
the second week, Rochambeau could write home
that, if Clinton appeared, he would be well re
ceived. Shortly after, he feels sorry the visit is *
delayed; later, when his own second division, so
ardently desired, did not appear, he writes to the
war minister: "In two words, sir Henry Clinton
and I are very punctilious, and , the question is
between us who will first call on the other. If
we do not get up earlier in the morning than the
English and the reinforcements they expect from

297. See also, concerning the prevalent impressions about the
French the M&noires du Comic de Mor6, 1898, p. 69.

40 ROCHAMBEAU IN. AMERICA

Europe reach, them before our second division ar
rives, they will pay us a visit here that I should
prefer to pay them in New York."

Concerning the reputation of the French, Ro-
chambeau and his officers were in perfect accord:
it would change if exemplary discipline were main
tained throughout the campaign. There is noth
ing the chief paid more attention to than this,
nor with more complete success. Writing to
Prince de Montbarey a month after the landing,
Rochambeau says: "I can answer for the dig-
cipline of the army; not a man has left his camp,
not a cabbage has been stolen, not a complaint
has been heard." 1 To the President of Congress
he had written a few days before: "I hope that
account will have been rendered to your Excel
lency of the discipline observed by the French
troops; there has not been one complaint; not a
man has missed a roll-call. We are your brothers
and we shall act as such with you; we shall fight
your enemies by your side as if we were one and
the same nation." 2 Mentioning in his memoirs
the visit of those " savages" who had been for
merly under French rule and persisted in remaining
friendly to us, he adds : "The sight of guns, troops,
and military exercises caused them no surprise;
but they were greatly astonished to see apple-

1 August 8, 1 780. (Rochambeau papers.)
3 August 3, 1780. (Ibid.)

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 41

trees with their apples upon them overhanging
the soldiers' tents." "This result," he concludes.,
"was due not only to the zeal of officers, but more
than anything else to the good disposition jx the
soldiers, which never failed."

Another fact which proved ^to our advantage
was that the French could then be seen in num
bers and at close quarters. The difference be
tween the portrait and the original was too glaring
to escape notice. William Channing, father of
the philanthropist, confides to the same Ezra
Stiles, in a letter of August 6, 1780, his delighted
surprise : "The French are a fine body of men, and
appear to be well officered. Neither the officers
nor men are the effeminate beings we were here
tofore taught to believe them. They are as large
and likely men as can be produced by any na
tion." 1 So much for the brittle, queer-shaped
mechanisms.

With the French officers in the West Indies,
most of them former companions in_arms and
personal friends, Rochambeau, as soon as he had
landed, began to correspond. The letters thus
exchanged, generally unpublished, give a vivid
picture of the life then led in the Isles. Cut off
from the world most of the time, not knowing
what was taking place in France, in America, on
the sea, or even sometimes on the neighboring

1 Stiles's Literary Diary, n, 458.

4 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

island, unaware of the whereabouts of Rodney,
having to guess which place he might try to storm
and which they should therefore garrison, these
men, suffering from fevers, having now and then
their ships scattered by cyclones, played to their
credit and with perfect good humor their difficult
game of hide and seek. 1 They send their letters
in duplicate and triplicate, by chance boats, give
news of the French court when they have any,
and learn after a year's delay that their letters
of October, 1780, have been duly received by Ro-
chambeau in June, 1781. The Marquis de Bouill6,
who was to cover himself with glory at Brimstone
Hill, and is now chiefly remembered for the part
he played in Louis XVFs flight to Varennes,
writes most affectionately, and does not forget to
convey the compliments of his brave wife, who
had accompanied him to Martinique. The Mar-

1 Rodney "has left here two months ago without our being able to
guess whither he was going. . , . Maybe you know better than I do
where he may presently be. ...

"We have just suffered from a terrible tornado, which has been
felt in all the Windward Islands; it has caused cruel havoc. A
convoy of fifty-two sails, arrived the day before in the roadstead of
Saint-Pierre, Martinique, has been driven out to sea, and has disap
peared for now a fortnight; five ships only returned here, the others
may have reached San Domingo or must have perished. An English
ship of the line of 44 guns, the Endymion, and two frigates, the
Laurel and the Andromeda, of the same nationality, have perished
on our coasts; we have saved some of their sailors." Marquis de
BouiUe" to Rochambeau, Fort Royal (Fort de France), October 27,
1780. (Rochambeau papers.)

KOCHAMBEAIJ IN AMERICA 43

qttis de Saint-Simon 1 writes from Santo Domingo
to say how much he would like to go and fight
under Rochambeau on the continent: "I would
be delighted to be under your orders, and to give
up for that the command in chief I enjoy here."
And he supplies 'him, in the same unpublished
letter, with a most interesting account of Cuba,
just visited by him: "This colony has an air of
importance far superior to any of ours, inhabited
as it is by all the owners of the land, so that the
city (Havana) looks rather a European than a
colonial one; society is numerous and seems opu
lent. If Spain would extend and facilitate the
trade of Cuba the island would become exceed
ingly rich in little time. But prohibitory laws are
so harsh and penalties so rigorous that they cramp
industry everywhere/*

A postscript in the same letter shows better
than anything else what was the common feeling
among officers toward Rochambeau: "Mont-
bran," writes Saint-Simon, "who has been suffer
ing from the fever for a long time, asks me to as
sure you of his respectful attachment, and says
that he has written you twice, that your silence

1 Three Saint-Simons took part in the American War of Indepen
dence, all relatives of the famous duke, the author of the memoirs:
the Marquis Claude Anne (1740-1819), the Baron Claude (retired,
1806), and the Count Claude Henri (1760-1825), then a very young
officer, the future founder of the Saint-Simonian sect, and first
philosophical master of Auguste Comte,

44 BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

afflicts him very much, and that a token of friend
ship and remembrance from you would be for him
the best of febrifuges. All your former subor
dinates of Auvergne think the same, and have
the same attachment for you, in which respect I
yield to none." 1

The stanch devotion of Rochambeau to his
duties as a soldier, his personal disinterestedness,
his cool-headedness and energy as a leader, his
good humor in the midst of troubles had secured
for him the devotion of many, while his brusquery,
his peremptoriness, the severity which veiled his
real warmth of heart whenever the service was at
stake, won him a goodly number of enemies, the
latter very generally of less worth as men than
the former. In the affectionate letter by which
he made up early differences with "his son La
fayette/' shortly after his arrival, he observes,
concerning his own military career: "If I have
been lucky enough to preserve, up to now, the
confidence of the French soldiers . . . the reason
is that out of 15,000 men or thereabout, who have
been killed or wounded under my orders, of dif
ferent rank and in the most deadly actions, I
have not to reproach myself with having caused
a single one to be killed for the sake of my own
fame." He seemed, Segur said in his memoirs,
"to have been purposely created to understand

1 January 7, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 45

Washington, and be understood by him, and to
serve with republicans. A friend of order, of
laws, and of liberty, his example more even than
his authority obliged us scrupulously to respect
the rights, properties, and customs of our allies/'

IV

Nothing without my second division, Rocham-
beau thought. He had urged the government in
his last letters before leaving France to send it
not later than a fortnight after he himself had
sailed: "The convoy will cross much more safely
now under the guard of two warships," he had
written to Montbarey, "than it will in a month
with an escort of thirty, when the English are
ready." And again, after having embarked on
the Due de Bourgogne: "For Heaven's sake, sir,
hasten that second division. . . . We are just
now weighing anchor." But weeks and months
went by, and no news came of the second division.
Washington with his ardent patriotism, Lafay
ette with his youthful enthusiasm, were pressing
Rochambeau to risk all, in order to capture New
York, the stronghold of the enemy and chief
centre of their power. "I am confident," Ro
chambeau answered, "that our general (Wash
ington) does not want us to give here a second
edition of Savannah," and he felt the more anx
ious that, with the coming of recruits and going of
veterans, and the short-term enlistments, "Wash
ington would command now 15,000 men, now
S,ooo."

46

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 47

Rochambeau decided in October to send to
France his son, then colonel of the regiment of
Bourbonnais, to remonstrate. As capture was
possible and the envoy might have to throw his
despatches overboard, young Rochambeau, be
ing blessed with youth and a good memory, had
learned their contents by heart. One of the best
sailors of the fleet had been selected to convey him,
on the frigate Amazone. On account of superior
forces mounting guard outside, the captain waited
for the first night storm that should arise, when
the watch was sure to be less strict, started in the
midst of one, after having waited for eight days,
was recognized, but too late, was chased, had his
masts broken, repaired them, and reached Brest
safely. The sailor who did so well on this oc
casion, and who was to meet a tragical death at
Vanikoro, bore the name, famous since, of La
Perouse.

Time wore on, a sad time for .the American
cause. One day the news was that one of the
most trusted generals, famous for his services on
land and water, Benedict Arnold, had turned
traitor; another day that Gates had been routed
at Camden and Kalb killed. In December Ter-
nay died. In January, worse than all, the sol
diers of the Pennsylvania line mutinied; unpaid,
underfed, kept under the flag long after the tine
for which they had enlisted, "they went," Closen

48 BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

writes in his journal, "to extremities. In Europe
they would not have waited so long."

There was no doubt, in fact, that the life they
had to lead did not closely resemble that which,
in accordance with the uses then prevailing in
every country, the posters urging enlistment de
picted to them. One such poster, preserved in
Philadelphia, announces "to all brave, healthy,
able-bodied, and well-disposed young men in this
neighborhood who have any inclination to join the
troops now raising, under General Washington,
for the defense of the liberties and independence
of the United States/ 7 a "truly liberal and gener
ous [encouragement], namely, a bounty of twelve
dollars, an annual and fully sufficient supply of
good and handsome clothing, a daily allowance
of a large and ample ration of provisions, together
with sixty dollars a year in gold and silver money
on account of pay." The appeal vaunted, by
way of conclusion, "the great advantages which
these brave men will have who shall embrace this
opportunity of spending a few happy years in
viewing the different parts of this beautiful con
tinent, in the honorable and truly respectable
character of a soldier, after which he may, if he
pleases, return home to his friends with his pockets
full of money and his head covered with laurels.
God save the United States ! " Pretty engravings
showed handsome soldiers, elegantly dressed, prac
tising an easy kind of military drill.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 49

The danger was great, but brief; tempted by
the enemy to change sides and receive full pay,
the Pennsylvania line refused indignantly. "We
are honest soldiers, asking justice from our com
patriots," they answered, "we are not traitors."
On the margin of a French account of those events,
published in Paris in 1787, Clinton scribbled a
number of observations hitherto unprinted. 1 They
are in French, or something like it. Opposite this
statement the British general wrote: "Est bien
dit et c'est dommage qu'il n'est pas vrai." We can
not tell, but one thing is sure, namely, that in
accordance with those words, spoken or not, the
rebellious soldiers acted. Owing to Washington's
influence, order soon reigned again, but the alarm
had been very great, as shown by the instruc
tions which he handed to Colonel Laurens, now
sent by him to Versailles with a mission similar
to that of young Rochambeau. The emotion
caused by the last events is reflected in them:
"The patience of the American army is almost
exhausted. . . . The great majority of the in
habitants is still firmly attached to the cause of
independence," but that cause may be wrecked
if more money, more men, and more ships are
not immediately supplied by the French ally. 2

While the presence of the American and French

1 Histoire des Troiibles de VAmfaique Anglaise, by Soules; Clinton's
copy, in the Library of Congress, p. 360.
January 15, 1781.

50 KOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

troops in the North kept Clinton and his power
ful New York garrison immobile where they were,
the situation in the South was becoming worse
and worse, with Cornwallis at the head of supe
rior forces, Lord Rawdon holding Charleston, and
the hated Arnold ravaging Virginia.

Against them the American forces under Greene,
Lafayette, and Morgan (who had partly de
stroyed Tarleton's cavalry at Cowpens, January
17) were doing their utmost, facing fearful odds.
With a handful of men, knowing that the slightest
error might be his destruction, young Lafayette,
aged twenty-four, far from help and advice, was
conducting a campaign in which his pluck, wisdom,
and tenacity won him the admiration of veterans.
Irritated ever to find him on his path, Cornwallis
was writing a little later to Clinton: "If I can
get an opportunity to strike a blow at him with
out loss of time, I will certainly try it." But La
fayette would not let his adversary thus employ
his leisure.

To arrest the progress of Arnold two French
expeditions were sent, taking advantage of mo
ments when access to the sea was not blocked by
the English fleet before Newport, one in Feb
ruary, under Tilly, who pursued Arnold's convoy
up the Elizabeth River as high as the draft of
his ships permitted, but had to stop and come
home, having only captured the Romulus, of 44

BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 51

guns, some smaller ships, a quantity of supplies
destined for Arnold, and made 550 prisoners; an
other of more importance under the Chevalier Des-
touches, in March, with part of Rochambeau's
army on board, in case a landing were possible.
In spite of all precautions, Destouches's intentions
were discovered; the English fleet engaged ours;
the fight, in which 72 French lost their lives and
112 were wounded, was a creditable one and
might easily have ended in disaster, for the enemy
had more guns, and several of our ships, on ac
count of their not being copper-lined, were slow;
but clever manoeuvring, however, compensated
those defects. Congress voted thanks, but the
situation remained the same. c 'And now/' Closen
noted down in his journal, "we have Arnold free
to act as he pleases, Virginia desolated by his in
cursions, and M. de Lafayette too weak to do
anything but keep on the defensive."

One day, however, something would have to be
done, and, in order to be ready, Rochambeau kept
his army busy with manoeuvres, military exer
cises, sham warfare ("le simulacre de la petite
guerre "), and the building of fortifications. As
for his officers, he encouraged them to travel, for
a large part of the land was free of enemies, and
to become better acquainted with these "Ameri
can brothers, " whom they had come to fight for.
French officers were thus seen at Boston, Albany,
West Point, Philadelphia. It was at this period
that Chastellux went about the country with
some of his companions, and gathered the material
for his well-known Voyages dans VAmerique du
Nord, the first edition of which, in a much abbre
viated form, was issued by that printing-press of
the fleet which Rochambeau had recommended to
himself not to forget: "De rimprimerie Royale
de TEscadre," one reads on the title-page. Only
twenty-three copies were struck off; the "Im-
primerie Royale" of the fleet had obviously no
superabundance of type nor of paper.

Closen, who, to his joy and surprise, had been
made a member of Rochambeau's "family," that
is, had been appointed one of his aides, as soon

52

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 53

as his new duties left him some leisure, began,
with his methodical mind, to study, he tells us,
''the Constitution of the thirteen States and of
the Congress of America/' meaning, of course, at
that date, their several constitutions, which or
ganization, "as time has shown, is well adapted
to the national character and has made the hap
piness of that people so respectable from every
point of view/' He began after this to examine
the products of the soil of Rhode Island, "per
haps one of the prettiest islands on the globe."

The stay being prolonged, the officers began to
make acquaintances, to learn English, to gain
access to American society. It was at first very
difficult; neither French nor American understood
each other's language; so recourse was bravely
had to Latin, better known then than to-day.
"Quid de meo, mi carissime Drowne, cogitas si-
lentio f " A long letter follows, in affectionate
terms addressed to Doctor Drowne, a Newport
physician, and signed: "Silly, officier au regiment
de Bourbonnois," September 9, 1780. Sublieuten
ant de Silly announced, however, his intention to
learn English during the winter season: "Inglicam
linguam noscere conabor." His letters of an after
date are, in fact, written in English, but a be
ginner's English. 1

1 Specimens exhibited by the doctor's descendant in the Fraunces's
Tavern Museum.

54 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

For the use of Latin the commander-in-chief of
the French army was able to set the example, and
Ezra Stiles could talk at a dinner in that language
with Rochambeau, still reminiscent of what he
had learned when studying for priesthood. The
president of Yale notes in his journal:

"5 [October, 1780]. Introduced to the com-
mander-in-chief of the French allied army, the
Count de Rochambeau. . . .

"7. Dined at the General de Rochambeau's,
in a splendid manner. There were, perhaps, thirty
at table. I conversed with the general in Latin.
He speaks it tolerably."

Beginning to know something of the language,
our officers risk paying visits and go to teas and
dinners. Closen notes with curiosity all he sees:
"It is good behavior each time people meet to
accost each other, mutually offering the hand and
shaking it, English fashion. Arriving in a com
pany of men, one thus goes around, but must re
member that it belongs to the one of higher rank
to extend his hand first. "

Unspeakable quantities of tea are drunk. "To
crave mercy, when one has taken half a dozen
cups, one must put the spoon across the cup ; for
so long as you do not place it so, your cup is al
ways taken, rinsed, filled again, and placed be
fore you, After the first, the custom is for the
pretty pourer (verseuse) most of them are so

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 55

to ask you: Is the tea suitable?' 91 "An insipid
drink," grumbles Chaplain Robin, over whom 'the
prettiness of the pouters was powerless.

The toasts are also a very surprising custom,
sometimes an -uncomfortable one. "One is ter
ribly fatigued by the quantity of healths which are
being drunk (toasts}. From one end of the table
to the other a gentleman pledges you, sometimes
with only a glance, which means that you should
drink a glass of wine with him, a compliment
which cannot be politely ignored."

In the course of an excursion to Boston the
young captain visits an assembly of Quakers,
"where, unluckily, no one was inspired, and ennui
seemed consequently to reign."

But what strikes him more than anything else
is the beauty of those young ladies who made him
drink so much tea: "Nature has endowed the
ladies of Rhode Island with the handsomest, finest
features one can imagine; their complexion is
clear and white; their hands and feet usually
small." But let not the ladies of other States
be tempted to resent this preference. One sees
later that in each city he visits young Closen is
similarly struck, and that, more considerate than
the shepherd Paris, he somehow manages to re
fuse the apple to none. On the Boston ladies he
is quite enthusiastic, on the Philadelphia ones not

1 In English in the original.

56 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

less; he finds, however, the latter a little too
serious, which he attributes to the presence of
Congress in that city.

But, above all, the object of my compatriots'
curiosity was the great man, the one of whom
they had heard so much on the other side, the
personification of the new-born ideas of liberty
and popular government, George Washington.
All wanted to see him, and as soon as permission
to travel was granted several managed to reach
his camp. For all of them, different as they might
be in rank and character, the impression was the
same and fulfilled expectation, beginning with
Rochambeau, who saw him for the first time at the
Hartford conferences, in September, 1780, when
they tried to draw a first plan for a combined
action. A friendship then commenced between
the two that was long to survive those eventful
years. "From the moment we began to corre
spond with one another/' Rochambeau wrote in
his memoirs, "I never ceased to enjoy the sound
ness of his judgment and the amenity of his style
in a very long correspondence, which is likely
not to end before the death of one of us."

Chastellux, who saw him at his camp, where the
band of the American army played for him the
"March of the Huron, " could draw from life his
well-known description of him, ending: "North
ern America, from Boston to Charleston, is a

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 57

great book every page of which tells his praise." 1
Count de S6gur says that he apprehended his ex
pectations could not be equalled by reality, but
they were. "His exterior almost told his story.
Simplicity, grandeur, dignity, calm, kindness,
firmness shone in his physiognomy as well as in
his character. He was of a noble and high sta
ture, his expression was gentle and kindly, his
smile pleasing, his manners simple without famili
arity. . . . All in him announced the hero of a
republic. ' ' "I have seen Washington, ' ' says Abb6
Robin, "the soul and support of one of the great
est revolutions that ever happened. ... In a
country where every individual has a part in su
preme authority ... he has been able to main
tain his troops in absolute subordination, render
them jealous of his praise, make them fear his
very silence. " Closen was one day sent with de
spatches to the great man and, like all the others,
began to worship him.

As a consequence of this mission Washington
came, on the 6th of March, 1781, to visit the
French camp and fleet. He was received with
the honors due to a marshal of France, the ships
were dressed, the troops, in their best uniforms,
"dans la plus grande tenue," lined the streets from

1 Voyages de M.k Marquis de Chastettux dans I'Ameriquc Septen-
trionaky dans ks annees 1780 , 1781 et 1782, Paris, 1786, 2 vols., I,
118.

58 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Rochambeau's house (the fine Vernon house, still
in existence 1 ) to the harbor; the roar and smoke
of the guns rose in honor of the "hero of liberty."
Washington saw Destouches's fleet sail for its
Southern expedition and wished it Godspeed;
and after a six days' stay, enlivened by " illumina
tions, dinners, and balls/' he left on the isth.
"I can say," we read in Closen's journal, "that
he carried away with him the regrets, the at
tachment, the respect, and the veneration of all
our army." Summing up his impression, he adds:
"All in him betokens a great man with an excel
lent heart. Enough good will never be said of
him."

1 Now the property of the Charity Organization Society. See A
History of the Vernon House, by Maud Lyman Stevens, Newport,
R. L, 1915. Illustrated.

VI

On the 8th of May, 1781, the Concorde arrived
at Boston, having on board Count de B arras, "a
commodore with the red ribbon/' of the same
family as the future member of the "Directoire,"
and who was to replace Ternay. With him was
Viscount Rochambeau, bringing to his father the
unwelcome news that no second division was to
be expected. "My son has returned very soli
tary," was the only remonstrance the general sent
to the minister* But the young colonel was able
to give, at the same time, news of great impor
tance. A new fleet under Count de Grasse had
been got together, and at the time of the Con
corde's departure had just sailed for the West
Indies, so that a temporary domination of the
sea might become a possibility. "Nothing with
out naval supremacy," Rochambeau had written,
as we know, in his note-book before starting.

In spite, moreover, of "hard times," wrote
Vergennes to La Luzerne, and of the already dis
quieting state of our finances, a new "gratuitous
subsidy of six million livres tournois" was granted
to the Americans. Some funds had already been
sent to Rochambeau, one million and a half in

60 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

February, with a letter of Necker saying: "Be
assured, sir, that all that will be asked from the
Finance Department for your army will be made
ready on the instant.'* Seven millions arrived a
little later, brought by the Astree, which had
crossed the ocean in sixty-seven days, without
mishap. As for troops, only 600 recruits arrived
at Boston, in June, with the Sagittaire.

Since nothing more was to be expected, the
hour had come for definitive decisions. A great
effort must now be made, the great effort in view
of which all the rest had been done, the one which
might bring about peace and American liberty
or end in lasting failure. All felt the importance
and solemnity of the hour. The great question
was what should be attempted the storming of
New York or the relief of the South ?

The terms of the problem had been amply dis
cussed in letters and conferences between the
chiefs, and the discussion still continued. The
one who first made up his mind and ceased to
hesitate between the respective advantages or
disadvantages of the two projects, and who plainly
declared that there was but one good plan, which
was to reconquer the South, that one, strange to
say, was neither Washington nor Rochambeau,
and was not in the United States either as a
sailor or a soldier, but as a diplomat, and in draw
ing attention to the fact I am only performing

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEMCA 61

the most agreeable duty toward a justly admired
predecessor. This wise adviser was La Luzerne.
In an unpublished memoir, drawn up by him on
the 2oth of April and sent to Rochambeau on
May 19 with an explanatory letter in which he
asked that his statement (a copy of which he also
sent to Barras) be placed under the eyes of Wash
ington, he insisted on the necessity of immediate
action, and action in the Chesapeake: "It is in
the Chesapeake Bay that it seems urgent to con
vey all the naval forces of the King, with such
land forces as the generals will consider appro
priate. This change cannot fail to have the most
advantageous consequences for the continuation
of the campaign," which consequences he points
out with singular clear-sightedness, adding: "If
the English follow us and can reach the bay only
after us, their situation will prove very different
from ours; all the coasts and the inland parts of
the country are full of their enemies. They have
neither the means nor the time to raise, as at
New York, the necessary works to protect them
selves against the inroads of the American troops
and to save themselves from the danger to which
the arrival of superior forces would expose them."
If the plan submitted by him offers difficulties,
others should be formed, but he maintains that
"all those which have for their object the relief
of the Southern States must be preferred, and that

6 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

no time should be lost to put them in execu
tion."

At the Weathersfield conference, near Hart
ford, Conn., between the Americans and French,
on the 23d of May (in the Webb house, still in
existence), Washington still evinced, and not
without some weighty reasons, his preference for
an attack on New York. He spoke of the ad
vanced season, of "the great waste of men- which
we have found from experience in long marches
in the Southern States/' of the "difficulty of
transports by land"; all those reasons and some
others, "too well known to Count de Rochambeau
to need repeating, show that an operation against
New York should be preferred, in the present cir
cumstances, to the effort of a sending of troops
to the South." On the same day he was writing
to La Luzerne: "I should be wanting in respect
and confidence were I not to add that our object
is New York."

La Luzerne, however, kept on insisting. To
Rochambeau he wrote on the ist of June: "The
situation of the Southern States becomes every
moment more critical; it has even become very
dangerous, and every measure that could be taken
for their relief would be of infinite advantage.
.. ,, . The situation of the Marquis de Lafayette
and that of General Greene is most embarrassing,
since Lord Cornwallis has joined the English divi-

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 63

sion of the Chesapeake. If Virginia is not helped
in time, the English will have reached the goal
which they have assigned to themselves in the
bold movements attempted by them in the South:
they will soon have really conquered the Southern
States. * . * I am going to write to M. de Grasse
as you want me to do; on your side, seize every
occasion to write to him, and multiply the copies
of the letters you send him," that is, in duplicate
and triplicate, for fear of loss or capture. "His
coming to the rescue of the oppressed States is
not simply desirable; the thing seems to be now
of the most pressing necessity." He must not
only come, but bring with him all he can find of
French troops in our isles: thus would be com
pensated, to a certain extent, the absence of the
second division.

Rochambeau soon agreed, and, with his usual
wisdom, Washington was not long in doing the
same. On the 2 8th of May the French general
had already written to de Grasse, beseeching him
to come with every means at his disposal, to bring
his whole fleet, and not only his fleet, but a sup
ply of money, to be borrowed in our colonies,
and also all the French land forces from our gar
risons which he could muster. The, desire of Saint-
Simon to come and help had, of course, not been
forgotten by Rochambeau, and he counted on
his good-will. After having described the ex-

64 KOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

treme importance of the effort to be attempted,
he concluded: "The crisis through which America
is passing at this moment is of the severest. The
coming of Count de Grasse may be salvation."

Events had so shaped themselves that the fate
of the United States and the destinies of more
than one nation would be, for a few weeks, in the
hands of one man, and one greatly hampered by
imperative instructions obliging him, at a time
when there was no steam to command the wind
and waves, to be at a fixed date in the West
Indies, owing to certain arrangements with Spain.
Would he take the risk, and what would be the
answer of that temporary arbiter of future events,
Franjois Joseph Paul Comte de Grasse, a sailor
from the age of twelve, now a lieutenant-gen
eral and "chef d'escadre," who had seen already
much service on every sea, in the East and West
Indies, with d'Orvilliers at Ushant, with Guichen
against Rodney in the Caribbean Sea, a haughty
man, it was said, with some friends and many
enemies, the one quality of his acknowledged by
friend and foe being valor? "Our admiral,'* his
sailors were wont to say, "is six foot tall on ordi
nary days, and six foot six on battle days."

What would he do and say? People in those
times had to take their chance and act in accor
dance with probabilities. This Washington and
Rochambeau did. By the beginning of June all

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 65

was astir in the northern camp. Soldiers did not
know what was contemplated, but obviously it
was something great. Young officers exulted.
What joy to have at last the prospect of an
"active campaign," wrote Closen in his journal,
"and to have an occasion to 'visit other provinces
and see the differences in manners, customs, prod
ucts, and trade of our good Americans!"

The camp is raised and the armies are on the
move toward New York and the South; they are
in the best dispositions, ready, according to cir
cumstances, to fight or admire all that turns up.
"The country between Providence and Bristol,"
says Closen, "is charming. We thought we had
been transported into Paradise, all the roads being
lined with acacias in full bloom, filling the air with
a delicious, almost too strong fragrance." Steeples
are climbed, and "the sight is one of the finest
possible." Snakes are somewhat troublesome, but
such things will happen, even in Paradise. The
heat becomes very great, and night marches are
arranged, beginning at two o'clock in the morn
ing; roads at times become muddy paths, where
wagons, artillery, carts conveying boats for the
crossing of rivers cause great trouble and delay.
Poor Abbe Robin, ill-prepared for martyrdom,
becomes pathetic, talking of his own fate, fearful
of being captured by the English and of becoming
* ' the victim of those anti-republicans. ' ' He sleeps

66 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

on the ground, tinder a torrential rain, "in front
of a great fire, roasted on one side, drenched on the
other." He finds, however, that "French gayety
remains ever present in these hard marches.
The Americans whom curiosity brings by the
thousand to our camps are received/' he writes,
" with lively joy; we cause our military instruments
to play for them, of which they are passionately
fond. Officers and soldiers, then, American men
and women mix and dance together; it is the
Feast of Equality, the first-fruits of the alliance
which must prevail between those nations. . . .
These people are still in the happy period when
distinctions of rank and birth are ignored; they
treat alike the soldier and the officer, and often
ask the latter what is his profession in his country,
unable as they are to imagine that that of a war
rior may be a fixed and permanent one."

Washington writes to recommend precautions
against spies, who will be sent to the French
camp, dressed as peasants, bringing fruit and
other provisions, and who "will be attentive to
every word which they may hear drop/' 1

Several officers, for the sake of example, dis
card their horses and walk, indifferent to mud
and heat; some of -them, like the Viscount de
Noailles, performing on foot the whole distance
of seven hundred and fifty-six miles between
1 To Rochambeau, June 30, 1781.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 67

Newport and Yorktown. Cases of sickness were
rare. "The attention of the superior officers/*
says Abb6 Robin, "very much contributed to
this, by the care they took in obliging the soldiers
to drink no water without rum in it to remove
its noisome qualities." It is not reported that
superior officers had to use violence to be obeyed.
This precaution, up to a recent date, was still
considered a wise one; in the long journeys on
foot that we used to take in my youth across the
Alps, our tutor was convinced that no water mi
crobe could resist the addition of a little kirsch.
Anyway, we resisted the microbes.

On the 6th of July the junction of the two
armies took place at Phillipsburg, "three leagues,"
Rochambeau writes, "from Kingsbridge, the first
post of the enemy in the island of New York," 1
the American army having followed the left bank
of the Hudson in order to reach the place of
meeting. On the receipt of the news, Lord Ger
main, the British colonial secretary, wrote to
Clinton, who commanded in chief at New York:
"The junction of the French troops with the

1 This island's aspect fifteen years later is thus described by Duke
de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: "Enfin nous sommes arrives a
King's Bridge dans File de New York, oil le terrain, g6nralement
mauvais, est encore en mauvais bois dans les parties les plus 61oigne"es
de la ville, et ou il est cependant couvert de fermes et surtout de
maisons de campagne dans les six ou sept milles qui s'en approchent
davantage 'et dans les parties qui avoisinent la riviere du Nord et le
bras de mer qui sSpare cette He de Long Island."^ Voyage, V, 300.

68 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Americans will, I am persuaded, soon produce
disagreements and discontents, and Mr. Wash
ington will find it necessary to separate them very
speedily, either by detaching the Americans to
the southward or suffering the French to return
to Rhode Island. . . . But I trust, before that
can happen, Lord Cornwallis will have given the
loyal inhabitants on both sides of the Chesapeake
the opportunity they have so long ago earnestly
desired of avowing their principles and standing
forth in support of the King's measures/* Similar
proofs of my lord's acumen abound in his partly
unpublished correspondence. He goes on rejoicing
and deducting all the happy consequences which
were sure to result from the meeting of the French
and American troops, so blandly elated at the
prospect as to remind any one familiar with La
Fontaine's fables, of Perrette and her milk-pot.

Washington, in the meantime, was reviewing
the French troops (July 9), and Rochambeau
the American ones, and a fact which would
have greatly surprised Lord Germain the worse
equipped the latter were, the greater the sym
pathy and admiration among the French for
their endurance. "Those brave people," wrote
Closen, "it really pained us to see, almost naked,
with mere linen vests and trousers, most of them
without stockings; but, would you believe it?
looking very healthy and in the best of spirits."

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEBICA 69

And further on: "I am full of admiration for the
American troops. It is unbelievable that troops
composed of men of all ages, even of children of
fifteen, of blacks and whites, all nearly naked,
without money, poorly fed, should walk so well
and stand the enemy's fire with such firmness.
The calmness of mind and the clever combina
tions of General Washington, in whom I discover
every day new eminent qualities, are already
enough known, and the whole universe respects
and admires him. Certain it is that he is admi
rable at the head of his army, every member of
which considers him as his friend and father/'
These sentiments, which were unanimous in the
French army, assuredly did not betoken the
clash counted upon by the English colonial secre
tary, and more than one of our officers who had, a
few years later, to take part in another Revolu
tion must have been reminded of the Continental
soldiers of '8 1 as they led to battle, fighting for a
similar cause, our volunteers of '92.

No real hatred, any more than before, appeared
among the French troops for those enemies whom
they were now nearing, and with whom they had
already had some sanguinary skirmishes. Dur
ing the intervals between military operations re
lations were courteous, and at times amicable.
The English gave to the French news of Europe,
even when the news was good for the latter, and

70 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

passed to them newspapers. "We learned that
news'* (Necker's resignation), writes Blanchard,
" through the English, who often sent trumpeters
and passed gazettes to us. We learned from the
same papers that Mr. de La Motte-Picquet had
captured a rich convoy. 1 These exchanges be
tween the English and us did not please the
Americans, nor even General Washington, who
were unaccustomed to this kind of warfare."
The fight was really for an idea, but, what might
have dispelled any misgivings, with no possibility
of a change of idea.

1 The convoy was carrying to England the enormous booty taken
by Rodney at St. Eustatius. Eighteen of its ships were captured by
La Motte-Picquet (May 2, 1781) and thus reached France instead of
England.

Toward the Hessians, however, the feeling was different. Some
had deserted to enlist in Lauzun's legion, but they almost immediately
counterdeserted, upon which Rochambeau wrote to Lauzun: "You
have done the best hi deciding never to pester yourself again with
Hessian deserters, of whom, you know, I never had a good opinion."
Newport, December 22, 1780.

VII

Two unknown factors now were for the gen
erals the cause of deep concern. What would de
Grasse do? What would Clinton do? The
wounded officer of Johannisberg, the winner of
Charleston, Sir Henry Clinton, a lieutenant-
general and former member of Parliament, en
joying great repute, was holding New York, not
yet the second city of the world nor even the
first of the United States, covering only with its
modest houses, churches, and gardens the lower
part of Manhattan, and reduced, owing to the
war, to 10,000 inhabitants. But, posted there,
the English commander threatened the road on
which the combined armies had to move. He
had at his disposal immense stores, strong forti
fications, a powerful fleet to second his move
ments, and troops equal in number and training
to ours.

There are periods in the history of nations
when, after a continuous series of misfortunes,
when despair would have seemed excusable, sud
denly the sky clears and everything turns their
way. In the War of American Independence,
such a period had begun. The armies of Wash
ington and Rochambeau, encumbered with their

71

72 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

carts, wagons, and artillery, had to pass rivers,
to cross hilly regions, to follow muddy tracks;
any serious attempt against them might have
proved fatal, but nothing was tried. It was of
the greatest importance that Clinton should, as
long as possible, have no intimation of the real
plans of the Franco- Americans; everything helped
to mislead him: his natural dispositions as well
as circumstances. He had an unshakable con
viction that the key to the whole situation was
New York, and that the royal power in America,
and he, too, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clin
ton, would stand or fall with that city. Hence
his disinclination to leave it and to attempt any
thing outside. His instructions ordered him to
help Cornwallis to his utmost, the plan of the
British court being to conquer the Southern
States first and then continue the conquest north
ward. But he, on the contrary, was day after
day asking Cornwallis to send back some of his
troops. And while, as he never ceased to point
out afterward, he was careful to add, "if you
could spare them," he also remarked in the same
letter: "I confess I could not conceive you would
require above 4,000 in a station where General
Arnold has represented to me, upon report of
Colonel Simcoe, that 2,000 men would be amply
sufficient/* 1

1 July 8, 1781.

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMEEICA 73

A great source of light, and, as it turned out, of
darkness also, was the intercepting of letters.
This constantly happened in those days, to the
benefit or bewilderment of both parties, on land
or at sea. But luck had decidedly turned, and
the stars shone propitious for the allies. We cap
tured valuable letters, and Clinton misleading
ones. It was something of a retribution after he
had so often used or tried to use such captures to
his advantage, as when, having seized an intimate
letter of Washington, a passage of which might
have given umbrage to Rochambeau, he had it
printed in the newspapers. But the two com
manders were not to be ruffled so easily, and all
that took place was a frank explanation. Spon
taneously acting in the same spirit, La Luzerne
had written to Rochambeau concerning Wash
ington and this incident: "I have told all those
that have spoken to me of it that I saw nothing
in it but the zeal of a good patriot, and a citizen
must be very virtuous for his enemies not to find
other crimes to reproach him with." 1

More treasures had now fallen into the hands
of Clinton: a letter of Chastellux to La Luzerne,
speaking very superciliously of his unmanageable
chief, Rochambeau, and of his "bourrasques."
In it he congratulated himself, as Rochambeau
narrates, on having "cleverly managed to cause

1 April 13, 1781. (Rochambeau papers.)

74 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

me to agree with General Washington,'* the re
sult being that "a siege of the island of New York
had at last been determined upon. ... He
added complaints about the small chance a man
of parts had to influence the imperiousness of a
general always wanting to command. " Clinton
caused that letter to be sent to Rochambeau, "ob
viously with no view," writes the latter, "to the
preservation of peace in my military family."
Rochambeau showed it to Chastellux, who blush-
ingly acknowledged its authorship; the general
thereupon threw it into the fire and left the un
fortunate Academician "a prey to his remorse,"
and to his ignorance, for he was careful not to
undeceive him as to the real plans of the com
bined army.

A text of the conclusions reached at the Weath-
ersfield conferences was no less happily captured
by Clinton, and we have seen how clearly Wash
ington had there expressed his reluctance to at
tempt striking the chief blow in the South.
A letter of Barras to La Luzerne, of May 27,
was also intercepted, and as luck would have it,
the sailor declared in it his intention to take the
fleet, of all places, to Boston (a real project, but
abandoned as soon as formed and replaced by
another which took him to the Chesapeake). A
most important letter of Rochambeau to La
Luzerne, explaining the real plan, was thereupon

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEBICA 75

intercepted; it was in cipher and the English
managed to decipher it. But, as the stars shone
propitious to the allies, it was only the English
in London, and not those in New York, who could
do it, and when the translation reached Clinton
at last, he had no longer, for good causes, any
doubt as to the real aims of Washington and
Rochambeau.

The colonial secretary was, in the meantime,
kept in a state of jubilation by so much treasure-
trove and the news forwarded by Clinton, to
whom he wrote: "The copies of the very impor
tant correspondence which so fortunately fell into
your hands, inclosed in your despatch, show the
rebel affairs to be almost desperate, and that noth
ing but the success of some extraordinary enter
prise can give vigor and activity to their cause,
and I confess I am well pleased that they have
fixed upon New York as the object to be at
tempted. ' ' l Clinton acknowledged a little later to
Lord Germain the receipt of a "reinforcement of
about 2,400 German troops and recruits/ ' which
he was careful to hold tight in New York till the
end.

The combined armies had, in the meantime,
done their best to confirm the English commander
in such happy dispositions. They had built in
the vicinity of New York brick ovens for baking

4, 1781.

76 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

bread for an army, as in view of a long siege.
There had been reconnaissances, marches, and
countermarches, a sending of ships toward Long
Island without entering, however, "dans la baie
d'Oyster," skirmishes which looked like prelimi
naries to more important operations, and in one
of which, together with the two Berthiers and
Count de Vauban, Closen nearly lost his life in
order to save his hat. A camp proverb about
hats had been the cause of his taking the risk.
'When he returned, "kind Washington/ 7 he writes
in his journal, "tapped me on the shoulder, say
ing: 'Dear Baron, this French proverb is not yet
known among our army, but your cold behavior
during danger will be it'" (in English in the orig
inal as being the very words of the great man to
the young one, though cold does probably duty
for cool, and the final it is certainly not Washing
ton's).

Then on the sudden, on the i8th of August,
the two armies raised their camps, disappeared,
and, following unusual roads, moving northward
at first for three marches, reached in the midst
of great difficulties, under a torrid heat, greatly
encumbered with heavy baggage, the Hudson
River and crossed it at King's Ferry, without
being more interfered with than before. How
can such an inaction on the part of Clinton be ex
plained ? "It is for me, ' ' writes Count Guillaume

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 77

de Detix-Ponts in his journal, the manuscript of
which was found on the quays in Paris, 1 and printed
in America, "an undecipherable enigma, and I
hope I shall never be reproached for having puz
zled people with any similar ones."

The river once crossed, the double army moved
southward by forced marches. Rochambeau, in
order to hasten the move, prescribed the leaving
behind of a quantity of effects, and this, says
Closen, "caused considerable grumbling among
the line," which grumbled but marched. The
news, to be sure, of so important a movement
came to Clinton, but, since the stars had ceased to
smile on him, he chose to conclude, as he wrote
to Lord Germain on the yth of September, "this
to be a feint." When he discovered that it was
not "a feint," the Franco-American army was
beyond reach. "What can be said as to this?"
Closen writes merrily . "Try to see better another
time," and he draws a pair of spectacles on the
margin of his journal.

The march southward thus continued unham
pered. They crossed first the Jerseys, "a land of
Cockayne, for game, fish, vegetables, poultry."
Closen had the happiness to "hear from the lips
of General Washington, and on the ground itself, a

1 In June, 1867, by S. A. Green, who printed it with an English
translation: My Campaigns in America, a journal kept by Couni
William de Deux-Ponts, Boston, 1868.

78 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

description of the dispositions taken, the move
ments and all the incidents of the famous battles
of Trenton and Princeton/' The young man, who
had made great progress in English, was now used
by the two generals as their interpreter; so nothing
escaped him. The reception at Philadelphia was
triumphal; Congress was most courteous; toasts
were innumerable. The city is an immense one,
"with seventy-two streets in a straight line. . .
Shops abound in all kinds of merchandise, and
some of them do not yield to the Petit Dunkerque
in Paris." Where is now the Petit Dunkerque?
"Mais ou sont les Neiges d'antan?" 1 Women
are very pretty, "of charming manners, and very
well dressed, even in French fashion. " Benezet,
the French Quaker, one of the celebrities of the
city, is found to be full of wisdom, and La Luzerne,
"who keeps a state worthy of his sovereign,"
gives a dinner to one hundred and eighty guests.
From Philadelphia to Chester, on the 5th of
September, Rochambeau and his aides took a
boat. As they were nearing the latter city, "we
saw in the distance," says Closen, "General Wash
ington shaking his hat and a white handkerchief,

1 The house at the entrance of the Pont-Neuf , where the Petit
Dunkerque was established, being then the most famous "magasin
de frivolit6s" in existence, survived until July, 1914. The sign of the
shop, a little ship with the inscription, " Au Petit Dunkerque," was
still there. It has been preserved and is now in the Carnavalet
Museum,

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 79

and showing signs of great joy." Rochambeau
had scarcely landed when Washington, usually
so cool and composed, fell into his arms; the
great news had arrived; de Grasse had come, and
while Cornwallis was on the defensive at York-
town the French fleet was barring the Chesa
peake. 1

On the receipt of letters from Washington, Ro
chambeau, and La Luzerne telling him to what
extent the fate of the United States was in his
hands, the sailor, having 'learned, with much
sorrow/* he wrote to the latter, "what was the
distress of the continent, and the need there was
of immediate help," had decided that he would
leave nothing undone to usefully take part in the
supreme effort which, without his help, might be
attempted in vain. Having left, on the 5th of
August, Cap Prangais (to-day Cap Haitien), he
had added to his fleet all the available ships he
could find in our isles, including some which, hav
ing been years away, had received orders to go
back to France for repairs. He had had great diffi-

1 Washington's joy was in proportion to the acuteness of his
anxieties; only three days before he was writing to Lafayette:
"But, my dear marquis, I am distressed beyond expression to know
what has become of Count de Grasse, and for fear that the English
fleet, by occupying the Chesapeake, toward which, my last accounts
say, they were steering, may frustrate all our prospects in that quar
ter. . . . Adieu, my dear marquis; if you get anything new from
any quarter, send it, I pray you, on tike spur of speed, for I am almost
all impatience and ansiety." Philadelphia, September 2 3 1781.

80 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

culty in obtaining the money asked for, although
he had offered to mortgage for it his castle of
Tilly, and the Chevalier de Charitte, in command
of the Bourgogne, had made a like offer. But at
last, thanks to the Spanish governor at Havana,
he had secured the desired amount of twelve hun
dred thousand francs. He was bringing, more
over, the Marquis de Saint-Simon, with the 3,000
regular troops under his command. De Grasse's
only request was that operations be pushed on
with the utmost rapidity, as he was bound to be
back at the Isles at a fixed date. It can truly be
said that no single man risked nor did more for
the United States than de Grasse, the single one
of the leaders to whom no memorial has been
dedicated.

The news spread like wild-fire; the camp was
merry with songs and shouts; in Philadelphia the
joy was indescribable; crowds pressed before the
house of La Luzerne, cheering him and his coun
try, while in the streets impromptu orators, stand
ing on chairs, delivered mock funeral orations on
the Earl of Cornwallis. "You have/ 1 Rocham-
beau wrote to the admiral, "spread universal joy
throughout America, with which she is wild." 1

Anxiety was renewed, however, when it was
learned shortly after that the French men-of-war
had left the Chesapeake, the entrance to which

1 September 7, 1781.

ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA 81

now remained free. The English fleet, of twenty
ships and seven frigates, under Hood and Graves,
the sanr;e Graves who had failed to intercept Ro-
chamb^u's convoy, had been signalled on the
5th of September, and de Grasse, leaving behind
him, in order to go faster, some of his ships and a
number of sailors who were busy on land, had
weighed anchor, three-quarters of an hour after
sighting the signals, to risk the fight upon which
the issue of the campaign and, as it turned out,
of the war, was to depend. "This behavior of
Count de Grasse/' wrote the famous Tarleton,
is "worthy of admiration." Six days later the
French admiral was back; he had had 21 officers
and 200 sailors killed or wounded, but he had
lost no ship, and the enemy's fleet, very much
damaged, with 336 men killed or disabled, and
having lost the Terrible, of 74 guns, and the
frigates Iris and Richmond of 40,* had been
compelled to retreat to New York. Admiral
Robert Digby thereupon arrived with naval re-

1 Graves had rightly supposed that, to have been able to start so
quickly, de Grasse must have caused some of his ships to cut their
anchors' cables, marking the spot with buoys. The two frigates
had been sent to gather those buoys, and were bringing several as a
prize to the English admiral, when they were captured. (Journal Par*
ticulier, by Count de Revel, sublieutenant in the regiment of "Mon-
sieur-Infanterie," p. 131.) On the isth of September Washington
wrote to de Grasse: "I am at a loss to express the pleasure which
I have hi congratulating your Excellency ... on the glory of hav
ing driven the British fleet from the coast and taking two of their
frigates.'?

82 BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

inforcements; "yet I do not think/* La Luzerne
wrote to Rochambeau, "that battle will be offered
again. If it is, I am not anxious about the re
sult." Nothing was attempted. This "superi
ority at sea," Tarleton wrote in his History of the
Campaigns, "proved the strength of the enemies
of Great Britain, deranged the plans of her gen
erals, disheartened the courage of her friends, and
finally confirmed the independency of America." 1
"Nothing," Rochambeau had written in his note
book at starting, "without naval supremacy."

On re-entering the bay de Grasse had the plea
sure to find there another French fleet, that of his
friend Barras. As a lieutenant-general de Grasse
outranked him, but as a "chef d'escadre" Barras
was his senior officer, which might have caused
difficulties; the latter could be tempted, and he
was, to conduct a campaign apart, so as to per
sonally reap the glory of possible successes. "I
leave it to thee, my dear Barras," de Grasse had
written him on the 28th of July, "to come and
join me or to act on thy own account for the good
of the common cause. Do only let me know, so
that we do not hamper each other unawares."
Barras preferred the service of the cause to his
own interest; leaving Newport, going far out on

1 History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1787, by Lieutenant-Colonel
Tarleton, commandant of the late British Legion, Dublin, 1787,
pp. 403 ff.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 83

the high seas, then dashing south at a great dis
tance from the coast, he escaped the English and
reached the Chesapeake, bringing the heavy siege
artillery now indispensable for the last operations.
The stars had continued incredibly propitious.

The well-known double siege now began, that
of Yorktown 1 by Washington and Rochambeau,
and that of Gloucester, on the opposite side of
the river, which might have afforded a place of
retreat to Cornwallis. De Grasse had consented
to land, in view of the latter, 800 men under Choisy,
whom Lauzun joined with his legion, and both
acted in conjunction with the American militia
under Weedon. 2 The two chiefs on the Yorktown
side were careful to conduct the operations ac
cording to rules, "on account," says Closen, "of
the reputation of Cornwallis, and the strength of
the garrison/' Such rules were certainly familiar
to Rochambeau, whose fifteenth siege this one was.

From day to day Cornwallis was more narrowly
pressed. As late as the 2pth of September he
was still full of hope. "I have ventured these

1 A minute "Journal of the Siege" was kept by Mr. de M&ionville,
aide major-general, a translation of which is in the Magazine of
American History, 1881, VII, 283.

* The city of Gloucester consisted of "four houses on a promontory
facing York," but very well defended by trenches, ditches, redoubts,
manned by a garrison of 1,200 men. (Count de Revel, Journal
Particulier, p. 171.) A detailed account of the Gloucester siege is
in this journal. Choisy "had previously won a kind of fame by his
defense of the citadel of Cracow, in Poland." (Ibid., p. 139.)

84 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

two days," lie wrote to Clinton, "to look General
Washington's whole force in the face in the posi
tion on the outside of my works; and I have the
pleasure to assure your Excellency that there was
but one wish throughout the whole army, which
was that the enemy would advance." A dozen
days later the tone was very different. "I have
only to repeat that nothing but a direct move to
York River, which includes a successful naval
action, can save me ... many of our works are
considerably damaged."

Lord Germain was, in the meantime, writing to
Clinton in his happiest mood, on the i2th of
October: "It is a great satisfaction to me to find
. . . that the plan you had concerted for conduct
ing the military operations in that quarter (the
Chesapeake) corresponds with what I had sug
gested. " The court, which had no more misgiv
ings than Lord Germain himself, had caused to
sail with Digby no less a personage than Prince
William, one of the fifteen children of George III,
and eventually one of his successors as William IV;
but his presence could only prove one more en
cumbrance.

After the familiar incidents of the siege in which
the American and French armies displayed similar
valor and met with about the same losses, the de
cisive move of the night attack on the enemy's
advanced redoubts had to be made, one of the

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 85

redoubts to be stormed by the Americans with
Lafayette, and the other by the French tinder
Viomesnil. Rochambeau addressed himself es
pecially to the grenadiers of the regiment of
Gatinais, which had been formed with a portion
of his old regiment of Auvergne, and said: "My
boys, if I need you to-night, I hope you will not
have forgotten that we have served together in
that brave regiment of Auvergne sans tache (spot
less Auvergne), an honorable surname deserved
by it since its formation/* They answered that
if he would promise to have their former name
restored to them he would find they were ready
to die to the last. They kept their word, losing
many of their number, and one of the first requests
of Rochambeau when he reached Paris was that
their old name be given back to them, which was
done. Gatinais thus became Royal Auvergne,
and is now the i8th Infantry.

On the igth of October, after a loss of less than
300 men in each of the besieging armies, an act
was signed as great in its consequences as any
that ever followed the bloodiest battles, the capit
ulation of Yorktown. It was in a way the rati
fication of that other act which had been pro
posed for signature five years before at Phila
delphia by men whose fate had more than once,
in the interval, seemed desperate, the Declaration
of Independence.

86 EOCHAMBEATJ IN AMERICA

On the same day Closen writes: "The York
garrison marched past at two o'clock, before the
combined army, which was formed in two lines,
the French facing the Americans and in full dress
uniform. . . . Passing between the two armies,
the English showed much disdain for the Ameri
cans, who so far as dress and appearances went rep
resented the seamy side, many of those poor boys
being garbed in linen habits-vestes, torn, soiled, a
number among them almost shoeless. The Eng
lish had given them the nickname of Yanckey-
Dudle. What does it matter? the man of sense
will think; they are the more to be praised and
show the greater valor, fighting, as they do, so
badly equipped." As a "man of sense," Rocham-
beau writes in his memoirs: "This justice must
be rendered to the Americans that they behaved
with a zeal, a courage, an emulation which left
them in no case behind, in all that part of the siege
intrusted to them, in spite of their being unaccus
tomed to sieges."

The city offered a pitiful sight. "I shall never
forget," says Closen, "how horrible and painful
to behold was the aspect of the town of York.
. . . One could not walk three steps without
finding big holes made by bombs, cannon-balls,
splinters, barely covered graves, arms and legs
of blacks and whites scattered here and there,
most of the houses riddled with shot and devoid

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 87

of window panes. . . . We found Lord Corn-
wallis in his house. His attitude evinced the no
bility of his soul, his magnanimity and firmness of
character. He seemed to say: I have nothing to
reproach myself with, I have done my duty and
defended myself to the utmost." This impression
of Lord Cornwallis was general.

As to Closen's description of the town, now so
quiet and almost asleep, by the blue water, amid
her sand-dunes, once more torn and blood-stained
during the Civil War, resting at the foot of the
great marble memorial raised a hundred years
later by Congress, 1 it is confirmed by Abbe Robin,
who notices, too, "the quantity of human limbs
which infected the air," but also, being an abbe,
the number of books scattered among the ruins,
many being works of piety and theological con
troversy, and with them "the works of the famous
Pope, and translations of Montaigne's Essays, of

x As early as 1796, when La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visited it,
the city, formerly a prosperous one, had become a borough of 800
inhabitants, two-thirds of which were colored. "The inhabitants,"
says the traveller, "are without occupation. Some retail spirits or
cloth; some are called lawyers, some justices of the peace. Most
of them have, at a short distance from the town, a small farm, which
they go and visit every morning, but that scarcely fills the mind or
time; and the inhabitants of York, who live on very good terms
with each other, occupy both better in dining together, drinking
punch, playing billiards; to introduce more variety in this mo
notonous kind of life, they often change the place where they meet.
. . , The name of Marshal de Rochambeau is still held there in
great veneration." Voyage dans ks Etats-Unis, Paris, "An VII,"
vol. VI, p. 283.

88 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Gil Bias, and of the Essay on Women by Monsieur
Thomas," that stern essay, so popular then in
America, in which society ladies were invited to
fill their soul with those "sentiments of nature
which are born in retreat and grow in silence."

Nothing better puts in its true light the domi
nant characteristic of the French sentiment
throughout the war than what happened on this
solemn occasion, and more shows how, with their
new-born enthusiasm for philanthropy and liberty,
the French were pro-Americans much more than
anti-English. No trace of a triumphant attitude
toward a vanquished enemy appeared in anything
they did or said. Even in the surrendering, the
fact remained apparent that this was not a war
of hatred. "The English," writes Abbe Robin,
"laid down their arms at the place selected.
Care was taken not to admit sightseers, so as to
diminish their humiliation." Henry Lee (Light-
horse Harry), who was present, describes in the
same spirit the march past: "Universal silence
was observed amidst the vast concourse, and the
utmost decency prevailed, exhibiting in demeanor
an awful sense of the vicissitudes of human life,
mingled with commiseration for the unhappy." 1

1 Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States,
Philadelphia, 1812, II, 343. In the same spirit Pontgibaud notes
that the British, army laid down its arms "to the noble confusion
of its brave and unfortunate soldiers." M6moires du Cotnte de Uor6
(Pontgibaud), 1898, p. 104.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 89

The victors pitied Cornwallis and showed him
every consideration; Rochambeau, learning that
he was without money, lent him all he wanted.
He invited him to dine with him and his officers
on the 2d of November, "Lord Cornwallis, "
writes Closen, "especially distinguished himself
by his reflective turn of mind, his noble and
gentle manners. He spoke freely of his cam
paigns in the Carolinas, and, though he had won
several victories, he acknowledged, nevertheless,
that they were the cause of the present misfor
tunes. All, with the exception of Tarleton, spoke
French, O'Hara in particular to perfection, but
he seemed to us something of a brag. ' ' 1 A friendly
correspondence began between the English gen
eral and some of the French officers, Viscount de
Noailles, the one who had walked all the way,
lending him, the week after the capitulation, his
copy of the beforementioned famous work of
Count de Guibert on Tactics, which was at that
time the talk of Europe, and of which Napoleon

1 Same good feeling on. the Gloucester side. After the surrender, " les
officiers anglais vinrent voir nos officiers qui 6taient de service, leur
firent toutes les honn6tet6s possible, et burent a leur sant." (Revel,
Journal P&rticulier, p. 168.) The British fleet appeared only on the
27th of October, at the entrance of the capes; thirty-one sails were
counted on that day and forty-four on the next; after the zgth they
were no longer seen. "Nous avons su depuis," Revel writes, "que
FArniral Graves avait dans son arm6e le g6ne>al Clinton, avec des
troupes venues de New York pour secourir lord Cornwallis. Mai?
fl 6tait trop tard; la poule 6tait mangee, et Tun et Pautre prirent le
parti de s'en retourner." (Ibid., p. 178.)

90 BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

said later that "it was such as to form great men,"
the same Guibert who expected lasting repute
from that work and from his military services,
and who irony of fate general and Academician
though he was, is chiefly remembered as the hero
of the letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse.

Cornwallis realized quite well that the French
had fought for a cause dear to their hearts more
than from any desire to humble him or his nation.
He publicly rendered full justice to the enemy,
acknowledging that the fairest treatment had
been awarded him by them. In the final report
in which he gives his own account of the catas
trophe, and which he caused to be printed when
he reached England, he said: "The kindness and
attention that has been shown us by the French
officers . . . their delicate sensibility of our situa
tion, their generous and pressing offers of money,
both public and private, to any amount, has really
gone beyond what I can possibly describe and
will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of
every British officer whenever the fortunes of war
should put any of them in our power."

The French attitude in the New World was in
perfect accord with the French sentiments in the
Old. On receiving from Lauzun and Count de
Deux-Ponts, who for fear of capture had sailed
in two different frigates, the news of the taking
of Cornwallis, of his 8,000 men (of whom 2,000

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 91

were in hospitals), 800 sailors, 214 guns, and 22
flags, the King wrote to Rochambeau: "Monsieur
le Comte de Rochambeau, the success of my arms
flatters me only as being conducive to peace."
And, thanking the "Author of all prosperity," he
announced the sending of letters to the arch
bishops and bishops of his kingdom for a Te Deum
to be sung in all the churches of their dioceses.

It was a long time since the old cocks of the
French churches had quivered at the points of the
steeples to the chant of a Te Deum for a victory
leading to a glorious peace. The victory was
over those enemies who, not so very long before,
had bereft us of Canada. Nothing more signifi
cant than the pastoral letter of "Louis Apolli-
naire de la Tour du Pin Montauban, by the grace
of God first Bishop of Nancy, Primate of Lor
raine," appointing the date for the thanksgiving
ceremonies, and adding: "This so important ad
vantage has been the result of the wisest measures.
Reason and humanity have gauged it and have
placed it far above those memorable but bloody
victories whose lustre has been tarnished by al
most universal mourning. Here the blood of our
allies and of our generous compatriots has been
spared, and why should we not note with satis
faction that the forces of our enemies have been
considerably weakened, their efforts baffled, the
fruits of their immense expense lost, without our

92 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

having caused rivers of their blood to be spilt,
without our having filled their country with un
fortunate widows and mothers?" For this, too,
as well as for the victory, thanks must be offered;
and for this, too, for such a rare and such a hu
mane feeling, the name of Bishop de la Tour du
Pin Montauban deserves to be remembered.

The nation at large felt like the bishop. One
of the most typical of the publications inspired
in Prance by the war and its outcome was the
Fragment of Xenofihon, newly found in the ruins
of Palmyra . . . translated from the Greek, anony
mously printed, in 1 783 ,* in which under the names
of Greeks and Carthaginians, the story of the
campaign is told; the chief actors being easily
recognized, most of them, under anagrams : Tusin-
gonas is Washington; Cherambos, Rochambeau;
the illustrious Filaatete, Lafayette; Tangides,
d'Estaing, and the wise Thales of Milet, Franklin.

Critical minds, the author observes, will per
haps think they discover anachronisms, but such
mean nothing; he will soon give an edition of
the Greek original, splendidly printed, "so the
wealthy amateurs will buy it, without being able
to read it; the learned, who could read it, will be
unable to buy it, and everybody will be pleased."

1 The work of Gabriel Brizard, a popular writer in his day: Frag
ment de Xenophon, nouvellement trouv& dans Us mines de Palmyre par
un Anglois et d$pos au Museum Britannicum Traduit du Grec par
un Francois, Paris, 1783.

BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 93

The author gives a detailed description of the
Greeks and of the Carthaginians, that is, the
French and their former enemies, the English:
"Greece, owing to her intellectual and artistic
predominance, seemed to lead the rest of the
world, and Athens led Greece. The Athenians
were, truth to say, accused of inconstancy; they
were reproached for the mobility of their character,
their fondness for new things, their leaning toward
raillery; but there was something pleasing in
'their defects. Justice was, moreover, rendered to
their rare qualities: gentle as they were and soft
ened by their fondness for enjoyment, they none
theless were attracted by danger and prodigal of
their blood. They felt as much passion for glory
as for pleasure; arbiters ia matters of taste, they
played the same r61e in questions of honor, an
idol with them; somewhat light-minded, they were
withal frank and generous. . . . This brilliant
and famous nation was such that those among her
enemies that cast most reproaches at her envied
the fate of the citizens living within her borders."

Whether succeeding events have cured or not
some of that light-mindedness, any one can see
to-day and form his judgment.

"As to Carthaginians (the English), no ani
mosity, no hatred, but, on the contrary, greater
praise than was accorded to his own com
patriots by many an English writer: "It must

94 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

be acknowledged that they never made a finer
defense. . . . They faced everywhere all their
enemies, and, disastrous as the result may have
proved for them, this part of their annals will
remain one of the most glorious. Why should
we hesitate to render them justice? Yes, if the
intrepid defender of the columns of Hercules 1 were
present in person at our celebration, he would
receive the tribute of praise and applause that
Greeks know how to pay to any brave and gen
erous enemy."

This way of thinking had nothing exceptional.
One of the most authoritative publicists of the
day, Lacretelle, in 1785, considering, in the Mer~
cure de France, the future of the new-born United
States, praised the favorable influence exercised
on them by the so much admired British Constitu
tion * 'the most wonderful government in Europe.
For it will be England's glory to have created
peoples worthy of throwing off her yoke, even
though she must endure the reproach of having
forced them to independence by forgetfulness of
her own maxims."

As to the members of the French army who
had started for the new crusade two years before,
they had at once the conviction that, in accor-

1 General Eliott, later Lord Heathfield, defender of Gibraltar, well
known in France not only as an enemy, but as a former pupil of the
military school at La Fre.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 95

dance with their anticipation, they had witnessed
something great which would leave a profound
trace in the history of the world. They brought
home the seed of liberty and equality, the "virus/*
as it was called by Pontgibaud, who, friend as
he was of Lafayette, resisted the current to
the last and remained a royalist. "The young
French nobility," says Talleyrand in his memoirs,
"having enlisted for the cause of independence,
citing ever after to the principle which it had
gone to defend." 1 Youthful Saint-Simon, the
future Saint-Simonian, thus summed up his im
pressions of the campaign: "I felt that the
American Revolution marked the beginning of a

1 Mathieu-Dumas availed himself of his stay in Boston before
sailing to go and visit, with some of his brother officers, several of
the heroes of independence Hancock, John Adams, Doctor Cooper:
"We listened with avidity to the latter, who, while applauding our
enthusiasm for liberty, said to us: 'Take care, take care, young men,
that the triumph of the cause on this virgin soil does not influence
overmuch your hopes; you will carry away with you the germ of
these generous sentiments, but if you attempt to fecund them on
your native soil, after so many centuries of corruption, you wifl
have to surmount many more obstacles; it cost us much blood to
conquer liberty; but you will shed torrents before you establish it
in your old Europe.' How often since, during our political turmoils,
in the course of our bad days, did I not recall to mind the prophetic
leave-taking of Doctor Cooper. But the inestimable prize which
the Americans secured in exchange for their sacrifices was never absent
from my thought." (Souvenirs du Lieutenant-General Comte Mathieu-
Dumas, publics par son fits, I, 108.) The writer notices the early
formation of a "national character, in spite of the similitude of lan
guage, customs, manners, religion, principles of government with the
English." (Ibid., 113.)

96 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEEICA

new political era; that this revolution would
necessarily set moving an important progress in
general civilization, and that it would, before
long, occasion great changes in the social order
then existing in Europe/ ' x Many experienced
the feeling described in the last lines of his jour
nal by Count Guillaume de Deux-Ponts, wounded
at the storming of the redoubts: "With troops as
good and brave and well-disciplined as those
which I have had the honor to lead against the
enemy, one can undertake anything. ... I owe
them the greatest day in my life, the souvenir of
which will never die out. . . . Man's life is
mixed with trials, but one can no longer com
plain when having enjoyed the delightful moments
which are their counterpart; a single instant
effaces such troubles, and that instant, well re
sented, causes one to desire new trials so as to
once more enjoy their recompense."

1 GLuvres, 1865, 1, 12.

VIII

For one year more Rochambeati remained in
America. Peace was a possibility, not a certainty.
In London, where so late as November 20, the
most encouraging news continued to be received,
but where that of the catastrophe, brought by
the Rattksnake, arrived on the 25th, George III
and his ministers refused to yield to evidence, Lord
Germain especially, for whom the shock had been
great, and who was beseeching Parliament "to
proceed with vigor in the prosecution of the war
and not leave it in the power of the French to
tell the Americans that they had procured their
independence, and were consequently entitled to
a preference, if not an exclusive right, in their
trade." This was not to know us well; our treaty
of commerce had been signed three years before,
at a time when anything would have been granted
to propitiate France, but there was not in it, as
we saw, one single advantage that was not equally
accessible to any one who chose, the English
included.

As for King George, he decided that the 8th of
February, 1782, would be a day of national fast
ing, to ask pardon for past sins, and implore

97

98 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Heaven's assistance in the prosecution of the
war. Franklin was still beseeching his com
patriots to be on their guard: "It seems the [Eng
lish] nation is sick of [the war] . . . but the King
is obstinate. . . . The ministry, you will see,
declare that the war in America is for the future
to be only defensive. I hope we shall be too pru
dent to have the least dependence on this declara
tion. It is only thrown out to lull us; for, de
pend upon it, the King hates us cordially, and will
be content with nothing short of our extirpation." l

With his French admiratrices the sage ex
changed merry, picturesque letters. Madame
Brillon writes, in French, from Nice on the nth
of December, 1781: "My dear Papa, I am sulky
with you . . . yes, Mr. Papa, I am sulky. "What !
You capture whole armies in America, you burgoy-
nize Cornwallis, you capture guns, ships, ammu
nition, men, horses, etc., etc., you capture every
thing and of everything, and only the gazette
informs your friends, who go off their heads
drinking your health, that of Washington, of in
dependence, of the King of France, of the Mar
quis de Lafayette, of Mr. de Rochambeau, Mr.
de Chastellux, etc., and you give them no sign of
life ! . . ."

With his valiant pen, which feared nothing, not
even French grammar, Franklin answered: "Passy,
x To Robert Livingston, Passy, March 4, 1782.

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 99

25 Decembre 1781. Vous me boudes, ma chere
amie, que je n'avois pas vous envoye tout de suite
1'histoire de notre grande victoire. Je suis bien
sensible de la magnitude de notre avantage et de
ses possibles bonnes consequences, mals je ne
triomphe pas. Sgachant que la guerre est pleine
de varietes et d'incertitudes, dans la mauvaise
fortune j'espere la bonne, et dans la bonne je
crains la mauvaise."

The future continued doubtful. In June Wash
ington was still writing: "In vain is it to expect
that our aim is to be accomplished by fond wishes
for peace, and equally ungenerous and fruitless
will it be for one State to depend upon another to
bring this to pass." 1 French and American regi
ments remained, therefore, under arms and waited,
but scarcely did anything on the continent but
wait. For if George III was still for war, the mass
of his people were not. Rochambeau availed
himself of his leisure to visit the accessible parts
of the country, give calls and dinners to his neigh
bors, study the manners and resources of the in
habitants, go fox-hunting "through the woods,
accompanied by some twenty sportsmen. We
have forced more than thirty foxes; the packs of
hounds of the local gentlemen are perfect, " states
Closen. The different usages of the French and
the Americans are for each other a cause of merri-

!To Archibald Gary, June 15, 1782.

100 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

ment. "On New Year's Day the custom of the
French to embrace, even in the street, caused much
American laughter," but, the young aide observes
with some spite, " their shake hands, on the other,
side,* those more or less prolonged and sometimes
very hard-pressed twitchings of the hands are cer
tainly on a par with European embracings."

Rochambeau had established himself at Wil-
Kamsburg, the quiet and dignified capital of the
then immense State of Virginia, noted for its
"Bruton church," its old College of William and
Mary, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and the
birthplace of the far-famed Phi Beta Kappa fra
ternity, its statue of the former English governor,
Lord Botetourt, 1 in conspicuous marble wig and
court mantle. " America, behold your friend,"
the inscription on the pedestal reads.

That other friend of America, Rochambeau,
took up his quarters in the college, one of the
buildings of which, used as a hospital for our
troops, accidentally took fire, but was at once paid
for by the French commander. Seeing more of
the population, Rochambeau was noting a num
ber of traits which were to be taken up again by
Tocqueville, the diffusion of the ideas of religious
tolerance, the absence of privileges, equality put
into practise. "The husbandman in his habita
tion is neither a castellated lord nor a tenant,

1 White marble; signed and dated, Richard Hayward, London,
1773-

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 101

but a landowner." It takes him thirty to forty
years to rise from "the house made of logs and
posts," with the house "of well- joined boards 1 '
as an intermediary stage, to the "house in bricks,
which is the acme of their architecture." Labor
is expensive and is paid a dollar a day. The coun
try has three million inhabitants, but will easily
support a little more than thirty, which was
not such a bad guess since the thirteen States
of Rochambeau's day have now thirty-seven.
Men are fond of English furniture, and women
"have a great liking for French fashions." In
every part where the ravages of the war have not
been felt people live at their ease, "and the little
negro is ever busy clearing and laying the table."

Faithful Closen, who had been proposed for pro
motion on account of his gallant conduct at the
siege, accompanied the general everywhere, and
also explored separately, on his own account, led
sometimes by his fondness for animals, of which
he was making "a small collection, some living
and some stuffed ones, only too glad if they can
please the persons for whom I destine them."
He takes notes on raccoons, investigates opossums,
and visits a marsh "full of subterranean habita
tions of beavers,' 1 and he sees them at work. He is
also present at one of those cock-fights so popular
then in the region, "but the sight is a little too
Gruel to allow one to derive enjoyment from it."

Sent to Portsmouth with letters for Mr. de

102 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Vaudreuil, in command of our fleet, Closen be
comes acquainted "with a very curious animal
which the people of the region call a musk-cat, but
which I believe to be the puant" (the stinking
one), and a careful description shows that, in any
case, the name well fitted the animal. He also
studies groundhogs on the same occasion. The
charm and picturesqueness of wild life in American
forests is a trait which French officers noted with
amused curiosity in their journals. Describing
his long journey on foot from the Chesapeake,
where he had been shipwrecked, to Valley Forge,
where he was to become aide to his Auvergnat
compatriot, Lafayette, youthful Pontgibaud, with
no luggage nor money left, sleeping in the open,
writes of the beauty of birds, and the delightful
liveliness of innumerable little squirrels, "who
jumped from branch to branch, from tree to tree,
around me. They seemed to accompany the tri
umphal march of a young warrior toward glory.
, . . It is a fact that, with their jumps, their
gambols, that quantity of little dancers, so nim
ble, so clever, retarded my walk. . . . Such is
the way with people of eighteen; the present mo
ment makes them forget all the rest." 1
Rochambeau, his son, and two aides, one of

1 Mtmoires du Comte de Mori (formerly Chevalier de Pontgibaud),
1898, p. 56; first ed., Paris, 1827, one of Balzac's ventures as a
printer.

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 103

whom was Closen, journey to visit at Monticello
the already famous Jefferson; they take with
them fourteen horses, sleep in the houses where
they chance to be at nightfall, a surprise party
which may, at times, have caused embarrassment,
but this accorded with the customs of the day.
The hospitality is, according to occasions, brilliant
or wretched, "with a bed for the general, as orna
mented as the canopy for a procession/' and else
where "with rats which come and tickle our ears."
They reach the handsome house of the "philos
opher," adorned with a colonnade, "the platform
of which is very prettily fitted with all sorts of
mythological scenes."

The lord of the place dazzles his visitors by his
encyclopaedic knowledge. Closen describes him
as "very learned in belles-lettres, in history, in
geography, etc., etc., being better versed than any
in the statistics of America in general, and the
interests of each particular province, trade, agri
culture, soil, products, in a word, all that is of
greatest use to know. The least detail of the wars
here since the beginning of the troubles is fa
miliar to him, He speaks all the chief languages
to perfection, and his library is well chosen, and
even rather large in spite of a visit paid to the
place by a detachment of Tarleton's legion, which
has proved costly and has greatly frightened his
family."

104 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Numerous addresses expressing fervent grati
tude were received by Rochambeau, from Con
gress, from the legislatures of the various States,
from the universities, from the mayor and inhabi
tants of Williamsburg, the latter offering their
thanks not only for the services rendered by the
general in his "military capacity/' but, they said,
"for your conduct in the more private walks of
life, and the happiness we have derived from the
social, polite, and very friendly intercourse we
have been honored with by yourself and the officers
of the French army in general, during the whole
time of your residence among us." The favor
able impression left by an army permeated with
the growing humanitarian spirit, is especially
mentioned in several of those addresses: "May
Heaven," wrote "the Governor, council and rep
resentatives of the State of Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations in General Assembly con
vened/' "reward your exertions in the cause of
humanity and the particular regard you have paid
to the rights of the citizens."

Writing at the moment when departure was im
minent, the Maryland Assembly recalled in its
address the extraordinary prejudices prevailing
shortly before in America against all that was
French: "To preserve in troops far removed from
their own country the strictest discipline and to
convert into esteem and affection deep and ancient

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 105

prejudices was reserved for you. . , . We view
with regret the departure of troops which have
so conducted, so endeared, and so distinguished
themselves, and we pray that the laurels they have
gathered before Yorktown may never fade, and
that victory, to whatever quarter of the globe they
direct their arms, may follow their standard/'

The important result of a change in American
sentiment toward the French, apart from the
military service rendered by them, was confirmed
to Rochambeau by La Luzerne, who wrote him:
"Your well-behaved and brave army has not only
contributed to put an end to the success of the
English in this country, but has destroyed in
three years prejudices deep-rooted for three cen
turies." 1

The "President and professors of the Univer
sity of William and Mary," using a style which
was to become habitual in France but a few years
later, desired to address Rochambeau, "not in the
prostituted language of fashionable flattery, but
with the voice of truth and republican sincerity,"
and, after thanks for the services rendered and
the payment made for the building destroyed
"by an accident that often eludes all possible
precaution," they adverted to the future intellec
tual intercourse between the two nations, saying :

1 October 8, 1782. This letter, as well as the addresses, in the
Rochambeau papers.

106 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

"Among the many substantial advantages which
this country hath already derived, and which
must ever continue to flow from its connection
with France, we are persuaded that the improve
ment of useful knowledge will not be the least.
A number of distinguished characters in your
army afford us the happiest presage that science
as well as liberty will acquire vigor from the fos
tering hand of your nation."

They concluded: "You have reaped the noblest
laurels that victory can bestow, and it is, perhaps,
not an inferior triumph to have obtained the sin
cere affection of a grateful people."

In order to "foster," as the authors of the ad
dress said, such sentiments as to a possible in
tellectual intercourse, the French King sent to
this university, as the college was then called,
"two hundred volumes of the greatest and best
French works," but, La Rochefoucauld adds after
having seen them in 1796, they arrived greatly
damaged, "because the Richmond merchant who
had undertaken to convey them to the college
forgot them for a pretty long time in his cellar in
the midst of his oil and sugar barrels." Fire has
since completed the havoc, so that of the two
hundred only two are now left, exhibited under
glass in the library-museum of the college. They
are parts of the works of Bailly, then of European
fame as an astronomer and scientist, who was,

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 107

however,, to count in history for something else
than his Traite sur VAtlantide de Platon, for he
was the same BaiUy who a few years later pre
sided over the National Assembly, sending to
the royal purchaser of his works the famous reply:
"The nation assembled can receive no orders,"
and who, two days after the fall of the Bastille,
was acclaimed by the crowd mayor of Paris,
while Lafayette was acclaimed commander-in-
chief of the National Guard.

Another gift of books was sent, with the same
intent, by the King of Prance to the University
of Pennsylvania, and, though many have disap
peared, the fate of this collection has been happier.
A number of those volumes are still in use at
Philadelphia, works which had been selected as
being likely to prove of greatest advantage, on
science, surgery, history, voyages, and bearing the
honored names of Buffon, of Darwin's forerunner,
Lamarck, of Joinville, Bougainville, the Bendic-
tins (Art de verifier ks Dates), and the same
Bailly.

Rochambeau, who had begun learning English,
set himself the task of translating the addresses
received by him, and several such versions in his
handwriting figure among his papers.

Closen, intrusted with the care of taking to
Congress the general's answer to its congratula
tions, rode at the rate of over one hundred miles

108 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

a day, slept "a few hours in a bed not meant to
let any one oversleep himself, thanks either to
its comfort or to the biting and abundant company
in it," met by chance at Alexandria "the young,
charming, and lovely daughter-in-law of General
Washington," Mrs. Custis, and the praise of her
is, from now on, ceaseless: "I had already heard
pompous praise of her, but I confess people had
not exaggerated. This lady is of such a gay dis
position, so prepossessing, with such perfect edu
cation, that she cannot fail to please everybody."
He hands his despatches to Congress, some to
Washington, returns at the same rate of speed,
having as guide a weaver, so anxious to be through
with his job (two couriers had jusl been killed),
that he rode at the maddest pace. He reached
Williainsburg on the nth of May, having covered,
deduction made of the indispensable stoppings,
"nine hundred and eighty miles in less than nine
times twenty-four hours."

As the stimmer of 1782 was drawing near, the
French army, which had wintered in Virginia,
moved northward in view of possible operations.
This was for Closen an occasion to visit Mount
Vernon, where Rochambeau had stopped with
Washington the year before when on their way
to Yorktown. "The house," says the aide, "is
quite vast and perfectly distributed, with hand
some furniture, and is admirably kept, without

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 109

luxury. There are two pavilions connected with
it, and a number of farm buildings. . . . Behind
the pavilion on the right is an immense garden,
with the most exquisite fruit in the country."

Mrs. Washington gracefully entertains the vis
itor, as well as Colonel de Custine, the same who
was to win and lose battles and die beheaded in
the French Revolution. Some ten officers of the
Saintonge regiment, which was in the neighbor
hood, are also received. ' ' Mr. de Bellegarde came
ahead of Mr. de Custine, and brought, on his be
half, a porcelain service, from his own manufac
ture, at Niderviller, near Phalsbourg, of great
beauty and in the newest taste, with the arms of
General Washington, and his monogram sur
mounted by a wreath of laurel. 1 Mrs. Washing
ton was delighted with Mr. de Custine's atten
tion, and most gracefully expressed her gratitude."

All leave that same evening except Closen, who
had again found there the incomparable Mrs.
Custis (whose silhouette he took and inserted in
his journal), and who remained "one day more,
being treated with the utmost affability by these
ladies, whose society," he notes, "was most sweet
and pleasant to me." He leaves at last, "rather
sad."

1 A large bowl from the original set is preserved in the National
Museum (Smithsonian Institution) at Washington. It bears only the
monogram and not the family arms. The wreath is of roses with a
foliage which may be laurel.

110 BOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Moving northward by night marches, the troops
again start not later than two o'clock in the
morning, as in the previous summer; the French
officers notice the extraordinary progress realized
since their first visit. At Wilmington, says Closen,
"some fifty brick houses have been built, very
fine and large, since we first passed, which gives
a charming appearance to the main street." At
Philadelphia La Luzerne is ready with another
magnificent entertainment; a Dauphin has been
born to Prance, and a beautiful hall has been
built on purpose for the intended banquet by "a
French officer serving in the American corps of
Engineers,' ' Major L'Enfant, the future designer
of the future "federal city."

On the 1 4th of August Washington and Ro-
chambeau were again together, in the vicinity of
the North River, and the American troops were
again reviewed by the French general. They are
no longer in tatters, but well dressed, and have a
fine appearance; their bearing, their manoeuvres
are perfect; the commander-in-chief, "who causes
his drums," Rochambeau relates, "to beat the
French March," is delighted to show his soldiers
to advantage; everybody compliments him.

During his stay at Providence, in the course of
his journey north, Rochambeau gave numerous
f6tes, a charming picture of which, as well as of
the American society attending them, is furnished

KOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 111

us by Segur: "Mr. de Rochambeau, desirous to
the very last of proving by the details of his con
duct, as well as by the great services he had ren
dered, how much he wished to keep the affection
of the Americans and to carry away their regrets,
gave in the city of Providence frequent assemblies
and numerous balls, to which people flocked from
ten leagues around.

"I do not remember to have seen gathered to
gether in any other spot more gayety and less
confusion, more pretty women and more happily
married couples, more grace and less coquetry, a
more complete mingling of persons of all classes,
between whom an equal decency allowed no
untoward difference to be seen. That decency,
that order, that wise liberty, that felicity of the
new Republic, so ripe from its very cradle, were
the continual subject of my surprise and the
object of my frequent talks with the Chevalier de
Chastellux." *

j souvenirs et anecdotes, I, 402*

IX

In the autumn of 1782 a general parting took
place, Rochambeau returning to France 1 and the
army being sent to the Isles, believed now to be
threatened by the English; for if the war was
practically at an end for the Americans on the
continent, it was not yet the same elsewhere for
us, and Suffren especially was prosecuting in the
Indies his famous naval campaign, which, owing
to the lack of means of communication, was to
be continued long after peace had been signed.

So many friendships had been formed that there
was much emotion when the last days arrived, 2
On the i gth of October, being the anniversary of

1 On which occasion the Marquis de Vaudreuil, in command of the
fleet, wrote him from Boston, November 1 8, 1782: " Je suis vraiment
touche", Monsieur, de ne pouvoir pas avoir rhonneur de vous voir
ici; je m'estimais heureux de renouveler la connaissance que j'avais
faite avec vous a Brest chez M. d'Orvilliers. Mais je ne puis qu'ap-
plaudir au parti que vous prenez d'eviter la tristesse des adieux
et les tSmoignages de la sensibilit de tous vos omciers en se voyant
spar6s de leur chef qu'ils respectent et che"rissent sincerement."
(Rochambeau papers.)

2 An anecdote in the Autobiography of John Trumbull, the painter,
well shows how lasting were the feelings for the land and the people
taken home with them by the French. The artist tells of his reach
ing Mulhouse in 1795, finding it "full of troops," with no accommo
dation of any sort. He is taken to the old general in command:

"The veteran looked at me keenly and asked bluntly: 'Who are
you, an Englishman ? J -

112

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 113

Yorktown, Washington offered a dinner to the
French officers, who on the same day took leave
of him, never to see him again. "On that even
ing/* says Closen, "we took leave of General
Washington and of the other officers of our ac
quaintance, our troops being to sail on the 22d.
There is no sort of kindness and tokens of good
will we have not received from General Wash
ington; the idea of parting from the French army,
probably forever, seemed to cause him real sor
row, having, as he had, received the most convinc
ing proofs of the respect, the veneration, the es
teem, and even the attachment which every in
dividual in the army felt for him."

"'No, general, I am an American of the United States.'
*Ah! do you know Connecticut?'
Yes } sir, it is my native State.'
'You know, then, the good Governor Trumbull?'
'Yes, general, he is my father.'

'Oh! mon Dieu, que je suis charm6. . . . Entrez, entrezl'"
And all that is best is placed at the disposal of the newcomer by
the soldier, who turns out to be a former member of the Lauzun
legion. The artist adds: "The old general kept me up almost all
night, inquiring of everybody and of everything in America/' Some
papers are brought for him to sign, which he does with his left hand,
and, Trumbull noticing it, '"Yes/ said he, 'last year, in Belgium,
the Austrians cut me to pieces and left me for dead, but I recovered,
and, finding my right hand ruined, I have learned to use my left, and
I can write and fence with it tolerably.'
"'But, sir/ said I, 'why did you not retire from service?*
" ' Retire ! ' exclaimed he. ' Ha ! I was born in a camp, have passed
all my life in the service, and will die in a camp, or on the field.'

"This is," Trumbull concludes, "a faithful picture of the military
enthusiasm of the time 1795."

114 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

After having taken leave, "in tenderest fash
ion," of the American commander, who promised
"an enduring fraternal friendship," Rochambeau,
carrying with him two bronze field-pieces taken
at Yorktown, presented by Congress, and adorned
with inscriptions, the engraving of which had
been supervised by Washington, 1 sailed for France
on the Emeraude, early in January, 1783. An
English warship which had been cruising at the
entrance of the Chesapeake nearly captured him,
and it was only by throwing overboard her spare
masts and part of her artillery that the Emeraude,
thus become lighter and faster, could escape.
The general learned, on landing, of the peace
which Vergennes had considered, from the first,
as a certain, though not immediate, consequence
of the taking of Yorktown. "The homages of all
Frenchmen go to you," he had written to Ro-
chambeau, adding: "You have restored to our
arms all their lustre, and you have laid the corner
stone for the raising, which we expect, of an honor
able peace." The hour for it had now struck,
and while Suffren had yet to win the naval battle
of Goudelour, the preliminaries had been signed
at Versailles on the aoth of January, 1783.

1 "... An inscription engraved on them, expressive of the occa
sion. I find a difficulty in getting the engraving properly executed.
When it will be finished, I shall with peculiar pleasure put the cannon
into your possession." Washington to Rochambeau, February a,
1782.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEEICA 115

Tlie King, the ministers, the whole country
gave Rochambeau the welcome he deserved. At
his first audience on his return he had asked
Louis XVI, as being his chief request, permission
to divide the praise bestowed on Hm with the
unfortunate de Grasse, now a prisoner of the
English after the battle of the Saintes, where,
fighting 30 against 37, he had lost seven ships,
including the Vilk de Paris (which had 400 dead
and 500 wounded), all so damaged by the most
furious resistance that, owing to grounding, to
sinking, or to fire, not one reached the EngHsh
-waters. 1 Rochambeau received the blue ribbon of
the Holy Ghost, was appointed governor of Pic-
ardy, and a few years later became a marshal
of France. Owing to the proximity of his new
post, he was able twice to visit England, where
he met again his dear La Luzerne, now French
ambassador in London, and his former foe, Ad
miral Hood, who received him with open arms.
But the tokens of friendship which touched him
most came from officers of Cornwallis's army:
"They manifested," he writes, "in the most
public manner their gratitude for the humanity
with which they had been treated by the French
army after their surrender,"

1 De Grasse died in January, 1788. "The Cincinnati in some of
the States have gone into mourning for him." Washington to
Rochambeaii, April 28, 1788.

116 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEBICA

Rochambeau was keeping up with Washington
a most affectionate correspondence, still partly
unpublished, the great American often reminding
him of his "friendship and love" for his "com
panions in war/' discussing a possible visit to
France, and describing his life now spent "in
rural employments and in contemplation of those
friendships which the Revolution enabled me to
form with so many worthy characters of your
nation, through whose assistance I can now sit
down in my calm retreat/' Dreaming of a hu
manity less agitated than that he had known,
dreaming dreams which were not to be soon re
alized, he was writing to Rochambeau, from Mount
Vernon, on September 7, 1785: "Although it is
against the profession of arms, I wish to see all
the world at peace/'

"Much as he may wish to conceal himself and
lead the life of a plain man, he will ever be the
first citizen of the United States/' La Luzerne
had written to Vergennes, and the truth of the
statement was shown when a unanimous election
made of the former commander-in-chief the first
President of the new republic, in the year when
the States General met in France and our own
Revolution began.

Knowing the friendly dispositions preserved
by Rochambeau toward Americans, 1 Washington

1 Jefferson seems to have feared that the souvenir of Rochambeau
might so*a fade. He wrote to Madison, February 8, 1786: "Count

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 117

often gave those going abroad letters of introduc
tion to him; one dgy the man was Gouverneur
Morris, so well known afterward; another day
it was a poet of great fame then, of not so great
now. Less sure of his ground when the question
was of Parnassus than when it was of battle
fields, Washington had described this traveller
to Lafayette as being "considered by those who
are good judges to be a genius of the first magni
tude." To Rochambeau he introduced him as
"the author of an admirable poem in which he
has worthily celebrated the glory of your nation
in general, and of yourself in particular/' 1 The
poet was that Joel Barlow, of Hartford, who, hav
ing become later minister of the United States to
France, died in a Polish village in the course of a
journey undertaken to present his credentials to
the chief of the state, who, for important reasons,
had been unable to grant him an audience else
where than in Russia, the year being 1812, and
the sovereign Emperor Napoleon. 2

The poem alluded to by Washington was an

Rochambeau, too, has deserved more attention than he has received.
Why not set up his bust, that of Gates, Greene, Franklin in your new
Capitol?" No bust was placed in the Capitol, but the raising of
the statue in Lafayette Square, Washington, in 1902, has proved
that, after so many years, Rochambeau was not forgotten in America.

1 May 28, 1788.

1 In a letter of July 31, 1789, Rochambeau informs Washington of
Barlow's arrival, "and I made hi all the good reception that he
deserves by himself and by the honorable commendation that you
give to him." In Rochambeau's English; Washington papers.

118 ROCEAMBEAU IN AMERICA

epic one, called the Vision of Columbus, in which
an angel appears to the navigator in his legendary
prison and reveals to him, in Virgilian fashion,
the future of America. Washington, Wayne,
Greene are thus shown him, as well as

Brave Rochambeau in gleamy steel array'd,

a description which, if brave Rochambeau ever
saw it, must have made him smile.

Rocharnbeau's letters are in such English as we
have seen he had been able, with commendable
zeal, to learn late in life. The French general
keeps the American leader informed of what
goes on in France, in England, and Europe, be
stows the highest praise on Pitt, "a wise man
who sets finances (of the English) in good order,"
and gives an account of a visit paid him by Corn-
wallis at Calais: "I have seen Cornwallis last
summer at Calais. ... I gave him a supper in
little committee; 1 he was very polite, but, as you
may believe, I could not drink with him your
health in toast." 2

He tells Washington of Franklin's departure
from France, very old, very ill, greatly admired,
"having the courage to undertake so long a voy
age to go and die in the bosom of his native
country. It will be impossible for him, at his

1 Fr,, "en petit comit6" a small party of friends.
2 January 7, 1786. Washington papers.

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 119

coming back [to] America, to go and visit you, but
I told him that you would certainly go and see
him, and that I had always heard you speaking
of him in the best terms and having a great con
sideration for his respectable character. He will
have a great joy to see you again, and I should be
very happy if I could enjoy the same pleasure." 1

An affectionate interest for one another and
one another's families appears in all these letters,
as well as a cherishing of common souvenirs.
Rochambeau asks to be remembered to his former
American comrades: "A thousand kindness[es]
and compliments to Mr. Jefferson, to Mr. Knox,
and to all my anciens camarades and friends which
are near you." 2

The Countess de Rochambeau sometimes takes
up the pen, and in one of her letters appeals to
Washington in favor of dear Closen who, though
he had every right to be included in it, had been
forgotten when the list of the original Cinci.nna.ti
had been drawn up. 8 The request was at once
granted.

1 Paris, June, 1785 (ibid).

* "Rochambeau near Vendome, April n, 1790."

* Here is this letter in full;

Paris the i8th November, 1790.
Sra:

I hope that your Excellency will give me the leave to beg a favor
of your justice. I thfafc it just to intercede for the Baron de Closen
who was an aide-de-camp to Mr. Rochambeau during the Ameri
can war. He longs with the desire to be a member of the associa-

HO ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Two gouaches had been painted by the famous
miniaturist Van Blarenberghe, one representing
the storming of the redoubts at Yorktown, the
other the surrender of the garrison. They were
for the King, and are well known nowadays to
every one familiar with the Versailles Museum.
Their topographical accuracy is so remarkable that
it had always been believed the painter had had
the help of some French officer present at the
siege. Rochambeau writes to Washington about
those pictures and gives us the name of the officer
who had actually helped the miniaturist, a well-
known name, that of Berthier: " [There have] been
presented yesterday to the King, my dear general,
two pictures to put in his closet (study), which have
been done by an excellent painter, one represent
ing the siege of York, and the other the defile of
the British army between the American and the
French armies.

"Mr. le Marshal de Segur promised me copies
of them which I will place in my closet on the
right and left sides of your picture. Besides
that they are excellent paintings, they have been

tion of the Cincinnati. The officers who were employed in the
French army and younger than him in the military service have
been decorated with this emblem of liberty, and such a reward given
(ly your Excellency's hand shall increase its value.

I flatter myself that you will receive the assurances of the respect
ind veneration I have for your talents and your virtue, well known
h the whole world.

I have (etc.), LA COMTESSE DE ROCHAMBEATJ.

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 11

drawn both by the truth and by an excellent de
sign by the young Berthier, who was deputed
quartermaster at the said siege/' 1

Washington having alluded, as he was fond of
doing, to the rest he had at last secured for the
remnant of his life, as he thought, under the
shadow of his own vine and fig-tree, Rochambeau
in his answer courteously and sincerely compli
ments him on the "philosophical " but not defini
tive quiet he now enjoys under the shadow "of
his Za#reZ-tree." 2

The War of the Austrian Succession had found
Rochambeau already an officer in the French army ;
the Revolution found him still an officer in the
French army, defending the frontier as a marshal
of France and commander-in-chief of the northern
troops. In 1792 he definitively withdrew to Ro
chambeau, barely escaping with his life during
the Terror. A striding and touching thing it is
to note that, when a prisoner in that "horrible
sepulchre," the Conciergerie, he appealed to the

1 June, 1785. Two of the Berthier brothers had taken part, as we
saw, in the expedition. The one alluded to here is the younger,
Csar-Gabriel, not the older, Louis-Alexandre, who became Prince
de Wagram. Both are described in their "6tats de service," pre
served among the Rochambeau papers, as expert draftsmen. The
notice concerning the younger, who was a captain of dragoons, reads:
"H s*est fait remarquer ainsi que son frfcre par son talent a dessiner
et lever des plans."

* Concerning this correspondence, as continued during the French
Revolution, see below, pp. 245 ff ,

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

"Citizen President of the Revolutionary Tri
bunal/' and invoked as a safeguard the great
name of Washington, "my colleague and my friend
in the war we made together for the liberty of
America.'*

Luckier than many of his companions in arms
of the American war, than Lauzun, Custine,
d'Estaing, Broglie, Dillon, and others, Rocham-
beau escaped the scaffold. He lived long enough
to see rise to glory that young man who was teach
ing the world better military tactics than even the
book of Count de Guibert, Bonaparte, now First
Consul of the French Republic. Bonaparte had
great respect for the old marshal, who was pre
sented to him by the minister of war in 1803 ; he
received him surrounded by his generals, and as
the soldier of Klostercamp and Yorktown entered
he said, " Monsieur le Marechal, here are your
pupils"; and the old man answered: "They have
surpassed their master."

After having been very near death from his
wounds in 1747, Rochambeau died only in 1807,
being then in his castle of Rochambeau, in Vendo-
mois, and aged eighty-two. He was buried in
the neighboring village of Thore, in a tomb of
black and white marble, in the classical style
then in vogue. An inscription devised by his
wife at the evening of a very long life, draws a
touching picture of those qualities which had won

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 123

her heart more than half a century before: "A
model as admirable in his family as in his armies,
an enlightened mind, indulgent, ever thinking of
the interests of others ... a happy and honored
old age has been for him the crowning of a spot
less life. Those who had been his vassals had
become his children. . . . His tomb awaits me;
before descending to it I have desired to engrave
upon it the memory of so many merits and vir
tues, as a token of gratitude for fifty years of
happiness." On a parallel slab one reads: "Here
lies Jeanne Th6rese Telles d'Acosta, who died at
Rochambeau, aged ninety-four, May 19, 1824."

In the castle are still to be seen the exquisite por
trait, by Latour, of her who in her old age had
written the inscription, several portraits of the
marshal, and of his ancestors from the first Vi-
meur, who had become, in the sixteenth century,
lord of Rochambeau, the portrait in the white
uniform of Auvergne of the old soldier's son, who
died at Leipzig, the sword worn at Yorktown, the
eagle of the Cincinnati side by side with the star
of the Holy Ghost, the before-mentioned gouaches
by Van Blarenberghe, a portrait of Washing
ton, given by him to his French friend and also
mentioned in their correspondence, and many
other historical relics. But the two bronze field-
pieces offered by Congress are no longer there,
having been commandeered during the Revolu-

124 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

tion. In front of the simple and noble facade
of the slate-roofed castle, at the foot of the ter
race, the Loir flows, brimful, between woods and
meadows, the same river that fills such a great
place in French literature, because of a distant
relative of the Rochambeaus of old, Pierre de
Ronsard.

Visiting some years ago the place and the tomb,
and standing beside the grave of the marshal, it
occurred to me that it would be appropriate if
some day trees from Mount Vernon could spread
their shade over the remains of that friend of
Washington and the American cause. With the
assent of the family and of the mayor of Thore,
and thanks to the good will of the ladies of the
Mount Vernon Association, this idea was realized,
and half a dozen seedlings from trees planted by
Washington were sent to be placed around Ro-
chambeau's monument: two elms, two maples,
two redbuds, and six plants of ivy from Wash
ington's tomb. The last news received about
them showed that they had taken root and were
growing.

X

Some will, perhaps, desire to know what be
came of Closen. Sent to the Islands (the West
Indies) with the rest of the army, he felt, like all
his comrades, greatly disappointed, more even
than the others, on account of his bride, whom
American beauties had not caused him to forget.
He had inserted in his journal a page of silhou
ettes representing a dozen of the latter, with the
name inscribed on each; but he had taken care
to write underneath: "Honni soit qui mal y
pense." When about to go on board he writes:
"I scarcely dare say what I experienced and
which was the dominating sentiment, whether
my attachment to all that I love or ambition
added to sensitiveness on the principles of honor.
Reason, however, soon took the lead and decided
in favor of the latter. ... Let me be patient
and do my duty."

To leave Rochambeau was for Trim one more
cause of pain: "I shall never insist enough, nor
sufficiently describe the sorrow I felt when sepa
rated from my worthy and respectable general;
I lose more than any one else in the army. . . .
Attentive as I was to all he had to say about
battles, marches, the selection of positions, sieges,

125

126 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

in a word, to all that pertains to the profession, I
have always tried to profit by his so instructive
talks. ... I must be resigned/'

Once again, therefore, life begins on those de
tested " sabots," a large-sized sabot, this time,
namely the Brave, of seventy-four guns, "quite
recently lined with copper/* a sad place of abode,
however, in bad weather, or even in any weather:
"One can scarcely imagine the bigness of the sea,
the noise, the height of the waves, such pitching
and rolling that it was impossible to stand; the
ships disappearing at times as if they had been
swallowed by the sea, to touch it the instant after
only with a tiny bit of the keel. What a nasty
element, and how sincerely we hate it, all of us
of the land troops ! The lugubrious noise of the
masts, the crics-cracs of the vessel, the terrible
movements which on the sudden raise you, and
to which we were not at all accustomed, the per
petual encumbrance that forty-five officers are
for each other, forty having no other place of
refuge than a single room for them all, the sad
faces of those who are sick . . . the dirt, the
boredom, the feeling that one is shut up in a
sabot as in a state prison ... all this is only part
of what goes to make life unpleasant for a land
officer on a vessel, even a naval one. . . . Let
us take courage/' 1

1 December 29, 1782.

ROCHAMBEATJ IN AMERICA 127

Few diversions. They meet a slave-ship under
the Austrian flag, an "abominable and cruel
sight," with "that iron chain running from one
end of the ship to the other, the negroes being tied
there, two and two," stark naked and harshly
beaten if they make any movement which dis
pleases the captain. The latter, who is from Bor
deaux, salutes his country's war flag with three
"Vive le Roi!" They signal to him an answer
which cannot be transcribed. No one knows
where they go. "Sail on," philosophically writes
Closen.

They touch at Porto Rico, at Curasao, where
the fleet is saddened by the loss of the Bourgogne,
at Porto Cabello (Venezuela), where they make
some stay, and where Closen loses no time in re
suming his observations on natives, men and
beasts, tatous, monkeys, caimans, "enormous
lizards quite different from ours," houses which
consist in one ground floor divided into three
rooms. The "company of the Caracque" (Ca
racas) keeps the people in a state of restraint
and slavery. Taxation is enormous." Religious
intolerance is very troublesome: "Though the In
quisition is not as rigorous in its searches as in
Europe, for there is but one commissioner at
Caracque, there is, however, too much fanaticism,
too many absurd superstitions, in a word, too
much ignorance among the inhabitants, who can

128 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

never say a, word or walk a step without saying an
Ave, crossing themselves twenty times, or kissing
a chaplet which they ever have dangling from
their neck with a somewhat considerable accom
paniment of relics and crosses. One gentleman,
in order to play a trick on me, in the private
houses where I had gained access so as to satisfy
my curiosity and desire of instruction, told a few
people that I was a Protestant. What signs of
the cross at the news! And they would cease
lessly repeat: Malacca Christiano & bad Chris
tian!"

On the 24th of March (1783) great news reached
them: the French vessel Andromaque arrived,
"with the grand white flag on her foremast, as a
signal of peace. The minute after all our men-
of-war were decked with flags." There were a
few more incidents, like the capture of some
French officers, who were quietly rowing in open
boats, by "the Albemark, of twenty-four guns,
commanded by Captain Nelson, of whom these
gentlemen speak in the highest terms." As soon
as the news of the peace was given him they were
released by the future enemy of Napoleon.

The hour for the return home had struck at
last. It was delayed by brief stays in some parts
of the French West Indies, notably Cap Fran-
fais, Santo Domingo (now Cap Haitien). "A few
jlays before our arrival at the Cape Prince William,

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEEICA

Duke of Lancaster, third son of the King of Eng
land, had come and spent there two days, while
the English squadron was cruising in the roads.
Great festivities had been arranged in his honor/'
for there was really no hatred against the enemy
of the day before.

Some calms and some storms also delayed the
return, with the usual "criiiiicks craaaaaks" of
the masts, the journey being occupied in tran
scribing the "notes and journals on the two
Americas," and enlivened by the saving of the
parrakeet of a Spanish lady who had been ad
mitted with her family on board the Brave.
"Frightened by something, the little parrakeet
flies off and falls into the sea. The lady's negro,
luckily happening to be on the same side, jumps
just as he is, with no time to think, dives, reap
pears, cries, 'Cato! CatoT joins the parrakeet,
puts her on his woolly head, and returns to the
ship." Delighted, the lady "allows this black
saviour to kiss her hand, a unique distinction for
a slave, and bestows on "Him a life pension of one
hundred francs. Many sailors would_have liked
to do the same, had they known/'

Land is now descried^ they see again the sights
noted when sailing for America: these "coasts
thick-decked with live people, fruit-trees and other
delightful objects/* All is delightful; the joy is
universal; they make arrangements to reach

130 ROCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

Paris, which Closen did in magnificent style.
"And I," we read in his journal, " after having
bought a fine coach where I could place, before,
behind, on the top, my servants, consisting of a
white man and of my faithful and superb black
Peter, and with them three monkeys, four parrots,
and six parrakeets, posted to Paris in this com
pany, a noisy one and difficult to maintain clean
and in good order. . . . The next day (June 22)
I was at Saint-Pol-de-L6on, my last quarters be
fore sailing for America, and saw again with
hearty rejoicings the respectable Kersabiec family
which had so well tended me throughout my con
valescence after a deadly disease." He thought
he could do no less than present them with one
of his parrakeets as a token of "gratitude and
friendship. "

At Guingamp he finds the Du Dresnays, other
friends of his, and reaches Paris, he writes, on the
3oth of June, with "all my live beings of all colors,
myself looking an Indian so tanned and sun
burnt was my face, exception made for my fore
head, which my hat had preserved quite white. 1 '

The Rochambeau family made him leave his
inn and stay with them in their beautiful house
of the Rue du Cherche-Midi. The general ("my
kind and respectable military father," says Closen)
presented him to the minister of war, Marshal de
S6gur, who granted the young officer a flattering

EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA 131

welcome, and. the journal closes as novels used to
end in olden days, and as the first part of well-
ordered, happy lives will ever continue to end.
Leaving Paris with the promise of a colonelcy en
second "a very eventual ministerial bouquet "
he went home to Deux-Ponts: " There I found
my beautiful fiancee, my dear, my divine Doris,
who had had the constancy to keep for me her
heart and her hand during the four years of my
absence in America, in spite of several proposals
received by her, even from men much better en
dowed with worldly goods, my share consisting
only in the before mentioned ministerial promise
and in the reputation of an honest man and a
good soldier."

I shall only add that the ministerial promise
was kept, and that it was as a colonel and a knight
of Saint Louis that Closen found himself aide-de
camp again to his old chief, Rochambeau, charged
with the defense of the northern frontier at the
beginning of the Revolution. 1

Faded inks, hushed voices. The remembrance
of the work remains, however, and cannot fade;

*A lithographed portrait mentions the later-day titles and dig
nities of: "I. C. Louis, Baron de Closen, Mar&hal de Camp, cham-
bellan et chevalier des ordres franpais pour le Me"rite et de la legion
d'honneur, ainsi que de celui de Cincinnatus des Etats Unis de
PAm&ique Septentrionale." Reproduced by C. W. Bowen, who
first drew attention to this journal, Century Magazine, February,
1907. Closen died in 1850, aged seventy-five.

132 EOCHAMBEAU IN AMERICA

for its grandeur becomes, from year to year, more
apparent. In less than a century and a half New
York has passed from the ten thousand inhabi
tants it possessed under Clinton to the five million
and more of to-day. Philadelphia, once the chief
city, "an immense town/' Closen had called it,
has now ten times more houses than it had citi
zens. Partly owing again to Prance, ceding, un
asked, the whole territory of Louisiana in 1803, the
frontier of this country, which the upper Hudson
formerly divided in its centre, has been pushed
back to the Pacific; the three million Americans of
Washington and Rochambeau have become the
one hundred million of -to-day. From the time
when the flags of the two countries floated on the
ruins of Yorktown the equilibrium of the world
has been altered.

There is, perhaps, no case in which, with the
unavoidable mixture of human interests, a war
has" been more undoubtedly waged for an idea.
The fact was made obvious at the peace, when
victorious France, being offered Canada for a
separate settlement, refused, 1 and kept her word
not to accept any material advantage, the whole

1 Which was done in a letter giving as a reason " that, whenever the
two crowns should come to treat, his Most Christian Majesty would
show how much the engagements he might enter into were to be
relied on, by his exact observance of those he had already had with
his present allies." Quoted, as "a sentence which I much liked,"
by Franklin, writing to John Adams, April 13, 1782.

ROCHAMBEAU IN AMEMCA 183

nation being in accord, and the people illuminating
for joy.

The cause was a just one; even the adversary,
many among whom had been from the first of
that opinion, was not long to acknowledge it.
Little by little, and in spite of some fitful re
awakening of former animosities, as was seen in
the second War of Independence, hostile disposi
tions vanished. The three nations who had met
in arms in Yorktown, the three whose ancestors
had known a Hundred Years' "War, have now
known a hundred years' peace. "I wish to see
all the world at peace," Washington had written
to Rochambeau. For over a century now the
three nations which fought at Yorktown have
become friends, and in this measure at least the
wish of the great American has been fulfilled.

II

MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE
FEDERAL CITY

MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE
FEDERAL CITY

EFTLE more than a century ago the hill
on which rises the Capitol of the federal
city and the ground around it were cov
ered with woods and underbrush; a few scattered
farms had been built here and there, with one or
two exceptions mere wooden structures whose
low roofs scarcely emerged from their leafy sur
roundings. Not very long before, Indians had
used to gather on that eminence and hold their
council-fires.

As far now as the eye can reach the picturesque
outline of one of the finest cities that exist is dis
covered; steeples and pinnacles rise above the
verdure of the trees lining the avenues within
the unaltered frame supplied by the blue hills of
Maryland and Virginia.

The will of Congress, the choice made by the
great man whose name the city was to bear, the
talents of a French officer, caused this change.

Debates and competitions had been very keen;
more than one city of the North and of the South
had put forth pleas to be the one selected and

137 .

138 L'ENTANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

become the capital: Boston, where the first shot
had been fired; Philadelphia, where independence
had been proclaimed; Yorktown, where it had
been won Yorktown, modest as a city, but glori
ous by the events its name recalled, now an out-
of-the-way borough, rarely visited, and where
fifty white inhabitants are all that people the
would-be capital of the new-born Union. New
York also had been in the ranks, as well as King
ston, Newport, Wilmington, Trenton, Reading,
Lancaster, Annapolis, Williamsburg, and several
others. Passions were stirred to such an extent
that the worst was feared, and that, incredible as
it may now seem, Jefferson could speak of the
"necessity of a compromise to save the Union."

A compromise was, in fact, resorted to, which
consisted in choosing no city already in existence,
but building a new one on purpose. This solu
tion had been early thought of, for Washington
had written on October 12, 1783, to Chevalier de
Chastellux: "They (Congress) have lately deter
mined to make choice of some convenient spot
near the Falls of the Delaware for the permanent
residence of the sovereign power of these United
States." But would-be capitals still persisted in
hoping they might be selected.

Congress made up its mind for good on the i6th
of July, 1790, and decided that the President
should be intrusted with the care of choosing u on

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY 189

the river Potomac" a territory, ten miles square,
which should become the "Federal territory" and
the permanent seat of the Government of the
United States.

Washington thereupon quickly reached a de
cision; a great rider all his life, the hills and vales
of the region were familiar to him; it soon be
came certain that the federal city would rise one
day where it now stands. The spot seemed to
him a particularly appropriate one for a reason
which has long ceased to be so very telling, and
which he constantly mentions in his letters as
the place's "centrality."

But what sort of a city should it be ? A resi
dential one for statesmen, legislators, and judges,
or a commercial one with the possibilities, con
sidered then of the first order, afforded by the
river, or a mixture of both ? Should it be planned
in view of the present or of the future, and of
what sort of future ?

With the mind of an artist and in some sense of
a prophet, perceiving future time as clearly as if
it were the present, a man foresaw, over a cen
tury ago, what we now see with our eyes. He
was a French officer who had fought for the cause
of independence, and had remained in America
after the war, Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant.

Some researches in French and American
archives have allowed me to trace his ancestry,

140 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

and to add a few particulars to what was already
known of him.

Born at Paris, on August 2, 1754, he was the
son of Pierre L'Enfant, "Painter in ordinary to
the King in his Manufacture of the Gobelins."
The painter, whose wife was Marie Charlotte Leul-
lier, had for his specialty landscapes and battle-
scenes. Born at Anet, in 1704, on a farm which
he bequeathed to his children, he was a pupil of
Parrocel and had been elected an Academician in
1745. Some of his pictures are at Tours;' six are
at Versailles, representing as many French vic
tories: the taking of Menin, 1744; of Fribourg,
1744; of Tournay, 1745; the battle of Fontenoy,
1745 (a favorite subject, several times painted by
him); the battle of Laufeldt, 1747, where that
young officer, destined to be Washington's partner
in the Yorktown campaign, Count Rochambeau,
received, as we have seen before, his first wounds.
The painter died a very old man, in the Royal
Manufacture, 1787.

Young L'Enfant grew up among artistic sur
roundings, and, as subsequent events showed, re
ceived instruction as an architect and engineer.
The cause of the United States had in him one
of its earliest enthusiasts. In 1777, being then
twenty-three, possessed of a commission of lieu
tenant in the French colonial troops, he sailed
for America on one of those ships belonging to

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 141

Beaumarchais's mythical firm of "Hortalez and
Co.," a firm whose cargoes consisted in soldiers
and ammunition for the insurgents, and which
was as much a product of the dramatist's brain
as Figaro himself, Figaro, it is averred, has had
a great influence in this world; Hortalez and Co.
had not a small one, either. The ship had been
named after the secretary of state, who was to
sign, the following year, the United States' only
alliance, Le Comie de Vergennes, a name, wrote
Beaumarchais, "fit to bring luck to the cargo,
which is superb." The superb cargo consisted,
as usual, in guns and war supplies, also in men
who might be of no less use for the particular
sort of trade Hortalez and Co. were conducting.
"Some good engineers and some cavalry officers
will soon arrive," Silas Deane was then writing
to Congress. One of the engineers was Pierre
Charles L'Enf ant. His coming had 'preceded by
one month the sailing of another ship with an
other appropriate name, the ship La Victoire,
which brought Lafayette.

L'Enfant served first as a volunteer and at his
own expense. "In February, 1778," we read in
an unpublished letter of his to Washington, "I was
honored with a commission of captain of en
gineers, and by leave of Congress attached to the
Inspector-general. . . . Seeing [after the winter
of 1778-9] no appearance of an active campaign

142 L'EKFANT AND THE FEDEKAL CITY

to the northward, my whole ambition was to at
tend the Southern army, where it was likely the
seat of war would be transferred.*' He was, ac
cordingly, sent to Charleston, and obtained "leave
to join the light infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel
Laurens; his friendship furnished me," he relates,
"with many opportunities of seeing the enemy to
advantage." 1

Not "to advantage," however, did he fight at
Savannah, when the French and Americans, un
der d'Estaing and Lincoln, were repulsed with ter
rible loss. The young captain was leading one of
the vanguard columns in the American contin
gent and, like d'Estaing himself, was grievously
wounded. He managed to escape to Charleston.
I was, he said, "in my bed till January, 1780.
My weak state of health did not permit me to
work at the fortifications of Charleston, and when
the enemy debarked, I was still obliged to use a
crutch." 2 He took part, however, in the fight,
replacing a wounded major, and was made a
prisoner at the capitulation. Rochambeau ne
gotiated his exchange in January, 1782, for Cap
tain von Heyden, a Hessian officer.

"Your zeal and active services," Washington
wrote back to L'Enfant, "are such as reflect the

1 Philadelphia, February 18, 1782. Washington papers, Library
of Congress.
1 Same letter.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 143

highest honor on yourself and are extremely
pleasing to me, and I have no doubt they will
have their due weight with Congress in any
future promotion in your corps/ 1 1 They had,
in fact, in the following year, when, by a vote of
the assembly, L'Enfant was promoted a major
of engineers, 1783.

His knowledge of the art of fortification, his
merit as a disciplinarian, the part he had taken, as
he recalls in a letter to Count de La Luzerne, 2 in
devising the earliest "system of discipline and
exercises which was finally adopted in the Ameri
can army" (all that was done in that line was not
by Steuben alone), rendered his services quite
useful. His gifts as an artist, his cleverness at
catching likenesses made him welcome among
his brother officers. He would in the dreary days
of Valley Forge draw pencil portraits of them,
one, we know, of Washington, at the request of
Lafayette, who wanted also to have a painted
portrait. "I misunderstood you," the general
wrote him from Fredericksburg, on September 25,
1778; "else I would have had the picture made
by Peale when he was at Valley Forge. When
you requested me to sit to Monsieur Lanfang"
thus spelled, showing how pronounced by Wash-

1 March i, 1782. Washington papers.

* Brother of the minister to the United States, New York, Decem
ber 10, 1787; unpublished. Archives of the French Ministry of
Colonies.

144 L'ENPANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

ington "I thought it was only to obtain the
outlines and a few shades of my features, to have
some prints struck from."

Some such pencil portraits by L'Enfant subsist,
for example in the Glover family at Washington,
and are creditable and obviously true-to-nature
sketches.

Whenever, during the war or after, something
in any way connected with art was wanted, L'En
fant was, as a matter of course, appealed to,
whether the question was of a portrait, of a ban
queting hall, of a marble palace, a jewel, a solemn
procession, a fortress to be raised, or a city to be
planned. A man of many accomplishments, with
an overflow of ideas and few competitors, he was
the factotum of the new nation. "When the
French minister, La Luzerne, desired to arrange
a grand banquet in honor of the birth of the
Dauphin (the first one, who lived only eight
years), he had a hall built on purpose, in Phila
delphia, and L'Enfant was the designer. Baron
de Closen, Rochambeau's aide, writes as to this
in his journal: "M. de La Luzerne offered a din
ner that day to the legion of Lauzun, which had
arrived the same morning (August 2, 1782). The
hall which he caused to be built on purpose for
the fete he gave on the occasion of the birth
of the Dauphin, is very large and as beautiful as
it can be. One can-not imagine a building in

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 145

better taste; simplicity is there united with an
air of dignity. It has been erected tinder the
direction of Mr. de L'Enfant, a French officer, in
the service of the American corps of engineers/*
Closen adds that "Mr. Barb6 de Marbois, 1 coun-
selor of embassy of our court, is too modest to
, admit that his advice had something to do with
the result."

When peace came, those officers who had fought
shoulder to shoulder with the Americans re
turned home, bringing to the old continent new
and fruitful ideas, those especially pertaining to
equality and to the unreasonableness of class dis
tinctions. Liberty had been learned from Eng
land; equality was from America.

L'Enfant was one of those who went back to
France, but he did not stay. He had been away
five years and wanted to see his old father, the
painter, whose end now was near. A royal brevet
of June 13, 1783, had conferred on the officer a
small French pension of three hundred livres, "in
consideration of the usefulness of his services, and
of the wounds received by him during the Ameri
can war." 2 He sailed for France late in the same
year, reaching Havre on the 8th of December.

The Society of the Cincinnati had been founded
in May. For the insignia appeal had been made

1 Mentioned before, p. 21.

* Brevet 14,302. Archives of the Ministry of War, Paris.

146 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

as usual to the artist of the army, 1 L'Enfant, who
was, moreover, commissioned by Washington,
first president of the association, to avail himself
of his journey to order from some good Paris
jeweller the eagles to be worn by the members,
L'Enfant himself being one. He was also to
help in organizing the French branch of the so
ciety. Difficulties had first been encountered,
for the reason that no foreign order was then
allowed in France, but it was recognized that this
could scarcely be considered a foreign one. In an
unpublished letter to Rochambeau, Marshal de
Segur, minister of war, said: "His Majesty the
King asks me to inform you that he allows you
to accept this honorable invitation (to be a mem
ber). He even wants you to assure General
Washington, in his behalf, that he will always
see with extreme satisfaction all that may lead
to a maintenance and strengthening of the ties
formed between France and the United States.
The successes and the glory which have been the
result and fruit of this union have shown how

1 Steuben writes Mm from West Point on July i, 1783, sending him
"a resolution of the convention of the Cincinnati of June 19, 1783,
by which I am requested/' he says, "to transmit their thanks to
you for your care and ingenuity in preparing the designs which were
laid before them by the president on that day." Original in the
L'Enfant papers, in the possession of Doctor James Dudley Morgan,
of Washington, a descendant of the Digges family, the last friends of
L'Enfaat. To him my thanks are dut for having allowed me to use
those valuable documents.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEEAL CITY I4V

advantageous it is, and that it should be perpetu
ated." Concerning the institution itself the min
ister wrote: "It is equally honorable because of
the spirit which has inspired its creation and of
the virtues and talents of the celebrated general
whom it has chosen as its president." 1

L'Enfant sent to Washington glowing accounts
of the way the idea had been welcomed in France,
and told him of the first meetings held, one at the
house of Rochambeau, Rue du Cherche-Midi, for
officers in the French service, and another at the
house of Lafayette, Rue de Bourbon, for French
officers who held their commissions from Congress,
both groups deciding thereupon to unite, under
Admiral d'Estaing as president-general. 2

What proved for L'Enfant, according to cir
cumstances, one of his chief qualities, as well as
one of his chief defects, was that, whatever the
occasion, he ever saw "en grand/' It had been
understood that he would pay the expenses of
his journey, and that the Society of the Cincinnati
would only take charge of those resulting from
the making of the eagles. His own modest re
sources had been, as Duportail testified, freely
spent by him during the war for the good of the
cause, and little enough was left him. Never-

1 December 18, 1783. Rochambeau papers.
3 Asa Bird Gardner, The Order of the Cincinnati in France, 1905,
pp. 9 2.

148 L'ENFANT AJSfD THE FEDERAL CITY

theless, did he write to Alexander Hamilton,
" being arrived in France, everything there con
curred to strengthen the sentiment which had
made me undertake that voyage, and the recep
tion which the Cincinnati met with soon induced
me to appear in that country in a manner con
sistent with the dignity of the society of which I
was regarded as the representative." He spent
without counting: "My abode at the court pro
duced expenses far beyond the sums I had at
first thought of." He ordered the eagles from the
best " artists, who rivalled each other for the honor
of working for the society/' l but wanted, however,
to be paid; and a letter to Rochambeau, written
later, shows him grappling with the problem of
satisfying Duval and Francastel of Paris, who had
supplied the eagles on credit, and to whom the
large sum of twenty-two thousand three hundred
and three livres were still due. These money
troubles caused L'Enfant to shorten his stay in
France; he was back in New York on the 2gth
of April, 1784, and after some discussion and de
lay, the society "Resolved, that, in consideration
of services rendered by Major L'Enfant, the gen
eral meeting make arrangements for advancing
him the stun of one thousand five hundred and
forty-eight dollars, being the amount of the loss

*An undated memoir (May, 1787?), in the Hamilton papers,
Library of Congress.

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 149

incurred by him in the negotiation for a number
of eagles, or orders, of the Cincinnati." l

1 Text annexed to L'Enfant's letter to Rochambeau, June 15, 1786.
(Rochambeau papers.) On August i, 1787, however, Francastel was
still unpaid, for at that date one of L'Enfant's friends, Duplessis,
L c>, the Chevalier de Mauduit du Plessis, who, like himself, had
served as a volunteer in the American army, writes him: "J'ai vu
ici M. Francastel le bijoutier qui vous a fait une fourniture con
siderable de me'dailles de Cincinnatus et qui m'a dit que vous lui
deviez 20,000 livres, je crois, plus ou moins. Je Pai fort rassurd
sur votre probite*." Olr'Enfant papers.)

n

The country was free; war was over now,
people felt; for ever, many fondly hoped. Set
tled in New York, where appeals to his talents
as an architect and engineer made him prosperous
for a time, L'Enfant believed such hopes to be
vain, and that the country should at once make
preparations so exhaustive that its wealth and de-
fenselessness should not tempt any greedy enemy.
He placed the problem before Congress, in a
memoir still unprinted, which offers particular in
terest in our days, when the same problem is being
again discussed.

"Sensible," wrote L'Enfant, in the creditable
if not faultless English he then spoke, 1 "of the
situation of affairs, and well impregnated with the
spirit of republican government, I am far from
intimating the idea of following other nations in
their way of securing themselves against insult or
invasions, surrounded 'as they are with powerful
neighbors, who, being the objects of reciprocal
jealousy, are forced to secure not only their fron-

1 Only his orthography is corrected in the quotations. Orthog
raphy was not L'Enfant's strong point in any language. His mis
takes are even worse in French than in English, the reason being,
probably, that he took even less pains,

150

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEEAL CITY 151

tier, but even their inland towns with fortifica
tions, the much happier situation of the United
States rendering those measures of little or no
necessity."

The States must act differently; but not to
act at all would be folly. "How and upon what
foundations could it be supposed that America
will have nothing to fear from a rupture between
any of the European Powers? ... A neutral
Power, it will be said, receives the benefit of a
universal trade, has his possessions respected, as
well as his colors, by all the Powers at war. This
may be said of a powerful nation, but this America
is not to expect; a neutral Power must be ready
for war, and his trade depends on the means of
protecting and making his colors respected.
America, neutral without [a] navy, without troops
or fortified harbors could have nothing but ca
lamity to expect." She cannot live free and de
velop in safety without "power to resent, ability
to protect."

A noteworthy statement, to be sure, and which
deserves to be remembered. I 'Enfant draws,
thereupon, a plan of defense, especially insisting,
of course, on the importance of his own particular
branch, namely engineering. 1

1 Unpublished, n. d., but probably of 1784. (Papers of the Con
tinental Congress Letters, vol. LXXVIH, p. 583, Library of Con
gress.) His ambition would have been to be asked to realize his
own plan, "as Brigadier-General Kosciusko, at leaving this conti-

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

Houdon's brief visit, shortly after, in order to
make Washington's statue for the State of Vir
ginia, 1 must have been particularly pleasant to
the major, to whom the great sculptor could bring
news of his co- Academician, the old painter of the
Gobelins Manufacture, father of the officer.

An imprinted letter of L'Enfant to the secre
tary of Congress, sitting then in New York, gives
a number of details on Houdon's stay in America.
The Federal Congress had thought of ordering,
in its turn, a statue of Washington, which would
have been an equestrian one; but what would the
cost be? A most important question in those
days. On behalf of Houdon, who knew no Eng
lish, L'Enfant wrote to Charles Thomson that
Mr. Houdon could not "properly hazard to give
him any answer relating [to] the cost of the
general's equestrian statue"; there are a great
many ways of making such work, and Congress
must say which it prefers. A book belonging to
Mr. Houdon will shortly reach these shores, where
particulars as to the "performance of the several
statues which have been created in Europe are
mentioned, together with their cost." The book
is on a vessel, soon expected, and which brings
back Doctor Franklin's "bagage."

nent, gave me the flattering expectation of being at the head ol
[such] a department."
1 Chi this visit, see below, p. 225.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 153

Congress had thought also of a marble bust for
the hall where it sat. Houdon was taking home
with him a finished model of the head of the great
man, and had exhibited it, for every one to say
his say, in the "room of Congress."

Such busts, L/Enfant wrote, are "generally paid
in Europe five thousand French livres"; but as
many duplicates will probably be ordered from
him, Houdon will lower the price to one hundred
guineas. "He begs leave, however, to observe
that a bust of the size of nature only may be fit
for a private and small room, but not for such a
large one as that devoted for the assembly of a
Congress, where it should be necessary to have
a bust of a larger size to have it appear to ad
vantage. "

The price had been asked, too, of duplicates in
plaster of Paris, for private citizens. The answer
was: four guineas, also in the thought that a
goodly number would be wanted, "provided that
there be a subscription for a large number, and
that the gentlemen who will have any of these
busts in their possession consider themselves as
engaged to prevent any copy from being taken;
this last condition he humbly insists upon."

As for the original, Houdon is anxious to know
what the compatriots of the general think of it;
any criticism would be welcome: "Mr. Houdon
hopes that Congress is satisfied with the bust he

154 L'ENPANT AND TEE FEDERAL CITY

has had the honor to submit to their examination,
begs the gentlemen who may have some objections
to communicate them to him, and he flatters him
self that Congress will favor him with their opin
ion in writing, which he will consider as a proof
of their satisfaction and keep as a testimony of
their goodness."

He is just about to sail, and the bust has to be
removed at once: "Mr. Houdon, being to embark
to-morrow morning, begs leave to take out the
general's bust from the room of Congress this
afternoon." 1

L'Enfant's chief work in New York consisted
in the remodelling of the old, or rather older (but
not oldest), City Hall, the one which preceded that
now known, in its turn, as the old one. The
undertaking was of importance, the question being
of better accommodating Congress, which had
left Philadelphia with a grudge toward that city,
and was now sitting in New York. A large sum,
for those days, had been advanced by patriotic
citizens, which sum, however, L'Enfant's habit
to see things *'en grand" caused to be insufficient
by more than half. The city hoped that the de
vising of such a structure would be for it one more
title to be selected as the federal capital, and it
therefore did not protest, but on the contrary

1 New York, 3d November, 1785. Papers of the Continental
Congress Letters, L 78, vol. XIV, p. 677.

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 155

caused a "testimonial" to be officially presented
to L'Enfant, highly praising his work: "While
the hall exists it will exhibit a most respectable
monument of your eminent talents, as well as of
the munificence of the citizens." 1 L'Enfant re
ceived "the freedom of the city" by "special
honorifick patent," as he wrote later, and he was,
moreover, offered ten acres of land near Provost
Lane, "which latter he politely declined." 2

The building won general admiration for its
noble appearance, the tasteful brilliancy of its
ornamentation, and its commodious internal ar
rangements. The only objections came from the
Anti-Federalists, who called it the "Fools' Trap,"
in which appellation politics had, obviously, more
to do than architecture.

L'Enfant, a man of ideas, had tried to make of
the renovated hall something characteristically
American, if not in the general style, which was
classical, at least in many details. National re
sources had been turned into use; in the Senate
chamber the chimneys were of American marble,
which, "for beauties of shade and polish, is equal to
any of its kind in Europe." 3 The capitals of the
pilasters were "of a fanciful kind, the invention of
Major L'Enfant, the architect. . . . Amidst their

1 October 13, 1789.

*Taggart, Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XI, 215.
Thomas E. V. Smith, The City of New York in J7#p, p. 46, quoting
contemporary magaanes.

156 I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

foliage appears a star and rays, and a piece of
drapery below suspends a small medallion with
U. S. in a cipher. The idea is new and the effect
pleasing; and although they cannot be said to be of
any ancient order, we must allow that they have
an appearance of magnificence." l The frieze out
side was so divided as to give room for thirteen
stars in so many metopes, A much-talked-of
eagle, with thirteen arrows in its talons, which,
unluckily, could not be ready for March 4, 1789,
when Congress met in the hall for the first time
under the newly voted Constitution, was the chief
ornament on the pediment. On the 22 d of April
the news could be sent to the Salem Mercury:
"The eagle in front of the Federal State-House
is displayed. The general appearance of this
front is truly august." 2 The emblem was thus
at its proper place when the chief event that
Federal Hall, as it was then called, was to witness
occurred, on the 3oth of the same month, the day
of the first inauguration of the first President of
the United States.

Crowds came to visit what was then the most
beautiful building in the country; but better than
crowds came, and one visit was for the major
more touching and flattering than all the others

1 C. M. Bowen, The Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of
George Washington, 1892, pp. 15, 16.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 157

put together the wife of his general, now the
President, Mrs. Washington, caused Colonel Hum
phreys and Mr. Lear to make arrangements with
L'Enfant for her to inspect the hall, in June of the
inauguration year. 1

The expensive and greatly admired monument
was to experience the strange fate of being sur
vived by its author. Becoming again City Hall
when Congress, soon after, left New York to go
back, reconciled, to Philadelphia, it was pulled
down in 1812, the building itself being sold at
auction for four hundred and twenty-five dollars:
and thus disappeared, to the regret of all lovers
of ancient souvenirs, the beautiful chimneys in
American marble, the "truly august " eagle with
its thirteen arrows, and the first really American
capitals ever devised, and which, though in a new
style, were yet "magnificent."

One solitary souvenir of the building remains,
however, that is, the middle part of the railing on
which Washington must have leaned when taking
the oath; a piece of wrought iron of a fine orna
mental style, now preserved with so many other
interesting relics of old New York on the ground
floor of the New York Historical Society's Mu
seum. In the same room can be seen several

1 "Mr. Lear does himself the honor to inform Major I/Enfant that
Mrs- Washington intends to visit the federal building at six o'clock
this evening. Saturday morning, i3th June, 1789," (I/Enfant
papers.)

158 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

contemporary views of Federal Hall, one in water-
color, by Robertson, 1798; another, an engrav
ing, showing every detail of the fagade, represents,
as the inscription runs, "Federal Hall, the Seat
of Congress. Printed and sold by A. Doolittle,
New Haven, 1790. A. Doolittle Sc. Pet. Lacour
del."

Shortly before the inauguration of the first
President, L'Enfant had had to lend his help for
the devising of a grand, -artistic, historical, and es
pecially political procession, a Federalist one,
arranged in the hope of influencing public opinion
and securing the vote of the Constitution by the
State of New York. This now revered text was
then the subject of ardent criticism; famous pa
triots like Patrick Henry had detected in it some
thing royalistic, which has long ceased to be ap
parent, and were violent in their denunciation
of this instrument of tyranny. New York was
in doubt; its convention had met at Poughkeepsie
in June, 1788, and it seemed as if an adverse vote
were possible. The procession was then thought of.

It took place on Monday, the 23d of July, and
was a grand affair, with artillery salute, trumpe
ters, foresters, Christopher Columbus on horse
back, farmers, gardeners, the Society of the Cincin
nati "in full military uniform,'* brewers showing
in their ranks, "mounted on a tun of ale, a beauti
ful boy of eight years, in close-fitting, flesh-colored

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 159

silk, representing Bacchus, with a silver goblet in
his hand," butchers, tanners, cordwainers "sur
rounding the car of the Sons of Saint Crispin/'
furriers exhibiting u an Indian in native costume,
loaded with furs, notwithstanding it was one of
the hottest days in July.' 1 *

The chief object of wonder was the good
ship Hamilton, presented by the ship-carpenters,
mounted on wheels, a perfect frigate of thirty-
two guns, with its crew, complete, firing salutes
on its way. The confectioners surrounded an
immense "Federal cake." The judges and law
yers were followed by "John Lawrence, John
Cozine, and Robert Troup, bearing the new Con
stitution elegantly engrossed on vellum, and ten
students of law followed, bearing in order the rati
fication of the ten States." 2 The tin-plate work
ers exhibited "the Federal tin warehouse, raised
on ten pillars, with the motto:

-When three more pillars rise,
Our Union will the world surprise."

tin-plate poetry, for the tin warehouse. Then
came learned men, physicians, clergymen, the re-

1 Martlia J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, 1881, roL DC,

pp. 321 ff-

J Ten had already voted the Constitution, which made its enact
ment certain, for Congress had decided that an adoption by nine
States would be enough for that. As is well known, there remained
in the end only two dissenting States, North Carolina and Rhode
Island.

160 L'EKFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

gent and students of Columbia University, schol
ars, and among them Noah Webster, famous
since as a lexicographer, and then as a professor
and journalist, now admired by everybody, but,
in those days of strife, only by Federalists "a
mere pedagogue," disdainfully wrote Jefferson
later, "of very limited understanding and very
strong prejudices/' in saying which he himself,
maybe, showed some prejudice, too. 1

A grand banquet, at which, according to the
New York Journal and Weekly Register* bullocks
were roasted whole for the "regale" of the guests,
was held at the extreme point reached by the pro
cession, called by the same paper the "parade des
fetes champtres." The President and members
of Congress sat under a dome devised by L'En-
fant. It was "surmounted by a figure of Fame,
with a trumpet proclaiming a new era, and hold
ing a scroll emblematic of the three great epochs
of the war: Independence Alliance with France
Peace." 3

This was greatly admired. "The committee/'
we read in a note printed by their order in the
Imperial Gazetteer, "would be insensible of the
zeal and merit of Major L'Enfant were they to
omit expressing the obligation which they are
undergo him for the elegance of the design and

1 To James Madison, August 12, 1801.

* Number of July 24* 1788. ^Martha J. Lamb, find.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 161

the excellence of the execution of the pavilion and
tables." 1

The whole was a considerable success. "As it
redounds much to the credit of the citizens, ..."
another paper observes, "it ought to be remarked
that there was not the least outrage, or even in
decency, notwithstanding 6,000 or 7,000 people
(as supposed, spectators included) had collected,
and that the whole company was dismissed at
half after five o'clock" 2

Three days after the procession the vote was
taken at Poughkeepsie, and if any influence at all
could be attributed to the effect on public opinion
of the quasi-mediaeval pageant, its organizers must
have felt proud, for in an assembly of fifty-seven
the Constitution was actually voted by a majority
of two.

1 July 26, 1788. 4 New York Journal, July 24.

Ill

The same year in which the New York Federal
Hall had seen the inauguration of the first Presi
dent, the chance of his life came to L'Enfant. He
deserved it, because he not only availed himself
of it, but went forth to meet it, giving up his abode
in New York, "where I stood at the time," he
wrote later, "able of commanding whatever
business I liked." This was the founding of the
federal city.

The impression was a general one among the
French that those insurgents whom they had
helped to become a free nation were to be a great
one, too. Leaving England, where he was a
refugee during our Revolution, Talleyrand de
cided to come to the United States, "desirous
of seeing," he says in his memoirs, "that great
country whose history begins." General Mo-
reau, also a refugee, a few years later spoke with
the same confidence of the future of the country:
"I had pictured to myself the advantages of liv
ing under a free government; but I had conceived
only in part what such happiness is: here it is
enjoyed to the full. ... It is impossible for men
who have lived under such a government to allow
themselves ever to be subjugated; they would be

102

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 163

very great cowards if they did not perish to the
last in order to defend it." l

I/Enfant, with his tendency to see things "en
grand," could not fail to act accordingly, and the
moment he heard that the federal city would be
neither New York nor Philadelphia, nor any other
already in existence, but one to be built expressly,
he wrote to Washington a letter remarkable by
his clear understanding of the opportunity offered
to the country, and by his determined purpose to
work not for the three million inhabitants of his
day, but for the one hundred of ours, and for all
the unborn millions that will come after us.

The letter is dated from New York, nth of
September, 1789. "Sir," he said, "the late deter
mination of Congress to lay the foundation of a
city which is to become the capital of this vast
empire offers so great an occasion of acquiring
reputation to whoever may be appointed to con
duct the execution of the business that your
Excellency will not be surprised that my ambi
tion and the desire I have of becoming a useful
citizen should lead me to wish a share in tha
undertaking.

"No nation, perhaps, had ever before the op
portunity offered them of deliberately deciding
on the spot where their capital city should be

*To his brother, Philadelphia, November 17, 1806. Roue des
Deux Mondes, November 15, 1908, p. 421-

164 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEKAL CITY

fixed. . . . And, although the means now within
the power of the country are not -such as to pur
sue the design to any great extent, it will be ob
vious that the plan should be drawn on such a
scale as to leave room for that aggrandizement and
embellishment which the increase of the wealth
of the nation will permit it to pursue at any period,
however remote. Viewing the matter in this light,
I am fully sensible of the extent of the under
taking/' 1

Washington knew that L'Enfant was afflicted,
to be sure, with an " untoward " temper, being
haughty, proud, intractable, but that he was
honest withal, sincere, loyal, full of ideas, and re
markably gifted. He decided to intrust him with
the great task, thus justifying, a little later, his
selection: "Since my first knowledge of the gentle
man's abilities in the line of his profession, I have
received "him not only as a scientific man, but one
who has added considerable taste to professional
knowledge; and that, for such employment as he
is now engaged in, for prosecuting public works
and carrying them into effect, he was better quali
fied than any one who had come within my knowl
edge in this country." 2 The President informed
L'Enfant that he was to set to work at once, and

1 Original (several times printed in part) in the Library of Con
gress, M iscettaneous Personal. The rest of the letter treats of the
necessity of fortifying the coasts.

* To David Stuart, November 20, 1791.

L'ENPANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 165

so bestir himself as to have at least a general
plan to show a few months later, when he himself
would return from a trip South. On March 2,
1791, Washington announced to Colonel Dickens,
of Georgetown, the coming of the major: "An
eminent French military engineer starts for George
town to examine and survey the site of the federal
city." A few days later the arrival of "Major
Longfont" was duly recorded by the Georgetown
Weekly Ledger*

L'Enfant's enthusiasm and his desire to do
well and quickly had been raised to a high pitch.
He reached the place a few days later and found it
wrapped in mist, soaked in rain, but he would
not wait. * c I see no other way, " he wrote to Jeffer
son on the nth, "if by Monday next the weather
does not change, but of making a rough draft as
accurate as may be obtained by viewing the
ground in riding over it on horseback, as I have
already done yesterday through the rain, to ob
tain a knowledge of the whole. ,. . . As far as
I was able to judge through a thick fog, I passed
on many spots which appeared to me really beau
tiful, and which seem to dispute with each other
[which] commands." 2

When he could see the place to better advan
tage, his admiration knew no bounds. In an un-

1 W. B. Bryan's History of the National Capital, 1914, p. 127.
* Records of ike Columbia Historical Society, n, 151.

166 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

published letter to Hamilton he says: "Now,
when you may probably have heard that I am
finely charged with delineating a plan for the
city, I feel a sort of embarrassment how to speak
to you as advantageously as I really think of the
situation determined upon; for, as there is no
doubt, I must feel highly interested in the suc
cess of the undertaking, I become apprehensive
of being charged with partiality when I assure
you that no position in America can be more
susceptible of grand improvement than that be
tween the eastern branch of the Potomac and
Georgetown/* 1

A few weeks later L'Enfant was doing -the
honors of the spot to a brother artist, the painter
Trumbtill, just back from Yorktown, where he
had been sketching in view of his big picture of
the surrendering of Cornwallis, and who wrote in
his autobiography: "Then to Georgetown, where
I found Major L'Enfant drawing his plan of the
city of Washington; rode with him over the
ground on which the city has since been built.
Where the Capitol now stands was then a thick
wood." (May, 1791.)

Another visitor of note came in the same year,
namely the French minister, a former companion
in axms of Lafayette and of L'Enfant himself,
Ternant, back from a three days' stay at Mount

1 April 8, 1791. Hamilton Papers, vol. XI, Library of Congress,

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 167

Vernon, and who gave his government an account
of what he had observed: "I would not leave
Georgetown without having seen the ground des
tined for the federal city. The position seemed
to me a most interesting one from every point of
view. The French engineer who has already
traced the streets, is busy preparing a detailed
plan. . . . The President shows the greatest in
terest in this new Salente, which is to bear his
name." x

The city, L'Enfant thought, must be great,
beautiful, and soon peopled, drawn "on that grand
scale on which it ought to be planned "; 2 meant
to absorb "Georgetown itself, whose name will
before long be suppressed, and its whole district
become a part of the cession." 3 It must be
quickly filled with inhabitants, because this will
strengthen the Union: "I earnestly wish all that
the Eastern States can spare may come this way,
and believe it would answer as good a purpose
as that of their emigration to the West. It would
deface that line of markation which will ever

1 September 30, October 24, 1791. Correspondence of ike Frenck
Ministers, e<L F. J. Turner, 1904, p. 62. "Salente," the ideal city,
In F&ielon's Telemaque. During tne War of Independence Chevalier
Jean de Ternant had served as a volunteer officer in the American
army. He was at Valley Forge, at Charleston, took part under
Greene in the Southern campaign and was promoted a colonel by a
vote of Congress.

* To Jefferson, March n, 1791.

* To Hamilton, April 8, 1791*

168 I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

oppose the South against the East, for when ob
jects are seen at a distance the idea we form of
them is apt to mislead us ... and we fancy
monstrous that object which, from a nearer view,
would charm us. ... Hence arises a natural
though unwarrantable prejudice of nations against
nations, of States against States, and so down to
individuals, who often mistrust one another for
want of being sufficiently acquainted with each
other/* l

The city must be beautiful, due advantage
being taken of the hilly nature of the spot for
grand or lovely prospects, and of its water re
sources for handsome fountains and cascades:
"five grand fountains intended, with a constant
spout of water a grand cascade*' at the foot of
Capitol Hill, 2 etc., a part of the plan which was,
unluckily, left in abeyance. Some had spoken of
a plain rectangular plan, "a regular assemblage
of houses laid out in squares, and forming streets
all parallel and uniform/' This might be good
enough, I/Enfant declared, "on a well-level plain,
where, no surrounding object being interesting,
it becomes indifferent which way the opening
street may be directed." But the case is quite
different with the future federal city: "Such

1 Same letter to Hamilton.

1 1/Enf ant's Observations Explanatory of the Plan, inscribed on the
plan itself.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 169

regular plans, however answerable they may ap
pear on paper . . . become at last tiresome and
insipid, and it could never be, in its origin, but
a mean continence of some cool imagination want
ing a sense of the really grand and truly beauti
ful, only to be met with where nature contributes
with art and diversifies the objects." 1 We may
imagine what his feelings would be if he saw, in
our days, the steam-shovel busy around the city,
dumping as many hills as possible into as many
vales, and securing a maximum platitude.

But the city must be more than that; besides
being beautiful, healthy, commodious, it should
be full of sentiment, of associations, of ideas;
everything in it must be evocative and have a
meaning and a "raison d'etre." Rarely was a
brain more busy than that of L'Enfant during the
first half of the year 1791. Surveying the ground,
mapping out the district, sketching the chief
buildings of the model city that was to be, 2 he
presented three reports to Washington, the first,
giving only his general ideas, before the end of

1 First report to the President, March 26, 1791.

* For he was depended upon for that, too: "M. I/Enfant," Ter-
nant wrote, "aura aussi la direction des Mtimens que le Congres se
propose d'y faire eleven" September 30, 1791. See also the docu
ments quoted by W. B. Bryan, History of the National Capitol, 1914,
p. 165, note. L'Enfant actually made drawings for the Capitol, the
President's house, the bridges, the market, etc., which he complained
later the commissioners to have unjustly appropriated. Records of
the Cdwdbfo Historical Society, U, 140.

170 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

March, the second in June, the last in August,
the two latter accompanied with plans, the last
of which being the one which was followed in
the building of the city.

By the amplitude of its scope, the logic of the
arrangements, the breadth of the streets and
avenues, the beauty of the prospects cleverly
taken into account, the quantity of ground set
apart for gardens and parks, the display of waters,
the plan was a unique monument. The selection
of the place for what we call the Capitol and the
White House, which were then called the Federal
House and the Palace for the President, near
which the ministerial departments were to be
built, had been the result of a good deal of think
ing and comparing. "After much menutial [sic]
search for an eligible situation, prompted, as I
may say, from a fear of being prejudiced in favor
of a first opinion, I could discover no one so ad
vantageously to greet the congressional building
as is that on the west end of Jenkins heights,
which stand as a pedestal waiting for a monu
ment. . . . Some might, perhaps, require less
labor to be made agreeable, but, after all assistance
of arts, none ever would be made so grand." On
that very pedestal now rises the Capitol of the
United States.

As for the "Presidential Palace," L'Enfant made
his choice with the object, he says, of "adding to

L'ENEANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 171

the sumptuousness of a palace the convenience
of a house and the agreeableness of a country
seat," which are the three main qualities actually
combined in the present White House. He se
lected a spot which Washington had himself
noticed as a convenient one, at some distance
from Congress, it is true, but that would not matter
much, L'Enfant thought, with his old-world no
tions of etiquette, for "no message to nor from
the President is to be made without a sort of
decorum which will doubtless point out the pro
priety of committee waiting on him in carriage,
should his palace be even contiguous to Congress.
Since it was a question of driving, it little mat
tered whether the drive was to be a little more
or less long.

For different reasons President Washington ap
proved of that distance ; major e longinquo amicitia,
he apparently thought. "Where and how," he
once wrote to Alexander White, "the houses for
the President and other public officers may be
fixed is to me as an individual a matter of moon
shine, but . . . the daily intercourse which the
secretaries of the departments must have with
the President would render a distant situation
extremely inconvenient to them; and not much
less so would one be dose to the Capitol, for it was
the universal complaint of them all, that while
the legislature was in session they could do little

m L'ENPANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

or no business, so much were they interrupted by
the individual visits of members (in office hours)
and by calls for papers. Many of them have de
clared to me that they have often been obliged
to go home and deny themselves in order to
transact the current business." 1 In that respect,
carriage or no carriage, distance would have its
merits.

L'Enfant's letters and the notes accompanying
his plans show that everything in the future city
had been devised, indeed, with an intention:
ever-flowing fountains and a cascade for health
and beauty; an avenue of noble buildings, lead
ing from the Capitol to the Presidential House,
and increasing the dignified appearance of both:
"The grand avenue/* he wrote, "connecting both
the Palace and the Federal House will be most
magnificent and most convenient," with a num
ber of handsome monuments, a very character
istic one being a temple for national semireligious
celebrations, "such as public prayer, thanks
givings, funeral orations, etc., and assigned to
the special use of no particular sect or denomi
nation, but equally opened to all/' It would also
be a pantheon for the illustrious dead, "as may
hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful
nation." A column, as yet never built, was "to
be erected to celebrate the first rise of a navy,

1 March 25, 1798.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 173

and to stand a ready monument to consecrate
its progress and achievements/' The squares
were to be allotted, one to each of the States
forming the Union: "The centre of each square
will admit of statues, columns, obelisks, or any
other ornaments ... to perpetuate not only the
memory of such individuals whose counsels or
military achievements were conspicuous in giving
liberty and independence to this country, but also
those whose usefulness hath rendered them worthy
of general imitation, to invite the youth of suc
ceeding generations to tread in the paths of those
sages or heroes whom their country has thought
proper to celebrate." This was a way, I/Enfant
considered, of fortifying the Union and of giving
to the very city that educational value to which
he attached so much importance.

Chief among those patriotic objects was to be,
at some distance north of the place where the
Washington monument now rises, "the equestrian
figure of George Washington, a monument voted
in 1783 by the late Continental Congress." And
L'Enfant must certainly have hoped that the
author would be his illustrious compatriot, the
sculptor Houdon, on whose behalf we have seen
him writing to Congress, in 1785, as to the prob
able cost.

Distant views and prospects were, of course,
to be used to the best advantage: "Attention has

174 I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

been paid to the passing of those leading avenues
over the most favorable ground for prospect and
convenience/' But, above all, L'Enfant was per
sistent in his request that, on no account, the
grandeur of his conception be in any way cur
tailed: it was to remain commensurate with the
greatness of the United States of future times.
The plan "must leave to posterity a grand idea
of the patriotic interest which promoted it." 1
He foresaw much opposition to some of his ideas,
but besought the President to stand by him, and
especially to prevent any dwarfing of his views:
"I remain assured you will conceive it essential
to pursue with dignity the operation of an under
taking of a magnitude so worthy of the concern
of a grand empire . . . over whose progress the
eyes of every other nation, envying the oppor
tunity denied them, will stand judge." 2

To make a man of that temper and enthusiasm,
having a reason for each of his propositions, ac
cept hints and change his mind was almost an
impossibility. In vain did Jefferson object "to
the obligation to build the houses at a given dis
tance from the street. ... It produces a dis
gusting monotony; all persons make this com
plaint against Philadelphia." In the same record
of his views, however, and much more to his credit,

1 1/Enf ant's Observations Explanatory of the Plan, inscribed on it
1 Conclusion of his third report*

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 175

Washington's secretary of state is seen foreseeing
the sky-scraper and its dangers: "In Paris it is
forbidden to build a house beyond a given height,
and it is admitted to be a good restriction. It
keeps down the price of grounds, keeps the houses
low and convenient, and the streets light and airy.
Fires are much more manageable when houses
are low," 1 as was only too well evidenced since
in the fires at Chicago, Baltimore, and San Fran
cisco.

As for the President himself, he had well-deter
mined, practical ideas on some points, such as the
befitting distance between the places of abode
of Congress and of the chief of the state, and,
what was of more import, the necessarily large
extent of the ground to be reserved for the build
ing of the future capital. 2 On the rest, with his
habit of trusting those who knew, he seems to

1 "Opinion on Capital," November 29, 1700. Writings, ed. Ford,

V, 253.

* Which agreed perfectly -with L'Enf ant's constant desire to ever
do things "en grand." Washington writes to him that, "although
it may not be immediately wanting," a large tract of ground must be
reserved. The lands to be set apart, "in my opinion are those be
tween Rock Creek, the Potowmac River, and the Eastern Branch,
and as far up the latter as the turn of the channel above Evens's
point; thence including the flat back of Jenkins's height; thence
to the road leading from Georgetown to Biadensburg as far easterly
along the same as to include the Branch which runs across it, some
where near the exterior of the Georgetown Session. Thence in a
proper direction to Rock Creek at or above the ford, according to
the situation of ground." Mount Vernon, April 4, I79 1 * Wash
ington's manuscript Letter Book, vol. XT, Library of Congress.

176 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEKAL CITY

have left free rein to L'Enfant. Submitting to
him certain suggestions, some from Jefferson, he
allows him to use them or not, as he pleases,
and he personally seems to incline toward not:
''Sir, although I do not conceive that you will
derive any material advantage from an examina
tion of the inclosed papers, yet, as they have been
drawn under different circumstances and by differ
ent persons, they may be compared with your own
ideas of a proper plan for the federal city. . . .
The rough sketch by Mr. Jefferson was done
under an idea that no offer worthy of considera
tion would come from the landholders in the
vicinity of Carrollsburgh, from the backwardness
which appeared in them, and therefore was ac
commodated to the grounds about Georgetown/' 1
Criticism of L'Enfant's plan turned out to be
insignificant, and the approbation general. "The
work of Major L'Enfant, which is greatly admired,
will show," Washington said, "that he had many
objects to attend to and to combine, not on paper
merely, but to make them correspond with the
actual circumstances of the ground." 2 Jefferson,
who had the good taste not to stick to his own
former suggestions, was sending, a little later,
copies of the plan to Gouverneur Morris, then
minister to France, for him to exhibit in various

1 Same letter.

* To the Commissioners, December 18, 1791.

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 177

cities as a thing for the United States to be proud
of: "I sent you by the way of London a dozen
plans of the city of Washington in the Federal
territory, hoping you would have them displayed
to public view where they would be most seen by
those descriptions of men worthy and likely to be
attracted to it. Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the
seaport towns of Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and
Marseille would be proper places to send them
to." 1

Three assistants had been given to L'Enfant,
two of the Ellicot brothers (Andrew and Ben
jamin) and Isaac Roberdeau, the major's trustiest
second. Three Commissioners of the District had
been appointed, Thomas Johnson and Daniel
Carroll, both of Maryland, and David Stuart, of
Virginia. They notified L'Enfant, on the gth of
September, 1791, that a name had been selected
for the district and the city: "We have agreed
that the federal district shall be called 'the
Territory of Columbia/ and the federal city
'the City of Washington.* The title of the map
will therefore be 'A map of the City of Washing
ton in the District of Columbia.' "

For the expropriation of the ground with a
rn^irntim actual outlay, an ingenious system, also
applied elsewhere, had been adopted: "The terms
entered into by me," Washington wrote to Jeffer-

1 Philadelphia, March 12, 1793.

178 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

son, "on the part of the United States with the
landowners of Georgetown and Carrollsburgh, are
that all the land from Rock Creek along the river
to the Eastern Branch ... is ceded to the pub
lic, on condition that, when the whole shall be
surveyed and laid off as a city, which Major L'En-
fant is now directed to do, the present proprietors
shall retain every other lot, and for such parts
of the land as may be taken for public use they
shall be allowed at the rate of twenty-five pounds
per acre, the public having the right to reserve
such parts of the wood on the land as may be
thought necessary to be preserved for ornament;
the landholders to have the use and profit of all
the grounds until the city is laid off into lots,
which by this agreement became public property.
Nothing is to be allowed for the ground which
may be occupied as streets or alleys." The Presi
dent was confident that everybody would acquiesce
and show good-will, "even the obstinate Mr.
Burns." 1

But it turned out that there were other obsti
nate people besides Mr. Burns, L'Enfant himself
chief among them. He had evinced from the
first a great fear of speculators, and was at once
at war with them. "How far," he boldly wrote
to Hamilton, "I have contributed to overset that
plotting business, it would not do for me to tell;

1 March 31, 1791.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 179

besides, I am not wholly satisfied whether I would
be thanked for by the people among whom you
live." 1 The three Commissioners had notions of
their own, but could never bring L/Enfant to
take into account either their persons or their
ideas; he would acknowledge no chief except
Washington, who, gently at first, firmly after
ward, sternly later, and vainly throughout, tried
to make the major understand that he was one
of the Commissioners' subordinates. A great re
ciprocal irritation, which even the President's
painstaking diplomacy could not assuage, began
between them from the first. Out of fear of specu
lators, I/Enfant wanted the sale of the lots to be
delayed, while the Commissioners desired to make
a beginning as soon as possible. The officer kept,
accordingly, his plan to himself, and refused to
have it shown to would-be purchasers. How, then,
Washington exclaimed, could they be "induced
to buy, to borrow an old adage, a fig in a poke"?*
The major would not be persuaded, and, giving
an early example of an unconquerable fear of
what would now be called a "trust," he persisted
in refusing to show his plan to any individual or
association. He had declared beforehand, in one
of his reports to the President, what were his views
and how things should be delayed until the plan

1 April 8, 1791. Hamiltcm papers, vol. XL
f To David Stoart, November 20^ 1791,

180 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

could be engraved, distributed all over the coun
try, and made known to all people at the same
time: "A sale made previous the general plan of
the distribution of the city is made public, and
before the circumstance of that sale taking place
has had time to be known through the whole
continent, will not call a sufficient concurrence,
and must be confined to a few individuals specu
lating . . . and the consequence of a low sale in
this first instance may prove injurious to the sub
sequent ones by serving as precedents." He was
afraid of the "plotting of a number of certain de
signing men," of the forming of a "society" or
ganized "to engross the most of the sale and
master the whole business." 1

When one of the chief landowners of the dis
trict, Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, a relative of
one of the Commissioners, decided, in spite of all
warnings, to go on with the building of a house
across what was to be New Jersey Avenue, mat
ters came to a crisis. Washington tried to pacify
L'Enfant, whose indignation knew no bounds.
"As a similar case," he wrote to him, "cannot
happen again (Mr. Carroll's house having been
begun before the federal district was fixed upon),
no precedent will be established by yielding a
little in the present instance; and it will always
be found sound policy to conciliate the good-will
1 Report to the President, August 19, 1791.

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY 181

rather than provoke the enmity of any man,
where it can be accomplished without much diffi
culty, inconvenience, or loss."

But even at the request of a leader whom he
worshipped, L'Enfant would not be persuaded.
With no authority from the Commissioners, he
sent his faithful Roberdeau to raze the house to
the ground, which was but partly done when the
Commissioners had Roberdeau arrested, L'En
fant thereupon came in person with some labor
ers, and saw the work of destruction perfected
(November 22). He barely escaped arrest him
self. Washington, who, as he wrote to Jefferson,
was loath to lose "his services, which in my opin
ion would be a serious misfortune/' severely re
monstrated now with the major. "In future I
must strictly enjoin you to touch no man's prop
erty without his consent, or the previous order
of the Commissioners," adding in kindlier tones:
"Having the beauty and regularity of your plan
only in view, you pursue it as if every person or
thing were obliged to yield to it." 1

But so they are, thought L'Enfant. For him
the city was his city, his child, and a father has a
right to rear his child as he pleases. Remon
strating went on some time. Jefferson came to
the rescue of the President, used the fairest means,
asked the major to dine with him "tte a tte/ f

1 December 2, 1791.

182 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

so as to quietly discuss the federal city, the hour
for the meal differing rather widely from ours:
"Mr. Jefferson presents his compliments to Major
L'Enfant, and is sorry to have been absent when
he was so kind as to call on him, as he wishes to
have some conversation with him on the subject
of the federal city. He asks the favor of him to
come and take a private dinner with him to
morrow at half after three, which may afford
time and opportunity for the purpose. Saturday
January 7, 1792."* Nothing resulted. Another
landowner, Notley Young, had been found in De
cember building a house which had, "contrary to
expectation, fallen into a principal street. But I
hope," Washington wrote the Commissioners, * ' the
major does not mean to proceed to the demolition
of this also."

On no point would L'Enfant yield, so that on
March 6, 1792, Jefferson wrote to the Commis
sioners: "It having been found impracticable to
employ Major L'Enfant in that degree of sub
ordination which was lawful and proper, he has
been notified that his services were at an end."

A consolation and a comfort to him was the
immediate signing by all the landowners of the
district, except two, of a testimonial "lamenting"
his departure, wishing for his return, praising his
work, "for we well know that your time and the

1 L'Enfant papers.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEEAL CITY 183

whole powers of your mind have been for months
entirely devoted to the arrangements in the city
which reflect so much honor on your taste and
judgment. 7 ' 1

1 March 9, 1792. Records of the Columbia Historical Society -, n,
137-

IV

The bright part of L'Enfant's life was over.
His fame was great, and appeals continued for
some time to be made to him when important
works were contemplated. But his same ten
dency to ever see things "en grand/* his unyield
ing disposition, his increasing and almost morbid
fear of speculators wrecked more than one of his
undertakings.

Almost on his leaving his work at Washington
he was asked to draw the plans of the first manu
facturing city, devised as such, in the United
States, and which is to-day one of the most im
portant in existence, Paterson, N. J. "Major
L'Enfant, it is said," wrote Washington, who still
retained a friendly feeling for him, "is perform
ing wonders at the new town of Paterson." 1
The moving spirit was Hamilton, under whose
influence had been founded the "Society for the
Establishing Useful Manufactures." The chief
point was to transform into a city a spot where
only ten houses were in existence, and to make
of it an industrial one by turning into use the
Falls of the Passaic. Several letters of the major
to Hamilton, giving an account of the work, in

1 To the Commissioners, November 30, 1792.
184

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 185

which faithful Roberdeau was helping, and of the
increasing difficulties with all sorts of people, are
preserved in the Library of Congress. After one
year's toil, L'Enfant was once more notified that
his services were no longer wanted.

He is found in the same year and the following
one working as an engineer at Fort Mifflin, on the
Delaware, and as an architect at a mansion in
Philadelphia which was to surpass in magnifi
cence any other in the States. It had been ordered
of him by Robert Morris, the financier of the
Revolution, and the richest man in America. 1
Here was, if ever, an occasion to do things "en
grand." L'Enfant, however, did them "en plus
grand" than even the financier had dreamed;
improvements and afterthoughts, the use of mar
ble for columns and facades increased the delay
and the expense. His being busy at Paterson had
also been at first another cause of complaint.
"Dear Sir," Morris beseechingly wrote him from
Philadelphia, "I had like to have stopped my
house for fear of wanting money; that difficulty
being removed, it will now be stopped for want
of Major L'Enfant." 2 The roof had at last been
put on, and one could judge of the beauty of the
ensemble, quite remarkable, as we can see from

1 Moms had bought for It a whole block, limited on its fotrr sides
by Chestnut, Walnut, Seventh, and Eighth Streets.
* May 9, 1793. (L'Enfant papers.)

186 L'ENFANT AND TEE FEDERAL CITY

a sketch by Birch the Elder preserved in the
Philadelphia Library, when Morris's catastrophe
occurred, putting an end to the work, and swallow
ing part, if not all, of L'Enfant's savings. 1

In his delight at being intrusted with the plan
of the federal city he had never said a word about
any remuneration, and he had not copyrighted
his plan. At the time of his dismissal Washing
ton had written to the Commissioners : "The plan
of the city having met universal applause (as far
as my information goes), and Major L'Enfant
having become a very discontented man, it was
thought that less than from two thousand five
hundred to three thousand dollars, would not be
proper to offer him for his services; instead of
this, suppose five hundred guineas and a lot in
a good part of the city were substituted ?"

The offer was made; L'Enfant refused, with
out giving reasons. More and more gloomy times
were in store for him; mishaps and disappoint
ments multiplied. He had laid great store on
the selling of copies of his plan, but since he had
not copyrighted it, no royalty on the sale was re-

1 He seems to have tried to help the financier rather than to be
helped by him. Hi-satisfied as he was with the house, for which
he, apparently, never paid PEnfant anything, Morris wrote: "But
he lent me thirteen shares of bank stock disinterestedly, and on this
point I feel the greatest anxiety that he should get the same number
of shares with the dividends, for the want of which he has suffered
great distress." Written about 1800. W. B. Bryan, History of the
National Capital, 1914, p. 181.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 187

served for him. He protested against this,
against the way in which the engraving had been
made, with grievous "errors of execution," and
against the suppression of his name on it, "de
priving me of the repute of the projector." Con
trary, however, to the fear expressed at first by
Washington, that out of spite he might, in his
discontent, side with the many who disapproved
of the vast and difficult undertaking, he remained
loyal to it, and "there is no record of any act or
word that tarnishes his life history with the
blemish of disloyalty to the creation of his genius.
He bore his honors and disappointments in hu
mility and poverty." x

Poverty was, indeed, at his door, and soon in
his house. Haunted by the notion of his wrongs,
some only too real, some more or less imaginary,
he sent to Congress memoir after memoir, recall
ing what he had done, and what was his destitu
tion, the "absolute destruction of his family's
fortune in Europe," owing to the French Revolu
tion, his being reduced "from a state of ease and
content to one the most distressed and helpless,"
living as he did, upon "borrowed bread"; but he
would not doubt of "the magnanimity and justice
of Congress." 2

1 S. C. Busey, Pictures of the Ctiy of Was&mgton in ike Past, 1898,
p. 108.
1 Memoirs of 1801, 1802, 1813, in the Jefferson papers, Library of

188 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY

The family's fortune had been reduced, indeed,
to a low ebb, his own lack of attention to his
financial affairs making matters worse. His in
ability to properly attend to them is only too well
evidenced by some letters from French relatives,
showing that, while he was "himself in absolute
want, he neglected to receive the pension be
stowed on him by the French Government, and
which, in spite of the Revolution, had been main
tained. He had also inherited from the old
painter, his father, a small farm in Normandy,
but had taken no steps about it, so that the
farmer never ceased to pocket the revenues. 1

One of these letters, which tells him of the
death of his mother, who "died with the piety of
an angel," shows what reports reached France as
to the major's standing among his American
friends: "All the persons whom I have seen and
who know you, assured me that you enjoyed
public esteem. This is everything in a country
of which people praise the morals, the virtues, and
the probity as worthy of our first ancestors." 2

On two occasions, after many years, Congress

1 Letter from his cousin, Destouches, Paris, September 15, 1805,
greatly exaggerating, as shown by the letter mentioned below, his
mother's state of poverty. (L'Enfant papers.)

* From his cousin, Mrs. Roland, nee Mallet, whose husband had
a modest position at the Ministry of the Navy; Paris, May 5, 1806.
The mother's furniture and silver plate was valued at 1,500 livres.
Allusion is made to I/Enfant's deceased sister and to hex "manage
projetS avec Mr. Leclerc." (L'Enfant papers.)

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY 189

voted modest sums for L'Enfant, but they were
at once appropriated by his creditors. He was,
moreover, appointed, in 1812, "professor of the
art of military engineering in the Military Academy
of the United States," a nomination which, in
spite of the entreaties of James Monroe, then
secretary of state, he declined. He is found in
September, 1814, working at Fort Washington,
when fifty men with spades and axes are sent
him.

He survived eleven years, haunting the lobbies
of the Capitol, pacing the newly marked avenues
of "his" city, watching its growth, deploring the
slightest deviation from his original design, for,
as Washington had early noticed, he was "so te
nacious of his plans as to conceive that they would
be marred if they underwent any change or altera
tion," 1 visiting the friends he had among the
early settlers. "Mr. W. W. Corcoran, who lately
departed this life in the city of Washington, full
of years and honor . . . had a very distinct recol
lection of the personal appearance of L'Enfant,
the latter having been a frequent visitor at his
father's house. He described him to me as a
tall, erect man, fully six feet in height, finely pro
portioned, nose prominent, of military bearing,
courtly air, and polite manners, his figure usually
enveloped in a long overcoat and surmounted by

1 To David Stnart, November 20, 1791.

190 L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

a bell-crowned hat a man who would attract
attention in any assembly." 1

He ended his days, the permanent guest of the
Digges family, in their house near Washington.
His death occurred there in 1825, and he was
buried in their property at the foot of a tree.
An inventory of his "personal goods and chattels"
showed that they consisted in three watches,
three compasses, some books, maps, and survey
ing instruments, the whole being valued at forty-
six^dollars.

The federal city, Washington had written in
1798 to Mrs. Sarah Fairfax, then in England,
will be a great and beautiful one "a century hence,
if this country keeps united, and it is surely its
policy and interest to do it." It took, indeed, a
great many years, and for a long time doubters
could enjoy their doubts, and jokers their jokes.
The Duke de La Rochef oucauld-Liancourt visited
the incipient town in 1797; he found that it pos
sessed one hundred and fifty houses, scattered
here and there; the house for the President was
ready to be covered the same year, and the only
wing of the Capitol yet begun was to receive its
roof the year following, both being " handsome
buildings, in white stones very well wrought."

1 Hugh T. Taggart, in Records of the Columbia Historical Society >
XI, 216.

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 191

But the unredeemable fault, in his eyes, was the
very magnitude and beauty of the plan. "The
plan," he wrote, "is fine, cleverly and grandly
designed, but it is its very grandeur, its magnifi
cence, which causes it to be nothing but a dream."
The distance, so heartily approved of by Wash
ington, between the President's house and the
Capitol, seemed to the traveller a serious objec
tion; the raising of five hundred houses would be
necessary to connect the two buildings; not one is
in existence. * * If this gap is not filled, communica
tion will be impracticable in winter, for one can
scarcely suppose that the United States would
undergo the expense for pavement, footpaths, and
lamps for such a long stretch of uninhabited
ground." 1 This wonder has, however, been
seen.

For a long time, for more than half the present
duration of the city's life, deriders could deride
to their heart's content. Few cities have ever
been so abundantly nicknamed as Washington,
the "wilderness city," the city "of magnificent
distances," the "village monumental," the city,
as reported by Jean- Jacques Ampere, the son of
the great scientist, who visited it in 1851, of
"streets without houses, and of houses without
streets." He saw in its fate "a striking proof of
truth that one cannot create a great city at

1 Voyage en Amfriquc, VI, 122 flL

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

will/' But this truth, as some others, has proved
an untruth.

The growth was slow, indeed, but constant,
and when the century was over, Washington's
prophecy and L'Enfant's foresight were justi
fied by the event, A city had risen, ample and
beautiful, a proper capital for a wealthy and power
ful nation, one quite apart, copied on no other,
4 'not one of those cities," as was remarked, in
our days, by one of Washington's successors, Mr.
Roosevelt, "of which you can cut out a piece and
transplant it into another, without any one per
ceiving that something has happened."

Then at last came L'Enfant's day. What he
had always expected for "his" city took place;
what he had never expected for himself took place
also. In January, 1902, both the "Park Com
mission," composed of Daniel H. Burnham,
Charles F. McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and
F. L. Olmsted, and the Senate committee pre
sented their reports on the improvement and de
velopment of Washington; the conclusions were:
"The original plan of the city of Washington,
having stood the test of a century, has met uni
versal approval. The departures from that plan
are to be regretted, and wherever possible, reme
died." It was thus resolved to revert, as much as
circumstances allowed, and in spite of a heavy
outlay, to several of L'Enfant's ideas, especially

I/ENFANT AND THE FEDEBAL CITY 193

to one which he considered of greatest importance,
and winch had been kept so long in abeyance, the
giving of its proper character to that "grand
avenue" between the Capitol and the White
House, meant to be "most magnificent and most
convenient.* 1 It is now going to be both.

As for L'Enfant himself, one more appropria
tion, this time not to go to his creditors, was
voted by Congress on account of the major, and
it was resolved that his ashes, the place of which
continued to be marked only by a tree, should be
removed to Arlington National Cemetery, to lie
in that ever-growing army of the dead, former
members of the regiments of that Republic for
which he had fought and bled. His remains were
brought to what had been "Jenkins's Hill," and
placed under the great dome of the Capitol. In
the presence of the chief of the state, President
Taft, of representatives of Congress, the Supreme
Court, the Society of the Cincinnati, and other
patriotic and artistic societies, and of a vast
crowd, on the 2 8th of April, 1909, orations were
delivered by the Vice-President of the United
States, James Sherman, and by the Chief Com
missioner of the District, Henry B. McFarland,
the latter amply making up, by his friendly and
eloquent address, for the long-forgotten troubles
of his predecessors with L'Enfant. The Vice-
President courteously concluded thus: "And turn-

194 I/ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

ing to you, Mr. Ambassador ... I express the
hope that the friendship between our nations,
which has existed for more than a century, will
be but intensified as time passes, and that we will
in the future join hands in advancing every good
cause which an all-wise Providence intrusts to our
care." The hearse, wrapped in the three colors
of France and America, was accompanied to Ar
lington by the French naval and military attaches,
and an escort from one of those regiments of en
gineers to which the major himself had belonged.
A handsome monument was unveiled two years
later by Miss E. C. Morgan, the great-grand
daughter of William Digges, who had befriended
L'Enfant in his last days, the chief speeches being
delivered by President Taft, and by the secretary
of state, Elihu Root. 1 "Few men," Mr. Root said,
"can afford to wait a hundred years to be remem
bered. It is not a change in L'Enfant that brings
us here. It is we who have changed, who have
just become able to appreciate his work. And
our tribute to him should be to continue his work"
The monument, by W. W. Bosworth, who, like
L'Enfant had received in Paris his artistic educa
tion, is in the shape of a table, on which has been
engraved a facsimile of the original plan of the
city by the French soldier-artist. From the slope
where it has been raised can be seen, on the other

1 May 22,

L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 195

side of the river, the ceaselessly growing federal
capital, called Washington, "a revered name,"
another French officer, the Chevalier de Chastel-
Itix, had written, when visiting, in 1782, another
and earlier town of the same name in Connecticut,
"a revered name, whose memory will undoubtedly
last longer than the very city called upon to per
petuate it."

Ill

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

WASHINGTON'S acquaintance with
things French began early and was of
a mixed nature. As a pupil of the
French Huguenot Maryes, who kept a school at
Fredericksburg, and did not teach Trim French, 1
we find him carefully transcribing, in his elegant
youthful hand, those famous "Rules of Civility
and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversa
tion," which have recently been proved to be
French. Whether this French teaching given
foi-m by a Frenchman engraved itself in his tnrnd
or happened to match his natural disposition, or
both, certain it is that he lived up to the best
among those maxims, those, for example, and
they are remarkably numerous, that deprecate

1 He kept all his life a feeling that his early education had been in
complete. Strongly advised by David Humphreys to write an ac
count of the great events in which be had taken part, he answered
that he would not, on account of a lack of leisure, and a "conscious
ness of a defective education/* July 25, 1785. When Lafayette
was beseeching him to visit France some day, he answered: "Re
member, my good friend, that I am unacquainted with your language,
that I am too far advanced in years to acquire a knowledge of it/*
September 30, 1779. Franklin added later his entreaties to those
of Lafayette; see Washington's answer, October n, 1780,

199

00 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

jokes and railing at the expense of others, or
those of a noble import advising the young man
to be "no flatterer/' to "show no -sign of choler
in reproving, but to do it with sweetness and
mildness," those prescribing that his "recreations
be manful, not sinful," and giving him this advice
of supreme importance, which Washington ob
served throughout life: "Labor to keep alive in
your breast that little spark of celestial fire
called conscience."

Another chance that Washington had to be
come acquainted with things French was through
Ms reading, and was less favorable to them. An
early note in his hand informs us that, about the
year 1748, he, being then sixteen, had, "in the
Spectator, read to No. 143." All those numbers
had been written by Steele and Addison at a
period of French wars, at the moment when we
were fighting "Monsieur Malbrouk." Not a
portrait of the French in those numbers that is
not a caricature; they are a "ludicrous nation";
their women are "fantastical," their men "vain
and lively," their fashions ridiculous; not even
their wines find grace in the eyes of Steele, who
could plead, it is true, that he was not without
experience on the subject, and who declares that
this "plaguy French claret" is greatly inferior
to "a bottle or two of good, solid, edifying port."

Washington was soon to learn 'more of French

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH 201

people, and was to find that they were something
else than mere ludicrous and lively puppets.

A soldier born, with all that is necessary to
prove a good one and to become an apt leader,
having, as he himself wrote, "resolution to face
what any man durst." 1 Washington rose rapidly
in the ranks, becoming a colonel in 1754, at the
age of twenty-two. He was three times sent, in
his younger days, to observe, and check if he could,
the progress of his future allies, in the Ohio and
Monongahela Valleys. His journal and letters
show him animated toward them with the spirit
befitting a loyal subject of George II, none of his
judgments on them being spoiled by any undue
leniency.

On the first occasion he was simply ordered to
hand to the commander of a French fort a letter
from the governor of Virginia, and to ask him to
withdraw as having " invaded the King of Great
Britain's territory." To which the Frenchman,
an old officer and Knight of Saint Louis, Mr. de
Saint-Pierre, who shortly before had been leading
an exploration in the extreme West, toward the
Rockies, 2 politely but firmly declined to assent,

1 "For my own part I can answer I have a constitution hardy
enough to encounter and undergo the most severe trials and, I flat
ter myself, resolution to face what any msa*. durst." To Governor
Dinwiddie, May 29, 1754.

1 In continuation of the La Verendrie's (father and sons) bold at
tempt to reach the great Western sea, a token of which, a leadea

202 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

writing back to the governor: "I am here by the
orders of my general, and I entreat you, sir, not
to doubt but that I shall try to conform myself
to them with all the exactness and resolution
which must be expected from a good officer."
He has "much the air of a soldier/' Washington
wrote of him,

Mr. de Saint-Pierre added, on his part, a word
on the bearer of Governor Dinwiddie's message,
who was to be the bearer also of his answer, and
in this we have the first French comment on
Washington's personality: "I made it my par
ticular care to receive Mr. Washington with a
distinction suitable to your dignity as well as to
his own personal merit. From the Fort on the*
Rivire-aux-Bceufs, December 15, 1753." Hav
ing received plentiful supplies as a gift from the
French, but entertaining the worst misgivings as
to their "artifices/* the young officer began his
return journey, during which, in spite of all
trouble, he managed to pay a visit to Queen
Aliquippa: "I made her a present/' he wrote,
" of a match-coat and a bottle of rum, which latter
was thought much the best present of the two/*
On the i6th of January, 1754, he was back at
Williamsburg, handed to the governor Mr. de Saint

tablet with a French and Latin inscription and the arms of France,
was recently discovered near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. See South
Dakota Historical Cottccfams, 1914, pp. 89 if.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 203

Pierre's negative answer, and printed an account
of his journey. 1

The second expedition, a military one, was
marked next year by the sad and f amous Jumon-
ville incident and by the surrendering, to the
brother of dead Jumonville, of Fort Necessity,
where the subjects of King George and their
youthful colonel, after a fight lasting from eleven
in the morning till eight in the evening, had to
capitulate, being permitted, however, by the
French to withdraw with "full military hopors,
drum-beating, and talcing with them one small
piece of ordnance. " Qtily 3, 1754-) The fort and
the rest of the artillery remained in the hands of
the captors, as well as part of that diary which,
although with interruptions, Washington was fond
of keeping, whenever he could, his last entry being
dated Friday, December 13, 1799, the day before
his death. The part found at Fort Necessity
March 31 to June 27, 1754 was sent to Paris,
translated into French, printed in 1756 by the
royal government, 2 and the text given in Wash
ington's writings is only a retranslation from

1 The Journal of Major George Washington^ sent by ike Hon. Robert
Dinwiddie, Esq., kis Majesty's L&eut. -Governor and Commander in
chief of Virginia, to the commandant of the French forces in OHo.
Wflliamsbuig, 1754.

2 Memoir e contenant le precis des fates avec lews pieces justificatives
pour sermr de response a&x observations envoy&s par les imnistres

cours tfl&trope, Paris, 1756.

204 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

the French, the original English not having been
preserved.

The third occasion was the terrible campaign
of 1755* which ended in Braddock's death and the
defeat of the English regulars on the Mononga-
hela, not far from the newly btiilt Fort Duquesne,
later Pittsburgh (July 9). Contrary to expecta
tion 1 (there being ''about three hundred French
and Indians," wrote Washington; "our numbers
consisted of about thirteen hundred well-armed
men, chiefly regulars* 12 ), the French won the
day, nearly doing to death their future com-
mander-in-chief . A rumor was even spread that
he had actually succumbed after composing a
"dying speech/' and Washington had to write
to his brother John to assure him that he had had
as yet no occasion for such a composition, though
very near having had it: "By the all-power
ful dispensation of Providence, I have been pro
tected beyond all human probability and expecta
tion; for I had four bullets through my coat,
and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt,
although death was levelling my companions on
every side of me. We have been most scandal
ously beaten," 3

1 "As to any danger from the enemy, I look upon it as trifling/'
Washington to his brother, John, May 14, 1755.

'Washington to Dinwiddie, July 18, 1755.

'Same date Washington revisited the region in October, 1770,
but tfoft entries in h*s journal contain no allusion to previous events*

WASHINGTON AND THE FBENCH 205

By an irony of fate, in this expedition against
the French, in which George Washington acted
as aide-de-camp to the English general, the means
of transportation had been supplied by Post
master Benjamin Franklin.

The French were indubitably different from
the airy fops of Addison's Spectator, but they
were as far as ever from commanding young
Washington's sympathy. It was part of his
loyalism to hate them and to interpret for the
worst anything they could do or say. The
master of an ampler vocabulary than he is some
times credited with, we find him writing to Rich
ard Washington, in 1757, that the means by
which the French maintain themselves in the
Ohio Valley are "hellish." 1

"We lodged [at Fort Pitt] in what is called the town, about three
hundred yards from the fort. . . . These houses, which are built
of logs, and ranged into streets, are on the Monongahela, and, I sup-
pose, may be twenty in number, and inhabited by Indian traders,
etc. The fort is built on the point between the rivers Allegheny
and Moaongahela, but not so near the pitch of it as Fort Duquesne,"
1 To Richard Washington, merchant, London; from Fort Loudoun,
April 15, 1757. The same letter enlightens us as to Washington's
tastes concerning things material. He orders "sundry things" to
be sent him from London, adding: "Whatever goods you may send
me where the prices are not absolutely limited, you will let them be
fashionable, neat and good in their several kinds." Same tastes
shown in his letter to Robert Cary and Co., ordering a chariot "in
the new taste, handsome, genteel, and light," painted preferably
green, but in that he would be "governed by fashion." (June 6,
1768,) The chariot was sent in September; it was green, "all the
framed work of the body gilt, handsome scrawl, shields, ornamented
with flowers all over the panels,"

206 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

A few years later the tone is greatly altered,
not yet toward the French, but toward the
British Government and King. In sad, solemn
words, full already of the spirit of the Washing-
ton of history, he warns his friend and neighbor
George Mason, the one who was to draw the
first Constitution of Virginia, of the great crisis
now looming: "American freedom" is at stake;
"it seems highly necessary that something should
be done to avert the stroke and maintain the
liberty which we have derived from our ancestors.
But the manner of doing it, to answer the purpose
effectually, is the point in question.

"That no man should scruple or hesitate a mo
ment to use a-ms [sic] in defense of so valuable a
blessing, on which all the good and evil of life
depends, is clearly my opinion. Yet a-ms, I
would beg leave to add, should be the last resource,
the dernier resort." l Absolutely firm, absolutely
moderate, such was Washington to continue to
the end of the impending struggle, and, indeed,
of his days. The life of the great Washington
was now beginning.

1 Mount Vernon, April 5, 1765.

II

Some more years elapse, and when the curtain
rises again on scenes of war, momentous changes
have occurred. To the last hour the former
officer of the colonial wars, now a man of forty-
two, was still expressing the wish "that the dis
pute had been left to posterity to determine: but
the crisis has arrived when we must assert our
rights or submit to every imposition that can be
heaped upon us, till custom and use make us
as tame and abject slaves as the blacks we rule
over with such arbitrary sway/' It was hard for
"him to reconcile himself to the fact that the Eng
lish were really to be the enemy; he long tried to
believe that the quarrel was not with England and
her King, but only with the ministry and their
troops, which he calls the "ministerials." Writ
ing on the 3ist of May, 1775, from Philadelphia,
where he was attending the second Continental
Congress, to G. W, Fairfax in England, he gave
him an account of the dash between the "pro
vincials" of Massachusetts and "the ministerial
troops: for we do not, nor can we yet prevail
upon ourselves to call them the King's troops/' 1

1 Tbis continued until the proclamation of independence. By
letter of March 19, 1776, Washington notified the President of Con-

207

208 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

The war was to be, in his eyes, a fratricidal
one: "Unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a
brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's
breast, and that the once happy and peaceful
plains of America are either to be drenched
with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alter
native! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his
choice ?"

Two weeks later the signer of this letter was
appointed, on the proposition of John Adams, of
Massachusetts, commander-in-chief of a new body
of troops just entering history, and called the
* 'Continental Army." 1 Braddock's former aide
was to become the leader of a yet unborn nation,
in an eight-year conflict with all-powerful Britain,
mistress of the coasts, mistress of the seas.

What that conflict was, and what the results
have been, all the world knows. There were sad
days and bright days; there were Valley Forge
and Saratoga. "No man, I believe," Washington

gress of the taking of Boston, and the retreat of the "ministerial
army." The flag of the "insurgents" was then the British flag with
thirteen white and red stripes, emblematic of the thirteen colonies.
1 An appointment accepted in a characteristically modest spirit,
as shown by his letter to his "dear Patsy," his wife, giving her the
news, and that to Colonel Bassett, where he says: "I can answer but
for three things, a firm belief in the justice of our cause, close atten
tion in the prosecution of it, and the strictest integrity. If these
cannot supply the place of ability and experience, the cause wfll
suffer, and, more than probable, my character along with it, as
reputation derives its principal support from success." June 9*
1775-

WASHINGTON AND THE FBENCH 09

wrote concerning his own fate, "had a greater
choice of difficulties." 1

The French had ceased by then to inspire
Washington with disdain or animosity; he was
beginning to render them better justice, but his
heart was far as yet from being won. French
volunteers had early begun to flock to the Ameri
can army, some of them as much an encumbrance
as a help, "They seem to be genteel, sensible
men," wrote Washington to Congress, in October,
1776, "and I have no doubt of their making good
officers as soon as they can learn so much of our
language as to make themselves well understood."
One of them, the commander-m-chief learned,
was a young enthusiast who had left wife and
child to serve the American cause as a volunteer,
and without pay, like George Washington him
self. He had crossed the ocean, escaping the
British cruisers, on a boat called La Victoire, he
being called Lafayette. One more encumbrance,
audibly muttered the general, who wrote to Ben
jamin Harrison; "What the designs of Congress
respecting this gentleman were, and what line of
conduct I ana to pursue to comply with their
design and his expectation, I know no more tlian
the child unborn, and beg to be instructed." *

"Give me a cEance," pleaded Lafayette, still

1 To Ms brotiter, Jdrn, December iS, 1776.
'August 19,1777-

10 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

in Philadelphia; "I do not want to be an honorary
soldier." He came to camp, and it was a case
of friendship at first, or at least second, sight,
which would need the pen of a Plutarch to be told.
In August, Washington had been wondering what
to do with the newcomer. On the ist of Novem
ber he wrote to Congress: "... Besides, he is
sensible, discreet in his manner, has made great
proficiency in our language, and from the dis
position he discovered in the battle of Brandy-
wine possesses a large share of bravery and
military ardor."

Then it was that Washington had a chance to
learn what those men really were who had lodged
so many bullets in his coat on the occasion of
Braddock's defeat; not at once, but by degrees
he came to consider that one peculiar trait in
those former enemies made them worthy of his
friendship: their aptitude for disinterested en
thusiasm for a cherished idea.

Not at once; early prejudices and associations
had left on him too deep an imprint to be easily
removed. He resisted longer than old Franklin,
and with a stiffer pen than that of the Philadelphia
sage he would note down his persisting suspicions
and his reluctance to admit the possibility of
generous motives inspiring the French nation's
policy. "I have-from the first,'* he wrote, in 1777,
to his brother, John, "been among those few

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 11

who never built much upon a French war, I
never did and still do think they never meant
more than to give us a kind of underhand assis
tance; that is, to supply us with arms, etc., for our
money and trade. This may, indeed, if Great
Britain has spirit and strength to resent it, bring
on a war; but the declaration of it on either
side must, I am convinced, come from the last-
mentioned Power." It was not, however, to be so.

Even after France alone had recognized the
new nation, and she had actually begun war on
England, Washington remained unbending, his
heart would not melt. " Hatred of England,'*
he wrote, "may carry some into an excess of con
fidence in France. ... I am heartily disposed
to entertain the most favorable sentiments of our
new ally, and to cherish them in others to a reason
able degree. But it is a maxim founded on the
universal experience of mankind that no nation
is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its
interest, and no prudent statesman or politician
will venture to depart from it." *

After the Declaration of Independence, envoys
had been sent to Europe intrusted with the mis
sion of securing the alliance, not especially of
France, but of all nations who might be touched
by the fate of the struggling colonists and inclined
to help them in their fight for liberty. Some of the
1 November 14, 1778.

812 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

envoys were not even admitted to the capitals of
the countries assigned to their efforts; others re
ceived only good words.

Sent to Prussia, Arthur Lee, who had been
previously refused admittance to Madrid, could
reach the capital (June 4, 1777), but not the
King. "There is no name," Lee wrote appeal-
ingly to the monarch, "so highly respected among
us as that of your Majesty. Hence there is no
King the declaration of whose friendship would
inspire our own people with so much courage."
But the King would not be persuaded; he re
fused all help in "artillery, arms, and money,"
though, Lee wrote to the committee of foreign
affairs, "I was well informed he had a consider
able sum in his treasury." Frederick would not
relent, giving as a reason that, if he agreed, the
result would be much "inconvenience" for him
self. He even refused to receive Lee, whom he,
however, allowed to see his army: a mechanism
without peer, the American envoy wrote to Wash
ington, but only a mechanism:

"The Prussian army, which amounts to 220,000
horse and foot, are disciplined by force of hourly
exercise and caning to move with a rapidity and
order so as to certainly exceed any troops in
Europe." They practise each day: "Every man
is filed off singly, and passes in review before
different officers, who beat his limbs into the posi-

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 21S

tion they think proper, so that the man appears
to be purely a machine in the hand of a work
man." *

The furthest Frederick consented to go was to
cause Lee to be assured, when he left Prussia the
following month (July, 1777), that he would al
ways receive with pleasure the news of any Eng
lish reverse.

To the American appeal France alone answered,
Adsum: for what motives, has been shown above, 2
love of liberty rather than hatred of England
being the chief reason, and the rebellious colonies
being popular in France not so much because they
wanted to throw off an English yoke as because
they wanted to throw off a yoke.

Up to the time when Rochambeau arrived
Washington had seen during the war more or less
numerous specimens of the French race, but only
isolated specimens. He had heard of what they
were doing as soldiers and sailors, without him
self seeing them in action. As gentlemen and

*To Washington, June 15, 1777. Same impression later (1785)
oa Lafayette, who saw the Prussian grand manoeuvres, and seat
an acco*mt of them to Washington: "The Prussian army a per
fectly regular piece of machinery. . . . Afl the situations wiach
may be imagined in war, all the movements which they may causey
have been by constant habit so well inculcated in, their beads that
all those operations are performed almost mechanically.^* February
8, 1786. M&noires, correspondence ct manuscrits du GMrd !&-
faydte, Bnixe&es, 1838, 1, 204,

Pp. 10 E.

14 WASHINGTON AND THE PEENCH

soldiers lie held them, at that date, to be fit rep
resentatives of a nation "old in war, very strict
in military etiquette, and apt to take fire where
others scarcely seem wanned." 1 He noticed,
however, after Savannah, that with all that
warmth they could, when put to the test, prove
steady, level-headed, and careful of their words:
" While," he said to General Lincoln, "I regret
the misfortune, I feel a very sensible pleasure in
contemplating the gallant behavior of the offi
cers and men of the French and American army;
and it adds not a little to my consolation to
learn that, instead of the mutual reproaches which
often follow the failure of enterprises depending
upon the co-operation of troops of different na
tions, their confidence in and esteem of each
other is increased." 2

Concerning the French as sailors Washington
did not conceal, however, to his intimate friends
his misgivings. He early felt that the issue of
the whole war and the independence of his coun
try might depend on an at least momentary
domination of the sea, but felt great doubt as to
the possibility of this goal being reached. "In
all probability," he thought, "the advantage
will be on the side of the English. And then
what .would become of America ? We ought not

1 To General Sullivan, September, 1778.
* December 12, 1779.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 15

to deceive ourselves. , . . It is an axiom that
the nation which has the most extensive com
merce will always have the most powerful marine.
... It is true, France in a manner created a
fleet in a very short space, and this may mislead
us in the judgment we form of her naval abilities.
. . . We should consider what was done by
France as a violent and unnatural effort of the
government, which for want of sufficient founda
tion cannot continue to operate proportionable
effects." Moreover, though "the ability of her
present financier (Necker) has done wonders,"
France is not a rich country. 1

When Rochambeau came with his 5,000 troops,
on Ternay's fleet, which carried numerous naval
officers and sailors besides, Washington took, so
to say, personal contact with France herself, and
was no longer dependent upon his reading of
hostile books, his souvenirs of the colonial wars,
or his impression from acquaintanceship with sepa
rate individuals. The portraits in the Spectator
could less and less be considered as portraits.
Washington found himself among men of steady
mind and courteous manners, noteworthy not
only for their fighting qualities, but their sense of
duty, their patience and endurance, their desire
to do well. As for the troops, they observed, as
is well known, so strict a discipline that the in-

1 To President Reed, May 28, 1780.

216 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

habitants, who expected nothing of the sort,
rather the reverse, were astonished and delighted.

Little by little Washington's heart was won.
We did not, in that war, conquer any land for
ourselves, but we conquered Washington. For
some time more he remained only officially ours;
the praise bestowed by him on his allies and
their country found place in his letters to them
selves, or in his reports to Congress, which were,
in fact, public documents. At last the day came
when, writing only for himself, in a journal
not meant to be seen by anybody, he inscribed
those three words: "our generous allies.*' That
day, May i, 1781, Washington's heart was really
won.

From that moment what Washington wrote
concerning the French, were it addressed to them
selves or to Congress, can be taken at its face
value, and very pleasant reading it is to this
day for the compatriots of those officers and
soldiers who had the great man for their com-
mander-in-chief such statements as this one,
for example, sent to Congress seven days before
the Yorktown capitulation: "I cannot but ac
knowledge the infinite obligations I am under to
his Excellency, the Count de Rochambeau* the
Marquis de Saint-Simon, commanding the troops
from the West Indies, the other general officers,
and indeed the officers of every denomination in

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 217

the French army, for the assistance which they
afford me. The experience of many of those
gentlemen in the business before us is of the ut
most advantage in the present operation. . . .
The greatest harmony prevails between the two
armies. They seem actuated by one spirit, that
of supporting the honor of the allied armies." 1
When, in the course of the following year, the two
armies which have never met since, were about
to part, their leader thus summed up his impres
sions: "It may, I believe, with much truth be
said that a greater harmony between two armies
never subsisted than that which has prevailed
between the French and Americans since the first
junction of them last year/' 2

By the beginning of 1783 peace and American
independence had been practically secured. Wash
ington is found duly solemnizing the anniversary
of the French alliance which had rendered those
events possible. "I intended," he says to Gen
eral Greene, "to have wrote you a long letter on
sundry matters, but Major Burnet popped in
unexpectedly at a time when I was preparing for
the celebration of the day, and was just going to
a review of the troops, previous to the feu de joie"
The orders issued by Mm on the occasion read
thus: "The commander-in-chief, who wishes on

* "Before York," October 12, 1781.

* To Lafayette, October 20, 1782*

18 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

the return of this auspicious day to diffuse the
feelings of gratitude and pleasure as extensively
as possible, is pleased to grant a full and free
pardon to all military prisoners now in confine
ment." x

The orderly book used by Washington is still
in existence, and from it we learn that the parole
given for the day was "America and France/*
and the countersigns, "United," "Forever."
1 February 6, 1783.

ni

No less characteristic of Washington's senti
ments thereafter is the correspondence continued
by him with a number of French people when the
war was a thing of the past and no further help
could be needed. With Rochambeau, with d'Es-
taing, Chastellux, La Luzerne, then ambassador
in London, whom he had seen with keen regret
leave the United States, 1 and, of course, with
Lafayette, he kept up a correspondence which
affords most pleasant reading: a friend writes to
his friends and tells them of his feelings and ex
pectations. The attitude of France at the peace
is the subject of a noble letter to La Luzerne:
"The part your Excellency has acted in the cause
of America and the great and benevolent share
you have taken in the establishment of her inde
pendence are deeply impressed on my mind, and
will not be effaced from my remembrance, or that

1 Sending "Mm a farewell letter in which lie said: "You may zest
assured that your abilities and dispositions to serve ibis country
were so well understood, and your servke so properly appreciated
that the residence of no public minister will ever be longer remembered
or his absence more sincerely regretted* It will not be forgotten
that you were a witness to the dangers, the sufferings, the exertions
and the successes of the United States from the most perilous crises
to the hour of triumph.** February 7, 1788.

219

2Q WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

of the citizens of America. . . . The articles of
the general treaty do not appear so favorable to
France, in point of territorial acquisitions, as
they do to the other Powers. 1 But the magnani
mous and disinterested scale of action which that
great nation has exhibited to the world during
this war, and at the conclusion of peace, will
insure to the King and nation that reputation
which will be of more consequence to them than
every other consideration/' 2

Washington keeps his French friends aware of
the progress of the country and of his hopes for
its greatness; he wants to visit the United States
to the limit of what was then the extreme West.
" Prompted by these actual observations," he
writes to Chastellux, "I could not help taking a
more contemplative and extensive view of the
vast inland navigation of these United States
from maps and the information of others, and
could not but be struck with the immense diffusion
and importance of it, and with the goodness of
that Providence which has dealt her favors to us
with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may
have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall
not rest contented till I have explored the Western

1 They merely sanctioned some territorial exchanges and restitu
tions on both sides in the colonies, and stipulated that the British
agent in Dunkirk, who had been expelled at the beginning of the war,
would not return.

* March 29, 1783.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

country and traversed those lines, or great part
of them, which have given new bounds to a new
empire." l To La Luzerne he wrote some years
later: "The United States are making great prog
ress toward national happiness, and if it is not
attained here in as high a degree as human nature
will admit of, I think we may then conclude that
political happiness is unattainable." 2

That rest for which Washington had been long
ing ("I pant for retirement, 5 ' he had written to
Gary in June, 1782) had been granted him by
the end of 1783, when, the definitive treaty having
been concluded, he had resigned his commission
in the hands of Congress, at Annapolis on the
23d of December, "bidding an affectionate fare
well," he said, "to this august body under whose
orders I have so long acted." It was at first
difficult for "him to enjoy, in his dear Mount Ver-
non, that so-much-desired quiet life, and "to get
the better," he wrote to General Knox, "of my
custom of ruminating as soon as I waked in the
morning on the business of the ensuing day, and
of my surprise at finding, after revolving many
things in my mind, that I was no longer a public
man, nor had anything to do with public transac
tions." But he soon came to the thorough en-

1 Princeton, October 12, 1785. He started for tkat journey the
following autumn.
1 September io> 1791.

222 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

joyment of Ms peaceful surroundings and happy
family life, writing about his new existence to
Rochambeau and Lafayette, not without a tinge
of melancholy, as from one whose life's work is
a thing of the past. To the man of all men for
whom his manly heart felt most tenderness, to
Lafayette, it is that he wrote the beautiful
letter of February i, 1784, unaware that his rest
was only temporary, and that he was to become
the first President of the country he had given
life to:

"At length, my dear marquis, I am become a
private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and
under the shadow of my own vine and my own
fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the
busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself
with those tranquil enjoyments of which the sol
dier who is ever in pursuit of fame, the statesman
whose watchful days and sleepless nights are
spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare
of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries,
as if the globe was insufficient for us all ... can
have very little conception. I have not only re
tired from all public employments, but I am re
tiring within myself, and shall be able to view
the solitary walk of private life with heartfelt
satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined
^to be pleased with all; and this, my dear friend,
being the order for my march, I will move gently

WASHINGTON AND THE FKENCE 23

down the stream of life until I sleep with my
fathers."

With Lafayette the great man unbends, he
becomes affectionate, poetical as in the passage
just quoted, sometimes even jocose, which was
so rare with him. He wants Madame de La
fayette to come to America and visit Mount
Vernon, saying to her: "Your own doors do not
open to you with more readiness than mine
would/' * She never came, but her husband re
turned for a few months, the same year, and this
was the first of his two triumphant journeys to
the freed United States; it was then that he
parted at Annapolis from his chief, never to see
him again; a very sad parting for both, Washing
ton sending him from Mount Vernon, in time for
it to reach him before he sailed, the most touching,
perhaps, of all his letters:

"In the moment of our separation, upon the
road as I travelled, and every hour since, I have
felt all that love, respect, and attachment for you
which length of years, close connection, and your
merits have inspired me. I often asked myself,
when our carriages separated, whether that was
the last sight I should ever have of you. And
though I wished to say, no, my fears answered,
yes. I called to mind the days of my youth and
found they had long since fled, to return no more;

1 Mount Vemoa, April 4, 1784.

224 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

that I was now descending the hill I had been
fifty-two years climbing, and that, though I was
blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short
lived family and might soon expect to be entombed
in the mansion of my fathers. These thoughts
darkened the shades and gave a gloom to the pic
ture, and consequently to my prospect of seeing
you again. But I will not repine; I have had
my day." 1

A portrait of Lafayette, his wife, and children
was received the following year by Washington,
and caused him great pleasure; this, he said to
the sender, "I consider as an invaluable present
and shall give it the best place in my house." 2

He continued to the end to be Lafayette's con
fidant and adviser. In one of his most notable
letters, passing judgment on the great warrior
Frederick II and on his brother, Prince Henry,
whom Lafayette had recently visited, he clearly
outlined what should be his correspondent's ideal
as to the government of men. "To be received/*
he says, "by the King of Prussia and Prince
Henry, his brother (who as soldiers and politicians
yield the palm to none), with such marks of
attention and distinction, was as indicative of
their discernment as it is of your merit. ... It
is to be lamented, however, that great characters

1 December 8, 1784. Bayard Tuckennan, Lafayette, 1889, 1, 165.
f July 25, 1785.

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH 225

are seldom without a blot. That one man should
tyrannize over millions will always be a shade in
that of the former, while it is pleasing to hear
that due regards to the rights of mankind is char
acteristic of the latter."

During those years of comparative rest only
comparative, for he had to receive innumerable
visitors, to answer an unbelievable quantity of
letters, because everybody wanted his counsels,
to take part in the framing of the Constitution
as a delegate of Virginia in 1787 his fame went
on increasing in France from whence tokens of
admiration came for him of every kind, some noble,
some simple, some high-flown, like that letter
from the Chevalier de Lormerie, who made bold
to "present a Plan of Perfetual Peace to a general
who is even more of a philosopher than a warrior/' 1

Besides letters, French visitors would now and
then appear at the door of Mount Vernon. One
did so by appointment, and even in virtue of a
law, namely Jean Antoine Houdon, the famous
sculptor, whose coming was the result of an act
passed by the Assembly of Virginia, prescribing
"that the executive be requested to take measures
for procuring a statue at General Washington, to

1 "Excellence, Vos vertus dvGes et vos talents mIKtaires out
& votre patrie la liberte" et le bonneur; mais leur influence sar cehri
du globe entier est encore preferable a mes yeux. C'est a ce grand
but que tend tout homme qui se sent digne d'arriver a I'lmmortalite,"
etc. May 2 8, 1 789. Papers of the Continental Congress, LXXVTEI,
759, Library of Congress.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

be of the finest marble and the best workman
ship."

The sculptor might be of any nationality, pro
vided he were the best alive. "The intention of
the Assembly," the Governor informed Jefferson,
then in Paris, "is that the statue should be the
work of the most masterly hand. I shall therefore
leave it to you to find out the best in any of the
European states." 1 Once more it was France's
good fortune to be able to answer, Adsum.

The "executive," Governor Harrison, not over-
well versed in matters artistic, had thought that
all a sculptor could need to perform his task was
a painted portrait of the model, so he ordered one
from Peale, which would, he thought, enable the
artist "to finish his work in the most perfect
manner/* 2 Houdon decided that he would rather
undertake the journey, insisting only that, as he
was the support of his father, mother, and sisters,
his life be insured, a condition which, owing to
the risks, was not fulfilled without difficulty. It
finally was, however, so that we know, to a cent,
what the life of the great sculptor was worth: it
was worth two thousand dollars.

Houdon came on the same ship which brought

1 June 22, 1784. Jean Antoine Houdon, by C. H. Hart and Ed.
Biddle, Philadelphia, 191 1, p. 182.

2 Ibid., p. 189. Peale's full-length portrait, with "a perspective
view of York and Gloucester, and the surrender of the British army,"
price thirty guineas, reached Paris in April, 1785, and has since
disappeared.

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

back Franklin after Ms long mission to France,
and lie reached Motint Vernon on October 2,
1785, having been preceded by a letter, in which
Jefferson had thus described him to Washington:
"I have spoken of him as an artist only, but I
can assure you also that, as a man, he is disin
terested, generous, candid, and panting for glory;
in every circumstance meriting your good opin
ion. * ' l He remained at Mount Vernon a fortnight,
an interpreter having been provided from Alex
andria for the occasion. The antique costume
with which the artist and the model had been
threatened at one time was discarded; Wash
ington was represented, not as a Greek, which he
was not, but as an American general, which he
was, the size being "precisely that of life." Any
one who wants to see with his eyes George Wash
ington, to live in his atmosphere, to receive the
moral benefit of a great man's presence, has only
to go to Richmond. To those who know how to
listen the statue will know how to speak. No
work of art in the whole United States is of
greater worth and interest than this one, and no
copy gives an adequate idea of the original, copies
being further from the statue than the statue was
from the model. One must go to Richmond.

Unfortunately, no notes on his journey, and on
his stay at Mount Vernon, were left by Houdon.

1 July 10, 1785. Ibid., p. 191.

228 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

As was usual with him, what he had to say he
said in marble.

Other French visitors of more or less note called
at Mount Vernon. Popular in France, even at
the time of their worst troubles, when failure
seemed threatening, the United States were much
more so now, and men wanted to go and see with
their own eyes what was the power of liberty, and
whether it could, as reported, transform a coun
try into an Eden, and cities into modern "Sa-
lentes." The year of the alliance, 1778, Sebas-
tien Mercier, in his De la Litterature, had drawn
up a picture of the French people's expectation:
" Perhaps it is in America that the human race
will transform itself, adopt a new and sublime
religion, improve sciences and arts, and become
the representative of the nations of antiquity.
A haven of liberty, Grecian souls, all strong and
generous souls will develop or meet there, and this
great example given to the universe will show
what men can do when they are of one mind and
combine their lights and their courage/* Tur-
got, as mentioned before, had written in the same
strain, the same year. 1

The results of the war had increased those

hopes; the success of the unprecedented crusade

for liberty caused an enthusiasm which found its

expression in verse and prose. The very year of

1 Above, p. 12.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 229

the treaty securing independence an epic poem
was published, written in French Alexandrine
verse, divided into cantos, adorned "with all the
machinery of the Greek models, Jupiter and the
gods playing their part:

Ainsi parla des Dieux le monarque suprSme
with invocations to abstract virtues:

Fille aimable des Dieux, divine Tolerance.

Preceding by several years Joel Barlow's own,
this epic, due to the pen of L. de Chavannes de
La Grandiere, appeared with ample annotations
by the author himself, and dedicated to John
Adams, under the title of L'Amerique Delivree. 1

The new Tasso, who justly foresaw the immense
influence that the change in America would have
on Europe, addressed, in tones of the most ardent
admiration, Washington and Congress:

Ulustre Washington, heros dont la m&noire
Des deux mondes venges embeUira ITiistdre;
Toi que la main des Dieux, en nos siedes pervers,
Envoya consoler, etonner Fnnivers
Par le rare assemblage et Funlon constaate
D'un cce"ur pur et sans fard, d'une ame bienfaisante,
Aux talents de Turenne, aux vertus des Catons,
Et qui te vois plus grand que les deux Sciplons,
Jouis de tcm triomphe, adrnire ton ouvrage,

1 Amsterdam, 1783. T!ie antlror e stnm^y anti-English and is
indignant at the "guflty Anglomania" stffl dist.mg in France.

230 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

Congress is a Greek Areopagus, whose members
have Themis and Minerva for their advisers:

Auguste Areopage, ou Minerve elle-meme

Prononce avec Themis par Forgane supreme

De tant de Senateurs, ornements des Etats,

Une foule d'arrets ou tous les potentats

Du droit des nations devraient venir apprendre

Les princlpes sacres, et jusqu'ou peut s'etendre

Le sceptre qu'en leurs mains les peuples ont commis,

you have cast on us "a torrent of light and
shown us how to break the detestable bonds of
tyrants." A prophetical foot-note, commenting
on this passage, announces that "this will per
haps, be seen sooner than one thinks. Happy
the sovereigns who will know how to be nothing
but just, pacific, and benevolent." Six years
later the French Revolution began.

Using humble prose, but reaching a much wider
public, Lacretelle, of the same group of thinkers
as d'Alembert, Condorcet, and Turgot, himself
later a member of the French Academy, was also
writing in a strain of exultant admiration: " Since
Columbus's discovery, nothing more important
has happened among mankind than American in
dependence"; and addressing the new-born United
States, he told them of the world's expectation
and of their own responsibilities, so much depend
ing on their success or failure: "New-born Re-

WASHINGTON AND THE FBENCH 231

publics of America, I salute you as the hope of
mankind, to which you open a refuge, and promise
great and happy examples. Grow in force and
numbers, amid our benedictions. . . .

"In adopting a democratic regime, you pledge
yourself to steadfast and pure morality. . . .
But you do not give up those comforts in life,
that splendor of society brought with them by
riches, sciences, and arts. . . . The vicinity of
corruption will not alter your morals; you will
allow the vicinity, not the invasion. While per
mitting wealth to have its free play, you will see
that exorbitant fortunes be dispersed, and you
will correct the great inequality in enjoyments
by the strictest equality in rights. . . .

"Lawm airing peoples, never lose sight of the
majesty of your function and of the importance
of your task. Be nobly proud and holily enthusi
astic at the prospect of your destinies' vast influ
ence. By you the universe is held in expectation ;
fif ty years from now it will have learned from you
whether modern peoples can preserve republican
constitutions, whether morals are compatible with
the great progress of civilization, and whether
America is meant to improve or to aggravate the
fate of humanity." *

1 In the Mercure de Fr<mcc, 1785, prefacing a review of CrSyecoeur's
Letters from an American Farmer, and reprodiiced at the beginning of
the French edition of the Letters, 1787-

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

This sense of the responsibility of the new re-
pubEc toward mankind of the future, and of the
importance for all nations of its success or failure
caused French thinkers to concern themselves
with the problem, to express faith and admira
tion, but to submit also such recommendations
as their studies of humanity's past made them
consider of use. The Observations on the Govern
ment and the Laws of the United States, of modest,
liberal, and noble-minded Abbe de Mably, are,
for example, the outcome of such reflections. 1

The visitor most representative of the views
thus prevalent in the French nation, knocked at
the gate of Mount Vernon, provided with that
infallible open sesame? a letter of introduction
from Lafayette. "This gentleman," the letter
read, "intends to write a history of America, and
you would, therefore, make him very happy if

1 Observations sur le gouvernement et les loix des Elais Unis d?Am&i-
qicej Amsterdam, 1784, i2mo; in the form of letters to John Adams.
The Constitutions under discussion are those of the original States.
"Tandis," says Mably, "que presque toutes les nations de FEurope
ignorent les principes constitutifs de la societe et ne regardent les
citoyens que comme les bestiaux d'une ferme qu'on gouverne pour
Favantage partlculier du proprie"taire, on est 6tonne", on est 6difi6
que vos treize Republiques ayent connu & la fois la dignite de Fhomme
et soient alle puiser dans les sources de la plus sage philosophic les
principes humains par lesquels dies veulent se gouverner." (P. 2.)

2 Wanting, on his return to America, to make Washington's ac
quaintance, Franklin's own grandson called similarly provided.
Lafayette to Washington, warmly praising the young man, July 14,
1785. M&moires, correspondance et manuscr-its du General Lafayette,
publics par so, Famttle, Brussels, 1837, 1, 201.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 33

you allowed him to glance at your papers. He
seems to deserve this favor, since he loves America
very much, writes well, and will represent things
tinder their true light." l

The bearer, a sincere admirer and friend of
the new republic, and who had the advantage of
speaking English fluently, was Brissot, so famous
shortly after for the part he played in the French
Revolution, then already penetrated with its prin
ciples, and having written, young as he was, on
the reform of criminal laws, declared in favor
of the emancipation of the Jews, founded a
"Society of the Friends of the Blacks " and, what
is more to the point, a Soci&e Gallo-Americaine^
first of its kind, for the members thereof to " ex
change views on the common interests of France
and the United States.'' To become a member
one had to prove "able and willing to bring to the
notice of the others universal ideas on the happi
ness of man and societies, because, though its
special and titular object be the interest of France
and the United States, nevertheless, it fully em
braces in its considerations the happiness of man
kind." 2 In which appears the vastness of hu
manitarian plans so fondly cherished among us
six years before the Reign of Terror.

l May 25, 1788. J, P. Brissot, Correspondance d Papers, ed.
Perroud, Paris, 1912, p. 192.
1 1787. Text of the reports of the sittings. Ibid., pp. 105 S.

34 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

The "particular object" of the association was,
however, to "help the two countries to better
know each other, which can only be realized by
bringing nearer together the French individual
and the American individual." Books were to
be published by the society, the first one to be
dedicated "to the Congress of the United States
and the friends of America in the two worlds."
Newspapers, books, the texts of laws, the journals
of Congress were to be imported from "free
America." The society would "welcome Amer
icans whom their business should call to France,
and whose knowledge would enable them to im
part useful information there"; nothing more
natural, since the aim of the society was "the
welfare of the two nations." Lafayette and Jef
ferson had been asked to join. One of the found
ers was Saint- Jean de Crevecoeur, already known
by his Letters from an American Farmer, who
when he left France to return to the United
States was intrusted with the care of "making
the society known to the Americans, availing
himself of newspapers, or of other means; his
expenses, if any, to be repaid." 1 But the farmer-
consul, very active in other matters, proved in
this one very remiss.

Brissot reached Boston in July, 1788, and
found that America was exactly what he had ex-

l lbid. y pp. 114, 116, 126, 127, 136.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 235

pected It to be: "Sanctuary of liberty/' he wrote
on landing, "I salute thee! . . . Would to heaven
thou wert nearer Europe; fewer friends of liberty
would vainly bewail its absence there." The in
habitants, he wrote, "have an air of simplicity
and kindness, but they are full of human dignity,
conscious of their liberty, and seeing in all men
their brothers and equals. ..." I thought I was
in that Salente, so attractively depicted by
Fenelon."

Equality is what strikes htm most, as it does the
mass of his compatriots; this was the particularly
American trait which, as mentioned before, was
imported from the United States into France on
the eve of our Revolution.

Luxury, the visitor admits, is, of course, a
danger; but they know it and arm against it:
"The most respectable inhabitants of the State
of Massachusetts have formed a society to pre
vent the increase of luxury" an attempt which,
however, never succeeded, but at Salente.

After having seen the chief cities and paid a
visit to Franklin, found very ill but with his
great mind unimpaired, Brissot reached Mount
Vernon in November, and remained there three
days. Different from Houdon, he luckily took
notes on the place and on the inhabitants thereof:
"The general arrived only in the evening; he re
turned very tired from a tour over part of his

236 WASHINGTON AND TEE FRENCH

domains where lie was having a road traced.
You have often heard him compared to Cin-
cinnatus; the comparison is a just one. This
celebrated general is now but a good farmer, ever
busy with his farm, as he calls it, improving cul
tivation and building barns. He showed me one
of enormous dimensions, just being erected from
a plan sent him by the famous English agricul
turist Arthur Young, but greatly improved by
him. . , .

"All is simple in the house of the general. His
table is good, without luxury; regularity is every
where apparent in his domestic economy. Mrs.
Washington has her eye on everything, and joins
to the qualities of an excellent housekeeper the
simple dignity which befits a woman whose hus
band has played a great r61e. She adds to it
that amenity, those attentions toward strangers
which lend so much sweetness to hospitality.
The same virtues shine in her niece, so interest
ing, but who, unluckily, seems to be in a very
delicate state of health.'*

As for the general himself, "kindness appears
in his looks. His eyes have no longer that lustre
which his officers noticed when he was at the head
of his army, but they get enlivened in conversa
tion. . . . Good sense is the dominant trait in
in all his answers, great discretion and diffidence
of himself goes with it, and at the same time a

WASHINGTON AND THE FBENCH 237

firm and unshakable disposition when he has once
made up his mind."

His modesty is great : * ' He talks of the American
war as if he had not been the leader thereof, and
of his victories with an indifference which strangeis
could not equal. . . . The divisions in his coun
try break his heart; he feels the necessity of call
ing together all the friends of liberty around one
central point, the need of imparting energy to
the government. He is still ready to give up
that quiet which causes his happiness. . . . He
spoke to me of Mr. de Lafayette with emotion;
he considers him as his child."

Not only on agriculture and government, but
also on manners the future President gave his
visitor much information: "The general told me
that a great reform was going on among his com
patriots; people drank much less; they no longer
forced their guests to drink; it had ceased to be
good form to send them home inebriated; those
noisy parties at taverns so frequent in former
times were not to be the fashion any more; dress
was becoming simpler."

On receiving news of the convocation of the
French States General, Brissot, who felt that this
was the beginning of immense changes, hastened
back to France and published an account of his
journey. He stated in his preface, written in
1790, why he had undertaken it, and what lessons

38 WASHINGTON AND THE FBENCH

we might learn from our neighbors of over the
sea:

"The object of this journey has not been to
study antique statues, or to find unknown plants,
but to observe men who had just conquered their
liberty: to Frenchmen free men can no longer be
strangers.

* * We, too, have conquered our liberty. We have
not to learn from Americans how to conquer it,
but how to preserve it. This secret consists
especially in morality. . . . What is liberty ? It
is the most perfect state of society, a state in
which .man depends only upon the laws made by
himself; 1 and to make good ones, he must improve
his reason; and to apply them he must again
have recourse to his reason. , . * Morals are but
reason applied to all the acts of life. . . . They
are among free men what irons, whipping-posts,
and gibbets are among peoples in slavery. . . .
This journey will show you the wondrous effects
of liberty on morals, on industry, and on the ameli
oration of men. . . . My desire has been to de
pict to my compatriots a people with whom it
behooves, from every point of view, that they be
come intimately united." 2

1 "Under tliat name of liberty the Romans, as well as the Greeks,
pictured to themselves a state where no one was subject save to the
law, and where law was more powerful than men." (Bossuet.)

*Now>eau Voyage dans les Etats Unis de VAm&rique Septentri-
Paris, 3 vols., April, 1791, but begun to be printed, as shown

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 239

by a note to the preface, in the spring of 1790. The work greatly
helped to make America better and very favorably known in Europe,
for it was translated into English, German, and Dutch. While
Brissot was returning to France (January, 1789), his brother-in-law,
Francois Dupont, was sailing for the United States, to settle there
among free men and, scarcely landed, was writing to a Swiss friend
of his, Jeanneret, who lived in Berlin, of his delight at having left
"a small continent like that of Europe, partitioned among a quan
tity of petty sovereigns bent upon capturing each other's posses
sions, causing their subjects to slaughter one another, hi ceaseless
mutual fear, busy tightening their peoples' chains and impoverishing
them and I am now on a continent which reaches from pole to
pole, with every kind of climate and of productions, among an in
dependent nation which is now devising for itself, hi the midst of
peace, the wisest of governments. We are not governed here by
a foolish or despotic soverea^i. , . . Fanners, craftsmen, merchants,
and manufacturers are encouraged and hcmx^ed; they are the true
nobles. . . . Between the man who sells his labor and the one
who buys it the agreement is between equals. The French are,
however, very popular in this country." Brissot, Correspondence,
ed. Perroud, pp. 218, 219.

IV

During tlie early stages of the French Revolu
tion, Washington had followed with the keenest
sympathy and anxiety the efforts of our ances
tors, taking pride in the thought that the Ameri
can example had something to do, as it un
doubtedly had, with what was happening. "The
young French nobility enrolled for the cause of
[American] independence," wrote Talleyrand in his
memoirs, "attached itself afterward to the prin
ciples it had gone to fight for." Pontgibaud, who
remained a royalist, who hated the Revolution and
became an emigre, observes the same fact, although
deploring what occurred: "The officers of Count
de Rochambeau had nothing better to do [after
Yorktown], I believe, than to visit the country.
When one thinks of the false ideas of government
and philanthrophy with the virus of which these
youths were infected in America, and which they
were to enthusiastically propagate in France, with
such lamentable success since that mania for
imitation has powerfully helped toward the Revo
lution, without being its unique cause people
will agree that all those red-heeled young philos
ophers had much better, for their sake and ours,
have stayed at court. . . . Each of them fan-
. 240

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH 241

cied he would be called upon to play the part of
Washington." Asked to join Lafayette and
"his former brothers-in-arms of beyond the sea/'
he refused: "It has been justly said that in a
revolution the difficulty lies not in doing one's
duty, but in knowing where it is. I did mine
because I knew where it was," and he joined the
princes and emigrated. 1

Of this American influence Washington was
aware, and spoke, as may be surmised, in terms
nearer those of Talleyrand than those of Pont-
gibaud. "I am glad to hear," he wrote to Jeffer-
son, "that the Assemblee des Notables has been
productive of good in France. . . . Indeed the
rights of mankind, the privileges of the people,
and the true principles of liberty seem to have been
more generally discussed and better understood
throughout Europe since the American Revolution
than they were at any former period." 2

Few of Washington's observations are a greater
credit to him, as a statesman, than those con
cerning this extraordinary upheaval. From the
first he felt that the change would not prove a
merely local one, but would have world- wide con
sequences; that, in fact, a new era was beginning
for mankind. "A spirit for political improve-

l Mmoires du [Chevalier de PontgibauQ Comte de Mori, 1827,
pp. 105, 132. Writing at that date, Lafayette's former companion
thought that monarchy had been re-established in France forever.

a January i, 1788.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

ments seems to be rapidly and extensively spread
ing through the European countries," he wrote
to La Luzerne. "I shall rejoice in seeing the
condition of the human race happier than ever
it has been." But let the people at the helm be
careful not to make "more haste than good speed
in their innovations." l

No less clearly did he foresee, long before the
event, and when all was hope and rejoicing, that
it was almost impossible to count upon a peace
ful, gradual, and bloodless development where so
many long-established, hatred-sowing abuses had
to be corrected. This, however, was what, as a
friend of France, he would have liked to see, and
even before the Revolution had really started he
had expressed to Lafayette, in striking words, his
wish that it might prove a "tacit" one: "If I
were to advise, I should say that great modera
tion should be used on both sides. . . . Such a
spirit seems to be awakened in the kingdom as, if
managed with extreme prudence, may produce a
gradual and tacit revolution, much in favor of the
subjects." 2

The movement is started, the Bastile falls, and
Lafayette sends the key thereof to his former
chief. "It is a tribute," he wrote, "which I owe
as a son to my adopted father, as an aide-de
camp to my general, as a missionary of liberty to

1 New York, April 29, 1790. * June 18, 1788.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 243

its patriarch." Washington placed the key at
Mount Vernon, where it is still, and returned
thanks for this " token of victory gained by liberty
over despotism. " l

The beginnings were promising. The great
leader was full of admiration, of awe, of appre
hension. To Gouverneur Morris, then American
minister to France, President Washington, as he
now was, wrote on the i3th of October, 1789, in
these prophetic terms: "The Revolution which
has been effected in Prance is of so wonderful a
nature that the mind can hardly realize the fact,
If it ends as our last accounts to the ist of
August predict, that nation will be the most
powerful and happy in Europe; but I fear, though
it has gone triumphantly through the first par
oxysm, it is not the last it has to encounter be
fore matters are finally settled. In a word, the
Revolution is of too great a magnitude to be
effected in so short a space, and with the loss of
so little blood. The mortification of the Kong,
the intrigues of the Queen, and the discontent of
the princes and the noblesse will foment divi
sions, if possible, in 'the National Assembly/*
The "licentiousness of the people" is not less to
be feared. "To forbear running from one ex-

1 March 17, 1790; August u, 1790. The key is the one which gave
access to the main entrance; those at the Carnavalet Museum in
Paris opened the several towers.

244 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

treme to the other is no easy matter; and should
this be the case, rocks and shoals, not visible at
present, may wreck the vessel." 1

The grandeur and importance of the change
fills him, in the meanwhile, with wonder. In his
before-quoted letter of April 29, 1790, to La
Luzerne he said: " Indeed, the whole business is
so extraordinary in its commencement, so wonder
ful in its progress, and may be so stupendous in
its consequences that I am almost lost in the con
templation. Of one thing, however, you may rest
perfectly assured, that nobody is more anxious
for the happy issue of that business than I am,
as nobody can wish more sincerely for the pros
perity of the French nation than I do," To an
other correspondent, Mrs. Graham, he described
"the renovation of the French Constitution," as
"one of the most wonderful events in the history
of mankind." So late as the 2oth of October,
1792, he was writing to Gouverneur Morris: "We
can only repeat the sincere wish that much hap
piness may arise to the French nation and to
mankind in general out of the severe evils which
are inseparable from so important a revolution."

1 To this remarkable forecast of the Terror, and of the ruin of such
great hopes, Jared Sparks, in "his edition of the Writings, caused
Washington to add a prophecy of Napoleon's rule, described as a
"higher-toned despotism than the one which. existed before." But
this is one of the embellishments which Sparks, who prophesied d coup
stir, since he wrote after the events, thought he was free to introduce
in the great man's letters.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 245

Throughout the unparalleled crisis, the French
friends of Washington kept him informed of
events, of their hopes and fears. Lafayette's let
ters have been printed; those of Rochambeau,
written in his own English, have not, and many
of them are of great interest. The French gen
eral had early foreseen the necessity for profound
changes, owing to abuses, to the excessive privi
leges of the few, the burdens of the many, the
increasing maladministration, especially since
Necker had been replaced by "a devil of fool
named Calonne." 1 Maybe the States General
will provide an adequate remedy, by devising a
constitution: "I hope very much of this General
States to restore our finances and to consolidate a
good constitution." 2 But he has doubts as to
what "aristocratical men" will do.

Himself a member of the Assembly, Rocham
beau considers that there are not, in reality,
three orders the nobles, the clergy, and the
third estate but two: "the privileged people and
the unprivileged." The vote being, in accor
dance with law and custom, taken per estate or
order, the two privileged ones always vote in the
same way and can ever prevail. Rochambeau in
forms Washington that, as for himself, he "voted
in favor of the equal representation of the third

1 Paris, May 12, 1787. Washington papers, Library of Congress-
1 Calais, April 3, 1789.

246 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

order; your pupil Lafayette has voted for the
same opinion, as you may believe it; but we have
here a great number of aristocratical men that
are very interested to perpetuate the abuses." l

He agrees with Washington that, in order to
reach safe results, developments should be slowly
evolved; but the temper of the nation has been
wrought up, and it is, moreover, a fiery temper.
"Do you remember, my dear general," he writes,
"of the first repast that we have made together
at Rod-Island? I [made] you remark from the
soup the difference of character of our two na
tions, the French in burning their throat and all
the Americans waiting wisely [for] the time that
it was cooled. I believe, my dear general, you
have seen, since a year, that our nation has not
change[d] of character. We go very fast God
will that we [reach] our aims." 2

In his moments of deepest anxiety Rochambeau
is pleased, however, to remember "a word of the
late King of Prussia," Frederick II, who, consid
ering what France was, what misfortunes and
dangers she had encountered, and what concealed
sources of strength were in her, once said to the
French minister accredited to him: "I have been
brought up in the middle of the unhappiness of
France; my cradle was surrounded with refugee

1 Paris, July 31, 1789.

2 "Rodiainbeau near Vend&ne," April n, -1790,

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 247

Protestants that, about the end of the reign of
Louis XIV and the beginning of the regency of
the Due d'Orleans, told me that Prance was at
the agony and could not exist three years. I
[have] known in the course of my reign that
France has such a temper that there [is] no bad
minister nor bad generals [who] be able to Mil it,
and that constitution has made it rise again of
all its crises, with strength and vigor. It wants
no other remedy but time and keep a strict course
of diet." *

. Events followed their course, but, while every
thing else was changing in France, the feeling for
Washington and the United States remained the
same. The two countries felt nearer than before,
and showed it in many ways. At the death of
Franklin the National Assembly, on the proposal
of Mirabeau, went into mourning for thre,e days;
our first Constitution, of 1791, was notified to
the American Government: "President Washing
ton," the French minister informed his chief,
"received the King's letter with the tokens of
the greatest satisf action; and in accordance with
your orders a copy of the Constitution and of
the King's letter to the National Assembly was
given to him as well as to Mr. Jefferson." 2 Tom

1 Paiis, May 12, 1787.

^Ternant to Montmorin, Philadelphia, March 13, 1792. Corres
pondence of the French Ministers, ed. Turner, Washington, 1904.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

Paine, though an American, or rather because
an American, was elected by several depart
ments a member of the Convention, took his
seat, but, as he knew no French, had his speeches
translated and read for him; he played an im
portant part in the drafting of our second Consti
tution, the republican one of 1793. As a sacred
emblem of liberty, the American flag was displayed
in the hall where the Convention held its sittings.
A quite extraordinary decree was rendered by
this body in the second year of the Republic,
"after having heard the petition of American
citizens/' deciding, and this at a time when every
body was liable to arrest, that "the wives of
American citizens, whatever the place of their
birth, should be exempted from the law on the
arrestation of foreigners."

The i4th of July was, in the meantime, cele
brated in America, just as in France, as mark
ing a new progress in the development of man
kind. Our minister, Ternant, gave Dumouriez
a glowing account of such a celebration: "It af
fords me great satisfaction to inform you that, in
spite of the news received the day before of the
bad success of our first military operations, the
Americans have given, on the occasion of this
anniversary, touching signs of their attachment
for France and proof of the interest they take in
the success of our arms. You will see by the

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 249

bulletins and newspapers accompanying this letter
that the same sentiments have been manifested
in almost all the cities which count in the Union,
and that the i4th has been celebrated with the
same ardor as the 4th, which is the anniversary
of American independence." l

For the person of the President French tokens
of veneration and friendship multiplied. In the
same year year I of the Republic the Con
vention had conferred on him the title of French
citizen, as being "one of the benefactors of
mankind." French officers had united to offer
Mrs. Washington a dinner service, each piece
ornamented with a star and her initials in the
centre, and the names of the States in medal
lions around the border, the whole surrounded
by a serpent biting its tail, the emblem of per
petuity.

French dramatists could not wait until the
great man should belong to the past to make of
him the hero of a tragedy in Alexandrine verse:
Vashington OH la Liberte du Nouveau Monde, par
M. de Sauvigny, performed for the first time in
the Theatre of the Nation (as the "Comedie Fran-
jaise" was then called), on the i$th of July, 1791,
and in which a nameless predecessor of mine,
'TAmbassadeur de France," brought the play
to a conclusion with praise of Washington, of
1 July 28, 1792.

50 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

Franklin, of Congress, and of the whole American
people:

Magistrals dont Taudace etonna I'univers,
Calmes dans la tempte et grands dans les revers,
Vous sutes, par Peffet d'une sage harmonie,
Enf anter des vertus, un peuple, une patrie. j

And in a kind of postcript, the author, com
menting on the events related in his play, ob
served with truth: "The great American Revo
lution has been the first result of one greater still
which had taken place in the empire of opinion."
Of any animosity against the English, the same
comment offers no trace.

Gloomy days succeeded radiant ones. Past
abuses, danger from abroad, general suffering,
passions let loose, were not conducive to that
coolness and moderation which Washington had
recommended from the first. Ternant, had been
succeeded as representative of France by that
famous citizen Genet, who, in spite of his having
some diplomatic experience gathered as Charge
d'Affalres in Russia, and being in a way a man of
parts, an. authority on Swedes and Finns, had his
head turned the moment he landed, so completely,
indeed, that it is impossible, in spite of the gravity
of the consequences involved, not to smile when
reading his high-flown, self-complacent, self-adver
tising, beaming despatches: "My journey (from

WASHINGTON AND THE PEENCH 51

Charleston to Philadelphia) has been an uninter
rupted succession of civic festivities, and my entry
in Philadelphia a triumph for liberty. True
Americans are at the height of joy." 1

In his next letters he insists and gloats over
his own matchless deeds: "The whole of America
has risen to acknowledge in me the minister of
the French Republic. ... I live in the midst
of perpetual feasts; I receive addresses from all
parts of the continent. I see with, pleasure that
my way of negotiating pleases our American
brothers, and I am founded to believe, citizen
minister, that my mission will be a fortunate
one from every point of view. I include here
with American gazettes in which I have marked
the articles concerning myself.'*

Encouraged by the Anti-Federalists, who
thought they could use Trim for their own pur
poses, Genet shows scant respect for "old Wash
ington, who greatly differs from him whose name
has been engraved by history, and who does not
pardon me my successes"; a mere "Fayettist," he
disdainfully calls him elsewhere. But Genet will
have the better 'of any such opposition: "I am
in the meantime provisioning the West Indies, I
excite Canadians to break the British yoke, I
arm the Kentukois, and prepare a naval expedi-

1 Philadelphia, May 18, 1 793. Correspondence of the French Mini**
ters in the United States, ed. Turner, Washington, 1904, p. 214.

52 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

tion which will facilitate their descent on New
Orleans." 1

He had, in fact, armed in American waters,
quite a fleet of corsairs, revelling in the bestowal
on them of such names as the Sans-Culotte, the
Anti-George, the Patriote Genet, the Vainqueur de
la Bastille, La Petite Democrate.

His triumphs, his lustre, his listening to ad
dresses in his own honor, and reading articles
in his own praise, his being "clasped in the arms
of a multitude which had rushed to meet him,*'
his naval and military deeds were short-lived.
Contrary to the current belief, the too well-
founded indignation of "Fayettist" Washing
ton had nothing to do with his catastrophe. On
receipt of the very first letter of the citizen-
diplomat, and by return of mail, the foreign min
ister of the French Republic took the initiative
and wrote him:

"I see that you have been received by an hos
pitable and open-hearted people with all the mani
festations of friendship of which your predecessors
had also been the recipients. . . . You have fan
cied, thereupon, that it belonged to you to lead
the political actions of this people and make
them join our cause. Availing yourself of the
flattering statements of the Charleston authori
ties, you have thought fit to arm corsairs, to or-

1 May 31, June 19, 1793. /&&, pp. 216, 217,

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 53

ganize recruiting, to have prizes condemned, be
fore even having been recognized by the American
Government, before having its assent, nay, with
the certitude of its disapproval. You invoke
your instructions from the 'Conseil executif ' of
the Republic; but your instructions enjoin upon
you quite the reverse: they order you to treat
with the government, not with a portion of the
people; to be for Congress the spokesman of the
French Republic, and not the leader of an Ameri
can party." The diplomat's relations with Wash
ington are the opposite of what Prance desires:
"You say that Washington does not pardon you
your successes, and that he hampers your moves in
a thousand ways. You are ordered to treat with
the American Government; there only can you
attain real successes; all the others are illusory
and contrary to the interests of your country.
Dazzled by a false popularity, you have estranged
the only man who should represent for you the
American people, and if your action is hampered,
you have only yourself to blame." l

While this letter was slowly crossing the ocean,
others from Genet were on the way to Prance,
written in the same beaming style. He continued
to gloat over his successes and mercilessly to
abuse all Federalists, those confessed partisans of
* 'monocracy."

1 June 19, 1793. find., p. 230.

254 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

People were not for half -measures at Paris, in
those terrible days. Instead of prolonging a use
less epistolary correspondence, the Committee of
Public Safety rendered a decree providing that
a commission would be sent to Philadelphia, with
powers to disavow the "criminal conduct of
Genet/* to disarm his Sans-Culotte and other cor
sairs, to revoke all consuls who had taken part in
such armaments, and, as for Genet himself, to
have him arrested and sent back to France.
What such an arrest meant was made evident by
the signatures at the foot of the decree: "Bar ere,
Herault, Robespierre, Billaud-Varennes, Collot
d'Herbois, Saint-Just." *

Better than any one, Genet knew the meaning.
But that same government which he had abused
was generous and protected him. "We wanted
his dismissal, not his punishment/' said Secretary
of State 'Randolph, who refused to have him ar
rested. Genet hastened to give up a country
so hard to please, he thought, as that of his birth,
became an American, and as, with all his faults,
he was not without some merits, being welcomed
in many families, and especially in the house of
"General Clinton, Governor/' he wrote, "of the
State of New York, and chief of the Anti-Federal
ist party/' he married his daughter, and died at
Schodack, N. Y., a respected citizen and agricul-

1 October n, 1793. Ilid. t p. 287.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 255

turist, in 1834. His name has once more promi
nently appeared, and in the most honorable
fashion, in those gazettes whose articles in his
favor pleased him so much: a descendant of his
has enlisted for the old country during the present
war, and has cast lustre on the name by his
bravery.

The last years of the former commander-in-
chief of the American and French armies were
saddened by difficulties, troubles, and quarrels
with American political parties and with the
French nation. The Jay treaty with England
(November 19, 1794) had raised a storm: "At
present the cry against the treaty is like that
against a mad dog; and every one in a manner
is running it down. . . . The string which is
most played on, because it strikes with most
force the popular ear, is the violation, as they
term it, of our engagements with France/' 1 Anti-
Federalists were indignant; the French not at
all pleased, and their "captures and seizures,"
coupled with a desire to be allowed (which they
were not) to sell their prizes in American harbors,
increased the discontent. The opposition press
was unspeakably virulent, and the great man
sadly confessed he would never have believed that,
he said, "every act of his administration would
be tortured, and the grossest and most insidious

1 Washington to Alexander Hamilton, July 29, 1795.

256 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

misrepresentations of them be made, by giving
one side only of a subject, and that, too, in such
exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely
be appEed to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or
even to a common pickpocket." l

The time came at last for his definitive re
treat to Mount Vernon. He reached it a sad
dened, grand old man, longing to be at last an
American farmer and nothing more, and never
to go "beyond twenty miles" from his home.
"To make and sell a little flour annually, to re
pair houses going fast to ruin, to build one for
the security of my papers of a public nature,
and to amuse myself in agricultural and rural pur
suits, will constitute employment for the few years
I have to remain on this terrestrial globe." 2

His desire was to continue to the end in the
regular occupations he describes to McHenry, in
a letter giving us the best picture we have of every
day life at Mount Vernon. Wondering what he
might say that would interest a secretary of war,
he writes: "I might tell him that I begin my di
urnal course with the sun; that if my hirelings
are not at their places at that time I send them
messages expressive of my sorrow for their in
disposition; that, having put these wheels in
motion, I examine the state of things further,

*To Jefferson, June 6, 1796.

1 To Oliver Wolcott, May 15, 1797.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 257

and the more they are probed, the deeper, I find,
the wounds are which my buildings have sustained
by an absence and neglect of eight years; by the
time I have accomplished these matters, break
fast (a little after seven o'clock, about the time,
I presume, you are taking leave of Mrs. McHenry)
is ready; that, this being over, I mount my horse
and ride round my farms, which employs me until
it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely
miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, out
of respect for me. Pray, would not the word
curiosity answer as well? And how different
this from having a few social friends at a cheerful
board! The usual time of sitting at table, a
walk, and tea brings me within the dawn of
candle-light; previous to which, if not prevented
by company, I resolve that as soon as the glim
mering taper supplies the place of the great lu
minary, I will retire to my writing-table and
acknowledge the letters I have received ; but when
the lights are brought I feel tired and disin
clined to engage in this work, conceiving that the
next night will do as well. The next comes and
with it the same causes for postponement and
effect, and so on. ...

"It may strike you that in this detail no men
tion is made of any portion of time allotted for
reading. The remark would be just, for I have
not looked into a book since I came home; nor

258 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

shall I be able to do it until I have discharged
my workmen, probably not before nights grow
longer, when possibly I may be looking in Doomes-
day Book/ 1 1

But in this calm retreat, described with a truth
and charm almost reminding one of William
Cowper's familiar letters, and where he was to
spend such a small number of years, trouble, as
previously, soon knocked at the door. It seemed
at one time as if the former commander-in-chief
of Franco- American armies would have to lead
the Americans against the French. In spite of the
preparations which he had himself to superintend,
he refused to believe that war would really occur:
"My mind never has been alarmed by any fears
of a war with France." 2 But in his judgments
of the French, as governed by the Directoire,
Washington was gradually receding toward the
time when he knew them only through Steele and
Addison, and had, "in the Spectator, read to No.

He died without knowing that the threatening
clouds would soon be dispelled; that the next
important event which would count in the annals
of the United States and make their greatness
secure would come from those same French
people: the cession by them, unexpected and un-

1 Mount Vernon, May 29, 1797.

2 To T. Pickering, August 29, 1797.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 259

asked-for, not of New Orleans, but of the im
mense territory then called Louisiana; and that,
while his feelings toward the French had under
gone changes, those of the French toward him had
remained unaltered.

When the news came that on Saturday, i4th
of December, 1799, the great leader had passed
away, 1 the French Republic went into mourn
ing; for ten days officers wore crape, flags were
flown at half-mast, and the head of the state,
young Bonaparte, issued an order in which he
said: "Washington is dead. This great man
fought tyranny. He established on a safe basis
the liberty of his country. His memory will ever
be dear to the French people as well as to all the
free men of the two worlds, and especially to
French soldiers, who, like himself and the Ameri
can soldiers, fight now for equality and liberty."

An impressive and unparalleled ceremony there
upon took place at the Invalides, the Temple of
Mars, as it was thai called. Detachments from

1 "Nulli flebtiior quam vrihi" wrote Lafayette, m learning the
news, to Crevecceur, who had just dedicated to Washington his
Voyage dans la haute Penns$oanie, adorned, by way of frontispiece,
with a portrait of Washington, "grav6 d'apres le camee peint par
Madame Brhan, a New York, en 1789." Crvecceur wanted to
offer a copy of his book to Bonaparte. "Send it," a friend of his
who knew the young general told him; "it is a right you have as
an associate member of the Institute; add a letter of two or three
lines, mentioning in it the name of Washington." St. John de Crtoe-
ccwr, by Robert de Cr&srecoeur, 1883, p. 399.

260 WASHINGTON AND THE EKENCH

the Paris garrison lined the aisles; all that counted
in the Republic was present, Bonaparte included,
and Fontanes, the most famous orator of the day,
delivered the funeral eulogy on the departed
leader: " Washington's work is scarcely per
fected," he said, "and it is already surrounded
by that veneration that is usually bestowed only
on what has been consecrated by time. The
American Revolution, of which we are contem
poraries, seems now consolidated forever. Wash
ington began it by his energy, and achieved it by
his moderation. In rendering a public homage
to Washington, France pays a debt due to him
by the two worlds."

In one of the first sentences of the oration,
England (with whom we were at war) was courte
ously associated to the homage rendered by us
to the great man: "The very nation," said Fon-
tanes, "that recently called Washington a rebel,
now looks upon the emancipation of America as
one of those events consecrated by the verdict
of centuries and of history. Such is the privilege
of great characters." 1

In the centre of the nave stood the bust of
Washington, wreathed in flags and laurels. Years
before, in Independence Hall at Philadelphia, on

1 "Eloge fun&bre de Washington, prononce* dans le temple de Mars
(H6tel des Invalides) le 20 pluviose, an VIII (8 fevrier, 1800)," in
(Ewores dtM.de Pontones, recttetttics pour la premiere fois, Paris,
1839, 2 vols., n, 147.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 261

a spot now marked by an inscription, the flags
taken at Yorktown had been laid at the feet of
the President of Congress and of the minister
from France, Gerard de RaynevaL Now Gen
eral Lannes, the future marshal, came forth and
with appropriate words laid before the image of
the former commander ninety-six flags taken from
the enemy by the troops of republican France.

A plan was formed thereupon, the realization
of which troublous days did not allow, to erect
a statue of Washington in Paris (he now has two
there and one in Versailles, gratefully accepted
gifts from America), and a decree was prepared by
Talleyrand recalling, as a motive, the similitude
of feelings between France and that "nation
which is sure to be one day a great nation, and
is even now the wisest and happiest in the world,
and which mourns for the death of the man who
did more than any, by his courage and genius,
to break her shackles and raise her to the rank
of independent peoples. . . . Oner of the noblest
lives which have honored mankind has just
passed into the domain of history. . . Wash
ington's fame is now imperishable; Fortune had
consecrated his titles to it; and the posterity
of a people which will rise later to the highest
destinies continuously confirms and strengthens
those titles by its very progress."

Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Guizot, Cornells de

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

Witt, Laboulaye, Joseph Pabre, many other
French thinkers and writers, vied with each other
in their praise and admiration throughout the
century. Chateaubriand, who had seen the great
man at Philadelphia in 1791, inserted in his Voy
age en Amerique his famous parallel between Bona
parte and Washington: "The republic of Wash
ington subsists; the empire of Bonaparte is no
more; it came and went between the first and
second journey of a Frenchman 1 who has found a
grateful nation where he had fought for some
oppressed colonists. . . . The name of Wash
ington will spread, with liberty, from age to age;
it will mark the beginning of a new era for man
kind. , . . His fame rises like one of those
sanctuaries wherein flows a spring inexhaustible
for the people. . . . What would be the rank
of Bonaparte in the universe if he had added
magnanimity to what there was heroical in him,
and if, being at the same time Washington and
Bonaparte, he had appointed Liberty for the
heiress of his glory ?"

Lamartine, receiving an Italian delegation in
1848, asked them to hate the memory of Machia-
velli and bless that of Washington: "His name is
the symbol of modern liberty. The name of a
politician, the name of a conqueror is no longer
what is wanted by the world, but the name of
1 Lafayette's journeys to America.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 263

the most disinterested of men, and the most de
voted to the people/' Guizot published his note
worthy study on the first President of the United
States, and the American colony in Paris, to com
memorate the event, had the portrait of the
French statesman painted by Healy in 1841, and
presented it to the city of Washington, where it
is preserved in the National Museum.

Publishing, during the early years of the Second
Empire, the series of lectures he had delivered
at the College de France during our Second
Republic, the great Liberal, Laboulaye, who did
so much to make America and the Americans
popular in France, wrote in his preface: "Wash
ington has established a wise and well-ordered
republic, and he has left to after-times, not the
fatal example of crime triumphant, but a whole
some example of patriotism and virtue. In less
than fifty years, 1 owing to the powerful sap of
liberty, we have seen an empire arise, having for
its base, not conquest, but peace and industry,
an empire which before the end of the century
will be the greatest state in the civilized world,
and which, if it remains faithful to the thought of
its founders, if ambition does not arrest the course
of its fortune, will offer to the world the prodigious
sight of a republic of one hundred million inhabi
tants, richer, happier, more brilliant than the

1 An exact justification of Lacretelle's prediction; above, p. 94.

264 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

monarchies of the old world. All this is Wash
ington's work." *

Nearer our time, Joseph Fabre, the well-known
historian of Joan of Arc, wrote: "This sage was
a wonder of reasoned enthusiasm, of thoughtful
intrepidity, of methodical tenacity, of circumspect
boldness, facing from abroad oppression, at home
anarchy, both vanquished by his calm genius.' 7 2

1 Histoire des Etats Unis, 3 vols.; preface dated 1855; the lectures
had been delivered in 1849. Washington is the hero of the work,
which is carried on only to 1789.

a Washington, lil&ateur de FAmfrique, 1882, often reprinted, dedi
cated: "A la m^moire de Lazare Hoche, le soldat citoyen, qui
aurait 6te" note Washington s'il etit vcu." .

Once more now a republic has been established
in France, which, having, we hope, something of
the qualities of "coolness and moderation " that
Washington wanted us to possess, will, we trust,
prove perpetual. It has already lasted nearly
half a century: an unexampled phenomenon in
the history of Europe, no other republic of such
magnitude having thus survived in the old world
since the fall of the Roman one, twenty centuries
ago.

If the great man were to come again, we enter
tain a fond hope that he would deem us not tin-
deserving now of the sympathies he bestowed on
our ancestors at the period when he was living
side by side with them. Most of the leading
ideas followed by htm throughout life are those
which we try to put in practise. We have our
faults, to be sure; we know them, others know
them, too; it is not our custom to conceal them,
far from it; may this serve as an excuse for re
viewing here by preference something else than
what might occasion blame.

That equality of chances for all, which caused
the admiration of the early French visitors to

285

266 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

this country, which was one of the chief things
for which Washington had fought, and continues
to be to-day one of the chief attractions offered
to the immigrant by these States, has been secured
in the French Republic, too, where no privileges
of any sort remain, the right to vote is refused to
none, taxation is the same for all, and military
service is expected from everybody. No principle
had more importance in the eyes of Washington
than that of "equal liberty/' "What triumph
for our enemies to verify their predictions !"
Washington had written to John Jay, in a mo
ment of depression, when he feared that what
Genet was to call "monocracy" was in the ascen
dant; "what triumph for the advocates of des
potism to find that we are unable of governing
ourselves, and that systems founded on the
basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and falla
cious." l

In France, as in the United States, the unique
source of power is the will of the people. In our
search for the solution of the great problem which
now confronts the world, that of the relations
of capital and labor, we endeavor to practise the
admirable maxim of one of our statesmen of
to-day: "Capital must work, labor must pos
sess." And though we are still remote from this
goal, yet we have travelled so far toward it that,

1 August i, 1786.

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 67

at the present day, one out of every two electors
in France is the possessor of his own house. 1

The development of instruction was one of the
most cherished ideas of Washington, as it is now
of his descendants. "You will agree with me in
opinion/' he said in a speech to both houses of
Congress in 1790, "that there is nothing that can
better deserve your patronage than the promo
tion of science and literature. Knowledge is in
every country the surest basis of happiness."
Instruction has become, under the Republic, obli
gatory for all in Prance, and is given free of cost
to all. Not a village, not a hamlet, lost in the
recesses of valleys or mountains, that is without
its school. The state expenditure for primary
instruction during the Second Empire amounted
only to twelve million francs; the mere salary of
school-teachers alone is now twenty times greater.
We try to live up to the old principle : three things
should be given free to all air, water, knowledge:
and so it is that at the Sorbonne, the College de
France, in the provincial universities, all one has to
do in order to follow the best courses of lectures is
to push open the door. The man in the street
may come in if he chooses, just to warm himself
in winter or to avoid a shower in summer. Let
him; perhaps he will Esten too.

1 "It is estimated that there are more small holdings of land in
France than in Germany, England, and Austria combined." Re
port of the [U* S.] Commissioner of Education, 1913, p. 714.

258 WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH

Very wisely, being, in many ways, very modern,
Washington attached great importance to inven
tions. In a speech to Congress on January 9,
1790, he said: "I cannot forbear intimating to you
the expediency of giving effectual encouragement
as well to the introduction of new and useful in
ventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill
and genius in producing them at home, and of
facilitating the intercourse between the distant
parts of our country by a due attention to the
post-office and the post-roads,"

Distances having' immensely increased in
America (as well as means to cover them), these
latter remarks are certainly still of value. With
a much less difficult problem to solve, we believe
that, in the matter of post-roads, and with a sys
tem of rural delivery coextensive with the national
territory, we would pass muster in the presence
of the great man. As for inventions, we hope that
even the compatriots of Franklin, Fulton, Whit
ney, Horace Wells, W. T. G. Morton, Morse, Bell,
Edison, the Wright brothers, and many more,
would consider that our show is a creditable one,
with Jacquard's loom, the laws of Ampere on
electricity, Seguin's tubular boilers, Sauvage's
screw, Niepce and Daguerre's photography, Re-
nard and Kreb's first dirigible, Lumiere's cinemato
graph, Curie's radium, with the automobile, which
is transforming our way of life (decentralizing

WASHINGTON AND THE FKENCH 269

overcentralized countries) as much as the railroads
did in the last century; and, more than all, be
cause so beneficent to all, with the discoveries
of Chevreul, Flourens, Claude Bernard, La^eran,
Berthelot, and especially Pasteur.

On the question of the preservation of natural
resources, to which, and not too soon, so much
attention has been paid of late, Washington had
settled ideas; so have we, ours being somewhat
radical, and embodying, for mines especially, the
French principle that "what belongs to nobody
belongs to everybody," and by everybody must
be understood the nation. Concerning this prob
lem and the best way to solve it, Washington
sent once a powerful appeal to the President of
Congress, saying: "Would there be any impro
priety, do you think, sir, in reserving for special
sale all mines, minerals, and salt springs, in the
general grants of land belonging to the United
States ? The public, instead of the few knowing
ones, might in this case receive the benefits which
would result from the sale of them, without in
fringing any rule of justice that is known to me." l

Richard H. Lee, December 14, 1784- On French exertions
in that line, Consul-General Skinner wrote: "If correspondents
could penetrate, as the writer has done, the almost inaccessible
mountain villages of this country, and there discover the enthusiastic
French forester at work, applying scientific methods to a work
which can not come to complete fruition before two or three hundred
years, they would retire full of admiration and surprise and carry the
lesson back to the United States." Dotty Consular Reports, Novem
ber 2, 1907.

270 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

One of the most memorable and striking things
done by the French Republic is the building of
a vast colonial empire, giving access to undevel
oped, sometimes, as in Dahomey, barbaric and
sanguinary races, still indulging in human sacri
fices. Washington has laid down the rule of what
should be done with respect to primitive races,
"The basis of our proceedings with the Indian
natives/' he wrote to Lafayette, "has been and
shall be justice, during the period in which I
have anything to do with the administration of
this government. Our negotiations and transac
tions, though many of them are on a small scale
as to the objects, ought to be governed by the
immutable principles of equality." And address
ing the Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, John
Carroll, he again said: "The most effectual means
of securing the permanent attachment of our
savage neighbors is to convince them that we
are just."

There is nothing we are ourselves more sincerely
convinced of than that such principles are the
right ones and should prevail. That we did not
lose sight of them in the building of our colonial
empire its very vastness testifies; using opposite
means, with so many other tasks to attend to,
we should have failed. The number of people
living under the French flag is about one hundred
minion now. Judging from the testimony of

WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 71

independent witnesses, 1 it seems that, on this, too,
we have acted -in accordance with the views of
the former commander-in-chief , who had written
to Lafayette on August 15,1786:" Let me ask you,
my dear marquis, in such an enlightened, in such
a liberal age, how is it possible that the great
maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay
an annual tribute to the little piratical states of
Barbary ? Would to Heaven we had a navy able
to reform those enemies to mankind or crush
them into non-existence." The "reform" was
begun by Decatur in 1815, and perfected by
Bourmont in 1830.

On one point Washington was very positive;
this leader of men, this warrior, this winner of
battles, loathed war. He wanted, of course, his
nation, as we want ours, never to be without a
military academy (our West Point is called Saint-

1 "The story of French success in the exploration, the civilization,
the administration, and the exploitation of Africa, is one of the won
der tales of history. That she has relied on the resources of science
rather than those of militarism makes her achievement the more
remarkable. , . . Look at Senegambia as it is now under French
rule. . . Contrast the modernized Dahomey of to-day with its
railways, schools, and hospitals with the blood-soaked country of
the early sixties; remember that Algeria has doubled hi population
since [the time of] the last Dey and you will have a bird's-eye
view, as it were, of what the French have accomplished hi the colo
nizing field/* E. Alexander Powell, The Last Frontier, New York,
1912, p. 25. Concerning the Arabs under French rule, Edgar A.
Forbes writes: "The conquered race may thank the stars that its
destiny rests in a hand that seldom wears the rough gauntlet*" The
Land of the WMte Hdmel, New York, 1910, p. 94.

272 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

Cyr), and never to be without a solid, permanent
army, for, as lie said, in a speech to Congress in
1796: " However pacific the general policy of a
nation may be, it ought never to be without an
adequate stock of military knowledge for emer
gencies , . * war might often depend not upon its
own choice." Of this we are only too well aware.
There is scarcely, however, a question that
oftener recurs under his pen in his letters to his
French friends than the care with which wars
should be avoided, and no hopes were more
fondly cherished by him than that, some day,
human quarrels might be settled otherwise than
by bloodshed. To Rochambeau, who had in
formed him, that war-clouds which had recently
appeared in Europe were dissipated (soon, it is
true, to return more threatening), he expressed,
in 1786, his joy at what he considered a proof that
mankind was becoming "more enlightened and
more humanized. " To his friend David Hum
phreys he had written from Mount Vernon, July
25, 1785: "My first wish is to see this plague to
mankind (war) banished from off the earth, and
the sons and daughters of this world employed
in more pleasing and innocent amusements than
in preparing implements and exercising them for
the destruction of mankind. Rather than quarrel
about territory, let the poor, the needy, the op
pressed of the earth, and those who want land,

WASHINGTON AND THE FEENCH 273

resort to the fertile plains of our Western country,
the second land of promise, and there dwell in
peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment. "
His dream was of mankind one day " connected
like one great family in fraternal ties." *

On this matter, of such paramount importance
to all the world, and in spite of so much, so very
much remaining to be done, we may, I hope,
consider in France that our Republic would de
serve the approval of the departed leader. We
have indeed vied with the United States (and
praise be rendered to empires and kingdoms who
have played also the part of realms of good-will),
in an effort to find better means than wars for
the settlement of human quarrels. Success could
not be expected at once, but it is something to
have honestly, earnestly tried. The great man
would have judged failures with indulgence, for
he well knew how others* dispositions are to be
taken into account. "In vain," he had said, "is
it to expect that our aim is to be accomplished
by fond wishes for peace." *

And at the present hour, when it seems to the

1 To Lafayette, Aug. 15,1786. Cf. below, p. 347. Same views in
Franklin, who had written to his friend David Hartley, one of the
British plenipotentiaries for the peace: "What would you think of
a proposition, if I should make it, of a family compact between
England, France, and America? . . . What repeated follies are those
repeated wars I You do not want to conquer and govern one another.
Why, then, should you continually be employed in injuring and de
stroying one another?" Passy, Oct 16, 1783. "June 15, 1782.

274 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH

author of these lines that, as he writes, his ears
are filled with the sound of guns, wafted by the
wind over the submarine-haunted ocean, what
would be the feeling of our former commander
if he saw what is taking place, and the stand made
by the descendants of those soldiers intrusted
years ago to his leadership? Perhaps he would
think, as he did, when told by Lafayette of a
recent visit to the battle-fields of Frederick II of
Prussia: "To view the several fields of battle over
which you passed could not, among other sensa
tions, have failed to excite this thought: 'Here
have fallen thousands of gallant spirits to satisfy
the ambitions of their sovereign, or to support
them perhaps in acts of oppression and injustice.
Melancholy reflection! For what wise purpose
does Providence permit this ? * "

Perhaps who knows? considering the silent
resolution, abnegation, and unanimity with which
the whole people, from the day when war was de
clared on them by a relentless enemy, tried to up
hold the cause of independence and liberalism in
a world-wide conflict, the leader might be tempted
to write once more in the pages of his private
journal the three words he had written on May
i , 1781. Who knows ? Of one thing we are sure,
no approval could please us more than that of
the commander-in-chief of former days.

IV
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ON two tragic occasions, at a century's dis
tance, the fate of the United States has
trembled in the balance: would they be a
free nation? Would they continue to be one
nation ? A leader was wanted on both occasions,
a very different one in each case. This boon was
granted to the American people, who had a Wash
ington when a Washington was needed, and a
Lincoln when a Lincoln could save them. Neither
would have adequately performed the other's task.
A century of gradually increasing prosperity
had elapsed when came the hour of the nation's
second trial. Though it may seem to us small,
compared with what we have seen in our days,
the development had been considerable, the scat
tered colonies of yore had become one of the
great Powers of the world, with domains reaching
from one ocean to the other; the immense conti
nent had been explored; new cities were dotting
the wilderness of former days. When in 1803
France had, of her own will, ceded the Louisiana
territories, which have been divided since into
fourteen States, Blinds had been staggered; many
in the Senate had shown themselves averse to the
ratification of the treaty, thinking that it might

277

78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

prove rather a curse than a boon. "As to Louisi
ana, this new, immense, unbounded world, " Sen
ator White, of Delaware, had said, "if it should
ever be incorporated into this Union ... I be
lieve it will be the greatest curse that could at
present befall us; it may be productive of in
numerable evils, and especially of one that I fear
even to look upon."

What the senator feared to look upon was the
possibility, awful and incredible as it might seem,
of people being so rash as to go and live beyond
the Mississippi. Attempts would, of course, be
made, he thought, to prevent actions which would
entail such grave responsibilities for the govern
ment; but those meritorious attempts on the
part of the authorities would probably fail. "It
would be as well to pretend to inhibit the fish from
swimming in the sea. ... To every man ac
quainted with the manner in which our Western
country has been settled, such an idea must be
chimerical." People will go, "that very popula
tion will go, that would otherwise occupy part
of our present territory." The results will be
unspeakable: "Our citizens will be removed to
the immense distance of two or three thousand
miles from the capital of the Union, where they
will scarcely ever feel the rays of the general gov
ernment; their affections will be alienated; they
will gradually begin to view us as strangers; they

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 279

will form other commercial connections, and our
interests will become distinct."

The treaty had been ratified, however, and the
prediction, not of Senator White, of Delaware, but
of Senator Jackson, of Georgia, has proved true,
the latter having stated in his answer that if they
both could "return at the proper period," that is,
"in a century," they would find that the region
was not, as had been forecasted, "a howling wil
derness," but "the seat of science and civil
ization." l The fact is that if the two senators
had been able to return at the appointed date,
they would have seen the exposition of St. Louis*

Progress had been constant; modern inventions

1 Debates and Proceedings in tn& Congress of the United States, voL
XHE, col. 33 ff ., November 2 and 3, 1803. Senator White had also ob
jected that the price, of fifteen million dollars, was too high; while
the French plenipotentiary, Barbe-Marbois, had observed that the
lands still unoccupied, to be handed to the American Government
"would have a value of several billions before a century had elapsed/*
in which he was no bad prophet. Marbois added: "Those who knew
the importance of a perfect understanding between these two coun
tries attached more value to the twenty million francs set apart for
the American claims than to the sixty offered to France." In ac
cordance again with Senator White, the deciding motive had not
been that longing for "a perfect understanding" mentioned by Mar
bois, but a feeling that Louisiana wouM, at the next war, "inevitably
fall into the hands of the British." "Of course, it would," future
Marshal Berthier, who was averse to the cession, had observed when
the point had been mentioned at the council held at the Tuikries,
before the First Consul Bonaparte, on Easter Bay, 1803, "but Han
over would just as soon be in our hands, and an exchange would
take place at the peace. , , , Remember this: no navy without
colonies; no colonies without a navy." Barb-Marbois, Histoire
de la Louisiane, Paris, 1829, pp. 295, 315, 330.

280 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

had brought the remotest parts of the country
nearer together. The telegraph had enabled "the
rays of the general government" to reach the
farthest regions of the territory. That extraor
dinary attempt, the first transcontinental rail
road, was soon to be begun (1863) and was to be
finished six years later.

And now all seemed to be in doubt again; the
nation was young, wealthy, powerful, prosperous;
it had vast domains and resources, no enemies,
and yet it looked as though her fate would parallel
that of the old empires of which Tacitus speaks,
and which, without foes, crumble to pieces under
their own weight.

Within her frontiers elements of destruction or
disruption had been growing; animosities were
embittered among people equally brave, bold, and
sure of their rights. The edifice raised by Wash
ington was shaking on its base; a catastrophe was
at hand, such a one as he had "himself foreseen as
possible from the first. Slavery, he had thought,
should be gradually but thoroughly abolished.
"Your late purchase/' he had written to Lafay
ette, "of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with
a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a gen
erous and noble proof of humanity. Would to
God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into
the minds of the people of this country, but I
despair of seeing it." x And to John Francis

\May 10, 1786.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 281

Mercer: "I never mean (unless some particular
circumstance should compel me to it) to possess
another slave by purchase, It being among my
first wishes to see some plan adopted by which,
slavery in this country may be abolished by slow,
sure, and imperceptible degrees." 1 For many
reasons the steadiness of the new-born Union
caused him anxiety. "We are known," he had
written to Doctor W. Gordon, "by no other char
acter among nations than as the United States.
. . . When the bond of union gets once broken
everything ruinous to our future prospects is to
be apprehended. The best that can come of it,
in my humble opinion, is that we shall sink into
obscurity, unless our civil broils should keep us
in remembrance and fill the page of history with
the direful consequences of them." 2

The dread hour had now struck, and civil broils
meant to fill the page of history were at hand.
Then it was that, in a middle-sized city of one
hundred thousand inhabitants, not yet a world-
famous one, Chicago by name, the RepubEcan
convention, assembled there for the first time,
met to choose a candidate for the presidency,
and on Friday, iSth of May, 1860, selected a
man whom my predecessor of those days, an
nouncing in an unprinted report the news to his
government, described as "a man almost un
known, Mr. Abraham Lincoln." And so he was;
September 9, 1786.' * July 8, 1783.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

his own party had hesitated to norninate him;
only on the third ballot, after two others in which
he did not lead, the convention decided that the
fate of the party, of abolitionism, and of the
Union would be placed in the hands of that "man
almost unknown/' Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

The search-light of history has since been
turned on the most obscure parts of his career;
every incident of it is known; many sayings of
his to which neither he nor his hearers attributed
any importance at the moment have become
household words. Biographies innumerable, in
pamphlet form or in many volumes, have told us
of the deeds of Abraham Lincoln, of his appear
ance, of his peculiarities, of his virtues, and of
the part he played in the history of the world,
not alone the world of his day, but that of after-
time. For not only the souvenir of his personality
and of his examples, and the consequences of
what he did, survive among us, but so do also a
number of his clean-cut, memorable, guiding sen
tences which continue alive and active among
men. His mind is still living.

Few suspected such a future at the time of his
election. "We all remember/' wrote, years later,
the French Academician, Prvost-Paradol, "the
anxiety with which we awaited the first words of
that President then unknown, upon whom a
heavy task had fallen, and from whose advent to

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 283

power might be dated the ruin or regeneration of
his country. All we knew was that he had sprung
from the humblest walks of life; that his youth
had been spent in manual labor; that he had then
risen, by degrees, in his town, in his county, and
in his State. What was this favorite of the peo
ple? Democratic societies are liable to errors
which are fatal to them. But as soon as Mr.
Lincoln arrived in Washington, as soon as he
spoke, all our doubts and fears were dissipated,
and it seemed to us that destiny itself had pro
nounced in favor of the good cause, since in such
an emergency it had given to the country an honest
man."

Well indeed might people have wondered and
felt anxious when they remembered how little
training in greatest affairs the new ruler had had,
and the incredible difficulty of the problems he
would have to solve: to solve, his heart bleeding
at the very thought, for he had to fight, "not
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies !"

No romance of adventure reads more like a ro
mance than the true story of Lincoln's youth and
of the wanderings of his family, from Virginia to
Kentucky, from Kentucky to Indiana, from Indi
ana to the newly-formed State of Illinois, having
first to clear a part of the forest, then to buiid
a doorless, windowless, floorless log cabin, with
beds of leaves, and one room for all the uses of

84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the nine inmates: Lincoln, the grandson. of a man
killed by the Indians, the son of a father who
never succeeded in anything, and whose utmost
literary accomplishment, taught him by his wife,
and which he had in common with the father of
Shakespeare, consisted in "bunglingly writing his
own name," the whole family leading a life in
comparison with which that of Robinson Crusoe
was one of sybaritic enjoyment. That in those
trackless, neighborless, bookless parts* of the coun
try the future President could learn and educate
himself was the first great wonder of his life.
His school-days, in schools as primitive as the rest
of his surroundings, attended at spare moments,
did not amount, put together, to so much as one
year, during which he learned, as he stated after
ward, how "to read, write, and cipher to the rule
of three, but that was all ... till within his
twenty-third year, he was almost constantly
handling that most useful instrument" an axe,
not a pen. 1 The event proved once more that
learning does not so much depend upon the mas
ter's teaching as upon the pupil's desire. This
desire never left him; as recorded by himself, he
"nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since
he was a member of Congress."
But no book, school, nor talk with refined men

1 "Short Autobiography, written at the request of a friend/* Com
plete Works, ed Nicolay and Hay, 1905, pp. 26, 27.

ABEAHAM LINCOLN 285

would liave taught him what this rough life did,
Confronted every day and every hour of the day
with problems which had to be solved, problems
of food, of clothing, of shelter, of escaping disease
"ague and fever . . . by which they [the people
of the place] were greatly discouraged" l of de
veloping mind and body with scarcely any boots
but those borrowed from distant neighbors, in
doubt most of the time as to what was going on
in the wide world, he got the habit of seeing, de
ciding, and acting for himself. Accustomed from
childhood to live surrounded by the unknown and
to meet the unexpected, in a region "with many
bears," he wrote later, "and other wild animate
still in the woods," his soul learned to be aston
ished at nothing and, instead of losing any time
in useless wondering, to seek at once the way
out of the difficulty. What the forest, what the
swamp, what the river taught Lincoln cannot be
overestimated. After long years of it, and shorter
years at now-vanished New Salem, then at Spring
field, at Vandalia, the former capital of Illinois,
where he met some descendants of his precursors
in the forest, the French "coureurs de bois," 2

, 28,29-

1 Some French settlements were st21 in existence in the region,
and were still French. "The French settlements about TCagTraAV
retained much of their national character, and the pioneers from the
South who visited them or settled among them never ceased to
wonder at their gayety, their peaceable industry, and their domestic
affection, which they did not care to dissemble and conceal like their

286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

after years of political apprenticeship which had
given Mm but a limited notoriety, almost sud
denly he found himself transferred to the post
of greatest honor and greatest danger. And
what then would say the "man almost unknown,"
the backwoodsman of yesterday? What would
he say ? What did he say ? The right thing.

He was accustomed not to be surprised, but to
ponder, decide, and act. The pondering part was
misunderstood by many who never ceased in
his day to complain and remonstrate about his
supposed hesitancy; many of Napoleon's generals,
and for the same cause, spoke with disgust, at
times, of their chief's hesitations, as if a weak will
were one of his faults. Confronted with circum
stances which were so extraordinary as to be new
to all, Lincoln was the man least astonished in
the government. His rough and shrewd instinct
proved of better avail than the clever minds of his
more-refined and better-instructed seconds. It
was Lincoln's instinct which checked Seward's
complicated schemes and dangerous calculations.
Lincoln could not calculate so cleverly, but he
could guess better.

shy and reticent neighbors. It was a daily spectacle which never
lost its strangeness for the Tennesseeans and Kentuckians to see the
Frenchman returning from his work greeted by his wife and children
with embraces of welcome 'at the gate of his dooryard, and in view
of all the villagers.' The natural and kindly fraternization of the
Frenchmen with the Indians was also a cause of wonder." Nicolay
and Hay, Abraham Lincoln^ 1904, 1, 58.

ABEAHAM LINCOLN 287

In writing the words quoted above, Prevost-
Paradol was alluding to the now famous first in
augural address. But even before Lincoln had
reached Washington he had, so to say, given his
measure. Passing through Philadelphia on his
way to the capital, he had been entertained at
Independence Hall and, addressing the audience
gathered there, had told how he had often medi
tated on the virtues and dangers of the men who
used to meet within those walls in the days when
the existence of the nation was at stake, and on
the famous Declaration signed there by them.
The purport of it, said the new President, is
"that in due time the weights should be lifted
from the shoulders of all men, and that all should
have an equal chance." And he added: "Now,
my friends, can this country be saved on that
basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of
the happiest of men in the world if I can help to
save it. . . . If it cannot be saved upon that
principle ... I would rather be assassinated on
this spot than to surrender it." 1

France was then an empire, governed by Napo
leon III. During the great struggle of four years,
part of the French people were for the North,
and part for the South ; they should not be blamed :
it was the same in America.

But, to a man, 1 the increasing numbers of French
1 February 22, 1861.

288 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Liberals, making ready for a definitive attempt at
a republican form of government in their own
land, were for the abolition of slavery and the
maintenance of the Union. The American exam
ple was the great one which gave heart to our
most progressive men. Americans had proved
that republican government was possible in a
great modern country by having one. If it
broke to pieces, so would break the hopes of those
among us who trusted that one day we would
have one, too as we have. These men followed
with dire anxiety the events in America.

They had all known Lafayette, who died only
in 1834, a lifelong apostle of liberty and of the
American cause. The tradition left by him had
been continued by the best thinkers and the most
enlightened and generous minds France had pro
duced in the course of the century, such men as
Tocqueville, Laboulaye, Gasparin, Pelletan, and
many others. Constant friends of the United
States, and stanch supporters of the liberal prin
ciples, they had, so to say, taken the torch from
the hands of dying Lafayette and passed it on
to the new generation. Tocqueville, who was
not to see the great crisis, had published in 1835,
with extraordinary success, his work on American
democracy, showing that individual liberty, equal
ity for all, and decentralization were the goal
toward which mankind was steadily moving, and

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 89

that such a system, with all its defects, was better
than autocratic government with all its guar
antees. Although living tinder a monarchy, he
could not help sneering at the kindness of those
omnipotent governments who, in their paternal
desire to spare the people they govern all trouble,
would like to spare them even the " trouble of
thinking."

Those who felt like Tiini eloquently defended
in their books, pamphlets, and articles, when
the crisis came, the cause of the Union, and
strongly influenced public opinion in European
countries. Such was the case, for example, with
the America before Europe of Ag6nor de Gasparin,
full of enthusiasm for the States, and of confidence
in the ultimate issue. "No," said the author in
the conclusion of his work, published early in 1862,
"the sixteenth President of the Union will not
be its last; no, the eighty-fifth year of that na
tion will not prove her last; her flag will come out
of the war, rent by bullets, blackened by powder,
but more glorious than ever, and without having
dropped in the storm any of its thirty-four stars." 1

To Gasparin Lincoln wrote thereupon: "You
are much admired in America for the ability of
your writings, and much loved for your gener
osity to us and your devotion to liberal principles
generally. ... I am very happy to know that

1 L'Amfrique d&ant FEurope, Paris, 1862; coaduskm.

290 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

my course has not conflicted with your judgment
of propriety and policy. I can only say that I
have acted upon my best convictions without
selfishness or malice, and that, by the help of
God, I shall continue to do so/' 1

But there were, withal, men among us who,
remembering the trials of our revolutionary years,
the most terrible any nation had gone through,
inclined to consider that, as Tocqueville had said,
"to think" was indeed a real trouble, and that
thinkers might prove very troublesome people.
Those men, too, watched with care what was
going on in America; the quiet development of
the country under democratic institutions caused
them little enough joy, as being the actual con
demnation of their most cherished theories. They
kept saying: the country has no neighbors, it is
exposed to no storm; any system is good enough
under such exceptional conditions. If there was
any storm, the worthlessness of such institutions
would soon be obvious. And it had come to pass
that the storm had arisen, and that a man "al
most unknown" had been placed at the helm.

Then developed that famous struggle between
equally brave opponents, with its various fortunes,
its miseries, its hecatombs, and the coming of
days so dark that it often seemed as though
there remained little chance for the survival of

1 Washington, August, 4, 1862.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 91

one great, powerful, united nation: the hatreds
were so deep, the losses so immense. One of the
generals who served the cause of the Union was
French, and as a colonel first commanded a regi
ment, the ssth New York, otherwise called the
Lafayette Guards, in which French blood pre
dominated, and who wore the red trousers, red
kepi, and blue coats of the French army. It was
before the war one of those regiments whose func
tions, owing to the prevalence of peace, had for
a long time been of the least warlike, mainly
consisting in parades and banquets, so much so
that, with that tendency to irony rarely lacking
in Gauls, those Gardes Lafayette had nicknamed
themselves "Gardes La fourchette/' 1 War came,
the country was changed, a new spirit pervaded
the nation, and the Gardes La fourchette became
Lafayette again, and worthy of the name.

General de Trobriand has left a captivating
account of the campaign 2 and of what his first
regiment did in it, beginning with military in-

1 "L'esprit Gaulois, toujours moqueur, avait saisi le cote* plaisant
de cet inutile Stalage d'epaulettes et de tambours, et les ofi&ders du
55 e New York qui, a Fheure du danger, prodigu&rent pour leur
nouvelle patrie le sang francais sous la direction d'un chef habile et
vaillant, M. de Trobriand, s'6taient donnfe a eux~memes, dans 1'un
des repas de corp^ qui tenninent toujours ces cer6monies, le titre
joyeux de 'Gardes La fourchette.' " Comte de Paris, Histoire de la
Guerre civile en Amerique, 1874, I> 3 11 -

*Quatre ans de campagnes d rarmee du Potomac, par Regis de
Trobriandj ex-Major General an service wfantc&e des Etats Unis

92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

struction hastily imparted before the start by
French sergeants, "some of whom had made war
in Algeria, others in the Crimea or Italy, familiar,
all of them, with field service"; then the coming
of his soldiers to "Washington, as yet a small,
sparsely peopled city, with "Pennsylvania Avenue
for its principal artery"; their following Rock
Creek, not yet a public park, "cadencing their
march by singing the Marseillaise or the Chant
des Girondins, hymns unknown to the echoes of
the region, which repeated them for the first
time, perhaps the last," and crossing Chain
Bridge to camp beyond the Potomac.

On one memorable day, in the winter of 1862,
the regiment, encamped then at TennaUytown,
entertained Lincoln himself. The occasion was
the presentation to it by the hands of the President
of two flags, a French and an American one.
The day chosen had been the 8th of January, as
being the anniversary of the battle of New Or
leans, won by Andrew Jackson, some of whose

d'Amerique, Paris, 1867, 2 vols. As is well known, two French princes
took part in the war as staff-officers in the Army of the Potomac,
the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres. An American officer
who was present told me that, whether on foot or on horseback, the
Comte de Paris had the habit of stooping. During a severe engage
ment he was asked to carry an order across an open field, quite ex
posed to the enemy's fire. He took the order, straightened on his
saddle, crossed tHe field quite erect, fulfilled his mission, recrossed
the field, keeping perfectly straight, and when back in the lines,
stooped again.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 293

troops were French Creoles, who, they too, had
fought to the sound of the Marseillaise.

Mrs. Lincoln had accompanied the President.
There was a banquet which the regiment had had
cooked by its own soldier-cooks, who surpassed
themselves. "The President heartily partook of
the meal. Never, was he pleased to say, had he
eaten so well since he had entered the White
Hpuse. He wanted to taste of everything, and
Ms gayety and good humor showed well enough
how much he enjoyed this diversion in the midst
of the anxious cares with which he was oppressed
at that moment." 1

There were toasts, of course; the then Colonel
de Trobriand drank to the "prompt re-establish
ment of the Union, not so prompt, however, that
the 55th may not first have time to do something
for it on the battlefield/' President Lincoln an
swered good-humoredly: "Since the Union is not
to be re-established before the 55th has had its
battle, I drink to the battle of the 5 5th, and wish
that it may take place as soon as possible."

The 55th had its battle, and many others, too;
the beautiful American flag handed to it on the
8th of January was torn to shreds by grape-shot;
at Predericksburg only the staff was left; during
the course of that terrible day even the staff was
broken, and that was the end of it. It was also

1 Quaff e ans de campagnes, I, 131.

294 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the end of the 5$th: reduced to 210 men, it was
merged into the 33d.

Lincoln's instinct, his good sense, his personal
disinterestedness, his warmth of heart for friend
or foe, his high aims, led Mm through the awful
years of anguish and bloodshed during which,
ceaselessly, increased the number of fields dotted
with tombs, and no one knew, so great were the
odds, whether there would be one powerful nation
or two less powerful, inimical to one another.
They led him through the worst and through the
best hours; and that of triumph found him none
other than what he had ever been before, a shrewd
man of sense, a convinced man of duty, the de
voted servant of his country, but with deeper fur
rows on his face and more melancholy in his heart.
"We must not be enemies."

A French traveller who saw him at his second
inauguration has thus described him: "I shall
never forget the deep impression I felt when I saw
come on to the platform the strange-looking great
man to whom the American people had been so
happy as to intrust their destinies. The gait was
heavy, slow, irregular; the body long, lean, over
six feet, with stooping shoulders, the long arms of
a boatman, the large hands of a carpenter, ex
traordinary hands,, with feet in proportion. . . .
The turned-down shirt-collar uncovered the pro
truding muscles of a yellow neck, above which

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 295

shot forth a mass of black hair, thick, and bris
tling as a bunch of pine-boughs; a face of irre
sistible attraction.

"From this coarse bark emerged a forehead
and eyes belonging to a superior nature. In this
body was sheathed a soul wondrous by its great
ness and moral beauty. On the brow, deep-fur
rowed with lines, could be detected the thoughts
and anxieties of the statesman; and in the large
black eyes, deep and penetrating, whose dominant
expression was good-will and kindness mixed
with melancholy, one discovered an inexhaustible
charity, giving to the word its highest meaning,
that is, perfect love for mankind." 1

The nation was saved, and when the work was
done Lincoln went to his doom and fell, as he had
long foreseen, a victim to the cause for which he
had fought.

When the news of his tragic death reached

1 Abraham Lvncdn, by Alphonse JouaulL The work was begun
in Washington at the time of Lincoln's assassination, which the
author witnessed, but printed only in 1875. The text of the second
inaugural address had been read in France with great admiration.
The famous bishop of Orleans, Dupanloup, wrote concerning it to
Augustin Cochin: "Mr. Lincoln expresses with solemn and teach
ing gravity the feelings which, I am sure, pervade superior souls
in the North as in the South. ... I thank you for having made
me read this beautiful page of the history of great men, and I beg
you to tell Mr. Bigetow of my sympathetic sentiments. I would
hold it an honor if he were so good as to convey an expression of
them to Mr. Lincoln." Orleans, April 2, 1865; an appendix to
Montalembert's Vtewrt du Nerd, Paris, 1865*

296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

France, the emotion was intense; party lines at
that solemn hour disappeared for a moment, and
the country was unanimous in the expression of
her horror. The Emperor and Empress tele
graphed their condolences to Mrs. Lincoln; the
Senate and Chamber voted addresses of sympathy;
M. Rouher, the premier, interrupted by applause
at every word, expressed himself as follows in pro
posing the vote: "Mr. Abraham Lincoln has dis
played in the afflicting struggle which convulses
his country that calm firmness which is a neces
sary condition for the accomplishment of great
duties. After victory he had shown himself gen
erous, moderate, and conciliatory." Then fol
lowed these remarkable words: "The first chas
tisement that Providence inflicts on crime is to
render it powerless to retard the march of good.
. . . The work of appeasement commenced by
a great citizen will be completed by the national
will."

Addressing the Chamber in the same strain, its
President, Mr. Schneider, said: "That execrable
crime has revolted all that is noble in the heart
of France. Nowhere has more profound or more
universal emotion been felt than in our country.
. . . After having shown his immovable firmness
in the struggle, Mr. Lincoln, by the wisdom of his
language and of his views, seemed destined to bring
about a fruitful and durable reconciliation be-

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 297

tween the sons of America. . . . France ardently
<Lesires the re-establishment of peace in the midst
of that great nation, her ally and her friend."

But more noteworthy than all was the feeling
of unofficial Prance, that of the whole people.
Trying to describe it, the American minister to
France, but recently taken from among us, Mr.
Bigelow, wrote home: "The press of the metrop
olis shows sufficiently how overwhelming is the
public sentiment"; and sending, only as samples,
a number of testimonials of sympathy received
by him, he added: "They will suffice to show not
only how profoundly the nation was shocked by
the dreadful crime which terminated President
Lincoln's earthly career, but how deep a hold he
had taken upon the respect and affections of the
French people."

Once more, owing to the death of a great Amer
ican, the whole nation had been moved. From
thirty-one French cities came addresses of con
dolence; students held meetings, unfavorably
seen by the imperial police, little pleased to find
how closely associated in the sentiments expressed
therein were admiration for Lincoln's work and
the longing for a republic similar to that over
which he had presided. Hie youthful president
of such a meeting thus conveyed to Mr. Bigelow
the expression of what was felt by "the young
men of the schools": "In President Lincoln we

298 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

mourn a fellow citizen; for no country is now
inaccessible, and we consider as ours that coun
try where there are neither masters nor slaves,
where every man is free or is fighting to become
free.

"We are the fellow citizens of John Brown, of
Abraham Lincoln, and of Mr. Seward. We young
people, to whom the future belongs, must have
the courage to found a true democracy, and we
will have to look beyond the ocean to learn how
a people who have made themselves free can pre
serve their freedom. . . .

''The President of the great republic is dead,
but the republic itself shall live forever.'*

Deputations flocked to the American legation,
"so demonstrative" that the police more than
once interfered, as if to remind the delegates that
they were not living as yet in a land of liberty.
"I have been occupied most of the afternoon,"
Bigelow wrote to Seward, "in receiving deputa
tions of students and others who have called to
testify their sorrow and sympathy. Unfortu
nately, their feelings were so demonstrative in
some instances as to provoke the intervention of
the police, who would only allow them in very
limited numbers through the streets. . . I am
sorry to hear that some have been sent to prison
in consequence of an intemperate expression of
their feelings. I can now count sixteen policemen

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

from my window patrolling about in tlie neigh
borhood, who occasionally stop persons calling to
see me, and in some instances, I am told, send
them away/' 1

A unique thing happened, unparalleled any
where else. A subscription was opened to offer a
commemorative medal in gold to the unfortunate
widow, and this again did not overplease the
police. The idea had occurred to a provincial
paper, the Phare de la Loire; its success was im
mediate. All the great names in the Liberal party
appeared on the list of the committee, Victor
Hugo's conspicuous among them, and with his
those of Etienne Arago, Louis Blanc, Littre,
Michelet, Pelletan, Edgar Quinet, and others.
In order to allow the poorer classes to take part,
and so as to show that the offering was a truly
national one, the maximum for each subscriber
was limited to two cents.

The poorer classes took part, indeed, with
alacrity; the necessary sum was promptly col
lected; the medal was struck, and it was pre
sented by Eugene Pelletan to Mr. Bigelow, with
these words: "Tell Mrs. Lincoln that in this
little box is the heart of France." The inscrip
tion, in French, is an excellent summing up of

1 April 28, 1865. Text as wefl as that of the documents just
quoted in The Assassination 0f President Lincdn. Appendix to
Diflomotic Correspondence of 1865, Government Printing Office, 1866.

800 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Lincoln's character and career: "Dedicated by
French Democracy to Lincoln, President, * nee
elected, of the United States Lincoln, honest
man, who abolished slavery, re-established the
Union, saved the Republic, without veiling the
statue of liberty.'* 1

The French press tad been unanimous; from
the Royalist Gazette de France to the Liberal Jour
nal des Debats came expressions of admiration and
sorrow, by the writers of greatest repute, present
or future members, in many cases, of the French
Academy, Prevost-Paradol, John Lemoine, Emile
de Girardin, the historian Henri Martin, the pub
licist and future member of the National Assem
bly of 1871, Peyrat, and with them some ardent
Catholics, like Montalembert.

"Who among us," said the Gazette de France,
" would think of pitying Lincoln ? A public man,
he enters by the death which he has received in
the midst of the work of pacification after victory
into that body of the elite of the historic army
which Mr. Guizot once called the battalion of
Plutarch. A Christian, he has just ascended be
fore the throne of the final Judge, accompanied
by the souls of four million slaves created, like

1 "Ddi par la Democratic Fran^aise Lincoln, President deux
fois elu des Etats Unis Lincoln, honnete homme, abolit Pesclavage,
r&ablit Funion, sauva la Republique, sans voiler la statue de la
liberte"." The medal is now the property of the President's son,
Mr. Robert T. Lincoln.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN SOI

ours, in the image of God, and who by a word from
h V7a have been endowed with freedom." 1

Tii his La Victoire du Nord <mx Etats Unis,
Montalembert expressed, with his usual eloquence
and warmth of heart, the same sorrow at Lin
coln's death, and the same joy also at the "success
of a good cause served by honorable means and
won by honest people. . . , God is to be thanked
because, according to the surest accounts, victory
has remained pure, unsullied by crimes or ex
cesses. . * . That nation rises now to the first
rank among the great peoples of the world. . . *
Some used to say: Don't talk to us of your Amer
ica with its slavery. She is now without slaves;
let us talk of her."

But happy as he was at the results, Montalem
bert rendered, nevertheless, full justice to the
South and its great leaders; "The two parties,
the two camps, have shown an equal courage, the
same indomitable tenacity, the same wonderful
energy . . . the same spirit of sacrifice. All our
sympathies are for the North, but they in no way
diminish our admiration for the South. . . .
How not to admire the Southerners, while regret
ting that such rare and high qualities had not been
dedicated to an irreproachable cause ! What men,
and also, and especially, what woman ! Daugh
ters, wives, mothers, those women of the South
1 A very long artide by L. de Gaiflard, April 30, 1868.

302 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

have revived, in the midst of the nineteenth cen
tury, the patriotism, devotion, abnegation of the
Roman ones in the heyday of the republic. Clelia,
Cornelia, Portia have found their equals in many
a hamlet, many a plantation of Louisiana or
Virginia." 1

Many among the Liberals seized this oppor
tunity to praise the American system of govern
ment as opposed to European ones: " Democ
racy/' said Peyrat, "is not incompatible with
great extent of territory or the power and duration
of a great government. This has been demon
strated on the other side of the Atlantic, and that
is the service which the United States have ren
dered to liberty.

"They have rendered another, equally impor
tant to human dignity, in showing that the citizen
has become among them great and powerful, pre
cisely because he has been little governed; they
have proved that the real grandeur of the state
depends upon the high personal qualities of the
individuals. In our old societies, power put man
into tutelage, or rather, man put himself in
that position at the hands of the government, to
which he looked for everything he wanted in life
and for solutions which no government, whether
monarchical or republican, could give.

"The United States, on the contrary, have

1 La Victoire du Word, Paris, 1865, pp. 7, u, 20, 23,

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 303

granted to public power just wliat it is fit that
that power should possess, neither more nor less." 1
In the Journal des Debats, Prevost-Paradol,
one of the best writers of the day, said: "The
political instinct which caused enlightened French
men to be interested in the maintenance of Ameri
can power, more and more necessary to the equi
librium of the world, the desire to see a great
democratic state surmount terrible trials and
continue to give an example of the most perfect
liberty united with the most absolute equality,
assured to the cause of the North a number of
friends among us, ... Lincoln was indeed an
honest man, if we give to the word its full mean
ing, or rather, the sublime sense which belongs to
it when honesty has to contend with the severest
trials which can agitate states and with events
which have an influence on the fate of the world.
. . . Mr. Lincoln had but one object in view
from the day of his election to that of his death,
namely, the fulfilment of his duty, and his im
agination never carried him beyond it. He has
fallen at the very foot of the altar, covering it with
his blood. But his work was done, and the spec
tacle of a rescued republic was what he could look
upon with consolation when his eyes were closing
in death. Moreover, he has not Hved for his
country alone, since he leaves to every one in the

1 In the Avenir Naiional t May 3, 1865.

304 ABEAHAM LINCOLN

world to whom liberty and justice are dear a
great remembrance and a great example/' 1

Accounts of Lincoln's career multiplied in order
to answer popular demand. The earliest one, by
Achille Arnaud, was printed immediately after
his death, and concluded thus: "There is in him
a more august character than even that of the
statesman and reformer, namely that of the man
of duty. He lived by duty and for duty. . . .
No mistake is possible; what Europe honors in
Lincoln, whether or not she is aware of it, is
duty. She thus affirms that there are not two
morals, one for the masters, the other for the
slaves; one for men in public life, the other for
obscure citizens; that there is only one way to
be great: never to lie to oneself, nor to others,
and to be just." 2

Regis de Trobriand, whose loyalty to Lincoln
never wavered, and who had believed in him even
in the darkest hours, well saw the importance for
the whole world of the issue of the great conflict,
and justly stated that, though more directly con
cerning the United States, the fight had been for
"those grand principles of progress and liberty
toward which modern societies naturally tend,
and to which civilized nations legitimately aspire.

1 April 29, 1865.

* Abraham Lincoln, sa naissance, sa vie, sa mart, par Achille Arnaud,
Rtdacteur a " ^Opinion Nationals." Paris, 1865, p. 96.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 305

Such a cause is worth every sacrifice. By defend
ing it at all costs the United States have done
more than fulfil a task worthy of their power and
patriotism, for their triumph is a victory for man
kind."

Lectures were delivered in Prance on Lincoln
and America, one, under the chairmanship of
Laboulaye, by Augustin Cochin, a member of the
Institute, showing that Lincoln was "not only a
superior type of the American race, but one of the
highest and most respected of the human race,"
something more than a great man: a great honest
man. 1

As a sort of pendant and counterpart for the
funeral ceremony held in the Invalides at the
death of Washington, the French Academy gave
as the subject of its grand prize in poetry: La
mort du President Lincoln. Selected in the year
following the event, the subject excited immense
interest; almost a hundred poets (some of whom,
truth to say, were only would-be poets) took part
in the competition, which was decided in 1867;
several of the productions proved of great literary
merit. The prize went to a former secretary of
embassy, Edouard Grenier, who had already made
his mark as a gifted literary artist, and whom
many of us still remember: a lovable old man, of

1 Bibliotheque LiberateAbraham Lincoln, by Augustin Cochin,
Paris, 1869.

306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

upright ideas, a model of courtesy, counting only
friends in the very large circle of his acquain
tances. He ended with these admirable lines:

^ Tons ces fleaux celestes,
Ces ravageurs d'Etats dont les pieds triomphants
Sur les peres broyes ecrasent les enfants,
Grace a toi, desormais, paliront dans Fhistoire. . .
L'humanite te doit Pesclavage aboli . . .
L'Amerique sa force et la paix revenue,
L'Europe un ideal de grandeur inconnue,
Et Favenir mettra ton image et ton nom
Plus haut que les Cesars aupres de Washington.

When, in a log cabin of Kentucky, over a cen
tury ago, that child was born who was named
after his grandfather killed by the Indians, Abra
ham Lincoln, Napoleon I swayed Europe, Jeffer-
soti was President of the United States, and the
second War of Independence had not yet come
to pass. It seems all very remote. But the
memory of the great man to whom these lines
are dedicated is as fresh in everybody's mind as
if he had only just left us; more people, indeed,
know of him now than was the case in his own
day. "It is," says Plutarch, "the fortune of all
good men that their virtue rises in glory after
their death, and that the envy which any evil
man may have conceived against them never sur
vives the envious." Such was the fate of Lincoln.

V

THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

PHILADELPHIA. APRIL 20, 1906

THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

ON the occasion of the second centennial of
Franklin's birth, a solemn celebration,
lasting several days, was held in Phila
delphia, under the auspices of the American
Philosophical Society, founded by himself more
than a century and a half before.

Many Americans of fame took part in the cele
bration, such men as the Secretary of State
Elihu Root, Sfenator Lodge, Horace H. Furness,
former Ambassador Joseph Choate, the President
(not yet emeritus) of Harvard, Charles W. Eliot,
Doctor Weir Mitchell, and many others. Sev- (
eral foreign nations were represented; England
notably by one of her sons who has succeeded in
the difficult task of adding lustre to the name he
bears, Sir George Darwin.

In accordance with a law passed by Congress
two years before, a commemorative medal was,
on that occasion, offered to France. The speech
of acceptance is here reproduced solely to have
a pretext for reprinting the generous and mem
orable address of presentation by the then Sec
retary of State, Mr. Elihu Root; and also in

309

310 THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

order to help in better preserving the souvenir
of a more than graceful act of the United States
toward France.

SPEECH BY THE SECRETARY OP STATE PRESENT
ING THE MEDAL

EXCELLENCY: On the 27th of April, 1904,
the Congress of the United States provided by
statute that the Secretary of State should cause
to be struck a medal to commemorate the two-
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin
Franklin, and that one single impression on
gold should be presented, under the direction
of the President of the United States, to the
RepubEc of Prance.

Under the direction of the President I now
execute this law by delivering the medal to you
as the representative of the Republic of Prance.
This medal is the work of fraternal collaboration
by two artists whose citizenship Americans prize
highly, Louis and Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The
name indicates that they may have inherited
some of the fine artistic sense which makes
France pre-eminent in the exquisite art of the
medallist.

On one side of the medal you will find the
wise, benign, and spirited face of Franklin. On
the other side literature, science, and philosophy
attend, while history makes her record. The

THE FBANKLIN MEDAL Sll

material of the medal is American gold, as was
Franklin.

For itself this would be but a small dividend
upon the investments which the ardent Beau-
marchais made for the mythical firm of Hortalez
and Company. It would be but scanty interest
on the never-ending loans yielded by the steady
friendship of de Vergennes to the distressed ap
peals of Franklin. It is not appreciable even
as a gift when one recalls what Lafayette, Ro-
chambeau, de Grasse, and their gallant comrades
were to us, and what they did for us; when one
sees in historical perspective the great share of
France in securing American independence, loom
ing always larger from our own point of view, in
comparison with what we did for ourselves.

But take it for your country as a token that
with all the changing manners of the passing
years, with all the vast and welcome influx of
new citizens from all the countries of the earth,
Americans have not forgotten their fathers and
their fathers' friends.

Enow by it that we have in America a senti
ment for France; and a sentiment, enduring
among a people, is a great and substantial fact
to be reckoned with.

We feel a little closer to you of France because
of what you were to Franklin. Before the re
splendence and charm of your country's history

312 THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

when all the world does homage to your litera
ture, your art, your exact science, your philo
sophic thought we smile with pleasure, for we
feel, if we do not say: "Yes, these are old friends
of ours; they were very fond of our Ben Franklin
and he of them."

Made more appreciative, perhaps, by what
Prance did for us when this old philosopher came
to you, a stranger, bearing the burdens of our
early poverty and distress, we feel that the
enormous value of Prance to civilization should
lead every lover of mankind, in whatever land,
earnestly to desire the peace, the prosperity, the
permanence, and the unchecked development of
your national life.

We, at least, can not feel otherwise; for what
you were to Franklin we would be we are to
you: always true and loyal friends.

THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S ANSWER

On behalf of the French Republic, with feel
ings of gratitude, I receive the gift offered to
my country, this masterful portrait of Franklin,
which a law of Congress ordered to be made,
and which is signed with the name, twice famous,
of Saint- Gaudens.

Everything in such a present powerfully ap
peals to a French heart. It represents a man
ever venerated and admired in my country the

THE FRANKLIN MEDAL 313

scientist, the philosopher, the inventor, the leader
of men, the one who gave to Prance her first no
tion of what true Americans really were. ' 'When
you were in France," Chastellux wrote to Frank
lin, "there was no need to praise the Americans.
We had only to say: Look; here is their repre
sentative/'

The gift is offered in this town of Philadelphia
where there exists a hall the very name of which
is dear to every American and every French heart
the Hall of Independence and at a gathering
of a society founded "for promoting useful knowl
edge, 1 * which has remained true to its principle,
worthy of its founder, and which numbers many
whose fame is equally great on both sides of the
ocean.

I receive it at the hands of one of the best
servants of the state which this country ever pro
duced, no less admired at the head of her diplo
macy now than he was lately at the head of her
army, one of those rare men who prove the right
man, whatever be the place. You have listened
to his words, and you will agree with me when I
say that I shall have two golden gifts to forward
to my government: the medal and Secretary
Root's speech.

The work of art offered by America to France
will be sent to Paris to be harbored in that unique
museum, her Museum of Medals, where her his-

314 THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

tory is, so to say, written in gold and bronze, from
the fifteenth century up to now, without any
ruler, any great event, being omitted. Some of
the American past is also written there that
period so glorious when French and American
history were the same history, when first rose a
nation that has never since ceased to rise.

There, awaiting your gift, are preserved medals
struck in France at the very time of the events,
in honor of Washington, to commemorate the re
lief of Boston in 1776 ; a medal of John Paul Jones
in honor of his naval campaign of 1779; an
other medal representing W. Washington, and one
representing General Howard, to commemorate
the battle of Cowpens in 1781; one to celebrate
the peace of 1783 and the freedom of the thirteen
States; one of Lafayette; one of Suffren, who
fought so valiantly on distant seas for the same
cause as Washington; one, lastly, of Franklin him
self, dated 1784, bearing the famous inscription
composed in honor of the great man by Turgot:
"Eripuit caelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis." *

My earnest hope is that one of the next medals

1 An official note informed the Secretary of State, in the following
December, of the arrangements made by the French Republic for
the preservation, among proper surroundings, of the Franklin medal:
"In the centre of the Hall of Honor in the Museum of Medals at
the Paris Mint, stand four ancient show-cases of the time of Louis
XVI. One of these has been selected for the Franklin medal, which
has been surrounded with the medals herein below enumerated, which
were deemed the fittest to make up a worthy retinue, if the phrase

THE FRANKLIN MEDAL 315

to be struck and added to the series will be one
to commemorate the resurrection of that great
city which now, at this present hour, agonizes
by the shores of the Pacific. The disaster of
San Francisco has awakened a feeling of deepest
grief in every French heart, and a feeling of ad
miration, too, for the manliness displayed by the
population during this awful trial. So that what
will be commemorated will not be only the
American nation's sorrow, but her unfailing hero
ism and energy.

Now your gift will be added to the collection
in Paris; it will be there in its proper place.
The thousands who visit this museum will be re
minded by it that the ties happily formed long
ago are neither broken nor distended, and they
will contemplate with a veneration equal to that
of their ancestors the features of one whom Mira-
beau justly called one of the heroes of mankind.

The Franklin ceremony had occurred at the
time of the San Francisco catastrophe, at a mo*
ment when, communication having been cut,
anxiety was intense.

be permissible." There follows a description of sixteen medals com
memorative of Franco-American history, placed in the same case.
"House of Representatives," 5Qth Congress, 2d session, Document
No, 416,

316 THE FRANKLIN MEDAL

I had spoken without instructions, but the
French Government took their representa s
words to the letter. The medal was ordered, and
was for Bott6e, the artist, a former recipient of the
*' Grand Prix de Rome," a work of love. It shows
on one side the city rising from its ruins, sur
rounded with emblems of recovered youth and
prosperity. On the other side the image of the
French Republic is seen offering from over the sea
a twig of laurel to America.

One single copy in gold was struck, and the
presentation took place in rebuilt San Francisco,
in 1909, the medal being received by the states
man and poet, the translator of the sonnets of
Heredia, Edward Robeson Taylor, then mayor
of the city.

VI
HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE NAME OF THE
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, PHILADEL
PHIA, JANUARY 17, 1913

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

WE meet on a solemn occasion.
One has recently disappeared from our
midst whose work was a model; whose
life, too, was a model; whose benign influence, ex
erted for many years from the seclusion of a quiet
retreat, was felt far beyond the limits of his own
country; whose views, always expressed in the
gentlest terms, will outlive the thunder of many
a noisy writer, as ever-renewing flowers survive
earthquakes.

A member of the American Philosophical So
ciety, founded in his own city by Franklin "to
promote useful knowledge," Furness was true to
the motto of the society and lived the life of a true
philosopher. I call him Furness, without Doctor
or any other title, not because he is no more, but
to obey a request of his. "I do not like titles in
the republic of letters," he wrote me in the early
times of our acquaintance; "if you will drop all
to me, I will do the same to you. One touch of
Shakespeare makes the whole world kin."

All those whom the spirit of philosophy has
penetrated and who stanchly adhere to its ideal
count among the noblest types of humanity and,

319

320 HOBACE HOWARD FUENESS

whatever their rank in life or the period when
they lived, resemble each other. When Purness
died numerous eulogies, biographies, and portraits
of him, penned, many of them, by the hands of
masters, were published. I wonder if any better
resembled him than this one:

" Remember his constancy in the fulfilling of the
dictates of reason, the evenness of his humor at
all junctures, the serenity of his face, his extreme
gentleness, his scorn for vainglory, his applica
tion to penetrate the meaning of things. He
never dismissed any point without having first
well examined and well understood it. He bore
unjust reproaches without acrimony. He did
nothing with undue haste. ... A foe to slander,
he was neither hypercritical, nor suspicious, nor
sophistical. He was pleased with little, modest in
his house, his clothing, his food. He loved work,
ate soberly, and thus was able to busy himself,
for the whole day, with the same problems. Let
us remember how constant and equable was his
friendship, with what open mind he accepted a
frank contradiction of his own views, with what
joy he received advice that proved better than
his own, and the kind of piety, free from all super
stition, that was his. Do as he did, and your
last hour will be comforted, as his was, by the
conscience of the good accomplished/'

In those higher regions where true philosophers

HORACE HOWARD FUKNESS 321

live, equality reigns ; they resemble each other by
their virtues; this portrait, which, to my mind,
gives such a vivid idea of the life Furness led at
Wallingford, near Philadelphia, was drawn eight
een centuries ago, by that noblest of antique
minds, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, describing his
predecessor, the first of the Antonines, he who,
on the last night of his life, being asked for the
password, had answered: "JEquanimitas."

After studies at Harvard and Philadelphia and
a visit to Europe and the Levant, having taken
such part in the Civil War as his infirmity allowed
him, a happy husband, a happy father, Horace
Howard Furness decided to devote his life to the
"promotion of useful knowledge." He withdrew,
in a way, from the world, settling in a quiet re
treat, and started on his life's work with the equip
ment of a modern scientist and the silent en
thusiasm, the indefatigable energy of mediaeval
thinkers, the compilers of Summ& of times gone,
regretting nothing, happy with his lot, at one with
that master mind of old English literature, the
author of Piers Plowman. "For," said centuries
ago the man "robed in russet,"

"If heaven be on this erthe * and ese to any soule,
It is in cloistre or in scole * be many skilles I finde;
For in cloistre cometh no man " to chide ne to fihte,
But all is buxomnesse there and bokes * to rede and to
lerne."

322 HORACE HOWAED FUBNESS

Such a cloister, with ease to his soul, with bux-
omness, with books to read and learn, was for
our departed friend his house in Wallingford,
where he lived surrounded by that extraordinarily
gifted family of his: a wife to whom we owe the
Concordance to the poems of Shakespeare, a
sister who translated for him the German critics,
sons and a daughter and a sister's relative 1 who
have all made their mark in their country's lit
erature. There, for years, he toiled, never think-
ing of self nor of fame, busy with his task, and
even in his seclusion, with his tenderness of heart
and ample sympathies, listening to

The still sad music of humanity.

What that task was all the world now knows.
A passionate admirer of Shakespeare, he wanted
to make accessible to all every criticism, informa
tion, comment, explanation concerning the poet
which had appeared anywhere at any time.
Each volume was to be a complete encyclopaedia
of all that concerned each play. The first ap
peared in 1871, the sixteenth is the last he will
have put his hand to*

In the introduction to each volume, his pur
poses and methods are explained, and never has
any writer more completely and more unwittingly
allowed us to look into his own character than

1 Owen Wister.

HORACE HOWARD FUENESS 323

Furness when writing what he must have con
sidered his very impersonal statements. What
strikes the reader, before all, is the philosophical
spirit which pervades the whole work. A worthy
member of the American Philosophical Society,
he wanted to be " useful/' Lives are and will be
more and more encumbered; the acquisition of
knowledge should, therefore, be made more and
more easy of reach. "To abridge the labor and
to save the time of others" was, said he in his
first volume, what impelled him to write. No
pains of his were spared to lessen those of others.
And all specialists know the extraordinary relia
bility of his texts and statements. "Nowhere,
perhaps," Sir Sidney Lee wrote in his Life of
Shakespeare, "has more labor been devoted to
the study of the works of the poet than that given
by Mr. H. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, to the
preparation of the new Variorum edition."

The labor was one of love, and a lover naturally
forgets himself for the beloved one. Furness tried
not to show the ardor of his sentiments; but it
now and then appears, usually in small details
when he would, more naturally, be off his guard,
Shakespeare calls Caesar's Ambassador Thidias,
and not Thyreus, as the later-day editors do,
under pretense that it was the real name. They
are wrong: "Shakespeare in his nomenclature
was, as in all things, exquisite. . . . For certain

324 HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

reasons (did he ever do anything without reason ?)
he chose the name of Thidias. . . ."

In the privacy of intimate correspondence Fur-
ness would be more outspoken, being not restrained
by the thought that he would be imposing his
own views upon the mass of readers. On Cleo
patra, about whom I had risked opinions somewhat
different from his, he wrote me it seems it was
yesterday: "Of course, Shakespeare's Cleopatra
is not history. But who cares for history? Of
this be assured, that, if you had lived with her as
I have for two years, you would adore her as
deeply as I do."

The truth is that, as he said, he actually lived
with the personages of the plays, and he raptur
ously listened to those far-off voices, which came
clearer to his infirm ears than to those of any one
of us, meant only for commonplace uses. He had
a better right than any to form an opinion, but
was ever afraid to seem to force it on others. Of
his edition itself he had written: "I do not flatter
myself that this is an enjoyable edition of Shake
speare. I regard it rather as a necessary evil." 1
On another occasion, having been criticised about
a certain statement of his, he wrote: "I now wish
to state that my critic was entirely right and I
entirely. wrong." His work was a work of love,
but it was also a work of reason, as befits a phi-

1 Introduction to Hamkt.

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS 325

losopher. He leaned throughout toward conser
vative methods, which have doubtless the fault
of attracting less tumultuous attention to the
worker: a great fault in the eyes of the many, a
great quality in Furness's own.

His shrewd good sense, seconded by a no less
enjoyable good humor, never failed him. When
he began, one important question had first to be
decided: would he admit in his work only tex
tual and philological criticisms or also aesthetic
criticism, mere poetry, sheer literature ? To many
the temptation would have been great to exclude
the latter, the fashion being among the most
haughty, if not the most learned, of the learned
to doubt the seriousness, laboriousness, usefulness
of any who can enjoy, in a play of Shakespeare's,
something else than doubtful readings and mis
prints. ' This school is less new than is generally
believed, and in his Temple du Gofit Voltaire had
already represented the" superb critics of the
matter-of-fact school answering those who asked
them whether they would not visit the temple:

" Nous, Messieurs, point du tout.
Ce n'est pas 1&, grice & Dieu, notre ftude;
Le goftt n'est rien, nous avons Phabitude
De rediger au long, de point en point,
Ce qu'on pensa, mais nous ne pensons point.'*

The fact is that, as Furness well perceived from
the first, the two elements should no more be

326 HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

separated than soul from body. Without accu
racy, literary criticism is mere trumpery; without
a sense of the beautiful, mere accuracy is death
like. Much so-called aesthetic criticism, wrote
Furness, "is flat, stale, unprofitable. . . . But
shall we ignore the possible existence of a keener
insight than our own ? . . , Are we not to listen
eagerly and reverently when Coleridge or Goethe
talks about Shakespeare ?"

With such a rule in mind he made his selections,
pruning what he deemed should be pruned: "re-
jectiones et exclusiones debitas," as Bacon would
have said. But one more kind of thing he ex
cluded, and this is an eminently characteristic
trait of his. His gentleness (not a weak, but a
manly one) rebelled at others' acerbity, and when
he saw appear that unwelcome and somewhat
abundant element in modern criticism, he simply
left it out: no admittance for any such thing
within the covers of a gentleman-scholar's gentle
manly and scholarly work. True it is that, while
Shakespeare is the author most read after the
Bible, it is also the one about which the most furi
ous and unchristian disputes have been waged
after the Bible. The Philadelphia scholar
wanted all the critics admitted within his fold
to keep the peace there, and he adopted the fol
lowing rule: "First, all unfavorable criticism of
fellow critics is excluded as much as possible. . . ,

HORACE HOWARD PURNESS 847

To confound Goethe, Schlegel, or Tieck is one
thing, to elucidate Shakespeare is another." He
went even further, and since he could not quote
whole books and had to select, "the endeavor,"
he said, "in all honesty has been to select from
every author the passages wherein he appears to
best advantage." What critic, then, can be
imagined so blind to the service rendered, so
much in love with his own harshness, that would
not feel toward Furness as Queen Katharine
toward Griffith:

After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honor from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Furness.

His friendly appreciation of French critics (who,
with all they lacked in early days, were, after all,
the first to form, outside of England, an opinion
on Shakespeare, the oldest one being of about
1680) cannot but touch a French heart. "It has
given me especial pleasure," he said in the Intro
duction to his first volume, "to lay before the
English reader the extracts from the French; it is
but little known, in this country at least, outside
the ranks of Shakespeare students, how great is
the influence which Shakespeare at this hour is
exerting on French literature, and how many and
how ardent are his admirers in this nation." He

S28 HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

had even, at a later date, a good word for poor
Duels and his Hamlet, a Hamlet truly Ducis's
own.

Nor shall I ever forget in what tones, amidst
friendly applause, the great scholar spoke of
France in his own city of Philadelphia, at the
memorable gathering of April 20, 1906, when, in
accordance with the will of the nation as expressed
by Congress, a medal was offered to my country
to commemorate her reception of Franklin at the
hour when the fate of the States was still weigh
ing in the balance.

In the early years of manhood one sees, far
ahead on the road, those great thinkers, scien
tists, master men, tall, powerful, visible from a
distance, ready to help the passer-by, like great
oaks offering their shade. They seem so strong,
so far above the common that the thought never
occurs that we of the frailer sort may see the day
when they will be no more. Who was ever pres
ent at the death of an oak? Whoever thought
that he could see the day when he would accom
pany Robert Browning's remains to Westminster
or mourn for the disappearance of Taine or Gaston
Paris? The feeling I had for them I had for
Furness, too. Was it possible to think that this
solid oak would fall ?

He himself, however, had misgivings, and it
seemed, of late years, as if the dear ones who had

HORACE HOWARD FURNESS 329

gone before were beckoning to him. "Do you
remember," he wrote me in 1909, "my sister, Mrs.
Wister, to whom I had the pleasure of introduc
ing you at the Franklin celebration ? I am now
living under the black and heavy shadow of her
loss. She left me last November, solitary and
alone, aching for the 'sound of a voice that is
silent/" And at a more recent date: "I have
been so shattered by the blows of fate that I
doubt you'll ever again receive a printed forget-
me-not from me."

And now, in our turn, members of the American
Philosophical Society, members of the Shakespeare
Societies of the world, members innumerable of
the republic of letters, we too ache for "the sound
of a voice that is silent." On the signet with
which he used to seal his letters, Furness had en
graved a motto, which is the best summing up
of Emperor Marcus Aurelius's firm and resigned
philosophy: "This, too, will pass away."

For him, too, the august sad hour struck. But
so far as anything in this fleeting world may be
held to remain, so long as mankind shall be able
to appreciate honest work honestly done, the
name of Furness will not pass away, but live en
shrined in every scholar's grateful memory*

VII
FROM WAR TO PEACE

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN
SOCIETY FOR THE JUDICIAL SETTLEMENT OF IN
TERNATIONAL DISPUTES, DECEMBER 17, 1910

FROM WAR TO PEACE 1

DOES peace mean progress ? Is the disap
pearance of war a sign of improvement or
of decay? At a yet recent date learned
men, their eyes to their microscopes, were teach
ing us that among the various kinds of living
creatures they had studied, war was the rule;
that where struggle ceased, life ceased; and that,
since more beings came into the world than the
world could feed, the destruction of the weakest
was both a necessity and a condition of progress.
Struggle, war, violence meant development;
peace meant decay. And a bold generalization
applied to reasoning man the fate and conditions
of unreasoning vermin. Since it was fate, why
resist the inevitable and what could be the good
of peace debates ?

But the stumbling-block that Science had
placed on the road to better days has been re
moved by Science herself. The sweeping con
clusions attributed to that great man Darwin by
pupils less great have been scrutinized; other ex
periments, such as he would have conducted him*

1 The text of this address is reproduced exactly as it was delivered,
December 17, 1910, only a few notes and references being added.

333

334 FROM WAR TO PEACE

self had he been living, were tried, and their re-
stilts added to our book of knowledge. Great
results, indeed, and notable ones; it turned out
that the explanation of transformism, of progress,
of survival, was not to be found in a ceaseless war
insuring the predominance of the fittest, but in
quiet and peaceful adaptation to environment, to
climate, and to circumstances. And we French
are excusably proud to see that, for having un
folded those truths years before Darwin wrote,
due honor is now rendered almost everywhere, and
especially in America, to Jean Baptiste de La
marck, author of the long obscure and now famous
Philosophic Zoologiqw, 1809.

As for the undue multiplication of individuals,
statistics unknown to Darwin have since shown
that, whatever may be the case with beetles or
fishes (and let them work out their own problems
according to their own laws), there is, for man at
least, no need of self-destruction to ward off such
a peril: the general decrease of the rate of re
production, so striking throughout the world, is
all that is wanted, and in some cases is even
more than is wanted.

War, therefore, is not our unavoidable fate, and
that much of the road has been cleared: a long
road followed amid terrible sufferings by nna.nTri-n.fl
through centuries. Th chief danger in times
past, and partly still in our own, does not result

FROM WAR TO PEACE 335

from an ineluctable fate, but from the private
disposition of men and of their leaders. And we
know what for ages those dispositions were.
Former-day chroniclers are wont to mention, as
a matter of course, that "the king went to the
wars in the season," as he would have gone a-fish-
ing. People at large saw not only beauty in war
(as there is in a just war, and of the highest order,
exactly as there is in every duty fulfilled), but they
saw in it an unmixed beauty. Men and nations
would take pride in their mercilessness, and they
were apt to find in the sufferings of an enemy an
unalloyed pleasure.

Such were the feelings of the time. To none
of the master artists who represented the day of
judgment on the walls of Rome, Orvieto, or Padua,
or on the portals of our northern cathedrals, did
the thought occur to place among his fierce angels
driving the guilty to their doom, one with a tear
on his face: a tear that would have made the
artist more famous than all his art; a tear, not
because the tortures could be supposed to be un
just or the men sinless, but because they were
tortures and because the men had been sinful.
Dies ir&l

Artists belonged to their time and expressed
their time's thought. The teaching of saints and
of thinkers long remained of little avail. War,
that ' 'human malady," as Montaigne said, was

336 FROM WAR TO PEACE

considered as impossible to heal as rabies was
until the day when a Pasteur came. Yet protests
began to be more perceptibly heard as men better
understood what they themselves were and com
menced to suspect that the time might come
when all would be equal before the law. Nothing,
Tocqueville has observed, is so conducive to
mercy as equality. 1

All those who, in the course of centuries, led
men to the conquest of their rights can be truly
claimed as the intellectual ancestors of the present
promoters of a sane international peace: men like
our Jean Bodin, who, while upholding, as was
unavoidable in his day, the principle of autocracy,
yet based his study of the government of nations
on the general interests of the commonwealth,
and who, in opposition to Machiavelli, who had
called his book The Prince, called his The Republic.
To Bodin, who protests against the so-called

1 On tliis he is very insistent. He speaks of "cette disposition &
la pitie* que F6galit6 inspire." According to him, "les passions
guemSres deviendront plus rares et moins vives, a mesure que les
conditions seront plus egales," and elsewhere: "Lorsque le principe
de P6galit ne se developpe pas seulement chez une nation, mais en
m&ne temps chez plusieurs peuples voisins . . . ils concoivent
pour la paix un m&tne amour . . . et finissent par considrer la
guerre comme une calamite presque aussi grande pour le vainqueur
que pour le vaincu." But this goal has not yet been reached, and
in the meantime, "quel que soit le gout que ces nations aient pour la
paix, il faut bien qu'elles se tiennent pretes a repousser la guerre ou,
en d'autres termes, qu'elles aient une arm6e." Democratic en Amtri-
que, I 4 th ed., 1865, HI, 444, 445, 473, 474-

FROM WAR TO PEACE 337

right of the strongest, have been traced some
of the principles embodied much later in the
American and in the French "Declaration of
the Rights of Man." 1

Such thinkers truly deserve the name of fore
runners; such men as that great Hugo Grotius,
whose ever-living fame was not without influence
on the selection of his own country as the seat of
the peace conferences of our day, and who, being
then settled in France, near Senlis, dedicated to

1 Les six limes de la Republique de Jean Bodin, Angevin, Paris,
1576; innumerable editions, so great was the success. The work is
expressly written in opposition to that of Machiavelli, "this procurer
of tyrants." Kings may be a necessity, yet the thing of the state
is not theirs, but is the common property of the citizens, res fublica.
No one on board the ship can play the part of an onlooker, especially
in stormy weather; all on board must bestir themselves and bring
such help as they can: "Depuis que Porage imptueux a tourmente*
le vaisseau de nostre Republique avec telle violence que le Patron
mesme et les pilotes sont comme las et recreus (worn out) d'un travail
continuel, il faut bien que les passagers y prestent la main, qui aux
voiles, qui aux cordages, qui a Pancre, et ceux a qui la force man-
quera, qu'ils donnent quelque bon advertissement, ou qu'ils pr6-
sentent leurs vceux et prie*res t Celuy qui peut commander aux vents
et appaiser les tempestes, puisque tous ensemble courent un mesme
danger." (Preface, to the magistrate and poet, the friend of Ron-
sard, Guy du Faur de Pibrac.) For Bodin, peace is the ideal; yet
"war must be waged to repel violence, in case of necessity. . . *
The frontier of a well-ordered republic is justice, and not the point
of the lance." ("La frontiere d'une rSpublique bien ordonne"e est
la justice . . . et non pas la pointe de la lance.") Such is the ideal,
but since it has not been reached yet, the keeping up of a permanent
military force is a necessity, "and to bestow on it a third of the
revenue is not too much," especially when you have warlike neigh
bors, which is the case of "peoples living in fertile and temperate
regions, like France." Bk. V, chap. 5.

338 FROM WAR TO PEACE

King Louis XIII his famous work on war and
peace, so memorable for its denunciation of frivo
lous wars and wanton cruelties. 1

Soon the names of those to be honored for the
same cause became legion: men like Pascal,
Saint-Pierre, the Encyclopedists, Kant, Bentham,
Tocqueville, and many others.

Among Pascal's Thoughts is this memorable one,
which forecasts and sums up much of what has
since been or will be done: "When it is a ques
tion of deciding whether war should be waged,
of sentencing so many Spaniards to death, one
man only decides, and one who is interested.
The decision ought to rest with an impartial third
party/'

A little later, that strange Abbe de Saint-Pierre
was writing those works considered as so many
wild dreams in his day and no longer read at all
in ours. But if he were to return now, he would,
according to one of his latest critics, feel not at
all dismayed, but say: "This is all for the best;
you need not study my works, since you have
put in practise nearly all my ideas; there remains
only my Perpetual Peace; 2 but, like the others,
its turn will come."

1 De Jure Belli ac Pacts Lilri III, Paris, 1625.

2 Projet pour rendre la paix perp$tuette en Europe, 1713-17, 3
vols. The abb dreamed of a league of all governments in favor of
peace; any of them breaking the pledge, to be attacked by the others.
Differences between states should be arbitrated. A French prede-

FROM WAR TO PEACE 339

If its turn has not come yet, great practical
steps have surely been taken toward it, chief
among them that move, so unexpected a few
years ago, so dubiously wondered at when it oc
curred, and now so thoroughly accepted, that, as
in the case of all great inventions, one wonders
how things could go on before it existed: the call
ing of the first conference at The Hague by the
Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II.

"The maintenance of general peace," read the
Russian circular of August, 1898, "and a possible
reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh
upon all nations, present themselves in the actual
situation of the world, as the ideal toward which
should tend the efforts of all governments. . . .
The ever-increasing financial expense touches pub
lic prosperity at its very source; the intellectual
and physical powers of peoples, labor and capital,
are, most of it, turned aside from their natural
functions and consumed unproductively. . . .

cessor of the abbe* had been Emeric Grace", whose Nouoeau Cynee ou
Discours d'Estat representant les occasions et moyens (Festablir une paix
generate et la liberte du commerce par tovi le monde, was published in
Paris, 1623 (modern edition, with an English translation by T. W.
Balch, Philadelphia, 1909). Cruc6 was in favor of the establishment
at Venice of a Supreme Court of Arbitration, in which every sovereign
would have had his representative: "If any one rebelled against the
decree of so notable a company, he would receive the disgrace of all
other princes, who would find means to bring him to reason" (Balch's
ed., p. 104) a plan which, in fact, is still under discussion.

In connection with the works of these theorists should be read-
e. g., Alberico Gentili's De Jure BeUi, 1588-98.

340 FEOM WAE TO PEACE

To put an end to those ceaseless armaments and
to find means for preventing the calamities which
threaten the entire world, such is the supreme
duty which to-day Ees upon all states."

When one man, then another, then another, had
come and said: I can draw the lightning from
the clouds; I can rise in the air; I can flash your
words and thoughts to any distance you please;
I can cure rabies by inoculating rabies; I can
make you talk with your friend miles away; I
can navigate a boat under the sea, scepticism had
scarcely been greater than when the circular took
the world by suiprise. The issue seemed more
than doubtful; many among the most sanguine
barely hoped to succeed in preventing the abso
lute failure that would have killed such a project
for generations.

Shortly afterward I happened to be in St.
Petersburg and had the honor of being received
by the Emperor. The conversation fell on the
"Great Design/' to give it the name used for the
very different plan (implying coercion) attributed
two centuries before to the French King Henry
IV. I was struck by the quiet conviction of the
originator of the new movement as to its ultimate
results, and his disposition not to give up the
plan if at first it met with difficulties and delays.
Emperor Nicholas summed up his views with
the remark: "One must wait longer when plant
ing an oak than when planting a flower."

FROM WAE TO PEACE 341

Longer, indeed, yet not so very long, after all.
The first conference took place, and in it, I may
say, the delegations of our two Republics presided
over by such statesmen and thinkers as Andrew
D. White and Leon Bourgeois, failed not to fulfill
the part assigned to our democracies by their
ideals and traditions. In spite of scepticism, that
first conference reached an unexpected measure
of success. Eight years later a second one was
convened on the felicitous suggestion of President
Roosevelt, and now the supposedly useless mech
anism from dreamland has been so heartily
accepted by mankind at large, all over the globe,
that the approximate date for a third one has
already been selected. Governments at first
doubted that one would be of any use; now they
want more.

The word had been spoken indeed at the proper
moment. The teachings of philosophers and of
experience, the outcome of revolutions, a more
vivid sense of equality among men imbuing them
with mercy, according to Tocqueville, had caused
the seed to fall on prepared ground. We scarcely
realize, looking at it from so near, how great the
movement thus started has already become. The
practical ideas put forth less than a dozen years
ago have progressed so much that more treaties
of arbitration have been signed between the first
Hague Conference and now than between the
day of creation and that conference. I take, if

342 FROM WAR TO PEACE

I may be permitted to allude to my own feelings,
no small pride in having concluded the first one,
duly ratified by both countries, ever signed by
the United States with any European Power, and
I was glad to thus continue an old-established
tradition, since, in the matter of treaties with the
United States, be they treaties of commerce, alli
ance, or amity, France has been accustomed to
take the lead among nations. 1

Quicker, indeed, than was anticipated by the
sower himself, the oak has grown and the nations
can rest under its shade. Several important ap
peals have been made to the court of The Hague,
the United States taking the lead and giving to
all the best example. Those experiments, which
most of the great Powers have already tried, have
had manifold advantages : they have shown that
dangerous quarrels could thus be honorably set
tled; they have shown also that defects in the
working of the court exist and should be remedied.

Public utterances and circulars from Presidents
Roosevelt and Taft and from Secretaries of State
Root and Ktaox have pointed out the importance
of trying to establish a permanent court, with
judges ever present, paid by the associated nations,

1 First (and only) treaty, of alliance, 1778; first treaty of amity
and commerce, 1778; first consular convention, 1788; first treaty
for the aggrandizement of the territory of the United States, 1803.
The only example lacking, and for good reasons, is that of a treaty
of peace following a war.

FROM WAR TO PEACE 343

selected from among men of such, a high moral
standing as to be above influence of creed or na
tionality, true citizens of the world, fit magis
trates to judge the world.

In these views, the future realization of which
the second conference has insured, France heartily
concurred, having indeed, during the first confer
ence, initiated an early preliminary move toward
continuity and permanence.

Given these more and more enlightened disposi
tions among governments, it may seem that the
work of a private society like this must needs be
of comparatively little import. The reverse is
the truth. It has an immense power for good,
for it can act directly on the lever that moves the
world: public opinion. So powerful is such a
lever that even in the past, in times when men
were not their own masters, pubEc opinion had
to be reckoned with; such imperious leaders of
men as a Richelieu or a Napoleon knew it better
than any one. Opinio veritate major, had even
cynically said the great philosopher Francis Bacon.
But if opinion can occasionally defeat truth, much
better can it defend truth. With the spreading of
instruction and with an easier access to men's
minds] through books, journals, public meetings,
and free discussion, its power against truth has
been considerably diminished and its power for
good increased and purified.

344 FROM WAR TO PEACE

You know this and act accordingly. Though
doing so in your private capacity, you conform
in fact to the instructions drawn by a masterly
hand for the American delegates at the second
conference at The Hague. In these instructions
Secretary Root told the delegates never to forget
that "the object of the conference was agreement,
not compulsion," and that the agreements reached
should be "genuine and not reluctant/'

This is, undoubtedly, the road to follow, a road
not yet smooth, nor cleared of its rocks and pit
falls. The dangers continue to be many. One
of the dangers is of asking too much too soon
and of causing nations to fear that, if they make
any little concession, they will be led by degrees
to a point where, being peacefully disarmed, their
continuance as a nation will depend upon the will,
the good faith and the excellent virtues of some
one else. Another is to describe war as being
such an abominable thing in itself, whatever be
its occasion, as to cause that public opinion on
which so much depends to rebel against the
preacher and his whole doctrine.

Let us not forget that, even in the land of
"Utopia/' the country of Nowhere, in which
every virtue of good citizenship was practised,
and war held as a monstrosity, rem plane beluinam,
all wars had not been abolished. Sir Thomas
More informs us that Utopians make war for

FROM WAR TO PEACE 345

two causes and keep, therefore, well drilled. The
causes are : First, ' ' to defend their own country ' ' ;
second, "to drive out of their friends' land the
enemies that have invaded it." l We have waged
in the past such wars and cannot pretend to feel
repentant.

Such wars continue to be unavoidable to-day,
and to deny this is only to increase the danger of
a revulsion of feeling among well-disposed nations.
What we may hope and must strive for is that,
with the development of mankind, a better knowl
edge of our neighbors, an understanding that a
difference is not necessarily a vice, nor a criticism
a threat, with that better instruction which a
society like this one is giving to the many, a time
may come when that same public opinion will
render impossible the two sorts of casus belli for
which More deems war to be not only necessary
but noble and virtuous.

No less dangerous is it to load war with all the
sins in Israel, thus running the same risk of mak-

1 "Thoughe they do daylie practise and exercise themselves in the
discipline of warre, and not onelie the men but also the women upon
certen appointed dales, lest they should be to seke (inhaMes in the
Latin) in the feate of annes, if nede should require, yet they never
go to batteU, but either in defence of their owne countrey, or to
drive out of their frendes lande the enemies that have invaded it, or
by their power to deliver from the yocke and bondage of tirannye
some people, that be therewith oppressed. Which thing they do of
jneere pitie and compassion." Ralph Robinson's translation, ist
e<L, 1551; ed. Arber, p. 132.

346 FROM WAR TO PEACE

ing people rebel not only against the preacher but
against his very creed. When we are told by the
pacifist that, owing to the wars of the early nine
teenth century, only inferior people were left in
France to perpetuate the race, we wonder how it
is that she got a Victor Hugo, an Alexandre
Dumas, a Lotus Pasteur, sons of soldiers of Napo
leon, all three. We wonder how, in spite of this
supposed survival of "the weakest," that coun
try got so many thinkers, philosophers, poets,
artists, soldiers, explorers; how the venturous
spirit of the former "coureurs de bois" awoke
again in our days with such notable results in
Asia, Africa, and elsewhere; how birth was given
in our land to the inventors of the dirigible, the
automobile, the submarine, photography, and
radium; how the love of sport in the race has re
appeared of late, as active as it had ever been in
the remote times when football and cricket found
in France their rough-hewn cradle.

Exaggeration will not help, but on the contrary
surely hurt. Truth, if we follow her, is certain
to lead to better times. She has already. Wars
in former centuries lasted a hundred years, then
they lasted thirty years, then seven years; and
now, as disastrous as ever, it is true, but separated
by longer intervals, they last one year. 1 You are

1 Most of them much less. In this, however, as in so many other
respects, the present war, declared by Germany against Russia,

FROM WAR TO PEACE 347

about to celebrate a hundred years' peace with
England; so are we.

That move toward truer, longer, perhaps one
day definitive peace, has been prophesied long be
fore our time, not merely by a dreamer like Abbe
de Saint-Pierre, but by one who had a rare experi
ence of men, of war, and of peace, and who, con
sidering especially the influence of trade on na
tions, once said:

" Although I pretend to no peculiar informa
tion respecting commercial affairs, nor any fore
sight into the scenes of futurity, yet as the mem
ber of an infant empire, as a philanthropist by
character, and (if I may be allowed the expression)
as a citizen of the great republic of humanity at
large, I cannot help turning my attention some
times to this subject. I would be understood to
mean that I cannot help reflecting with pleasure
on the probable influence that commerce may
hereafter have on human 'manners and society in
general. On these occasions I consider how man
kind may be connected like one great family in
fraternal ties. I indulge a fond, perhaps an en
thusiastic idea that, as the world is evidently
less barbarous than it has been, its amelioration
must still be progressive; that nations are be-

August i, 1914 (five days before Austria could be persuaded to act
likewise), against France the 3d, against Belgium the 4th, which
was tantamount to declaring it on England too, is an exception,

348 FROM WAR TO PEACE

coming more humanized in their policy, that the
subjects of ambition and causes for hostility are
daily diminishing; and in fine that the period is
not very remote when the benefits of a liberal
and free commerce will pretty generally succeed
to the devastations and horrors of war."

Thus wrote to Lafayette, on the isth of August,
1786, that "citizen of the great republic of human
ity/' George Washington. 1

That practical results have been secured is cer
tain; that better ones are in store, if we act wisely,
is no less certain. Mankind longs for less troubled
days, and moves toward this not inaccessible
goal. Such is the truth; and we may feel con
fident that, according to the oft-quoted word of
dying Wyclif, "Truth shall conquer."

1 In connection with Washington's views, those of Franklin con
cerning amicable relations between great countries may appropri
ately be quoted. He wrote from Passy, on October 16, 1783, to his
friend David Hartley, one of the British plenipotentiaries for the
peace: "What would you think of a proposition, if I sh'd make it
of a family compact between England, France, and America ? Amer
ica would be as happy as the Sabine girls if she could be the means
of uniting in perpetual peace her father and her husband. What re
peated follies are those repeated wars! You do not want to con
quer and govern one another. Why, then, should you continually
be employed in injuring and destroying one another? How many
excellent things might have been done to promote the internal wel
fare of each country; what bridges, roads, canals, and other public
works and institutions tending to the common felicity, might have
been made and established with the money and men foolishly spent
during the last seven centuries by our mad wars in doing one another
mischief I" Works, ed. Smythe, IX, 107.

FROM WAR TO PEACE 349

A POSTSCRIPT

A few years after this address had been de
livered threatening clouds began to gather. Ger
many, who had prevented, at the first conference
of The Hague, anything being done toward a
limitation of armaments as proposed by Russia, 1
suddenly, in full peace, when other nations were
inclined to think that they were rather too much
armed than not enough, passed a law increasing,
in a prodigious degree, her military forces.

On this move of hers, on what peace-loving
democracies ought to do in the presence of such
an unexpected event, on the future of the peace
and arbitration ideas, after such a blow, the
former president of the French delegation at The
Hague, Mr. Leon Bourgeois, wrote in May, 1913,
little more than a year before the present war, a
noteworthy letter, 2 in which we read:

"One fact strikes us most painfully and might
at first disturb our minds. The bills presently
submitted to the Reichstag are going to increase
in a formidable manner the armaments of Ger
many, and to necessitate on the part of France an

1 "Notwithstanding the support given to the Russian proposition
by France, one of the most martial of the nations, and by various
other governments, the objections voiced by the German delegates
were too serious to be overcome." John W. Foster, Arbitration and
The Hague Court, Boston, 1904, p. 32.
_* Text, e. g., in the Temps, May 12, 1913.

350 FROM WAR TO PEACE

extraordinary effort, and sacrifices to which we
must manfully and promptly consent. . * .

"No one more than myself deplores that folly
of armaments to which Europe is yielding, and I
do not forget that it was I who, in 1899, at the
first Hague Conference, drew up and defended the
resolution in favor of a limitation of the military
load weighing on the world. But I do not forget
either what I said before the Senate, in 1907, after
the second conference: c As for us, confirmed par
tisans of arbitration and peace, disarmament is a
consequence, not a preparation. For disarmament
to be possible, one must first feel that one's right
is secure. The security of right is what must be
organized first of all. Behind that rampart alone,
nations will be able to lay down their arms. . * .

"Let us be pacific, but let us be strong. And
let us know how to wait. The very excess of the
load weighing on Europe will originate, sooner
than is sometimes believed, that irresistible move
ment of opinion which will cause a policy of wis
dom, mutual respect, and real security, to be
come an unavoidable necessity."

The chief factor will be public opinion. Present
events will, one may hope, have served to educate
public opinion throughout the world.

110438

I