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 61 
 
 'K
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE 
 LAFAYETTES
 
 THE 
 
 HOUSEHOLD OF THE 
 
 LAFAYETTES 
 
 By 
 EDITH SICHEL 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "CATHERINE DE MEDICI AND THE FRENCH REFORMATION'* 
 
 "THE LATER YEARS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI " 
 
 " WOMEN AND MEN OF THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE " 
 
 ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD 
 
 1910
 
 EDITION
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Introduction « ■ • 3 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The d'Ayens ■ • ■ • Si 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 Lafayettb • • SS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Before the Revoi.utiox .83 
 
 CHAPTKi; IV 
 The Revolution 103 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Eve of the Ti:rror 127 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Arrest . • 159 
 
 CIIAI^']"Kii \TI 
 The Prisons of the Revolution 191
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VIII ,^aa 
 
 Emigres and Captives ......«• 227 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Repose ........... 253 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 Lafayette and Napoleon 277 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Before the End 301 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Conclusion 329
 
 Introduction
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 MUCH has been said, much has been written about 
 the Ancien R(5gime — that shadowy system from 
 which we are separated by the Gulf of the French Revolu- 
 tion. History, fiction, poetry, philosophy have all busied 
 themselves with it. It has acquired for us a conventional 
 glamour, an almost legendary power, and we have done 
 much to transfer it from solid historical ground to the 
 domain of Magic — a picture-book country where every- 
 body moves romantically and morals do not exist. To 
 the unversed majority the Ancien Regime conveys an 
 impression of enchanted vice and sensational starvation ; 
 cupids and serfs ; deep curtseys, minuets, and high heels 
 that crush human beings beneath them ; wax candles and 
 intrigues ; ladies in patches and powder playing at les 
 Graces with gentlemen in three-cornered hats and pink 
 satin waistcoats— gentlemen who bought their clothes out 
 of taxes wrung from the poor, and occasionally hunted 
 their peasants instead of stags. Yet Human Nature, the 
 one criterion we possess by which to judge unknown 
 generations, was the same then as now, though it existed 
 under different conditions ; and Human Nature, when 
 consulted, can hardly accept as probable the strange 
 pageant that our fancy too readily adopts. The reason 
 is not far to seek. " Thfe evil that men do lives after 
 them"; the lurid exceptions in human history are easiest 
 
 3
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 to remember ; its unconspicuous normal side naturally 
 slips out of sight. 
 
 The vice, so much dwelled on, was certainly no fiction. 
 There was a corrupt Court Party, whose vagaries can 
 hardly be overstated ; but then there were almost as large 
 a number of nobles — some Catholic, some philosophical — 
 who led lives of saintly virtue and religious fervour — such 
 virtue that it seems as if it should have saved the City. 
 Still the mass belonged to the vast world of the Entre- 
 deux, and spent average quiescent existences, good- 
 naturedly enough, under a system which they never 
 stopped to question. They did as others did, judging 
 good and evil by the standards of the majority, and 
 effected neither directly, much like their counterparts in 
 our own day. We only seem less selfish because the 
 public opinion that controls us has reached a higher plane, 
 and to sink below the prescribed level often requires as 
 much originality as to rise above it. Indeed, the aspira- 
 tions, if not the actions, of the ordinary French noble of 
 1750 were usually strung at a far higher pitch than those 
 of our contemporaries ; as a matter of fashion, he was 
 penetrated by his Rousseau and his Voltaire, and there 
 was more nobility of sentiment, even amongst the com- 
 monplace of his class, than at any other period. 
 
 The mistake in the popular picture of the Ancien 
 Regime is easy to discover, and still easier to make. It 
 is a common blunder. The people portrayed are con- 
 founded with the system under which they lived. With 
 this system, in all its details and its anomalies, every 
 reader of De Tocqueville or Carlyle is familiar ; nor do 
 we propose here to deal with it. Our task is a more 
 congenial one. It lies with the personalities who make 
 the exceptions to the rule, and with a restricted number 
 
 4
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 amongst those personalities. We have already spoken of 
 the two extremes of aristocratic Society — of the (Eil-de- 
 Bccuf, and of the company, so much less known, of holy- 
 minded men and women irradiating the last years of the 
 old order. Excepting by the readers of Memoirs, their 
 names are seldom heard. Yet their actions still " smell 
 sweet and blossom in the dust," if we will but stoop to 
 pick them up. Their lives are recorded, often in detail — 
 lives as exalted and as full of suffering as those of the 
 canonized Martyrs, and better reading than theirs, be- 
 cause they combine Christian sacrifice with social grace, 
 and austerity with s)mpathy ; because their unction was 
 of the heart, and sweetened not only their manners, but 
 their inmost thoughts. 
 
 The most winning of them are certainly to be found 
 amongst the orthodox religious ; their personal piety has 
 a distinction, an attraction, of its own. But they counted 
 in their ranks philosophers, whose conduct was as pure 
 and self-renouncing ; men who were practically more effec- 
 tive, because more occupied with theories of enlighten- 
 ment, and with public affairs. Of the former type, the 
 De Noailles family are representative ; Lafayette and 
 his friends are a fine embodiment of the latter. In an 
 endeavour to revive in some of its charm and purity the 
 figure of Adrienne d'Ayen, who afterwards became Madame 
 de Lafayette, we shall have the best opportunity of seeing 
 the two sides united. 
 
 But stars can only be measured by their relation to 
 lesser lights ; a study of the average mind is almost 
 necessary to our full comprclicnsion of heroic souls. And 
 it is only by understanding the social conditions of any 
 period that we can do justice to the characters that lived 
 under them, especially those of larger mould, who tried 
 
 5
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 to master or to ennoble them. Biography, without this 
 knowledge, has no more truth or vitality than a sermon on 
 a text apart from its context. It will therefore, we hope, 
 be pardoned us, if before assuming the directer functions 
 of biography, we pause to look round and to take a 
 bird's-eye view, however rapidly, of the aristocratic world 
 as it then existed. 
 
 That brilliant world was contained within the gates of 
 Paris. There all the nobles congregated : Paris made 
 their aims ; Paris made their pleasures. The roads from 
 the city to the provinces were mere cart-ruts that looked 
 as if a gentilhomme' s coach could never roll along them 
 Unless it were to amuse a Parisian party by a boar-hunt 
 and to fill their halls with the tinkle of Parisian witticisms, 
 these grandees never approached their lands of their own 
 free will. The iron persuasion of a lettre de cachet could 
 alone induce them to remain there, and the two estates 
 that were exceptions in prosperity were those of the exiled 
 Dues de Choiseul and d'Aiguillon. It is only when we 
 realize how stationary gentlemen then were, that we under- 
 stand how they found time for incessant society, copious 
 letter-writing and absorbing friendships. They did not so 
 much as stir out of Paris with their families in the summer, 
 till late in the eighteenth century ; and even then the annual 
 visit to the country gave them no pleasure. Like all 
 French arrangements of that day, it became an intellectual 
 institution, due to the prevailing Anglomanie, Tx.n(\ still 
 more to the influence of Rousseau. Nature meant to them 
 no joy of hill and woodland, but a Theory of Education 
 and a Social Millennium. Small wonder, then, that Arthur 
 Young, travelling southwards in the France of 1787 
 covered 270 miles without meeting a single gentlemaa 
 " Heaven grant me patience," cries that sturdy farmer, 
 
 6
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 " while I see a country thus neglected, and forgive me 
 the oaths I swear at the absence and ignorance of the 
 possessors ! " 
 
 Yet those possessors were usually kindly men, although 
 they left reckless substitutes in their Intendants. There 
 is a story told of the Prince de Conti, who had a great 
 reputation for cruelty. He was going to Mass with some 
 ladies, when his bailiff came and informed him that a 
 poacher had just been taken in the grounds of the chateau. 
 He asked what he should do with him. " Give him a 
 hundred stripes and imprison him in a dungeon for two 
 years," was the prompt reply in unanswerable tones. One 
 of the ladies, overflowing with sensibility, almost fainted, 
 for she knew the poacher had a large family. She went 
 to the bailiff to see what could be done. He laughed in 
 her face. " The Prince only said that to keep up his 
 reputation," he exclaimed. " His Royal Highness came to 
 me directly after Mass, and begged me to see that the 
 poor wretch was only sent away from the neighbourhood 
 for two months, and that his family was well looked after 
 during his absence." The Prince was no exception. Many 
 of the high-souled jeunesse dor^e, who talked and walked, 
 doubted and dreamed in the broad Places of their Paris, 
 would have resented the wrongs done to the peasants, 
 could they have grasped those wrongs as abstract ideas. It 
 is but fair to them to remember that, apart from court 
 duties, they were attracted to the city as much by intel- 
 lect as by pleasure. There ideas vibrated ; there mind 
 f(jund mind, and struck electric sparks ; there gathered, 
 so it seemed to them, the men who could help mankind. 
 
 Indeed, never before had there been such a Cult of 
 Liberty. The youth of France dreamed they had drunk 
 of a golden cup, and they were intoxicated. They wept, 
 
 7
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 they perorated, they crowned each other with bay-leaves, 
 they embraced — they beh'eved. Any cause that presented 
 itself in the name of Freedom was welcomed by them with 
 acclamation, and without enquiry, whether it was emanci- 
 pation from slavery or from the marriage laws, restitu- 
 tion of civil rights to the Protestants, or destruction of the 
 altars of the Church. 
 
 When America declared its independence, young Paris 
 took fire, braved disinheritance, and offered its aid without 
 interest or reserve. Voltaire blessed Benjamin Franklin's 
 son ; it was one of his last actions, and the young men 
 hailed it as a fitting consummation of his life. There was 
 "a rage for simplicity" — a feeling too complex for its 
 object. When Silas Deane and Arthur Lee, the American 
 envoys, came over to Paris, with unpowdered hair and 
 plain dark cloth coats, moving, we are told, like dignified 
 farmers amidst this scintillating world, the young men of 
 Versailles wanted to give up toupets and to adopt fustian. 
 They would willingly have worn rags and eaten dry bread 
 if they could have helped negroes, Huguenots, or abstract 
 victims by such sacrifice. The only things they never 
 thought of giving up were their privileges, their taxes and 
 their game laws ; the only people they never dreamed of 
 delivering, the haggard race at their gates. 
 
 The intellectual part of their enthusiasm was the most 
 successful. Events fostered it. Montesquieu had un- 
 earthed many popular rights ; his Esprit des Lois became 
 an object of earnest study. The Parlements of Paris were 
 restored after a lapse of years by the callous old Maurepas, 
 desirous of ease with all parties, and ignorant of the ball he 
 had set rolling. Constitutional ideas became the fashion 
 and England the rage ; English habits, English books, 
 English drama, English dress were de Jiaut ton. The rain- 
 
 8
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 bow satins and frilled gilets, which had stood out in strong 
 contrast to the black coats of the working classes, disap- 
 peared before the levelling British frac, worn by all con- 
 ditions of men. It even replaced the menial liveries, to the 
 fury of the old peers at Versailles, who considered this as 
 the high-water mark of degeneration. English simplicity 
 was not enough for the younger spirits ; in their zeal for our 
 moderation, they also adopted our luxuries. Racing al- 
 most ousted gambling ; English lords came over with their 
 horses, and taught French marquises how to breed them. 
 The horses were soon followed by their attendant Jokeis — 
 a wizened race of children stunted w ith drugs and wrapped 
 in blankets to keep them of a proper size for their profession. 
 The enthusiasm for the Turf was only rivalled by that for 
 Freedom. Louis XVI. alone disapproved and refused to 
 bet more than an eai upon a winning horse ; but his pro- 
 test fell unheeded on the radiant luxury around him. Life 
 had a fantastic charm for those who could pass so lightly 
 from dream to reality ; from the " vague du salon " to the 
 " rc'e/ du cabinet" at a time when between class and class 
 " there was great familiarity and no equality," as the young 
 Comte de S(^gur wrote in after years. " Liberty, royalty, 
 aristocracy, democracy, prejudice, reason, novelty, philo- 
 sophy ! " he exclaims, " never was awakening preceded by 
 a sweeter sleep or more alluring dreams. ... In our 
 chateaux, with peasants, guards, and bailiffs, we still found 
 some vestige of our ancient feudal power ; at court and in 
 town we enjoyed the distinctions of birth, . . . and 
 yet, henceforth we could mix without pomp or trammel 
 with our fellow-citizens, and enjoy all the gentleness of 
 equalit)' with our peasants." 
 
 Zeal for Humanity brought zeal for Science in its train. 
 Science and all its semblances — astrology, chemistry, 
 
 9
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 magnetism, and medicine — existed only to alleviate the 
 sufferings of men. The same high-souled jumble corv. 
 tinned. When the first balloon was sent up from the 
 Tuileries Gardens, with Chemist Charles and Robert inside 
 it, the applauding crowd was moved to tears ; relief of all 
 distress was now to be instantaneous ; the arts of warfare 
 were to be changed, towns besieged, and England invaded 
 by balloon ; and sanguine ladies dreamed more selfishly, but 
 not more irrationally, of Corsairs descending and romantic 
 aerial courtships. The aeronauts were hailed as gods ; with 
 the increase of material prosperity, men grew indeed to 
 consider themselves as gods, secure and almost immortal. 
 On the one hand, we find serious students and discoverers 
 making solid progress in knowledge : Lavoisier in his 
 laboratory, Laplace and Lagrange in their observatories, 
 Cuvier and Buffon in the Jardin des Plantes ; on the other 
 hand, appraised at the same value as themselves, stands a 
 crowd of scientific virtuosi ; sincere charlatans and insin- 
 cere charlatans, each with his panacea for the world's ills 
 encased in big theory or small phial ; each believed in 
 with the whole faith of the impressionable Parisian nature. 
 And over all, glorifying dupes and even deceivers, burned 
 this newly-kindled flame of philanthropy, the feeling for 
 pain, the determination to abolish it. Most of the men 
 who made empiric experiments in this cause, believed in 
 them truly ; they were guilty of credulity rather than of 
 dishonesty — of confused and undisciplined minds rather 
 than of lawlessness. 
 
 A certain aristocrat named Lauragrais, who brought over 
 the first Jokei, was typical of the majority. Enormously 
 rich, he had run through all the sensations of Paris, with 
 enough nobility of nature to make a cynic of himself instead 
 of a ral<e. He savagely forbade his mistress any food but 
 
 10
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 sweetmeats for a fortnight, and only replied to her com- 
 plaints by saying, " How can you grumble ? you who are 
 living upon the superfluities of life, which so many people 
 pray for in vain ! " Satiety made a convert of him ; zeal 
 for his kind overtook him ; he fasted, went about in rags, 
 unkempt ; and finally spent the greater part of his fortune 
 in lighting furnaces and inventing processes for the grind- 
 ing of diamonds in the interests of Humanity — diamonds 
 which had first to be purchased. And in this rather 
 vague hope for the help of mo4"tal misery, he confidently 
 expired — a symbol of the future. 
 
 More conspicuous as an example of power and incon- 
 gruity was Mesmer. He had, it is true, better cause to 
 gain credence, both from himself and others. Possessed of 
 a mysterious influence which must have seemed, even to 
 his own mind, half magic, half scientific, it would have 
 been strange if he had not felt sincere faith in his gift and 
 looked upon the display of it as a mission. It lent itself, 
 no doubt, to theatrical effects, half unconscious tricks, and 
 conscious puerilities ; but his talent for hypnotism was 
 genuine, and enabled him to assuage pain ; and if he was 
 a conjuror, he believed himself to be also a priest. He 
 was not mere!}' a genius-quack, like Cagliostro, and it is 
 not surprising therefore that his stances should have 
 possessed Paris. They were thronged, not only by every 
 grandee — by fainting princesses, eager beauties, and cred- 
 ulous bluestockings — but by earnest students, weighty 
 savants, and grave [)atriots with ideals, Lafayette amongst 
 them. They came as t(j an oracle, night after night, to 
 watch and listen, in the hope that here at last was the 
 scjlution of their most crucial problems. Yet the result 
 was less than futile. There is no more notable instance 
 of the current disparity between deed and aspiration than 
 
 II
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 that of the young nobleman, a disciple of Mesmer, who 
 was driving in his coach from Paris to a ball at Versailles. 
 On his road he met some peasants bearing a litter, on 
 which a man's form lay stretched. In an instant, he leaped 
 from the carriage and stopped the litter. The rain was 
 pouring ; he was clad in laces and satins, but nothing 
 daunted, and without asking a question, he proceeded to 
 try and alleviate Human Suffering. For an hour he stood 
 there, the storm beating on his powdered head, without pro- 
 ducing the slightest effect. Amazed at this, he at last in- 
 quired the nature of the patient's illness. '■^ Ah, monsieur ^^ 
 replied one of the peasants, " vous pensiez done que detaitun 
 malade ? C'est un cadavre ! " Tears seem as fitting here 
 as laughter. To attempt to revive a corpse by mesmerism, 
 under the impression that it is a living creature — could 
 Carlyle himself have found a more pathetic sham than this ? 
 The half-century preceding a radical Revolution may 
 often be recognised by the number of Reforms, small and 
 great, proposed during that period : still more by the 
 universal talk about them. The Paris of 1770 and 1780 
 resounded with changes — in Law, Trade, Art, Society. 
 It was a symptom of the times that every question en- 
 gendered parties and feuds, so that the whole town was 
 split up into hostile camps, which met festively in every 
 drawing-room and club to fight with their tongues and 
 pursue with their pens. The science of Harmony pro- 
 vided perhaps the fiercest dispute of all, and the famous 
 Gluck and Piccini quarrel will be the longest remembered. 
 Then there was the war of the Economists about Free 
 Trade in grain, and, almost as prominent, the discussion 
 on Military Tactics. For some time nothing else was 
 spoken of amongst the fine ladies in their salons, or the 
 coachmen in the streets, but the question as to whether 
 
 12
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 corporal punishment with the flat of the sabre, which 
 prevailed in the German army, should also be used in 
 the French. Voices became shrill over it. In those 
 Memoirs which revive his century before our eyes, the 
 Comte de S^gur tells us that one fine morning an aris- 
 tocratic officer, a comrade of his, rushed into his room 
 in evident agitation. "Swear to do me a service!" he 
 cried, his hand upon his heart. The Count swore. " Take 
 my sabre and strike me hard on the back with the flat 
 of it, till I bid you stop," said the other. The sensible 
 Count tried persuasion and anger in vain. Forced to 
 keep his oath, he hit out with some malice, but it was 
 not till an hour had passed that the order to cease came. 
 The kneeling officer rose to his feet ; tears of sensibility 
 were in his eyes. " Now," he exclaimed, " I know from 
 experience that this chastisement is not only possible, 
 but perfectly humane." The Count believ^ed all was over, 
 but, to his dismay, his friend declared that, to make the 
 test complete, he also must undergo it. Resistance was 
 as vain as before. De Segur submitted, but cried " Halt " 
 at the first stroke. The two men then parted with many 
 embraces, the officer unmoved in his hardly-won theory. 
 
 Everywhere we see the same symptoms : asceticism 
 without a religion to produce it ; spiritualism without 
 belief in Spirit ; faith without a God. 
 
 It may be urged that amongst the women, at any rate, 
 there was no puzzling mixture ; that here the frivolity 
 was uncomplicated by aspiration. Their luxury was 
 indeed incredible ; they accepted it like the air they 
 breathed, yet it could not quite smother the dreams of 
 the soul. Their monastic education helped this ; though 
 mundane, it was by no means materialislic, and the need 
 of religion was always kept carefully before them. It 
 
 1 M
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 was only occasionally that they had a gouvernante at 
 home — a woman of good birth and principles ad libitum. 
 In this case they saw their parents formally, perhaps 
 once a day, and lived in rooms apart. Usually they were 
 sent at five or six years old to a convent ruled by a 
 courtly Abbess, whence they did not come out till they 
 were fourteen or fifteen, when a suitor was ready for their 
 hands. By strict etiquette, he presented himself immedi- 
 ately after their first Communion, and they were prepared 
 with equal conscientiousness for both events. It was the 
 Abbess who performed these duties, who gave the con- 
 vents their tone in things celestial as well as things 
 secular, and cleverly united the two elements in her own 
 person. 
 
 They were a powerful race, these Abbesses, often 
 worldly, always aristocratic, respecting religion as the 
 basis of all things, but including in these their own coaches, 
 their dinings out, their visits from gentlemen by day, and 
 their afternoon receptions in their private parlours. "Their 
 position," writes a lady of the eighteenth century, " gives 
 the stability of a married woman . . . the indepen- 
 dence of a widow, without the ties which a family imposes. 
 For these advantages there is only the trouble of wearing a 
 cross, which is becoming ; black or grey habits, which can 
 be made as magnificent as one likes ; a little imperceptible 
 veil, and a knitting-sheath." 
 
 On the whole, these Mother Superiors were better than 
 the demands made on them ; they were generally con- 
 scientious, and often noble-minded. But the strange mix- 
 ture of piety and worldliness which they represented ran 
 through their whole system. 
 
 It has become almost impossible to disentangle the two 
 qualities. The convents were the only repositories of faith 
 
 14
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 in a sceptical age ; they kept up all its forms and many 
 of its daily practices with vigilance. They were quite 
 as much the only schools for breeding ; nowhere else could 
 such high-born teachers as the Abbesses be found. The 
 Roman Church fosters good tone ; it is a church of far- 
 reaching traditions and sanctified diplomacy. Unction is, 
 after all, but the grace of religion — a kind of spiritual good 
 manners which reconcile God and Caesar. 
 
 This combination naturally pervaded the education 
 of the convent pupils. Tliey learned many accomplish- 
 ments : Latin and the harpsichord, to make jams, medi- 
 cines, and perfumes ; to embroider, to sing, and to form 
 their style upon Bossuet. But they were taught two 
 things above all others — deportment and kindness, both 
 based as much upon good manners as upon piety. 
 
 Kindness is, indeed, one of the prominent features of 
 the women in those days : kindness to each other, kind- 
 ness to those below them. Suavity was expected of 
 them both in word and action. Good deeds to the poor 
 were made part of their daily discipline, and practised 
 as a matter of course. They fed Lazarus at their gates, 
 and healed his sores with ointments from their own phar- 
 macies. Here we read of a paralyzed beggar, brought 
 weekly in her pristine condition to be washed, coiffee, and 
 fed by an aristocratic pensioniiaire ; mademoiselle's chief 
 punishment was to be considered unworthy of this office. 
 There, again, we see a fashionable Abbess in long robes 
 of becoming grey, discarding her coach, and trudging 
 across the fields, with a pupil by her side, to bear soup 
 and comfort to the sick of the parish. These recluses 
 were, in truth, as innocent as they were worldly. They 
 made intense friendships with each other, and managed 
 to combine humility with grace, and routine with gaiety. 
 
 15
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 No doubt their goodness was often ornate, but any good- 
 ness is better than none at all. 
 
 As for their deportment, it included every degree of 
 mental and physical control, from the fine shades of con- 
 duct under emotion, to the most primitive rules for 
 behaviour. These they imbibed from a Primer of Eti- 
 quette then in vogue : " Civilith puiriles et honnetes" — 
 which exhorted the youth of the time to many social 
 duties, such as to prefer knives to fingers, to use pocket- 
 handkerchiefs, and, if possible, not to comb their hair in 
 church. Models of decorum were not wanting ; they had 
 before their eyes not only their Superiors, but also the 
 great ladies who came to lodge in their midst and often 
 adopted them as protegees. The convents of that age 
 occupied a strange position ; they filled the place of hotels 
 and lodgings at a time when the only existing inns were 
 impossible for women and the genteel landlady as yet 
 was not. Widows and spinsters of blue blood and 
 slender incomes took apartments in them ; amongst others, 
 Madame du Deffand, whose habits were not monastic. 
 Ladies whose husbands were away on embassies, or other 
 State business, were kept safe there during their absence 
 as was the brilliant Madame de Genlis, who loved convents 
 and worldly-holiness almost as much as she loved herself 
 These grand folk had their own apartments, suites of 
 retainers, evening parties and theatricals ; and mixed as 
 much or as little as they pleased with the rest of the 
 household. But they were its great excitement ; the 
 Vanity Fair of its pupils and of the good smooth-cheeked 
 nuns, who were simpler and more pious than their Lady 
 Superiors. Madame de Genlis used even to give Carnival 
 balls to the children and these Sisters — balls to which only 
 one man was admitted, and he the one-eyed Convent- 
 
 i6
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Steward, aged seventy, who declared tliat " the Chassie 
 slew him." They loved dancing with each other, honest 
 souls, and making tarts and cider for refreshment. It 
 was, anyhow, at such entertainments as these that young 
 ladies learned to bear themselves, to converse and matri- 
 culate in bon ton, before their entrance into the great 
 world. 
 
 When they did emerge, it was into a vortex of gaiety. 
 At first sight, there is nothing to be seen but enchanting 
 frivolity and graceful extravagance. When a certain 
 grande dame once expressed the slightly remote wish for a 
 painting of her canary small enough to be put into a 
 ring, the Prince de Conti, who was present, immediately 
 offered her one. She demurred ; he insisted. A com- 
 promise was at last effected by his assurance that the 
 painting should have no setting. He kept his word, but 
 had the canary covered with a diamond, cut so finely that 
 it acted as the glass over a miniature. Incensed at what 
 she considered a breach of his word, she returned the gift. 
 He took it ; ground the diamond to powder and used the 
 dust for drying the note he wrote her on the occasion. No 
 fairy-tale gallant could be more fantastic, or more ignorant 
 of pounds, shillings and pence. 
 
 As for the fetes, they were endless and held in every 
 form. There were acted maxims and proverb-quad- 
 rilles, in which the partners represented sayings in 
 appropriate costumes ; there were moonlight operas and 
 Watteau-picnics in groves that sprang up for the occasion ; 
 shepherdesses, in blue and pink satin, were perpetually 
 arriving in rose-laden boats at their relatives' houses, to 
 sing bad verses and receive diamond earrings in return ; 
 or they fished for bouquets with silken nets and declaimed, 
 in blank verse, their amazement at their success. Once a 
 
 17 C
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 party of beauties was informed by their host that they 
 were to be made Vestal Virgins that night. He led them 
 to a temple, built in one day in his forest. Whilst they 
 were undergoing the most frolic rites there, a letter was 
 brought warning them that the Grand Turk and his suite 
 meant to descend on them and carry them off. The 
 moment after, these Ottoman pirates appeared, blacked, 
 disguised and bejewelled. Every magnificent turban con- 
 cealed a lover ; there was a Rape in Fancy Dress ; the 
 Chief Lover, clad as the Sultan, bore away the Chief Lady 
 and deposited her before a gorgeous midnight banquet, 
 where each Turk finally put down his Fair. The evening 
 ended in mad revelry — the only point of the joke lying 
 in the fact that the ladies had recently beheld the sea 
 for the first time and the pirates were supposed to have 
 spied them from mid-ocean. 
 
 There were failure-festivals, even then. One was given 
 by a pathetic lady, who has come down to posterity as 
 " pretty without seeming so, and clever with the knack 
 of appearing silly." She had planned a ball, in a room 
 made of mirrors, leading into a real wood. At a given 
 moment of the dance, a flock of live sheep was to cross 
 the landscape led by an opera-singer, who was to be 
 dressed as a shepherdess and to regale the guests with 
 melody. But the opera-singer, like her kind, was un- 
 punctual — and the pent-up sheep growing restive, did not 
 await the summons ; they suddenly rushed in amongst 
 the dancers, scattering or upsetting them, and smashing 
 the mirrors to atoms. The hostess' pride was broken 
 quite as effectively as her glass ; her friends were in 
 dudgeon, and the ball came to a premature end. 
 
 Leisure seemed endless then, and the chateaux were 
 so vast that each guest had her suite of rooms, where 
 
 i8
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 she received her friends and could dine apart if she chose. 
 The belles did not despise each other's society. At one 
 moment ladies' dinner-parties were fashionable and were 
 given by five intimate Ariadnes, whose husbands had to 
 leave them for the Couchee at Versailles, before the Royal 
 Hunt. Another hostess was famed for her intellectual 
 games. Her favourite Jen d'esprit was an imitation of a 
 wits' supper at which one of the habitues acted Voltaire, 
 she his divine Emily, and all the talk had to be in 
 character. If the imitation was successful, her company 
 must have been very exclusive, and headache the result 
 of an evening with her. 
 
 One is glad to find them refreshing themselves with 
 lighter recreations ; chamber concerts, at which Gluck, 
 Rameau, Cramer performed or listened ; or readings, given 
 by poets and writers, of their works. These were crowded 
 by all members of society, grave or gay, young or old, 
 rakish or retired. There were actually regulation inter- 
 jections, regulation tears, occasionally regulation swoons 
 performed by all women of sensibility, and the author 
 was hurt if these did not take place. When they met 
 a Voltaire, nothing short of a trance in his arms sufficed 
 them. He went to visit an invalid lady ; a crowd gathered 
 round her bed to hear him speak. He recommended 
 her the yolk of an e.g^ and potato-meal. " Quel homme ! 
 quel Jiomme ! ^' cried an attentive chevalier already in tears, 
 " Pas im viot sans uii trait ! " 
 
 Such tricks were only the defects of a quality. The 
 hero-worship of that day is as self-forgetful as it is 
 pathetic. When heavenly superstitions were abolished, 
 people took to earthly ones and made gods to worship, 
 not only of the Voltaires, the Rousseaus, the Franklins, 
 but of the host of poetkins and painterkins whom a 
 
 19
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 burst of science and material prosperity is bound to bring 
 forth. 
 
 Less generous swoons were also in vogue. The lovely, 
 ill-starred Princesse de Lamballe was envied by all for 
 her susceptibility ; not only did she faint at the sight of 
 living shell-fish, but even at the picture of a lobster. It 
 took her two hours to come to. The Dowager Duchess 
 of Orleans never swooned excepting before gentlemen. 
 Convulsions were also very fashionable ; it became a 
 matter of course for every great lady to enjoy the mystery 
 of a padded chamber, where she could writhe at ease, 
 before a select audience of sympathetic gallants. 
 
 They had distractions of a less ephemeral nature. Not 
 unfrequently we find the same brilliant galaxy illumin- 
 ating lectures on chemistry or astronomy. Some even 
 devoted their lives to science. There was a Mademoiselle 
 de Roissy, only seventeen years old, who gave her days 
 to anatomy, and never travelled without a skeleton packed 
 into the hood of her carriage. Another lady was famed 
 amongst the Faculty for her waxen studies of the human 
 form, and lived alone, surrounded by them. Madame 
 de Genlis rose at five every morning to study botany, 
 geology, and mechanics, and always worked about eight 
 hours a day. As for agriculture, Arthur Young tells 
 us that he never had such a practical lesson in farming 
 as from the lips of the aristocratic young Madame de 
 Lun^ville, who farmed her lands and understood her 
 crops, to the great profit of her purse. To Literature 
 they nearly all of them inclined, as to their natural ele 
 ment ; their letters are as masterly as their talk ; only 
 one more instance of the gracious French facility for 
 measured expression which distinguishes Paris from 
 London, and makes a frivolous Frenchwoman more impor- 
 
 20
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tant and less offensive a being than a frivolous English- 
 woman. 
 
 Another quality which marks even the giddiest of these 
 women is their power and their knowledge of feeling. 
 Many of them dignified their days by a lifelong passion; 
 all of them were capable of sympathy, emotional or 
 intellectual, though they did not always use their gifts. 
 Even the vanity of affection — the need of pleasing — 
 spurred them on to share the mental life of those they 
 cared for. As the men became more absorbed in social 
 and scientific questions, we hear that the works of Cr^billon 
 and other light-hearted authors vanished from the draw- 
 ing-room tables and gave way to Montesquieu, or to 
 the Abbe Raynal's book on the Emancipation of Slaves 
 — a treatise as epoch-making as Beaumarchais' " Figaro." 
 Their frivolities as well as their gravities meant a great 
 deal of intelligent companionship. 
 
 To recognise this, we have only to look at their ordinary 
 day. Rising at nine, they had an hour or two of re- 
 poseful neglige, and then, even in the earliest stages of 
 their leisurely toilette, gentlemen were admitted to visit 
 them. The stalwart American Ambassador, Gouverncur 
 Morn's, accustomed to the Puritan habits of such " over- 
 grown villages as Philadelphia and Boston," was at first 
 rather shocked at the ease with which his friends would 
 say to him, " Monsieur me pertnettra de continuer ma 
 toilette ? " and would then suit their actions to their 
 words. One lady even received her guests in her bath, 
 which she modestly thickened with milk. After the 
 dressing of their hair, the social flow hardly ceased. They 
 dined at two, the villagers standing at the window, and 
 watching them as if they were a play ; then they talked 
 and received again till supper. Most of them went to
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 church once a day. Some were devout in observance ; 
 the younger folk became weary on occasions and played 
 tricks — such as putting lighted candles in the pocket of 
 the officiating Bishop. The evening was again given up 
 to talk and festivity. Sometimes it was spent at the 
 Opera, which was then at the Palais Royal, and ended 
 at half-past eight. When it was over, they stepped out 
 into the gardens and gossiped and sang and declaimed 
 to each other till past midnight, when they retired to 
 the stately beds in their stately alcoves — the only places 
 where they were silent. 
 
 Yet the early influence of the convent was not forgot- 
 ten. The kindness with which they had been inculcated 
 was still there, and their social graciousness was heightened 
 by their habit of the world. They talked more gently of 
 each other than we do now. With their servants, especially, 
 they were on a familiar footing. Their ladies' maids and 
 grooms came to them for help in every emergency ; they 
 even acted with them in private theatricals. This in- 
 dulgence was sometimes carried to the point of folly. 
 Madame de Genlis' Abigail, who was especially plain and 
 middle-aged, was permitted to fulfil her desire of playing a 
 romantic Phyllis ; and when the infatuated maid entreated 
 that she might always wear her pastoral costume and carry 
 her crook, her mistress consented and allowed her attend- 
 ance in this strange livery. There was another occasion 
 when a village-girl, a tenant of the de Genlis, came to the 
 same patroness with a tale of trouble. Her lover, the game- 
 keeper, refused to marry her ; she was expecting a child. 
 Madame de Genlis was deeply moved at what she consid- 
 ered a tale of martyrdom ; her husband summoned the 
 game-keeper, abused him, promised the girl an enormous 
 doty and thus induced the now too willing suitor to accept 
 
 21
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 his bride. Sister-in-law Genlis presented her with nuptial 
 lace ; brother-in-law Genlis with three pairs of fine sheets ; 
 Madame herself with a trousseau, and the whole De Genlis 
 family danced at the wedding. 
 
 Sometimes these bewildered little ladies carried their 
 efforts into public life. A peeress of the time instituted 
 Bureaus of Virtue and a Society of Perseverance — a kind 
 of Charity Organization Society in fancy dress. Its mem- 
 bers were told off in pairs, a lady and her cavalier, to 
 investigate a certain number of cases and administer charity 
 to them. A monthly prize was given for the noblest 
 philanthropic deed ; badges, ribbons and embraces abound- 
 ed. Love for their kind was perhaps not the only feeling 
 developed ; yet in spite of this farrago, a good deal of work 
 was done. In maturer years, indeed, as under cloistral 
 discipline, personal ministering to the poor and intercourse 
 with them were then more naturally accepted by average 
 people, than in these times of Institutions and Associations. 
 
 Even good society breaks up into sets. In the Paris of 
 that day there was a restricted circle which was omnipotent. 
 Within its magic ring it claimed to include all those who 
 deserved to be considered as bonne compagnie. It was a 
 Judicial Power and the P^inal Court of Appeal in matters of 
 feeling and taste, as well as in those of propriety ; and 
 it banished dishonourable people as rigorously as the ill- 
 bred. Here too there was a division. The elder folk were 
 austere in speech and manners, and conservative in tradi- 
 tion; the younger admitted innovation, sharp speeches and 
 epigrams, but, like their elders, scorned any baseness in 
 word or deed. The ruler of this coterie and the tyrant of 
 good tone was the famous Marcchale de Luxembourg, 
 who, in spite of a naughty youth, became in her old age a 
 martinet about behaviour. To have offended her was to 
 
 23
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 be tabooed by all the people worth knowing, and the use 
 of a word that was out of taste was enough to effect this. 
 She hated bad feeling ; she loved conventions. Once she 
 overheard somebody remark that God was no respecter of 
 persons and would take no note of good or bad tone. 
 " You are much mistaken, Madame ! " was all she replied, 
 more in sorrow than in anger. Her Viceroy of manners 
 was the sedate, large-tempered Madame de Beauvau, 
 mother of the Princesse de Poix, the friend of the De 
 Noailles family ; and in this close circle we also find their 
 other intimate, the Princesse d'H^nin, Lafayette's constant 
 correspondent, who kept her good talk for tete-a-tete. 
 
 There are gentlemen without number : Monsieur de 
 Coigny, who only pronounces one choice mot in a whisper, 
 every time he goes out ; M. de Jaucourt, who is called 
 " The Moonbeam " ; a certain amorous duke of fifty, who 
 looks ninety, and is nicknamed " L'invalide de Cythere " ; 
 many more, whose titles could only bewilder, unaccom- 
 panied by biographies — whose biographies would fill 
 volumes. 
 
 Into this high society, which they did not always fre- 
 quent, were born the exceptional people with whose names 
 we opened these pages — the people who triumphed over the 
 spiritual chaos of their day and tried to face the truth. The 
 Princesse d'Henin may be said to have belonged to the 
 philosophical, the Princesse de Poix to the more saintly 
 amongst them. In many there was a mixture of both ele- 
 ments, though the philosophical generally prevailed. To 
 such as these belonged " the pure, liberty-loving Due de la 
 Rochefoucauld," who, together with the Prince de Beauvau 
 and the Due de Nivernais, gave a new and nobler tone to 
 conversation. There were his companions the De Gram- 
 monts, the Durforts, the Doudeauvilles, the public-spirited 
 
 24
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 De Choiseuls, the De Breteuils, and the fine old De Brog 
 h'es ; here, too, were the fiery-blooded young apostles of 
 liberty, the Comte de Segur, the two Dillons, the eloquent 
 Clermont, afterwards a " Representatif '\ and the untiring 
 Lafayette — all men of clear lights and set purpose, who 
 worked, without confusion, for the good of their fellows. 
 Turgot walks in and out amongst them, calm, luminous, 
 ardent, yet cold ; by his side stands the more fallible, more 
 fanatical, more lovable Condorcet, or the stately De Males- 
 herbes. Women there are also : the beautiful Madame 
 d'Enville, the keen-minded Madame de Reyniere,and her 
 inseparable friend Madame de Tesse, of whom more here- 
 after. 
 
 It is easy enough to find these out and to retrace their 
 stories ; many of them belong to history and embodied 
 their principles in measures or in actions. But we have 
 said that the flower of the nobility was amongst the relig- 
 ious people. It is a harder task to revive their lives; they 
 are hidden beneath bushels — dusty papers and piled-up 
 years; they are fewer and farther apart. Yet some we can 
 recall, refreshing even to mention, impossible though it is 
 to pursue their histories here. 
 
 There was old Mademoiselle de Montesson, aristocratic 
 and rich, who gave up her horse and carriage, went into 
 apartments in Paris, reduced her expenses to £6oo a year, 
 and trudged about on foot, with the occasional treat of a 
 sedan chair, in order that she might minister to the poor, 
 and more especially visit the prisons. Till her time, they 
 had been utterly neglected, and she renounced the more 
 comfortable convent life because it would have prevented 
 her from pursuing this work. Her pendant in sweet sanc- 
 tity, though of a different kind, was Madame de Custines 
 (wife of the General and mother-in-law of Chateaubriand's 
 
 25
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 love) who renounced the world without leaving it. She 
 attended no gaieties ; but she made a point of dressing 
 her friends for their balls with her own hands and preferred 
 accompanying her husband to the opera, to vexing him by- 
 refusal. Her short day was spent in loving, in sacrifice, in 
 faith : a faith that calmed the pains of rapid consumption 
 and made her death at twenty-four as radiant as her life 
 had been. 
 
 Here also were the Du Chatelets, an unselfish couple 
 living to do good and bring happiness, who perished 
 during the Revolution ; and their fellow-victim^ Am^lie de 
 Lauzun, tender and wistful, who lived in the world and 
 knew she was not of it — the Una of the Court^with no Red 
 Cross Knight to protect her. 
 
 The names of pious men are naturally rarer. But if we 
 seek such, we shall find them in the few families who 
 devoted their better energies to their lands and lived upon 
 them for the greater part of the year. Of this minority 
 the De Liancourts and the De Noailles were the finest 
 examples. They spent the winter at their Hotels in Paris 
 — the rest of their time on their estates. Intimately 
 connected by friendship, their creeds, their aims, their 
 attitude towards life were the same. Their days were 
 filled by zeal for the public good, rather than by political 
 activity, unless they considered it would promote their 
 ends. The welfare of their own peasants they considered 
 their first object, and acted as their fellow-workers and 
 their First Lords of the Treasury. And all their deeds 
 were softened by a serene tenderness ; were warmed by 
 the clear flame of an almost primitive Christianity. The 
 philosophical Humanitarians may have done the same 
 things, but their manner of doing them was different ; 
 their light, if pure, was dry, and their actions often became 
 
 26
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 functions. They could not have been more methodical 
 than these saintly Nobles, and it is refreshing to find how 
 closely the latter bound practical habits to pious impulse, 
 and refined the whole by a grace and beauty born of good 
 breeding. 
 
 " Nearer to the Chateau," writes Arthur Young, the 
 guest of the De Liancourts, with his sober, trustworthy pen, 
 " the Duchess of Liancourt has built a menagerie and 
 dairy in a pleasing taste. ... At a village near Lian- 
 court, the Duke has established a manufacture of linen and 
 stuffs mixed with cotton . . , There are twenty-five 
 looms. . . . As the spinning for these looms is also 
 established, it gives employment to great numbers of 
 hands who were idle, for they have no sort of manufacture 
 in the country. Such efforts merit great praise." There 
 was also the Duke's Home for Training Orphan Boys for 
 the Army ; and his Industrial Home for the Daughters of 
 the Poor, where they were " instructed in their religion, 
 taught to write and read and to spin cotton, and were 
 kept till marriageable, when a regulated portion of their 
 earnings was given them as a marriage portion." 
 
 The charitable schemes and unflagging religion of the 
 De Noailles race we shall hope to reveal in these pages. 
 Angels are few and far between. It is almost incredible 
 to find a whole band of them. esi)ecially a band living 
 together and tied to each other by relationship. Yet this 
 improbable conception is realized by the De Noailles. 
 They were not only the greatest family in France after 
 Royalty, they were also perhaps the largest. Wherever 
 we look amongst them, we find noble minds and holy 
 souls. The old Mar^chal de Mouchy and his wife, who 
 perished at eighty on the scaffold ; their daughter, 
 Madame de Duras, who survived the Terror and left us
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 her Prison Journals ; the Duchesse d'Ayen and the five 
 daughters whom she cherished — all these shone then, and 
 shine for us now, like " good deeds in a naughty world." 
 They did not think much of its naughtiness, but preferred 
 to love its inhabitants, especially the poor and humble. 
 
 White-robed and silent, they glide forth from the land 
 of shadows. We wait for them to break the silence. And 
 if we can look upon them with spiritual imagination, they 
 will slowly revive ; they will tell us their tale of suffering, 
 tranquillity and meek victory. Their simplicity alone is 
 equal to the task. It is time they should stand forth 
 and speak for themselves. 
 
 28
 
 The d'Ayens 
 
 29
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The d'Ayens 
 
 THE history of Society has many pleasant secrets 
 and refreshing surprises. Xone is perhaps more 
 charming than the discovery of those rare families, whose 
 members, widely different in nature, seem all pervaded 
 by the same atmosphere. They are stamped with an 
 impress, a common i^ersonality, which rather sets off than 
 weakens individual character, and makes its possessors 
 easy of recognition. This impress is usually the gift of 
 the parents — most frequently of the mother. Her ideas, 
 her aspirations, create a spirit which unconsciously 
 dominates the household, and is readily responded to by 
 those who are moulded of her flesh and blood. There 
 grows up a " family perception " which establishes its 
 especial Lares ; a family humour with its own intimate 
 flavour; a family attitude towards joy and sorrow, life 
 and conduct, which cannot be borrowed by any other 
 tribe. Such families are likely to find within their own 
 limits the excitement of companionship, so necessary 
 in existence, which others have to seek outside. Their 
 feeling for each other becomes a passion ; it unites an 
 almost lover-like eagerness with the sweet safety of natural 
 habit. They constitute not only a clan, but a social circle. 
 Peo[jlc of this kind are vara avcs, )ct the diligent 
 collector can find a considerable number of their nests. 
 
 31
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The Gracchi are perhaps the first instance on record, but 
 he need have no recourse to class-room specimens. The 
 last three hundred years will furnish him with sufficient 
 names. There are the beautiful Sheridans, with their 
 tradition of romance and unflagging brilliance ; the 
 Mendelssohns, with their cultured piety, and that peculiar 
 gift of creation which was made to illumine a home ; the 
 Gurneys, mercurial and religious ; the seventeenth century 
 Arnaulds, of Port Royal, who embraced charity as fervently 
 as they did dogma ; the literary, talkative Burneys, who 
 wrote their journals, sipped their tea, and adored their 
 father and each other in utmost content by their fireside ; 
 the Brontes, with their fiery stoicism and their wild 
 poet-hearts ; or, in still more recent days, Mrs. Craven's 
 family, the De la Ferronays, whose genius for sorrow 
 is only equalled by their genius for expressing it ex- 
 quisitely. Last, but not least, we have the De Noailles, 
 embalmed in family love, who drew their inspiration from 
 their mother, the Duchesse d'Ayen, and bore her inefface- 
 able seal upon their souls from childhood to the grave. 
 
 The Chancellor d'Aguesseau was her grandfather. She 
 was born in 1737, and her mother died at her birth. Her 
 father married again, and sent her at three years old to 
 a convent. Here she was placed under the special charge 
 of a governess, Madame d'H^^ricourt, a woman of tender 
 heart and firm will, who made virtue appear charming. 
 The child soon showed a remarkable nature — a mixture 
 of conscience, sober sense, impatience, and spiritual 
 fervour. At five years old, she became absorbed in the 
 Lives of the Saints, but prayed earnestly that she might 
 not resemble them, because she had such a horror of 
 seeing the visions that they did. From her earliest years 
 she preferred austerity to asceticism. When she was still 
 
 32
 
 THE D'AYE:sS 
 
 a child, the game of chess fascinated her; but perceiving 
 that it pre-occupied her so strongly as to distract her 
 attention at High Mass on Sundays, she refused to play 
 at the game on Saturdays ; and if she had once made a 
 resolution, she did not swerve from it. At fourteen, her 
 father. Monsieur de Fresnes, took her away from the 
 convent, and she came home. She and her step-mother 
 got on well together ; and Mademoiselle d'Aufroy, the 
 companion her parents chose for her, became her 
 life-long friend. Gaiety and sanctity distinguished the 
 Duchesse d'Ayen's youth : sanctity warmed by impulsive- 
 ness and a spice of occasional intolerance. As she was 
 now, she always remained — sweet, and a little severe. 
 Her standard was high, and she was inclined to put her- 
 self into other people, and feel disappointed at their short- 
 comings. Sometimes she spoke sharply to the servants ; 
 but, grande dame though she was, she always begged their 
 pardon afterwards. She was, after all, a true woman ; and 
 though her mind was solid, it was uncertain. Tranquil 
 in manner and in the big decisions of life, she agitated 
 herself over small things. She did not think them worth 
 referring to faith, but in important matters she threw 
 herself upon God, and calm came to her at once. 
 
 Soon after she grew up, her maternal grandfather died, 
 and embarrassed her greatly by leaving her a large for- 
 tune. Riches were a burden to her and a hateful symbol 
 of inequality ; but she would not reject the responsibilities 
 they entailed, and held them as a trust for the poor. She 
 contrived to diminish her heritage by as many benefac- 
 tions as possible, and gave away half of her substance. 
 
 At eighteen, her marriage was arranged with the Due 
 d'Ayen, two years younger than herself, and the eldest 
 son of the Due and Mar(^chal de Noailles. His personality
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 has been somewhat eclipsed by hers, yet he was a man 
 of considerable parts and noble purposes. Strange to 
 say, in making a choice for their devout daughter, her 
 parents seem to have dwelt little upon the question of 
 religious agreement. The Duke belonged to the philo- 
 sophers — and to those philosophers who did not despise 
 the world, or even the court, where, like all the men 
 of his name, he spent much of his time. He inherited 
 a bold, juicy wit from the old Marshal, and his eager 
 mind was as busy with agriculture as with court intrigues, 
 military administration and philosophy. He was con- 
 sidered one of the most enlightened Seigneurs^ was a 
 member of the Academie de Scietices, and distinguished 
 himself by the papers he read there. His attitude towards 
 life and religion was intelligent, but not exalted ; it might 
 be summed up by the reply of the soldier to Tom Jones, 
 when he refused, as a Christian, to fight in a duel : " My 
 dear boy, be a good Christian . . . but be a man of 
 honour too, and never put up an affront." 
 
 To the Due d'Ayen honour was dearer than anything, 
 excepting his wife. He adored her from the first. Her 
 attachment to him, if not as warm, was as true ; perhaps 
 they did not always sympathize upon fundamental sub- 
 jects, but her happiness was not affected. " God had 
 above all made her to be a mother," and she was soon 
 to find this out. 
 
 After her marriage she was presented at Versailles, and 
 then retired to the stately seclusion of the Hotel de 
 Noailles. Here she lived quietly with her husband's 
 family : his mother ; his father ; his brother, the Marshal ; 
 the Marquis, and his two sisters. Conventional society, 
 though she by no means despised it, was not to her taste, 
 and she found enough excitement in learning to know her 
 
 34
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 new relations. Of these, her husband's sisters, the 
 Duchesse de Lesparre and the Comtesse de Tess6, soon 
 became prominent in her life ; and in Madame de Le- 
 sparre she found a strong support. " There was no agita- 
 tion which did not grow calm, no sort of tribulation which 
 was not softened, and for which one did not gain a little 
 strength, when one had spent a short time with Madame 
 de Lesijarre. It was not so much her mind as her soul 
 which illumined her, and yet one always found new lights 
 in her company. " 
 
 So wrote her niece, Madame Lafayette, years after- 
 wards. Madame de Tesse, she tells us, was not so inti- 
 mate with her mother. Her religious opinions would 
 alone have [prevented this. She was a warm-hearted 
 free-thinker, had been a great friend of Voltaire's, and, 
 far from regarding the priests as invulnerable representa- 
 tives of their Maker, she looked upon them as men who 
 from their position, were peculiarly liable to error ; in 
 spite of this, she made them the ministers of her charity 
 and poured bounty upon such of them as were in distress. 
 She lived, besides, in a world far remote from her sister-in- 
 law's : the world of wits and scholars, where dulness was 
 the only sin, and thought, however daring, could never be 
 considered impious. Indeed, she bore a great reputation 
 for mind, from her youth onwards, and, with her emphatic 
 nature, adopted all that was implied by such fame, intel- 
 lectual affectations as well as intellectual doubts. She had 
 a " little language " of her own, not reserved for one 
 person like Swift's, but addressed to Society at large, and 
 so abstruse that it demanded a private interpreter. Her 
 strongly-marked features were full of character, but she 
 had no beauty excepting her thick black hair, and her 
 face was marked by small-pox. In spite of this, she 
 
 35
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 was a conscientious votary of the ridiculous fashion then 
 prevalent amongst literary women, of making prescribed 
 grimaces at stated intervals in conversation. She, and 
 a lady of the Richelieu family, were the last of these 
 femmes minaudikres who appear in the great world ; and 
 they even persisted in their pedantries of deportment at 
 a time when " les mines et les mouches " were no longer 
 in vogue. It was not only the airs and graces of the 
 literary that attracted her ; she also adopted their 
 emotions. When she was in England, she made a pil- 
 grimage to the grave of her hero, Richardson, in com- 
 pany with his son-in-law ; we have a glimpse of her 
 prostrate upon his tomb, groaning aloud, her body shaken 
 with sobs. It was all quite as sincere as it was exagger- 
 ated. Her wasp-like contemporary, Madame de Genlis, 
 it is true, declared that " Madame de Tess6 had mind, but 
 knew it too well, was too eager to show it, and spoke a 
 private language in order to give people a higher idea 
 of her brain." But the writer was incapable of judging 
 a woman as free from malice as Madame de Tessd 
 Eccentric in all she said, thought, and did, she gave 
 herself away in manners as in everything else, with 
 the vehement generosity that coloured her. 
 
 She wisely chose a counteracting husband of a chilly 
 and phlegmatic temperament. He never spoke to her, 
 but, after twenty years of silence and indifference, vastly 
 amused Paris by presenting her with a snuff-box inscribed 
 with the hottest love-passage from " Ph^dre." After this 
 action — apparently the one exploit of his life — he relapsed 
 into the shade again, and, like many husbands of remark- 
 able wives, possesses no further relations with history. 
 
 Perhaps Madame de Tess6 inherited her eccentricity, 
 though not her intellect, from her far less notable mother. 
 
 36
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 The Mar^chale was the exception to the Noailles law of 
 saintliness. She presents an erratic contrast of family 
 pride, stately childishness, and conventional vagaries. 
 Devout she was, but her piety took the dubious form of 
 religious kleptomania. She could not keep her hands off 
 sacred relics, and, on one occasion, it required all the 
 Noailles influence to rescue her from excommunication. 
 She had stolen the arm of Ste. Genevieve from the chapel 
 of some nuns, pounded it and dissolved it in medicine to 
 cure the Due d'Ayen, her eldest son, of scarlet fever. 
 With some difficulty, they extricated her from her 
 dilemma, only to learn a few days afterwards that a 
 precious Eucharistic chalice had disappeared from another 
 church, in like manner. She had other habits, equally 
 innocent, impious, and inconvenient. For instance, she 
 kept up a constant correspondence with the Virgin Mary, 
 posted her letters in a dovecote and never suspected that 
 it was her priest who answered them. " What famili- 
 arity ! " she once exclaimed ; " this little bourgeoise of 
 Nazareth addresses me as ' Dear Mar^chale de la troisiane 
 ligne* — but I must remember that she is my Saviour's 
 mother (here she bowed her head), and, after all, she 
 does come of the Royal House of David." Sometimes 
 her whims took a rather less extravagant form, as when 
 she insisted that all her elderly grand-nephews should be 
 painted as Cupids and distinguished from middle-class 
 Loves by having the Order of Malta represented upon 
 their shoulders. There is perhaps nothing which makes 
 us so intimate with people as admission to a family joke ; 
 and when we hear that the grave de Noailles could never 
 stop laughing at the thought of this picture, our stiffness 
 disappears^ and we walk in and out of their doors with 
 a courtly friendship which is very near freedom. But 
 
 37
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAPAYETTES 
 
 even whilst we laugh with them, there rises before our 
 eyes a vision of this same lady, borne in a tumbril, with 
 uncomplaining dignity, to the scaffold. Her aberrations 
 are not the part of her by which she will be best 
 remembered. 
 
 It was amongst these relations that the Duchesse 
 d'Ayen's children grew up. The first of these, a boy, 
 was born two years after her marriage and died after 
 twenty-four hours' illness, when he was barely a year old. 
 Her sorrow could only be measured by her love ; religion 
 was her one consolation, and she said in after days that 
 she was often strengthened by her conviction that there 
 was no greater saint in heaven than the baby who had left 
 her. Twelve months later came a girl, Louise, Vicomtesse 
 de Noailles. At first the mother's heart could not welcome 
 the new-comer ; it seemed like disloyalty to her lost lamb ; 
 but a serious illness, which nearly robbed her for the 
 second time, made her once more feel all the vitality of 
 affection, and she allowed herself to indulge in joy. 
 A year after came Adrienne (afterwards Madame La- 
 fayette) ; then a third sister, doomed to die young, in 
 childbirth. She was closely followed by Anne Paul 
 Dominique, or Pauline (Madame de Montagu) and 
 Rosalie (Madame de Grammont), whose feeling for each 
 other presents an almost Biblical picture of common 
 prayer and piety. 
 
 The Duchess began their education early. Every 
 mother is in some degree a poet, and sees the possibilities 
 in her children even more strongly than the realities ; but 
 the Duchesse d'Ayen added science to romance. She 
 followed every movement of her daughters' lives without 
 seeming to do so, and was careful to regard her children's 
 confidence as a courtesy, instead of claiming it as a right. 
 
 38
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 She knew every one of them separately with a deep and 
 subtle knowledge and a boundless force of tenderness for 
 each. Herself impetuous, as well as serene, she under- 
 stood both calm and stormy natures, and her constant 
 vision of God made her indulgent rather than exacting. 
 From the first, she rejected the prevailing fashion of 
 leaving them to the care of others, and made a point 
 of seeing them herself and of supervising their doings. 
 
 Every day she gave them a good-morning kiss ; saw 
 them again on her way to Mass at the Jacobins' Church 
 of St. Roch ; dined with them at three o'clock, and then 
 took them up to her bedroom for several hours with her. 
 This time was always too short for them ; they loved even 
 the furniture associated with it. The room was large, and 
 hung with crimson damask brocaded with gold ; the bed 
 was immense. " The Duchess sat in a rocking chair, neat 
 the mantel-piece, with her snuff-box, her books, her needles, 
 close at hand ; her five daughters grouped themselves 
 round her — the bigger ones on chairs, the smaller on foot- 
 stools — and disputed gently which should be nearest the 
 rocking chair." Whilst their needles embroidered, they 
 gossiped about the little events of the moment. A minute 
 report of their sayings and doings during the day was 
 brought to her every night by their guardians, and they 
 themselves told her in the evening all they had seen, 
 heard, and learned, since they rose in the morning. It 
 was these intimate bed-time interviews which were most 
 constantly the occasion for the moral lessons, which were 
 learned with such unconsciousness. What they described 
 to her was her text, and it was thus that, from the earli- 
 est days, she accustomed them to live largely and well. 
 Prejudices, narrowness, even vanity, were long unknown to 
 them, and when they first went forth into the world, the 
 
 39
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 conduct of the so-called honnites gens there, caused them 
 " an amazement which it took years to get over," 
 
 Certain of their studies she always kept in her own 
 hands. Ever eager to imbue them with the love of 
 beauty — which she considered part of the love of good- 
 ness — she often read poetry with them, besides her 
 favourite prose. She taught them to analyze its beauties 
 as well as to admire them, and formed their taste by 
 surrounding them with sweet influences. But nothing 
 really pleased her that did not need moral imagination. 
 She would have quarrelled with Dr. Johnson. " Babies 
 do not want to hear about babies," he said ; " they like 
 to be told of giants and castles and of somewhat which 
 can stretch and stimulate their little minds." The Duchess 
 disapproved of the whole elfin race. Like Plato, who for- 
 bade fiction as enervating, she banished fairy tales from 
 the nursery. But as her babies were not the property of 
 the State, they managed to teach her inconsistency. She 
 was, after all, a living fairy godmother. Besides, they were 
 not devoid of fantastic literature ; the " Lives of the 
 Saints " were on their nursery shelves. 
 
 There was, writes Madame Lafayette, nothing abso- 
 lute in her manner of teaching, correcting, or guiding ; she 
 considered herself to have done nothing if she had not 
 convinced the child to whom she was speaking ; and 
 although she was naturally indolent, of a very impatient 
 character, and perhaps too little accustomed to repress 
 her vivacity, she listened to all the arguments of her 
 children with persevering kindness. These qualities had 
 their drawbacks. Frequent reasoning led to waste of 
 time ; and she was also heard to observe that her daughters 
 were less docile than others. " Small wonder, mamma," 
 answered Adrienne, " because you always allow us to
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 argue and object ; but you will see that at fifteen we 
 shall be much more docile than other girls." The maternal 
 lessons in practical logic had evidently not been wasted 
 on this second daughter. The necessity for coherence had 
 ever been impressed upon her. " Above all," she says, 
 " our mother concentrated her force in forming our judg- 
 ment and taught us to make solid reflections upon every 
 fresh object. Penetrated by truth as she was, her first 
 care was always to remove any obscurity of thought." 
 
 This is all very serious, and if it had no context would 
 merely suggest Edgeworthian methods, excellent but 
 charmless. The Parent's Assistant had no time for unction 
 — probably no taste for it — and there is no worse-mannered 
 child in fiction than the ever inquisitive Frank. The 
 Duchess did not stop at lucid common sense. She was 
 always more of a bold artist than of a polished scholar 
 in education. Pedantry was so hateful to her that she 
 steered clear of system, and perhaps lost as much of her 
 time in doing without it as she did by filial argument. 
 But though she had no neatly fixed scheme, she possessed 
 something larger : the consolidating religious fervour, so 
 lacking in Miss Edgeworth, which is a liberal education 
 in itself. " She worked with all her mother's tenderness," 
 writes Madame Lafayette again, " to bring the truth 
 within our ken. . . . She desired that everything we 
 perceived should present a whole to us. Principles, 
 morality, the history of facts, examples and the way to 
 profit by them, all was related and bound together in her 
 lessons, as in the designs of God." 
 
 Spiritual welfare is much dwelled on in our serious, self- 
 weighted Britain ; but spiritual distinction, the culture of 
 the soul, which alone creates an alluring tradition, belongs 
 to a less Puritan atmosphere. Il was certain)}' the living 
 
 41
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 legacy of the Duchesse d'Ayen^ and the chief piece of 
 learning with which she enriched her daughters. 
 
 Like all exceptional people, she found exceptional 
 servants. Her nurse, though only an illiterate peasant, 
 had a gift for training children and amused them for 
 hours by convent anecdotes, or stories from the Old 
 Testament. Later on she was replaced by a governess, 
 Mademoiselle Marin, " a little person, fair, pinched- 
 looking, huffy, but devoted to her duties." Governesses 
 of a hundred and forty years ago were evidently much 
 like the governesses of to-day, and so were little girls. 
 These particular ones learned the proper number of 
 catecJiismes and stately primers, and were, in due course, 
 promoted to the study of the spheres and other branches 
 of elegant learning. They had their treats too. They 
 paid yearly visits to their grandparents in the country, 
 and wandered hand-in-hand with the old Marshal in the 
 woods, or won crown-pieces from him at Loto all the 
 evening. 
 
 Sometimes Mademoiselle Marin led forth a donkey 
 cavalcade to Meudon, herself timidly but pompously 
 mounted. She never failed to fall off on the grass, or to 
 scold the Samaritan who rescued her, or indeed to adore 
 the whole d'Ayen family, during twenty-seven years of 
 faithful intercourse. 
 
 Work and play alternated and the years flew. There 
 was no modern pressure, but the few things they learned 
 they assimilated. Their minds and their brains commu- 
 nicated with one another, instead of being ingenious 
 mechanisms with no necessary relations. Nor was their 
 physical education neglected. Their mother was original 
 enough in those sedentary days to let them share their 
 young uncle's lessons in drill and gymnastics. Perhaps 
 
 42
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 she helped to form the fine constitutions which afterwards 
 survived the rii^ours of prison and even of starvation. 
 
 Their father they saw but rarely ; most of his life had 
 to be spent between the army and Versailles, where he 
 had inherited the King's intimacy. He was Colonel of his 
 regiment, and distinguished himself in the Seven Years' 
 War ; but though a soldier before all things, his tongue 
 was almost as nimble as his sword, and when j^cace came, 
 he liked to frequent the brilliant world of conversation. 
 He always impressed his children, but they were rather 
 afraid of him, and looked on him less as their parent than 
 as the husband of their mother. 
 
 Thus, fed by dew and sunshine, and shaded by her 
 presence, these five girls expanded and blossomed. Never 
 were sisters so closely bound, so like, or so different. 
 Louise, the eldest, was radiant, saintly, and serene, like a 
 limpid lake which gives back the reflection of heaven 
 unblurred by any ripple. Adrienne was more intellectual 
 and more intense ; sweetness and storm were strangely 
 mingled in her, combined with her father's keen wits, and 
 she confessed that she often had enough work to do in 
 managing herself. Her mother did her best to help her. 
 " She always led my over-strong imagination back to the 
 true and simple," she wrote, " and though I must confess 
 that in childhood she had perhaps let me perceive her 
 pride in me too plainly, yet she knew how to correct m)- 
 conceit about this b}- a delineation of my faults so vivid 
 true, and vigorous, that it constantly recurred to me, and 
 each time pierced my heart like an arrow." But these 
 barb-like faults were iKjt vcr)- grave ; Adriennc's storms 
 were of the soul — her intensity of the heart ; the shadow 
 of self never troubled her. 
 
 The third daughter was the I'^ast notable, and more of 
 
 43
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 a family representative than an individual ; she seems 
 to have possessed a little of each sister, without having 
 enough of any quality to distinguish her. Then came 
 Anne Paul Dominique, whose grand name had been 
 bestowed on her by a poor old man and his wife from the 
 parish of St. Roch, the godparents whom the Duchess 
 had chosen for her ; but it was soon replaced by the more 
 familiar " Pauline." She had all the impatience of her 
 mother's temper beside its sweetness, and was naturally 
 capricious, even rebellious. " She was ruled by her im- 
 pressions and refused any other yoke. One saw her pass 
 in one moment from the most vehement anger to effusions 
 of repentance, and, an instant later, relapse into the faults 
 she had bewailed." But this was only till she was nearly 
 twelve ; at that mature period of life, she underwent a 
 conversion as striking as it was steady, for its effects lasted 
 till her death. She became gentle, patient, studious, and 
 not only subjected herself to common obligations, but also 
 to much severer rules which she was accustomed to make 
 out for herself This miracle of will was in some measure 
 owing to her mother's counsels, but much more to the 
 example of her little sister, whom she began by slapping, 
 and proceeded to love and admire passionately. Rosalie 
 was only her junior by a year, and shared Pauline's work 
 and play. Though she was the youngest, her force of 
 character made her develope early ; equable, pious, and 
 almost precocious, she always remained the austerest of 
 the sisters ; but her severity never extended beyond her- 
 self, and there was no discipline, no religious exercise that 
 was too hard for her. She is the only one of the sisters 
 of whom we have a personal description in youth. " She 
 had small eyes, a slightly square chin, and features that 
 were irregular, but pleasing because of their expression ; 
 
 44
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 they were full at the same time of strength, calm, and 
 modesty." 
 
 Her sway over Pauline never decreased ; Adrienne was 
 influenced in much the same way b)' Louise, who had 
 great power to calm her, and, as it were, to bathe 
 her spirit in serenity. Indeed, there was between these 
 five sisters a love as exalted as their mother's feeling 
 for them — a love which would have been idolatry had 
 they not always chosen the truly holy in one another to 
 admire. One of the most striking features of their com- 
 radeship is the humility which stimulated each to imitate 
 the other's virtues and to acknowledge the other's help 
 with bounteous praise. 
 
 In 1768, their mother was again expecting a child. She 
 fell very ill and became convinced that she was about to 
 die. The idea that she would have to leave her children 
 while they were still so young, was unendurable to her. 
 She confided her anguish to a friend — probably her 
 director. " Do you think yourself needful to God ? " he 
 replied, "has He no means but yourself to save them?" 
 The answer revived her and she took courage. A short 
 while after, small-pox declared itself, and in the midst of 
 this illness her long-desired son was born. Her life was 
 despaired of. The nature of her complaint was hidden 
 from her, but her sufferings made her aware of her danger. 
 When they came to her bedside and told her that the child 
 was a boy, she said to Mademoiselle d'Aufroy — her faith- 
 ful companion, as of old — " This gift from God does not 
 frighten me ; it is not made to a Jew but to a Christian : 
 it is accompanied by the Cross." 
 
 Her husband's grief about her hardly allowed him to 
 notice his infant. To him she was always first ; and in 
 order to prevent her discovering thai she had small-pox, 
 
 45
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 he actually allowed all the children to come to her when 
 she asked for them, though Adrienne had never had the 
 terrible complaint. It is still a question whether faith that 
 overthrows common-sense partakes more of piety or 
 impiety, but in this case there were no evil consequences. 
 The baby prospered and the mother recovered. When all 
 risk was over, her daughters were told of the sorrow they 
 had so narrowly escaped. But overcome though they 
 were, it was impossible for children to realize the idea of 
 death ; their emotion was nothing to that with which, from 
 the garden, they gazed for the first time on their mother's 
 changed face at her window, and saw — through the panes 
 — the ravages small-pox had made in it. " None of the 
 tragedies that came afterwards," writes Adrienne, " could 
 ever efface the remembrance of our misery at the 
 thought that we should never again see her as she was 
 before." 
 
 The Duke meanwhile was much occupied in arranging 
 that his daughters' fortunes should not be impaired by the 
 arrival of his son. His wife began to be troubled ; she 
 feared lest the boy's advantages should wed him to the 
 world ; though she cared for him, if possible, more than for 
 the others, she allowed this dread to perturb her joy and 
 agitate her mind. On Holy Thursday, she went to pray 
 at the Sepulchre, and returned calm and happy once again. 
 " I have just killed my son," she said, on coming home, 
 to Mademoiselle d'Aufroy, " and I am rather afraid about 
 my daughters. If any of them fall ill, I shall be greatly 
 alarmed ; I have offered them all to God, so that He may 
 restore them to me for eternity. But I hope He will 
 leave me my girls. I think He has accepted my boy and 
 that I shall not keep him." So deep was this impression 
 of hers, that when the baby began to ail, she never had an 
 
 40
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 instant's hope. It grew worse and was pronounced to be 
 consumptive. Yet after months of suffering, when it lay 
 dying in her arms, her spirit was still upheld by her 
 certainty. " Darling, you have won a ij^rcit victor)-," she 
 whispered in its ear ; " nothing can now divide us or tear 
 us from one another for all eternity." ICven in the long 
 days that followed her loss, the calm of her grief remained. 
 She saw by the light of death, which glorified tears and 
 shadows, and sanctified her strength. 
 
 Happilx' her other children were there, and as they grew 
 older, needed her more and more. Three years passed 
 away. Louise and Adrienne were thirteen and twelve 
 years old, on the threshold of womanhood and of an age 
 then considered suitable for marriage. The time had 
 come for the event which their mother considered the most 
 crucial of their lives. They had already been confirmed : 
 they were now to make ready for their first Communion 
 — to approach that Altar which for her was the place on 
 earth nearest to heaven. With Louise, it was a simple 
 matter ; her spirit waited patiently for revelation and 
 could only be satisfied by mystery. It was far harder for 
 Adrienne. Her adventurous mind was content with 
 nothing less than the root of the matter, while her vivid 
 imagination often overmastered her. She had become 
 absorbed in theological subjects, and just before she turned 
 twelve, her potjr little mind began to be tormented by 
 religious doubts. Like most juvenile sceptics, she took 
 herself very seriously, and it seemed to her that she was 
 disKiyal to her mother as well as her God. She said after- 
 wards that in all her life of care and sorrow she had never 
 felt a pain like this one. Half proud and half ashamed, 
 she hid it from her dear ones, and as she tried to cure her- 
 self by pursuing her devotions more fervently than ever, 
 
 47
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 concealment was not difficult. But she decided that she 
 could not take her first Communion, and the dread of 
 announcing this fact oppressed her heavily. Happily her 
 mother had no need of words ; she discovered Adrienne's 
 secret, approved her decision, and devoted all her powers 
 of tenderness to consoling her. Unlike her contem- 
 poraries, this good lady dreaded ecclesiastical discussions, 
 and preferred her conscience to her director in such a 
 matter. Far from adopting the speedy methods of Dr. 
 Boyer, who flogged Coleridge every day till he had found 
 a God, she did not even argue. The innocent unbeliever 
 returned to the fold, though she took her time and did not 
 celebrate her first Sacrament till three years afterwards, 
 just after the birth of her eldest child. 
 
 For this tender little novice was beset not only by 
 thorns spiritual, but by thorns matrimonial. At the same 
 moment that her difficulties began, just about her twelfth 
 birthday, two suitors presented themselves : the Vicomte 
 de Noailles for Louise, and his friend the Marquis de 
 Lafayette for Adrienne. The mother said nothing of this 
 to the girls ; she did not wish them to be distracted from 
 their education, and considered them too young to think of 
 such matters for another year at least. None the less, she 
 suffered acutely at the thought of giving them away. No 
 sign betrayed what she was going through. She seemed 
 to others even calmer than usual. " We know so little 
 what will be the consequences of decisive events in our 
 lives," she was wont to tell her daughters, " that all we can 
 do at such crises is to put away every passion as much as 
 possible, conduct ourselves according to the law of reason 
 and duty, and never attach ourselves exclusively to any one 
 idea in particular ; then if we have taken all precautions 
 and have no negligence wherewith to reproach ourselves, 
 
 48
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 we need do nothing but submit peacefully to the law of 
 God, who best knows what is fitting for us," She now 
 practised her precepts and prayed in silence. 
 
 It sometimes seems as if people's characters created 
 their circumstances and even the individuals that come 
 into their lives. The elder girl's lover, and first cousin, 
 the Vicomte de Noailles, was as sweet, as sane, as finely 
 balanced as herself ; he pursued every noble reform as 
 fervently as he hated every violence. His father, the 
 Mar^chal Mouchy de Xoailles, was a pious hero who retired 
 to his estate and hel{)cd his own peasants at the plough. 
 His mother and his sister (Madame de Duras) shared 
 the old man's views, and lived for God and their poor. 
 His elder brother, the Prince de Poix, was the purest light 
 of Parisian Society, and together with his wife made his 
 home a meeting-place for all the finer spirits of his day ; 
 artists, writers, ecclesiastics and liberal nobles came to- 
 gether there, attracted by a hospitality which excluded 
 nothing but triviality. There could be no objection to a 
 marriage with such a V^iscount, and the parental consent 
 was immediately given. But for a year, nothing was said 
 to Louise of the proposal. During this period it was 
 arranged by her mother that she should frequently meet 
 her cousin, either during her walks or at home. The girl 
 had always been used to him, and perhaps the Duchess, 
 who knew her tender but passionless nature, had taken this 
 into account. Habit was essential to Louise's happiness, 
 and when, after twelve months, the marriage was suggested 
 to her, she felt no shock and gladly consented. Some 
 montlis of preparations followed — preparations both spirit- 
 ual and practical. For whilst the mother tried gradually 
 to fit her (laughter's soul for all the possibilities of married 
 life, she also saw that she was taught every intricacy of 
 
 49 E
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 stately housekeeping and domestic knowledge. The mar- 
 riage was celebrated in 1773 ; an April wedding of sun 
 and shower for mother and sisters, to whom this first break 
 in their circle seemed almost a tragedy ; but, as it proved, 
 Louise was hardly separated from them, though she lived 
 much with her mother-in-law at Versailles. When she did 
 not come to Paris, the Due d'Ayen's Court functions made 
 it easy for her mother to go to her, and the close family 
 tradition remained unbroken. 
 
 Very different was Adrienne's fate. Her lover and her 
 love-story were alike stormy. The Marquis de Lafayette 
 was only fourteen and a half ; his near relations had died, 
 and he had grown up under lax guardianship, with a large 
 fortune already in his possession. His character was noble, 
 but as passionate as Adrienne's, and wholly untrained. 
 The Duchess admired it, but she thought his wealth and 
 his circumstances so undesirable, that she summarily refused 
 the match. The Duke, who saw all the advantages of 
 such a union, was for once seriously angry with her. As 
 she persisted in her decision, they separated and held no 
 communication. The children were aware of the breach, 
 without knowing its cause ; for the first time in their lives 
 they were depressed, and the cloud did not roll away till 
 the memorable day in 1772 when their father returned and 
 their parents were reconciled. 
 
 " You do not know Madame d'Ayen," the Duke had 
 exclaimed, while still in the midst of his displeasure with 
 her ; " however rash she is, you may be sure she will recant 
 her error directly ydu have proved to her that she is in 
 the wrong ; but she will never yield if she does r>ot see 
 it." 
 
 During the year of their difference, she had learned to 
 know M. de Lafayette's character and to admire its possi- 
 
 50
 
 THE D'AYENS 
 
 bilities. Her mother's heart was touched by his forlorn- 
 ness and his response to her. When his guardians 
 consented to finish his education, to wait two years for 
 the marriage, and to allow her daughter to live with her 
 for some time after it, she gave in and adopted him as 
 her son. There was no one in after days who appreciated 
 him as she did, or who did such justice to his motives 
 when all the world misunderstood him. 
 
 Adriennc was allowed to meet him in the same casual 
 way that her sister met the Viscount, without knowing that 
 he had asked for her hand. Long before this fact was 
 C(jnhcicd to her, she had given away her heart ; so over- 
 joyed was she at the thought ot her marriage, that even 
 her mother could hardly " help her to keep her poor head 
 at this crisis." It was as full of dreams as her bride- 
 groom's : dreams for the happiness of the world — for their 
 own happiness in a noble disguise. And when, two 
 months after her sister's wedding, she stood with him at 
 the altar, their joy was complete. They had no mis- 
 givings, not even a foreboding of the way in which their 
 dreams were to be fulfilled. 
 
 For two more years the)- returned to the care of 
 Madame d'Ayen, sometimes in Paris, sometimes at Ver- 
 sailles. She had made up her mind that, in view of their 
 fiitiuc po-^itif tis, both brides should know more of societ)-, 
 and perhaps she had never made a greater nor a ga)-er 
 iiat rifice than when she accompanied them to the balls 
 at St. Geriiiaiii, or gave her little suppers at home. But 
 •-he was determined that iier sons-in-law sIkjuUI not find 
 home tedious, and that her own husband should be satis- 
 fied. She had no fears for her girls. Though they shone 
 and liked to shitie, tlie glittering atmosphere did not 
 suit them, and tliey were never so ha[jp)- as when they 
 
 51
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 were driving home from their dissipations in their great 
 coach. In 1775 Adrienne left her mother's tender 
 tutelage, and she and her husband set up house for 
 themselves. 
 
 52
 
 Lafayette 
 
 53
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Lafayette 
 
 /^NE night, in 1776, the old Marshal de Broglie, Com- 
 ^-^ mander of the forces at Strassburg, was giving a 
 dinner party in honour of the Duke of Gloucester. This 
 light-hearted Duke had just married the Countess Walde- 
 grave, and being in deep disgrace with his royal brother, 
 George III., he took this compulsory occasion for a trip 
 abroad. He was maliciously regaling the table, at the 
 King's expense, by a humorous account of America's 
 affront to England and the scene with the tea chests in 
 Boston Harbour. His sympathy was all with the rebels, 
 and he dwelt on their need of recruits. This was the 
 first that France had heard of American Independence. 
 Amongst his numerous audience — officers in blue and 
 silver, Strassburg grandees in gold lace and velvet, exclaim- 
 ing, laughing, gesticulating — was one silent, solemn-faced 
 young soldier. He was lean, red-haired, hook-nosed, very 
 awkward. He might have seemed insignificant, had it not 
 been for his eager eyes ; and indifferent, had he not kept 
 them intent on the speaker's face. Nobody noticed him. 
 After dinner he strode across the room to the Duke and 
 opened his lips for the first time. His manner was calm, 
 almost cold. " I will join the Americans — I will help 
 them fight for Freedom ! " he cried, and, as he spoke, his 
 face was illuminated — " Tell me how to set about it," 
 
 JO
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 This was the Marquis de Lafayette, now nineteen years 
 old, the adoring husband of a lady who returned his 
 attachment ; already the father of one child, and now 
 expecting another. The anecdote is an epitome of the 
 man. He was ruled by two passions — the one for his 
 wife, the other for Freedom ; and the latter was the 
 stronger of the two. In his pursuit of Liberty under all 
 her Protean forms — a pursuit sometimes stern, always 
 sanguine, and maintained through a long life — he has 
 never been rivalled, unless it be by Mr. Gladstone in our 
 own day. Yet Lafayette was not a modern Radical. 
 With the old French manners, he had an English mind, 
 even in its stiffness, and shone by character rather than 
 by gifts. He was always a Whig : something more primi- 
 tive than a Whig even. Perhaps the nearest parallel to 
 him is Hampden, the Knight of the Constitution, who 
 fought every abuse, though he never created a law. 
 
 Lafayette was, if we may use the expression, an abstract 
 man. He always lived in a rarefied atmosphere of general 
 principles and ethical deductions. Such people are gener- 
 ally wanting in detail ; they have a grand outline, but the 
 lovable ups and downs, the personal incidents which vary 
 the highroad, are not to be found in them. They need 
 great occasions if they are to use their qualities ; they are 
 not practical statesmen ; and at an average moment — a 
 period of ordinary political expediency, of Secondary 
 Education Acts and minor financial Bills — they either fall 
 flat, or are set down as Utopian. But heroic times demand 
 whole ideals ; such times can only be met by heroes, and 
 heroes must always be young. Lafayette had eternal youth. 
 His abstract notions never failed him, nor seemed less real 
 than at the outset ; and, fortunately for him, he was born 
 just before the French Revolution — that Minotaur of
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 events which devoured every ideal that could be offered 
 to it. 
 
 Lafayette's career was bound to be full of romance. We 
 expect it from his parentage and education. He was of 
 the same blood as the spiritual Mademoiselle de Lafayette, 
 the close friend of Louis XIII. ; she followed her vocation 
 and became a nun, in spite of his love for her ; in spite 
 of the secret feeling that " kept her too long glued to the 
 grating " when he visited her afterwards in her convent 
 Later on, the family was glorified by the great Madame 
 de Lafayette, who wrote her books and counselled La 
 Rochefoucauld from her couch of suffering. Perhaps the 
 young Marquis inherited his awkwardness from her hus- 
 band, who was so clumsy that his first salutation of her 
 aroused the mirth of the whole family. " He will do, 
 though I daresay he's a blockhead," was her cordial 
 acceptance of him, after which they lived happily (though 
 apart) for ever afterwards. An old rhyme in their honour 
 tells us how they managed it : he went — 
 
 slie wrote — 
 
 " . . . k sa Icne 
 Comme Monsieur son p^re " ; 
 
 " Des remans k Paris 
 Avec les beaux-esprits." 
 
 Two generations later, Lafayette's father was born. He 
 was a soldier all his life, and died in the Seven Years' War 
 by the hand of the same General Phillips whom his son en- 
 countered in Virginia years afterwards. The boy was born 
 after his death, in September, 1757, at the ancestral Castle 
 of Chavaniac. Here he lived alone with his mother ; the 
 forest was his school, and the birds were his playmates. His 
 most worldly aspiration was to meet a wolf of which the ru- 
 mour scared the country during his childhood. Unlike other 
 
 57
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 young French nobles, he had never seen Paris, and had 
 neither learned to dance nor to pick up a fan. Later he 
 went to the College of Plessis, where, like many other boys 
 of twelve, he composed an essay on a horse, which his 
 friends considered a masterpiece. We also have a letter 
 of his written at this period to his cousin and crony, the 
 Comte de Segur, which shows his swift development in 
 understanding of life. It is full of knowing comments on 
 his fashionable elders' love and money-affairs. Soon we 
 find him transferred to the Military Academy at Versailles 
 where he stayed till he got his commission as officer in the 
 Black Musketeers. Then came his marriage, which first 
 introduced him to the Court. Here we know that the 
 de Noailles enjoyed a high position — so high that, when 
 the Queen raised her confidante, Madame de Polignac, 
 to the best situation there, the Marechale de Noailles felt 
 it her duty to resign. For their sake, Lafayette was im- 
 mediately well received, but he soon found favour for his 
 own. 
 
 Marie Antoinette is too often represented as the hostess 
 of the young, gay, and beautiful alone ; she had a gift of 
 social, perhaps of deeper insight, which is apt to be over- 
 looked in the splendour of her fascinations. Youth in 
 itself was not enough for her ; what she cared for most 
 was originality, and such of her contemporaries as pos- 
 sessed it she delighted to gather about her. Madame 
 Lebrun, with her painting palette and her eccentricities ; 
 Madame de Genlis, with her adventurous pedantries and 
 her soothing harp, were amongst her friends ; and just 
 at the time of Lafayette's wedding, she had pleased 
 to form round herself a choice circle of original young 
 men. They called themselves the Soci6t6 de r£p6e aux 
 Bois, and represented the elect of grace and wit, 
 
 58
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 Their sayinf^s, their doings, their dances, their intellectual 
 pranks, were the talk of Versailles ; the old courtiers 
 wagged their heads over them and hated them frankly 
 as adventurous votaries of all that was new ; the younger 
 ones admired them at a distance, and tried to penetrate 
 their Masonic mysteries. 
 
 Lafayette was bored by light talk, and could not dance 
 the minuet ; yet it was into this exclusive set that he was 
 welcomed. The Queen had detected the quality of his 
 mind. She adopted him as a favourite, and was repaid by 
 his chivalrous devotion. The other members of the club 
 became his boon-companions. There were M. d'Artois, 
 the King's brother, nicknamed " the Prince of Youth," and 
 the Comte de Segur, besides the two Dillons and both the 
 de Lameths — names destined to be ever near the Queen's : 
 now in all the confidence of youthful friendship, later in 
 the tragedy of debate as to whether or no she might live. 
 Even then their circle was more significant than they 
 themselves knew. It existed only to scandalize the old 
 nobles, and the difference between the two parties grew 
 to be a formal feud between Conservatives and Liberals. 
 When, amid bursts of mirth, they acted for the Queen an 
 irnfiromptu skit on the Parleme)Lt then sitting, there was 
 deep satire below the fun and the glitter. The Tory 
 lords complained to the King, who summoned M. d'Ar- 
 tois, like a naughty schoolboy ; but even he could not 
 restrain his royal laughter at his brother's account of the 
 proceedings. The courtiers were furious, and took their 
 next chance of getting the last word. Tired of eighteenth 
 century habits, the Epee aux l^ois resolved to assume the 
 dress and language of Henry IV.'s time. They lavished 
 gold on sumptuous costumes and fantastic pageants. Con- 
 siderately wishful to include their foes in the joke, they 
 
 59
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 planned a quadrille for the Court ball, in which dancers 
 and spectators were to appear in mediaeval clothes, irre- 
 spective of age and figure. The King's permission was 
 gained by his wife, and a storm burst. The elderly peers, 
 who were most of them stout, fumed, vociferated, and 
 refused to make fools of themselves. The malicious beaux 
 insisted that they would look ravishing. At last the King 
 was appealed to and forced to retract his assent ; the 
 quadrille was never danced ; the Ep6e aux Bois had gone 
 too far, and came to an abrupt end. 
 
 Lafayette had already grown tired of his Court life and 
 was glad to withdraw to his regiment at Strassburg. He 
 felt uneasy — as if he had not yet found his vent. The 
 Queen had appreciated his mind ; but nobody — not even 
 himself — had yet discovered his character. 
 
 His connections, like those of other folk, were the last 
 people to know him as he was. Before his engagement, 
 they made active efforts to awaken him. His comrade, 
 the young Comte de Segur, was much amused at receiving 
 a stately visit from the old Marechal de Noailles to urge 
 him, in the name of all the family, to rouse Lafayette from 
 his torpor and make him take an interest in something- 
 The Count had just escaped from the vehemence of his 
 friend, who had for hours been urging him to fight an 
 unnecessary duel on behalf of a lady. Lafayette had 
 been hotly enamoured of her for some days and insisted 
 that de S6gur was so too, though that gentleman knew 
 nothing about it and would have preferred a touch of the 
 indolence he was asked to cure. 
 
 The de Noailles continued to misunderstand the young 
 man after he had become one of them, and found him 
 wofully perverse. They almost succeeded in procuring 
 him a desirable place about the person of the Duke of 
 
 60
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 Provence, afterwards Louis XVI IL, but Lafayette found 
 this out and resolved to have none of it. He contrived 
 to meet the Duke at a masked ball, and poured into his 
 ear such a farrago of Liberalism that his chances were 
 effectually destroyed. " I shall remember this interview," 
 said the Duke haughtily. " Memory," rejoined Lafayette, 
 " is the wit of fools." This was not soothing, and his family 
 can hardly be blamed for complaining of him. Un- 
 fortunately, the more they did so, the less capable he 
 became of showing them his true self " His reluctance 
 to talk and his chilly, serious manner were always re- 
 markable," says a contemporary, '' but never as much so 
 as in his youth, when they contrasted strangely with the 
 petulant brilliance of his companions." 
 
 With all his heroism, indeed, his deportment was con- 
 ventional, and his regularity of conduct unbroken ; yet 
 beneath this calm there was an erratic vein, a spirit of 
 rashness, which pushed him to sudden, if not unexpected 
 deeds. It was so on the night that he met the Duke of 
 Gloucester. He had decided in one moment to go to 
 America, and long hours of argument did not move him. 
 He had enough opposition. His own relations were 
 furious, but they had little power over him. The d'Ayens, 
 whom he loved, were almost as angry. The idea that he 
 should leave their daughter so soon after marriage, as 
 well as transfer his service from his King to another con- 
 tinent, seemed to them preposterous. The Duchess tried 
 intercession, the Duke admonition — all in vain. Adricnne 
 alone entered into his purpose with heroic sympathy. 
 She believed in the good of the world — still more that 
 he was appointed to accomplish it. After her first 
 passionate entreaties and dismay that he would be absent 
 when their child was born, she prayed for guidance. And 
 
 6i
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 when the guidance came she prayed for strength, for she 
 felt sure that God willed he should go ; all that remained 
 was to speed him on his way. She hid her feelings, 
 and pretended gaiety ; she liked better to be thought 
 childish or cold-hearted, than that he should be blamed. 
 Her mother came to her aid ; after an interview with her 
 son-in-law, she no longer blamed him. Though she de- 
 plored the dangers he must incur, she learned to admire 
 his enterprise and to discriminate it from boyish ad- 
 venture. A noble purpose was always safe with her. 
 Madame de Tess6, who was daily growing more poli- 
 tical, also became his champion, and henceforward looked 
 upon him as her hero in public life. But he needed more 
 solid help than this, and hardly knew where to turn for 
 it. He went to his father's old friend, the Marshal de 
 Broglie, hoping to enlist his sympathy. The old soldier 
 respected the boy for his daring, but felt it his duty to 
 send him away with nothing better than a scolding and a 
 promise not to betray him. He was not friendless how- 
 ever. Two comrades he had, as enthusiastic as himself — 
 his brother-in-law, the Vicomte de Noailles, who always 
 followed his lead and had caught his enthusiasm for 
 Liberty ; and his cousin, the Comte de Segur. Lafayette 
 arrived one morning at seven, whilst the Count was still 
 in bed. " Wake up ! " he cried, " I am going to America 
 to fight for Freedom. Nobody knows as yet, but I love 
 you too much not to tell you." This was the first that 
 de Scgur had heard of it, but he lost not a minute in 
 leaping out of bed and saying he would go too. Young 
 de Noailles had made the same resolution. Negotiations 
 were opened with the American Envoy, Deane. Un- 
 fortunately for the chivalrous trio, the Court got wind of 
 their intention ; the King formally forbade them to go. 
 
 62
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 De S6gur and de Noailles, who had no money, had 
 nothing for it but to acquiesce. Not so the more for- 
 tunate Lafayette. Outwardly yieldinc^, but daunted by 
 nothing, he cast about him for fresh ways and means. 
 
 Benjamin bVankh'n was then in Paris, receiving such 
 ovations in his marten-fur cap and fustian suit as the old 
 Spartan had never dreamed of Parties were given in his 
 honour, at which the most beautiful women were chosen 
 to embrace him in turn, and to place wreaths upon 
 his head. A medal, with his portrait and an Olympian 
 motto, was struck and even shown to the King. No man 
 of quality was complete without a ring or a snuff-box 
 with his medallion. " These," he wrote to his daughter, 
 " have made your father's face as well known as that of 
 the moon, so that he durst not do anything that would 
 oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him 
 wherever he should venture to show it." 
 
 To him Lafayette appealed, and not in vain. Silas 
 Deane was again consulted. It was arranged that the 
 Marquis should take advantage of a long-standing en- 
 gagement to go to England with the Prince de Poix, 
 and that on his way back he should meet a certain ship 
 at a Spanish port, and escape to America. Deane would 
 meanwhile write to the authorities there and tell them to 
 give him a military commission directly he arriv^ed. 
 
 To London he went, and no one, not even his wife, had 
 a notion of his purpose. Sure now that his great scheme 
 would be fulfilled, he entered into the spirit of his comed)', 
 carried out his role of chief actor, and enjoyed his sly visit 
 with hilarity usually foreign to him. He laughed in his 
 gold-laced sleeve when he was presented to the King, 
 against whom he was about to take arms ; or danced at 
 the house of Lord George Germain, who was Secretary for 
 
 6:>
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the Colonies. He aired his sympathy with the rebels 
 and then breakfasted amicably with Lord Shelburne. At 
 the opera he met General Clinton, whom he was next to 
 encounter at the battle of Monmouth. His impatience 
 at last broke bounds, and after three weeks of frivolity, 
 he went to look after his ship. By this time all his 
 friends were confident that Don Quixote had reformed 
 himself and given up his exploit. They had relaxed 
 guard and were prepared to make settling down pleasant 
 for him. De S^gur and de Noailles alone were in his 
 confidence. 
 
 He reached Spain safely, with a fellow-enthusiast, De 
 Kalb. Just as they were about to start, they learned that 
 they were found out. Lord Stormont, the English Am- 
 bassador in Paris, had discovered their secret and com- 
 municated it to the d'Ayens. The American Envoy was 
 made to write and forbid his country even to give 
 Lafayette employment. Two officers pursued him to 
 Bordeaux with a lettre de cachet commanding him to report 
 himself then and there. It was accompanied by letters 
 from his relations " so terrible that they made him fear 
 for his wife's condition." All this correspondence reached 
 him in Spain. His alarm about Adrienne made him give 
 in. He wrote at once to the Minister, Maurepas, explain- 
 ing his conduct, and set out for Bordeaux, where he duly 
 reported himself Here, however, he heard that there was 
 no real danger from Government or risk for his wife, and 
 that the lettre de cachet had only been sent at the Due 
 d'Ayen's instigation. He changed his mind at once, pre- 
 tended to set off for Marseilles, but once well started, 
 disguised himself as a postilion and returned to Bordeaux. 
 Here he lay all one night in a stable on a bundle of straw, 
 and was recognised by the pretty maid at the inn, who 
 
 64
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 had seen him before. But a sign from him initiated her ; 
 silently she became his partisan, and when the officers 
 pursued him afresh, she told them she had seen him go 
 by in a carriage in an opposite direction to that which he 
 had taken. Once more he got off. He wrote to tell 
 Maurepas that he had received no answer, and concluded 
 that silence gave consent ; at last he joined his ship and 
 set sail for America, without further mishap. 
 
 Ministers, officials, father-in-law, raged in vain. Even 
 the King could do nothing. Nor did the mischief stop 
 with Lafayette ; his example fired others who were but 
 awaiting a precedent. Government had only itself to blame. 
 In the May of 1776, it had enthusiastically acknow- 
 ledged American Independence. From the first this cause 
 attracted all sorts and conditions of men. The very 
 words in which the Declaration was framed were received 
 with acclamation, and the ministers themselves admired 
 its measured tone. Every theoretic young noble beheld 
 in it the fulfilment of his theories and his longing for 
 military action ; every adventurer found a vent in it 
 " The middle classes, the merchants, lawyers, physicians, 
 artists, authors, who saw themselves despised as roturiers, 
 their property arbitrarily taken from them, even their 
 public liberty subject to the caprices of a Court, viewed 
 with deep satisfaction a people in revolt against arbitrary 
 power." The American Envoys, who were the lions ot 
 the salons, were besieged the whole morning in their rooms 
 by applicants seeking service in the war. Almost all of 
 these were accepted, some at once, some later. De 
 Segur and De Noailles were amongst them, though they 
 had a hard struggle, and did not gain their point till 
 long after their friend's departure. 
 
 Yet the French made a radical mistake in their con- 
 
 65 F
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 ception of American Freedom.* The most eager among 
 the men who surrounded Franklin were philosophers and 
 writers. These fervent egoists attributed to their own 
 literary influence the liberal progress in the New World, 
 and modestly aspired to see themselves the legislators of 
 the West as well as of Europe. Plain Boston citizens 
 would have laughed to hear that they were disciples of 
 Rousseau, and they would have been right. There is a 
 gulf fixed between the French and American Revolutions, 
 The former aimed at total regeneration ; it was a reaction 
 against despotism ; the latter resisted innovation. Like 
 our great Rebellion, it only aimed at rational liberty — at 
 the abolition of abuses, and was a natural development of 
 the American character and constitution. Its philosophy 
 was embodied in Franklin — shrewd, yet child-like, " the 
 picture of republican simplicity " ; its action, in George 
 Washington — pisompt, practical, single-hearted. 
 
 All this especially suited Lafayette. His journey was 
 accomplished without more than the usual dangers, in 
 those days of bad sailing vessels and long voyages. He 
 spent much of his time in writing reams of tender apology 
 to his wife, though he knew that it was unlikely they would 
 reach her. When he arrived, he sent his letter off in three 
 parts, on three separate vessels, to give it three separate 
 chances. We, with our twopenny - halfpenny stamps, 
 cannot picture the postal complications then to be ex- 
 pected from pirates, tempests, and English frigates. Cor- 
 sairs and enemies alike seem to have been gossips, greedy 
 of other people's correspondence. Occasionally he found 
 somebody returning to France to whom he could entrust 
 his epistles. All the first ones arrived safely, and we may 
 
 '^ See Life of General Lafayette, by l^.ayard Tuckerman. 
 66
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 hope that they helped to console his Adrienne. He had 
 need to excuse himself, for in spite of her sympathy with his 
 projects, he had been obliged to steal away like a thief in 
 the night, without a word of explanation or farewell to her. 
 Had he confided in her, her family would have learned all. 
 How she took it, we can only surmise. We gather that 
 there must have been reproaches, from the frequent en- 
 treaties for forgiveness, even in his later letters ; but these 
 are generally accompanied by thanks for her satisfying 
 replies. Perhaps she only reproved for the sake of for- 
 giving him ; at any rate, there was no break in their 
 union. 
 
 He landed in South Carolina. Hardly had he disem- 
 barked, when his boat encountered an English vessel and 
 was nearly captured. He went straight to the house of 
 a friendly American major, Von Hiiger, who lived near 
 his landing-place ; he knocked him up at midnight to 
 ask for entertainment, and it was granted him abundantly. 
 His host charmed him, so did all the people he met, and 
 he was eager to describe them to his wife. In a day or 
 two, he wrote to her : 
 
 " The manners of this people are simple, honest, digni- 
 fied ; they belong to a country where every cranny 
 resounds with the lovely name of Liberty. . . . My 
 sympathy with them makes me feel as if I had been here 
 for twenty years. . . . The wish to oblige, the love 
 of country and freedom reign here, together with a sweet 
 equality. . . . All citizens are brothers. . . . There 
 are neither poor people, nor even what are called peasants, 
 in America. Every man seems to have a pleasant com- 
 petence and enjoys the same rights as the wealthiest 
 proprietor of the country. . . . Although there are 
 immense fortunes here, I defy anybody to find the 
 
 67
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 slightest difference in the respective manners of richer 
 and poorer to each other. . . . Everything is very 
 Hke England, excepting that there is more simpli- 
 city here than there. . . . The American ladies are 
 very pretty, very simple, and deliciously clean. Clean- 
 liness prevails universally, with the greatest fastidiousness, 
 even more than in England. . . . The inns are very 
 different from those in Europe ; the innkeeper and his 
 wife sit down at table with you, do all the honours of a 
 good meal, and when you go, you pay without any bar- 
 gaining. If you don't want to go to an inn, you find 
 country-houses, where it is enough to be a good American 
 to find a reception such as Europe only gives to a friend. 
 . . . I hope that for my sake you will become a good 
 American. It is a sentiment fit for noble hearts ; for the 
 happiness of America is linked to the happiness of man- 
 kind. . . . 
 
 " People must think I am very happy ; but you are not 
 here, dear heart ; I miss my friends too. I know no happi- 
 ness apart from you and them. I ask you if you love me 
 always — I ask myself still oftener the same question, and 
 my heart answers ' yes.' " 
 
 " Is it not horrid," he writes later on, "to think that it 
 is publicly, by English newspapers and gazettes from the 
 enemy, that I have tidings of you ? A rather futile article 
 about my arrival ends with a paragraph concerning your 
 expectations and your confinement." He longs to hear 
 the news in a surer way. Is it a boy or a girl ? Either 
 will rejoice him, but his little Henriette has given him 
 " a taste for girls." Meanwhile, however sad he imagined 
 himself without his wife, as a matter of fact he was 
 perfectly happy. He was in the company of his other 
 lady, Liberty — he was moving amid stirring scenes. Aftei: 
 
 68
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 a few days, he left the Von H tigers and set out on a 
 slow journey through Charleston to Philadelphia ; here he 
 hoped to confront Congress and join the Army close by. 
 But Congress received him coldly. It needed no mar- 
 quises and objected to embryo martyrs ; besides, it had 
 already been harassed by too many applications for 
 employment, and did not understand that he wished to 
 serve without pay. He stood up modestly and explained 
 their error ; his glowing words were counterbalanced by 
 his cold manner, and the combination served to convince 
 them ; they were charmed by his simplicity. Permis- 
 sion was granted him to serve in their Army ; in consider- 
 ation of his rank, they made him a Major-General, though 
 they would not allow him to exercise the duties of his 
 office till they had made further trial of him. He was 
 content to be judged on his merits. Happily, the 
 American Envoys in Paris had been in no hurry to send 
 off the paternal letters forbidding Congress to employ 
 him, and they arrived too late to prevent it. 
 
 Lafayette had his altar and his sacred fire all ready ; 
 he was only waiting for a hero. That hero was now to 
 ap[)ear and to remain on the stage for the rest of his life. 
 George Washington came to Philadelphia, obliged to do 
 so by the arrival of Howe and his fleet. Lafayette was 
 introduced to him. " Although," he wrote, still under the 
 glamour of the first impression, " Washington was sur- 
 rounded by officers and citizens, he was to be recognised 
 at once by the majesty of his countenance and his figure." 
 Washington tool': to the new recruit immediately ; he liked 
 his modesty and accompanied him to the camp at Annapolis. 
 Here they found the army still raw and undisciplined — a 
 troop of clumsy plough-boys, for whom Washington apolo- 
 gised to the Frenchman. " I am here to learn, not to 
 
 69
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 teach," Lafayette replied simply, and his answer delighted 
 his General. Soon afterwards the young Major saw action, 
 He fought in the battle of Brandywine, or Chad's Ford, 
 and was wounded. His hurt was long in healing, though 
 not serious, and he assures his wife it is a trifle. 
 
 " Here you have the history of what I pompously call 
 my wound," he tells her, " and I only do so to make myself 
 interesting and give myself airs. ... Be easy about 
 the care that is taken of me. I have a friend who has 
 spoken of me in such a way as to make them attend to 
 me. That friend is General Washington. This noble 
 man, whose gifts and goodness I admire, whom the more 
 I know, the more I revere, wishes to be my intimate friend. 
 His tender interest in me has thoroughly won my heart. 
 I am established in his house ; we live like two closely- 
 united brothers, in mutual intimacy and confidence. This 
 friendship has made me as happy as I can be in this 
 country. When he sent me his First Surgeon, he told him 
 to look after me as if I were his son, because he loved me 
 like one. When he heard that I wanted to rejoin the army 
 too early, he wrote me a letter full of tenderness, and 
 implored me to make a good recovery first." 
 
 This is only one of many such portraits. We are apt 
 to look upon Washington rather as a National Institution 
 than a man ; he has grown to be an abstract of Liberty, 
 or a type, like Moses and Daniel. But his friend makes 
 him a human creature, with a heart that beat quickly 
 enough, as well as a soul that soared high. The Wash- 
 ington that Lafayette shows us is a dignified mixture 
 of courage, sense, honour, and minute kindness. When, 
 nearly fifty years later, Lafayette revisited the white- 
 washed walls of Mount Vernon, it seemed to him a 
 shrine for solitary pilgrimage — a shrine of familiar re- 
 
 70
 
 LAFAYE rXE 
 
 collections, grave and gay, and the fitting expression 
 of its owner's simple, unchanging character. 
 
 Presently we find the two wintering together at Valley 
 Forge, whilst the commander was training his troops 
 in the face of every hardship. There was freezing cold 
 without ; stupidity and ignorance within. 
 
 Their intercourse was their only distraction. " Wash- 
 ington's confidence in me," wrote Lafayette, " is greater 
 than, in the face of my youth, I dare confess. In his 
 position he is constantly surrounded by flatterers and 
 foes. In me he finds a sure friend, into whose heart 
 he can pour forth his own ; who will always tell him 
 the truth. Not a day passes without his having long 
 talks with me, or writing me a long letter, and he likes 
 consulting me on all the most interesting points. And, 
 at this moment, there are special circumstances which 
 make my presence useful to him." 
 
 He referred to a conspiracy which now added itself 
 to other evils, and was worse than all the rest. The 
 rascals that plotted against the General fawned for their 
 own purposes upon his boon-companion, but Lafayette out- 
 witted them. These cabals, however, made him keep more 
 closely than ever to his leader's side. The personal 
 need of his presence and the public need of his sword 
 in the American cause were the excuses he urged to 
 his wife, who was evidently hurt that he did not return 
 at this juncture. Perhaps he had held out some promise 
 of his home-coming, but her petition did not really in- 
 fluence him. " Judge for yourself," he cried, talking of 
 his privations, " if I do this for my happiness." Perhaps 
 it needed no great subtlety to discover that this was just 
 what he ivas doing, and she would hardly have been a 
 woman had she been altogether heroic over it. But 
 
 71
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 she always returned to her sympathy with his aims. She 
 had need of all her courage now, for we next find him 
 writing about the death of his little Henriette. It hap- 
 pened early in 1778. 
 
 " The loss of our poor darling is always present to 
 me," he says. " I heard of it directly after getting the 
 news of the Treaty, and whilst my heart was torn with 
 grief, I had to receive and take part in the assurances 
 of public joy." The mother's sorrow is wrapped in silence, 
 more expressive than any words. 
 
 Perhaps this letter of his was one of those sent to Paris 
 by the hand of John Adams, the new American Am- 
 bassador. Lafayette charged him to see his wife, who 
 was all this time living with her parents. Accordingly, 
 on April 13, 1778, there was this unequivocal entry in 
 Adams's diary : 
 
 " This morning the Duchesse d'Ayen and Madame la 
 Marquise de Lafayette came to visit me and inquire 
 after the Marquis." 
 
 Personal descriptions and analysis, such as America 
 now delights in, never entered the ken of plain John 
 Adams. But other mentions of the d'Ayens follow. 
 
 April 30, Thursday. Dined with the Marshal de 
 Mouchy, with the Duke and Duchess d'Ayen, their 
 daughter the Marquise de Lafayette, and other great 
 company. The Marshal lives in all the splendour and 
 magnificence of a viceroy, which is little inferior to 
 that of a king." 
 
 On May i, he dines with the Due d'Ayen. " When 
 I began to attempt a little conversation in French, I 
 was very inquisitive concerning the great family of Noailles, 
 and I was told by some of the most intelligent men in 
 France, ecclesiastics as well as others, that there were 
 
 72
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 no less than six Marshals of France of this family ; that 
 they held so many offices under the King, that they received 
 eighteen million livres annually from the Crown ; that 
 the family has been remarkable for ages for their harmony 
 with one another and for doing nothing of any conse- 
 quence without a previous Council and Concert." 
 
 In the following year (1779), a sharp attack of fever 
 decided Lafayette to return home. He had shone in 
 military daring and achievement, and had done material 
 service to the cause he championed. Even the Red 
 Indians had not been allowed to slip ; he had addressed 
 them eloquently in their native tongue and converted a 
 feathered chief to the love of Liberty. America now 
 looked upon him as her own, and parted from him with 
 demonstrative sorrow, though his return was to be speedy. 
 His journey brought fresh dangers. The ship in which 
 he sailed could not collect a sufficient crew, and filled 
 up the gaps by English prisoners who plotted a general 
 massacre of the officers. Happily it was discovered in 
 time, and the quixotic Marquis at last set foot upon 
 French soil again. 
 
 His position in his country was singular. The lettre 
 de cachet had never been withdrawn, but his exploits had 
 created a furore throughout France. Even the moderate 
 Franklin made a hero of him, and his name was in every 
 mouth. Still, etiquette demanded that his sentence should 
 be carried out. His circumstances presented all the 
 elements of comedy and the possibilities of pathos, so 
 characteristic of French situations. He made for Paris, 
 but on his way passed through Versailles. Here he was 
 formally congratulated, questioned, introduced to the 
 Ministers — and arrested. His prison, however, was only 
 the Hotel de Noailles, which it was his dearest wish to 
 
 73
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 reach, and whence he had no wish to emerge. He did 
 not find prison Hfe monotonous. All the ladies of Paris 
 arrived post-haste to embrace him ; all the Ministers to 
 consult him. No moment of a hero's company must be 
 lost, even though he was in disgrace. Lafayette wrote 
 a humble letter of apology to the King. Louis summoned 
 him to Versailles, gently reprimanded him, and set him 
 free. Hero worship now followed its will without further 
 trammel. At the theatre, bursts of applause greeted the 
 remotest allusion to his career ; a passage in one play 
 described a man who combined the dash of youth with 
 the prudence of age ; it was repeatedly clapped and the 
 lines were copied out by the Queen herself, though she 
 did not approve of the American cause. 
 
 That cause was never forgotten by Lafayette. Even the 
 joy of re-union with his wife and of her daily companion- 
 ship did not keep him from working continuously for it. 
 Of his home happiness we have no record ; it needs none. 
 Of his schemes for American liberty we have full details. 
 Paul Jones reappears on the French coast with his ship, the 
 Bonhonime Richard — Paul Jones, the American corsair, the 
 Robin Hood of the seas, always ready to take arms in the 
 service of freedom, no matter under what flag. Lafayette 
 incites him to invade England in his trusty boat ; if that 
 seems impracticable, to compass the attack in conjunction 
 with the Spanish fleet. Paul Jones, however, sails off on 
 other quests, and our hero is left to press young nobles to 
 start for the New World, and to importune Government 
 for supplies. It ends by granting a sum of money, six 
 thousand men, and a gift of clothes for the army. 
 
 Even the King was finally obliged to patronize Inde- 
 pendence, and, a short time after this, invented a special 
 badge, the Order of Cincinuatus, with which he presented 
 
 74
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 the Frenchmen who had fought for America. He did it 
 with scant zeal, and probably with no warmer motive than 
 that of pleasing the public, but this only makes his action 
 the more significant. 
 
 In 1780, Lafayette set sail for his adopted country again, 
 in company with the Vicomte de Noailles, Messieurs de 
 Luzerne, de Chastellux, de Montesquieu, de Damas, and 
 Duplessis-Mauduit, all names destined to stand out in 
 Revolution days. The war with England was still going 
 on, but there was a momentary respite from action. The 
 young men began the winter light-heartedly enough. M. 
 de Chastellux describes it in his memoirs. He, Lafayette, 
 and the Vicomte have tea with Mrs. Shippen of Philadel- 
 phia ; a New England belle plays the harpsichord ; Miss 
 Shippen sings timidly, accompanied on the harp by de 
 Luzerne's secretary. De Noailles, fired by his example, 
 stretches some harp strings on a violin and plays for the 
 young folk to dance ; they are all charmed by the frank 
 jollity of the Philadelphian salon. The good folk do not 
 shame their Puritan blood, even in their gaieties. Colonel 
 Mitchell, Master of the Ceremonies at a ball, sternly 
 rebukes a young lady who is too much absorbed in con- 
 versation to attend to her quadrille : " Take care of what 
 you are doing," he cries, " do you suppose you are here 
 for pleasure ? " 
 
 Lafayette and his comrades, at any rate, knew that they 
 were not. Invents took a more serious aspect, and they 
 rushed to arms. On the one hand, they had to contend 
 with the plot of the deserter, Arnold ; on the other, with 
 Cornwallis, who was conducting a disastrous campaign in 
 Virginia. He was at last forced into Yorktown by the 
 skill of Lafa)-cttc, to whom the efficiency of the besieging 
 army was also largely due. When the city capitulated, 
 
 75
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Cornwallis, like a good soldier, begged Lafayette to visit 
 him ; they talked over the campaign in comfortable 
 leisure, and forgot their differences in the excitement of 
 military discussion. The bad news travelled quickly to 
 England ; Lord George Germain, who had been entrusted 
 with the conduct of the war, heard it in London ; he drove 
 straight to Lord Stormont, the French Ambassador, then 
 to the Chancellor's, whence all three went together to Lord 
 North. Lord George Germain was afterwards asked how 
 the Premier had taken the news : " As he would have 
 taken a ball in the breast," was the reply, " for he opened 
 his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced up and down the 
 apartment during a few minutes : ' Oh, God, it is all over ! ' 
 — words which he repeated many times, under emotions of 
 the greatest agitation and distress." 
 
 In 1783, Lafayette went back to France, The enthu- 
 siasm for him as conqueror of Cornwallis was greater than 
 ever. Even the Queen, during his absence, had been 
 carried away by it. When he arrived unexpectedly at the 
 Hotel de Noailles, his wife was away at a Court fete, in 
 honour of the Dauphin's birth. His arrival was suddenly 
 announced at Versailles. Directly the Queen heard of it, 
 she ordered her coach and insisted on driving Madame 
 Lafayette to Paris ; her guests were left to take care of 
 themselves. Again we have no record of the meeting with 
 his family — only that of his brilliant triumphs. He is 
 made a Field Marshal, and invited to dine with the superb 
 Marechal de Richelieu and all the Marshals of France. 
 They drink Washington's health, and compose speeches 
 about Lafayette. The popularity, if not the wine, mounts 
 even to his solid head. "Lafayette will think himself the 
 one person necessary ! " cries no less a character than John 
 Adams, whose power of admiration had its limits. Madame 
 
 76
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 Lafayette, for whom he ivas that one person, had doubtless 
 helped him mount on to his pedestal. Absence makes the 
 heart grow fonder, or, at any rate, more excitable. We are 
 told that, at this time, the vehemence of her feeling was so 
 great that, for many months, she used almost to faint when- 
 ever he left the room. She soon perceived that if she was 
 not to bore him, she must moderate her transports. She 
 perfected herself in the art of loving. " One would have 
 called her sentiment a passion," wrote her daughter in after 
 years, " if this expression were in tune with the exquisite 
 delicacy which banished every idea of jealousy, or, perhaps, 
 I should say all the evil impulses which usually result 
 from it. Nor was she ever exacting, even for a moment. 
 It was not only that she kept from my father every wish 
 that did not suit him ; she really had no bitter thoughts to 
 conceal." 
 
 Into this happy family, in the same year, a daughter 
 was born and christened Anastasie. The mother, after 
 her tardy recovery, devoted herself to bringing up her 
 second child, George. Though he was only four years old, 
 she had already tried to inspire him with a love of Chris- 
 tianity, and now she became anxious that he should 
 acquire more worldly knowledge. In spite of his extreme 
 youth, his parents together chose a tutor for him, M. 
 Frestel, destined to win his spurs in dangers as yet far off. 
 The mother, with her aptitude for self-flagellation, was not 
 content with renouncing the care of her boy. She thought 
 that his father's whole course of life would interrupt his 
 education, and determined to remove him from the house. 
 She took lodgings for him and his tutor, and only visited 
 him occasionally. Events were thickening in her family. 
 About this time, her two sisters, Pauline and Rosalie, were 
 married to M. de Montagu and M. de Grammont. The 
 
 77
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 third sister had been left a widow after a year's union ; but 
 she now married again and found a devoted husband in M. 
 de Thesan. Adrienne herself left the Hotel de Noailles, 
 and, for the first time, had a town-house of her own in the 
 Rue des Bourbons. But her favourite home was always 
 at Chavaniac, Lafayette's ancestral estate, now inhabited 
 by his old aunt, with whom Adrienne made fast friends. 
 The young couple soon took up their abode with her, and 
 the house renewed its youth in fresh associations. 
 
 The indefatigable Lafayette distinguished himself in the 
 provincial Council of Auvergne and found time for mani- 
 fold activities. He was not content with improving the 
 condition of his peasants and setting his wife to work for 
 them. He wished her to be his helpmate in larger pro- 
 jects. John Adams did not exaggerate. He was here, 
 there and everywhere, wherever reform was needed. One 
 of the objects nearest his heart was the abolition of slavery. 
 He bought a plantation in Cayenne, called la belle Gabrielle, 
 in order to show the results of gradual emancipation 
 amongst his negroes. The organization of all the details 
 belonging to such a scheme he entrusted to Adrienne. She 
 had full sympathy with it as a Liberal measure, and enjoy- 
 ed making little plans of her own for the spiritual educa- 
 tion of the blacks. She opened a correspondence with a 
 College of Missionaries at Cayenne, and believed that the 
 whole movement might be brought about through the 
 force of religion. Her hopes were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment ; it was the great Revolution which eventually freed 
 the slaves. But the negroes of La Gabrielle were the only 
 ones who did not join in the enormities perpetrated by 
 their fellows in '92. After all, her labours were not unre- 
 warded. 
 
 Her tasks at least served to cheer her during Lafay- 
 
 78
 
 LAFAYETTE 
 
 ette's next absence. The Treaty of Paris, by which all 
 Europe acknowledged American Independence, was signed 
 in 1783. North's blunders were over, and Lafayette's 
 sword was no longer needed. But he longed to see 
 Washington again. In 1784, he returned to the West, to 
 receive ovations, and to linger peacefully in the garden 
 and library of Mount Vernon. The next year saw him 
 home again. This time he travelled back by Austria and 
 Germany, and went to pay his respects to Frederick the 
 Great at Potsdam. 
 
 " In spite of all I heard of him," he writes to Washing- 
 ton, " I could not help being struck by a costume and 
 figure which suggested an old, decrepit, and dirty corporal, 
 covered with Spanish snuff, his head almost resting on 
 one shoulder, and his fingers distorted by the gout. What 
 surprised me much more was the fire, and sometimes the 
 softness, of the most beautiful eyes that I have ever seen ; 
 this softness gives to his face an expression as charming as 
 it can be harsh and ominous — when he is at the head of 
 his army, for instance." 
 
 For eight days, he passed more than three hours of every 
 afternoon at the King's dinner-table. The talk was chiefly 
 between Frederick, the Duke of York (his guest), and La- 
 fayette himself He felt quite at his ease, and seemed to 
 have a knack of drawing out the magnetic personality of 
 his host. In the course of his stay, Cornwallis arrived at 
 Potsdam, and Lafayette sat between him and the Duke at 
 dinner, on the best of terms with both. He did not reach 
 Paris till the late autumn. The question of the slaves be- 
 gan to occupy him again ; he was even more taken up with 
 the civil disabilities of Protestants. In spite of Voltaire's 
 chivalry, these unfortunates were still heavily oppressed. 
 They could neither contract a valid marriage, nor make a 
 
 79
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 valid will ; they had no rights as citizens. The fervent 
 young Marquis made surreptitious journeys to the chief 
 seats of their oppression, especially Nismes, that he might 
 investigate matters for himself. He conferred with the Pro- 
 testant Ministers and brought them home with him. His 
 wife liked nothing better than receiving them. Her large 
 heart had grown still larger under his influence. " Her 
 intelligent zeal for religion made her long that it should 
 commit no more injustice, . . . and she thought it 
 criminal to restrain the liberty God has given to men." Her 
 husband, not content with his efforts, returned from his 
 quests to air the subject at Versailles. In 1787, he 
 brought it before " the Notables ", who had been convoked 
 the year before. De Luzerne, the broad-souled Archbishop 
 of Langres, seconded him ; but no definite motion was 
 carried, and the abuse, like so many others, remained to 
 be caught up and swept away by the torrent of '89. 
 
 France did not eclipse America in Lafayette's mind. 
 Jefferson, whom he knew well, had become American am- 
 bassador, and they two together organized the affairs of 
 the Republic. Everything seemed prospering for him at 
 home and abroad. All blessings were his : work, play, re- 
 putation, with the august climax of a bust in the H6tel de 
 Ville. Nothing seemed wanting. Yet Time had other 
 things still in store for him. His century was big with 
 events. 
 
 80
 
 Before the Revolution 
 
 Ri
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Ijcfore the Revolution 
 
 FED u{)on the principles of a military monarchy ; 
 . . . educated amidst the glamours of the Court ; 
 imbued with pious maxims ; affected by the licence 
 of a time when galanterie figured as a virtue ; excited 
 to liberty by philosophical writings and parliamentary 
 speeches ; we wished to enjoy in one breath the favours 
 of the Court, the pleasures of the town, the approval of the 
 clergy, the affection of the {people, the applause of the 
 philosophers, the renown of literati, the favour of ladies, 
 the esteem of virtuous men. So that a young Erench 
 courtier thought, spoke and acted, in turn, like an 
 Athenian, a Roman, a Parisian, a Paladin, a Crusader, a 
 courtier, a disciple of Plato, Socrates, or Epicurus." 
 
 The Comte de Segur knew his Paris — none better. He 
 said that at this time, 1785-S9, it was more like Athens 
 than at any other period. Life was daily becoming more 
 interesting there, l^^vents were thickening, though their 
 real nature was hidden. As yet they seemed only sym- 
 bols of hope — milestones on the highroad to Utopia. It is 
 true that famine was imminent, in s[)ite of conversation 
 about Corn Laws — that Maurepas and Calonne had failed 
 to fill the empty Treasury. Hut had not Necker written 
 a pamphlet on finance that must set all difficulties right? 
 There were Parloiiciits too at hand, and the Notables were 
 
 83
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 convened. That was itself a golden mark of progress. 
 And so they talked and hoped on, through fresh Parle- 
 ments, Ministries, and Beds of Justice, till they reached the 
 States-General and the Tennis Court of '89. 
 
 It was as a Notable that Lafayette came to town. He 
 was as confident of success as his compeers, and had even 
 refused an invitation to accompany the Empress of 
 Austria on an expedition to the Crimea, so that he might 
 attend the Council. " I fully hope it will end well," he 
 exclaims — " I flatter myself that we shall get a sort of 
 Representative Chamber in every province, not to fix, but 
 to redistribute the taxes." 
 
 Meanwhile, he settled with his family in the Rue des 
 Bourbons. 
 
 A strange, significant Paris it was that they entered. 
 Had they had eyes to see, they might have read the hand- 
 writing on its walls. But they too v/ere sitting at Bel- 
 shazzar's feast. The Court was in despair, because it could 
 not see its way to reducing its luxuries. They were all 
 essential — the officer who existed to hand the newspaper to 
 His Majesty, and the one who placed the footstool for the 
 Dauphin. There was a weekly dinner at Versailles which 
 cost £1^600 ', eleven million pounds went yearly upon 
 courtiers, mistresses, and placemen. The Queen, it is true, 
 commanded her ladies to dress in black ; she did so her- 
 self, and gave up powdering her hair ; but this was from 
 aesthetic instincts, not from econom.y. Classical simplicity 
 was coming into vogue ; it was part of the rising enthusi- 
 asm for the Roman Republic and everything concerning 
 it. David was at work in his atelier. He had just com- 
 pleted his great picture, " The Sons of Brutus," for the 
 annual exhibition at the Louvre. The authorities remon- 
 strated ; they tried to exclude it ; but they were overruled. 
 
 84
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 The public hailed it as a masterpiece of republican paint- 
 ing. On the stage, the same subject was represented ; it 
 produced the same effect. Lafayette went with the 
 Duchess of Orleans to see " Brutus " acted, A Radical 
 speech drew forth such applause from the democratic 
 claque in the parterre, that for fifteen minutes nothing 
 could be heard. When the noise subsided, they insisted 
 on bringing Voltaire's bust on to the boards and crown- 
 ing it with flowers. Marie-Joseph Ch^nier's tragedy, 
 diaries IX., had already made a revolution in the ideas 
 of the Fran^ais. St. Bartholomew's Eve was not a theme 
 that allowed of traditional compliments to King and cus- 
 tom. It did something more practical, and completed 
 Lafayette's labours for the Protestants. Almost at the 
 same moment, Lemercier published his book recalling the 
 drama to reality, both in subject and in language. It was 
 famous then, it is forgotten now ; but it showed how the 
 land lay, and made a fresh reform in the theatre. 
 
 Excitement was in the air, and took every shape. Gam- 
 bling became almost an epidemic, and spread amongst all 
 classes. The Palais Royal was the centre of high play. 
 There were private resorts also, harder for the police to 
 reach ; grand ladies gave their drawing-rooms, and ven- 
 tured larger sums than the men. They made peril grace- 
 ful, and attracted statesmen as well as dandies. Petion 
 was amongst the keenest gamblers, and Barnave lost 
 i^i,200 in one night. They were to risk still higher 
 stakes when they played for the cause of the Gironde. 
 Duels and brawls abounded ; the law was evaded and 
 was no longer enforced. A certain Chevalier had himself 
 carried to the gaming-table in his last agony, and died 
 with his fingers on the green baize. 
 
 If heroes behaved thus, it was natural that their valets
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 should follow suit. All the footmen of quality gathered 
 at " Chocolat's," an ex-tailor turned chocolate-maker. 
 Even the market-place was not exempt. In Les Halles, 
 the fishwomen sat in rows, bare-legged, powdered, and 
 painted to their eyes, in imitation of the great ladies. In 
 the intervals of bartering, they played at loto in profound 
 silence. To them it seemed the business of life. They 
 heard of a gentleman who was about to travel round the 
 world, and shrugged their shoulders. ^^ II faut que celui-la 
 n'ait rien a fair e" they said ; then they resumed their loto. 
 Their concentration was ominous ; so was their silence. 
 It was soon to be broken by the sound of their drums, 
 as they beat them through the streets of Paris and cried 
 for the blood of the King. The Court was not unknown 
 to them. Had it not been their duty, from time imme- 
 morial, to go there in congratulatory procession on the 
 Queen's birthday, and to present her with a bouquet at 
 the Dauphin's christening ? Later, they found enough to 
 do in keeping their own festivals. 
 
 Meanwhile, if play ran high, words ran higher. Paris 
 became more than ever a city of talk ; there was no sign 
 of wholesome indifference anywhere. Men's minds were 
 on the alert at every point, and their tongues never seemed 
 to rest. 
 
 When Arthur Young travelled back to Paris at the 
 beginning of 1789, one great change struck him in the 
 country people. He had last seen them dumb and 
 dejected, with eyes bent on the ground. Now they stood 
 about in eager groups, conversing and gesticulating. 
 There was every symptom of approaching fever. News- 
 papers were multiplied and placarded gaily on the walls ; 
 the hawkers cried their names in shrill tones through the 
 squares. Clubs had increased rapidly, and daily became 
 
 86
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTlOxN 
 
 more political. Charm was for once at a discount. There 
 were no women to throw a glamour over the rising irrita- 
 tion of party-spirit, either in the club-rooms, or in the 
 masculine salons, which now became fashionable. Even 
 the Abbe Morellet banished ladies from his " Sundays " ; 
 and weighty work was done in the drawing-room of 
 Adrien Duport, where Mirabeau talked with Roederer, 
 and the atheist Dupont aired his favourite theories. 
 
 But if men were proving that they could do without 
 women, it did not follow that women could do without 
 men. No force can keep them out of male affairs, and, 
 with the genius of their sex, they adapted themselves 
 to new conditions. Unfortunately, they did not choose 
 to mediate, but preferred to scheme. The fascination 
 of argument overtook them. " The hostess of to-day," 
 writes a contemporary lady, " is a Penthesilea, who sits 
 at a tea-table trembling with rage ; in the midst of violent 
 debates she burns her fingers, and spills a cup of tea over 
 her dress." 
 
 " I can't endure these ideas — they have spoiled my Paris 
 for me ! " cried a sociable nobleman ; and the Comte de 
 Segur tells the same story. " I find Society more forcible, 
 more animated, and wittier than ever," he writes. " It 
 would be difficult to find either languor or tediousness 
 anywhere. Yet it has lost its most amiable attraction for 
 me ; it no longer possesses the gentleness and urbanity 
 which so long made it the best school for grace and good 
 taste. Political passions have stolen into our drawing- 
 rooms, and have almost transformed them into arenas, 
 where the most opposite opinions jostle one another. 
 There is no more discussion, only dispute . . . every- 
 body talks loudly, and nobody listens ; temper prevails 
 in every tone, every countenance. . , , People of Jif- 
 
 8-
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 ferent parties break up into separate groups ; even those 
 who agree debate in shrill tones. As for women," he sighs, 
 " nothing is so unbecoming to them as political passions. 
 Ill-humour dishevels them, and anger makes them ugly." 
 
 Madame de Stael was the Colonel of all these Amazons 
 — the origin of the modern platform-lady. She was 
 brought up in the salon of her mother, Madame Necker, 
 which was kept free from political discussion. When 
 still quite a girl, the daughter managed to lure her parents- 
 guests into her private boudoir, where she argued bril 
 liantly with them on all subjects. She called her room 
 '' Mes Ddlices"; they termed it "the Ardent Chamber." 
 When she married the Swedish Ambassador, she plunged 
 into polemics and kept a firm finger in every State-pie. 
 If one sincerely feels oneself sublime it is difficult to avoid 
 seeming ridiculous. Madame de Stael always thought of 
 herself as a sort of feminine Brutus standing on the steps 
 of the Capitol, and declaimed in this character, both in 
 company and alone. Statesmen consulted her about the 
 affairs of the kingdom ; when she did not know a thing, 
 she made a practice of pretending that she did, and thus 
 obtained the information she desired. As she brought a 
 warm heart to bear on her unpractical politics, she soon 
 grew into a public mischief-maker. Matters were com- 
 plicated by her genius. Her friends adored her ; plain 
 business men disliked her. 
 
 She had a cordial detractor in one such politician, who 
 was an important element in the Society of the moment. 
 This was Gouverneur Morris, afterwards American Am- 
 bassador, now in Paris for commercial purposes. His 
 sturdy figure was seen everywhere in all the dignity of sober 
 pride ; his keen eye observed everything. He was busy, 
 curious, and indefatigable in all things concerning social 
 
 88
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 improvement, but Art and Romance were dead to him. 
 His common sense amounted to the gift of prophecy. No 
 one foresaw so clearly the course of events in France, or 
 gave a sounder account of what he saw and heard. It 
 was the more piquant, because he hid his Puritan features 
 behind an Epicurean mask. Parisians were never really 
 congenial to him, excepting those who were least like 
 Frenchmen. The Lafayettes were his first and best 
 friends. He liked them as much as he distrusted Madame 
 de Stael. They knew her also, as did all the d'Ayens. 
 It was at the house of their aunt, Madame de Tesse, that 
 she told him he had " a very imposing air," and accom- 
 panied her compliment by " a look which, without being 
 what Sir John Falstaff calls ' a leer of invitation,' amounts 
 to the same thing." Presently, as he remains chilly, she 
 encourages him by insinuating that she rather invites 
 than repels those who are inclined to be attentive, and 
 that perhaps he might become an admirer. Morris replies 
 that, as a previous condition, she must agree not to repel 
 him, and she promises in good faith. She flattered the 
 ambition of the mediocre Sieyes, by telling him that he 
 was to politics what Newton was to science. Still more 
 active was she in pursuit of Mirabeau. Madame de Tess6 
 — her only mate in mental energy — had an open quarrel 
 with her, in which the stalwart de Tesse expressed her 
 disapproval of him. " The ladies became animated to the 
 utmost bounds of politeness," says Morris, who was, as 
 usual, present. 
 
 According to him, these new-fashioned political women 
 not only disfigured themselves, but neglected their house- 
 holds. He arrives, by appointment, to dine with an 
 intellectual Countess, and finds " in the drawing-room 
 some dirty linen and no fire. While a waiting-woman 
 
 89
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 takes away one, a valet lights up the other. Three small 
 sticks in a deep bed of ashes give no great expectation 
 of heat. By the smoke, however, all doubts are removed 
 respecting the existence of fire." Madame does not appear 
 till close on five, when, in company of some hungry writers, 
 they sit down to dinner. It is scanty, and cooked with 
 rancid butter. Each guest is " employed either in saying 
 a good thing, or in studying one to say ; it is no wonder 
 if he cannot find time to applaud that of his neighbour. 
 They all agree that we live in an age alike deficient in 
 justice and in taste. Each finds in the fate of his own 
 works numerous instances to justify this censure. . . . 
 In pitying modern degeneracy we rise from the table." 
 
 This is only one corner of the picture. Charm does 
 not quite desert her birthplace, even when the women of 
 Paris make a pleasure of business rather than a busi- 
 ness of pleasure. Their sofas were hidden by piled- 
 up pamphlets ; they turned their drawing-rooms into 
 bureaux ; but those bureaux were still brilliant, and the 
 sofas luxurious. 
 
 Madame de Stael, their indefatigable pioneer, said that 
 she had never before found Society so attractive. The 
 union of lightness and gravity charmed her, and she asked 
 nothing better than to be the Muse of Conspiracy. She 
 was not without rivals. Chief amongst them was Jose- 
 phine de Beauharnais, afterwards Napoleon's wife, who 
 "had a graceful little talent, and knew how to listen." 
 Her blue and silver salon was called " The Egg of the 
 National Assembly." Here the old world met the new : 
 Playwright Crcbillon and Wit C0II6 greeted the Abb^ 
 Barth^lmy and M. Bailly, and Liberty and Equality were 
 said to preside. The widow of Helvetius was another 
 important hostess of the rising generation. Franklin took 
 
 90
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 snuff at her table, whilst the pessimist Chamfort indulged 
 in revolutionary aphorisms, and the scheming Sieyes hid 
 his political intrigue beneath his pretty speeches. 
 
 More alluring were the philosophic gatherings of 
 Madame de Condorcet, large of mind, gentle of heart, 
 and subtle of pen, who was said to have married her 
 husband out of pique in 1787, and to have fallen in love 
 with him in 1789, when public events revealed his true 
 nature to her and she saw him transfigured by enthusiasm 
 for humanity. Or there was Olympe de Gouges, who 
 could neither read nor write, but, fired by patriotism, 
 composed and dictated a tragedy a day. The flight to 
 Varennes turned her from a Royalist into a centre of the 
 Opposition ; but, disgusted by the condemnation of the 
 King, she ended by dying for him. " Since women have 
 the right to mount the scaffold," she said, " they also have 
 the right to mount the tribune." 
 
 The Radicals were not only found amongst politicians ; 
 the younger poets and artists joined their ranks. Their 
 chief meeting place was the histrionic gallery in Talma's 
 Hotel, which was hung with old suits of armour and 
 romantic weapons. There his wife, Julie, welcomed 
 Greuze with his long curls ; Chenier, lyrist and tragedian ; 
 the stage-reforming Lemercier ; and Roland, still a 
 bachelor, with a sharp eye for affairs. Or else they col- 
 lected at the supper table of Sophie Arnould, the actress 
 of the Revolution, famed for her bad food and good com- 
 pany. " In fact," said one of her guests, " if one did not 
 devour one's neighbour with one's bread there, one would 
 die of hunger." 
 
 Then there were Madame de Genlis' receptions in her 
 apartment in the Palais Royal — literally a glass house, for 
 it was lined with mirrors ; here ^'ac threw her stones and 
 
 91
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 looked at her elegant reflection every evening. But her 
 boudoir was only the antechamber to the greater salon 
 belonging to her royal mistress, the Duchesse de Chartres 
 and her master, the Duke, afterwards Philippe Egalite. 
 Every shade of " Red " went to their parties, and in this 
 they were not exceptional. The whole theory of the Revo- 
 lution began with the aristocrats, though they left action, 
 as usual, to the populace. It was behind their masters' 
 chairs that servants first heard the praises of Fraternity ; 
 and servants resisted it longest : it offended their decorous 
 instincts. A certain coachman blocked a street with his 
 carriage for an hour, because, having last served a prince, 
 he was not accustomed to yield precedence to any other 
 driver. The countess inside the coach persuaded him, for 
 once, to put away etiquette and go on. This same coach- 
 man afterwards became a Jacobin depute and one of the 
 Public Accusers. The whirligig of time brought him to 
 stranger places than his lady's coach-box ; by then, he had 
 found out the advantages of a levelling doctrine. 
 
 But " Equality " does not only benefit plebeians. If it 
 
 removed burdens from the peasants and gave rights to 
 
 the citizens, it also made for the interest of the nobles. 
 
 It exempted them from lettres de cachet and the Bastille, 
 
 and diminished the power of the Court, which stood quite 
 
 as much in their way as the power of the people. It was 
 
 no wonder that, apart from its intellectual attractions, they 
 
 adopted it as a precept, so long as practice was far off. 
 
 A soiree, according to the Ancien Regime, was hardly 
 
 to be found in 1788, unless it was at Madame de Cham- 
 
 ponas', where, " with diabolical sallies," the Vicomte de 
 
 Mirabeau, Rivarol, and the Comte de Tilly composed 
 
 " the Last Will and Testament of French conversation." 
 
 Most of the aristocratic salons welcomed the Opposition 
 
 92
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 with acclamation, but they kept their fine manners, and 
 here alone the leisurely graces of the Court were found 
 united to modern activity. 
 
 The Lafayettes themselves were of this high-born circle, 
 and moved chiefly within it. They knew and entertained 
 every sort of Liberal, but it was here that they chose their 
 intimates. All sorts of names, known and unknown, meet 
 our eye. The eldest was Madame d'Angiviller, the 
 former hostess of the Economists, as hospitable as ever 
 to the latest idea, though she had begun life at the Pom- 
 padours' Court, and was now faded and bedizened. 
 There was also the Duke of Bedford, most Jacobin of 
 Englishmen, who had taken a sumptuous Hotel near the 
 Louvre. All Paris fought for invitations to his balls, where 
 the variety of his roses was only matched b}- that of his 
 guests. Beggars and highwaymen would have been as 
 little of a surprise as Sultans and Nawabs. 
 
 These were the orgies of Liberalism. Madame de 
 Simiane gave it calmer entertainment. She was almost 
 socialistic. Her zeal for politics was rather mixed up with 
 her zeal for Lafayette. With her, alone of all women, 
 he appears to have had an approach at flirtation — a high- 
 souled flirtation, it is true, full of republican aspirations and 
 universal aims, but still an exciting relationship. We 
 cannot help surmising that his tender letters to a nameless 
 lady, during the early days of the Revolution, were ad- 
 dressed to her. Adrienne made friends with her also ; 
 perhaps this was the occasion of her victory over the green- 
 e)'ed monster, mentioned by her daughter. An)-how, 
 Madame de Simiane joined the Lafayettes during the 
 emigration, and lived with them for a time. But we do 
 not need this evidence to know that Lafayette's wife had 
 I'othiug ignoble to com{)lain of 
 
 ^3
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The most extreme among these high-born hostesses 
 were Mesdames Coigny, Murinet, Bergelini, and Vauban, 
 who was called " the ugly demagogue." " Ah ! " ex- 
 claimed one of their guests, " they are as plebeian as an 
 antechamber ! " and their mixed company justified the 
 epigram. Then there were the Princess Hohenzollern, 
 who received most of the gatcche, and Madame de Broglie, 
 a friend of Barnave's, and the de Lameth brothers, whose 
 buoyant intellects revived the dullest company. The 
 name of the Baronne d'Escars is great in social reputation, 
 and kept it, even in the emigration, when she held a salon 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle. As for the de Lavals, the de Gou- 
 vernets, the d'Astorgs, their hospitality was to cost them 
 dear. All these political ladies were nursing adders on 
 their gilded hearths. The Revolution especially delighted 
 in punishing the Liberal aristocrats. 
 
 No picture of them would be complete without Madame 
 de Tess6. Her house was one of the most political. We 
 have overheard her quarrelling with the Muse over Mira- 
 beau ; but she out-Staeled De Stael, and made herself ill 
 over public affairs. She had none of her rival's egoism, 
 and her vanities were never successful. " For twenty 
 years," says a periodical of the day, " she has busied 
 herself with the Constitution ; she has foreseen everything 
 that happens ; she would give the last drop of her blood 
 for her ' scheme ' to be carried out. Her body is weak, 
 her heart affected, her nerves wretched. Her soul cures 
 everything, and suffices for everything." She came to 
 regard the Constitution as her own child ; at home she 
 dandled it before her guests ; abroad, in the corridors of 
 the Tuileries, we see her making energetic curtseys to 
 Mayor Bailly, and congratulating him upon its growth. 
 
 94
 
 BEFORE TTTK REVOLUTION 
 
 She flung her doors open to the rising generation, and was 
 never so happy as when providing dinner for them. 
 
 It was at one of these meals that Lafayette found him- 
 self next to Morris. Madame de Tesse liked Morris as 
 a friend, but thought his politics too half-hearted. So did 
 Lafayette. " You are always quoted as against the good 
 party," he said to him on this occasion. Morris replied 
 that he only opposed the democrats out of regard to 
 liberty. Lafayette made a remarkable reply : " I am aware 
 that my [)arty is mad, but I am none the less determined 
 to die for them." It was freedom, not the freebooters, 
 in which he was interested, and freedom remained to 
 win. 
 
 Morris could make no such fine distinctions. Little 
 did he reck of the Jacobins yet to come. He thought 
 the present Liberal party very extravagant, and rated 
 Lafayette for his opinions. " It is not by sounding words 
 that revolutions are produced," he said to him. He dis- 
 approved of the orthodox Conservative, quite as much as 
 of the Radical. A certain aristocrat questions him about 
 America, " in a manner which shows he cares little for the 
 information." Morris wishes to impress him with the 
 difficulty of invading America. " It would be hard, sir," 
 he explained, "to subdue a nation, every man of which 
 feels himself a king. If you looked down on him, he would 
 sa)', ' I am a man ; are you anything more?'" 
 
 Monsieur: All this is very well, but there must be 
 a difference of ranks ; and I should say to one of these 
 [)cn])lc : " You, sir, who arc equal to a king, make me a pair 
 of shoes." 
 
 Morris : Our citizens, sir, have a manner of thinking 
 peculiar to themselves. The shoemaker would reply : 
 " Sir, I am very glad to have the opportunity of making 
 
 95
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 you a pair of shoes. It is my duty to make shoes, and I 
 love to do my duty. Does your king do his ? " 
 
 Morris and Lafayette represent, indeed, two parties with 
 the subtlest shade between them. The New Englander 
 demanded justice of the King, but desired to have one 
 on the throne ; constitutional monarchy was his ideal. 
 Lafayette, for the present, accepted this form of govern- 
 ment, but it did not represent his standard. Nothing was 
 essential to him excepting liberty, and where liberty led, 
 he would follow, whether it was over a throne or under it. 
 He wished his country to possess a parliamentary system 
 like that of England. Morris, on the contrary, declared 
 that France needed a more highly-strung government. 
 But their differences did not affect Morris' admiration 
 of Lafayette's military genius, or the warmth of their 
 friendship. The Ambassador soon became the familiar 
 of their household, and took part in all its homely events : 
 the doings of the children, or the arrival of the finely-cured 
 hams which Mrs. Washington sent to Madame Lafayette 
 — a housewifely postscript to her husband's letters. The 
 Lafayettes invited all the Americans they knew to eat the 
 first one. Morris probably had his share, for he often 
 dined with his friends. 
 
 " After dinner," he writes one day in his diary, " one of 
 M. de Lafayette's little daughters sang a song for me. It 
 happened to be one of my own composition. Madame is 
 a very agreeable, good wcjman." This simple entry gives 
 us a pleasant idea of their relations — of the mingled 
 delicacy, familiarity, and compliment which intimacy did 
 not impair. 
 
 It was not usual for ladies to dine out. Madame stayed 
 at home, but her husband was invited everywhere. We 
 find him accompanying Madame de Lauzun and Madame 
 
 96
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 de Statil to St. Ouen, the Neckcrs' country place. After 
 dinner, he and M. Necker set to work on " a little re- 
 form in criminal jurisprudence intended to warm up the 
 Kee[)er of the Seals." Madame de Stael encouraged and 
 admired him. She was now a full-flcdijcd Republican. 
 Firm views well suited a lady who mi<^ht actually have 
 been Mrs. Pitt, had not her parents failed in their plans ; 
 she disliked En<jland too much to fall in with them, and 
 then M. de Stael appeared on the scene. Pitt seems like 
 a man of ice as he flashes in and out of the warm Parisian 
 life. He reappeared there during the year 1787, when he 
 made acquaintance with Lafa\-ette. 
 
 " My dinner yesterday was a great success," writes the 
 latter. " M. Pitt was sup[3orted by five Englishmen, and 
 there were a dozen rebels, counting the ladies. After 
 having politicked a little, M. Pitt started for London and 
 left me delighted with his wit, modesty, nobility and 
 character — a character as interesting as the part for which 
 fate destines him. The attack upon him in Parliament 
 prevents his stopping longer in Paris, and he pretends 
 that, as long as England remains a monarchy, he cannot 
 hojie to see me in London, In spite of this sarcasm, I 
 have a great wish to go there one day ; I shall pay my 
 respects to the King ; I shall save my soul through the 
 Opposition. Since we gained the day, I confess I shall 
 have the greatest pleasure in seeing the English. But 
 my conversion is not complete. Without being fatuous 
 enough to treat them as personal enemies, I cannot forget 
 that they are enemies of the glory and welfare of France, 
 I am quite prepared to astonish the public by my patriot- 
 ism as much as I am supposed to have done by my 
 sensibility." 
 
 With Talleyrand, Lafayette had more frequent relations, 
 
 97 U
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 It was Morris who invited them to meet each other at 
 dinner. He himself had first become acquainted with 
 that Mephistopheles of Abbes at the house of his mistress, 
 Madame Flahaut. She had already been the confidante of 
 Montesquiou ; later she wrote romances, now she showed a 
 fine head for public business. Her exclusive dinner-table 
 was devoted to Talleyrand, and she became a chef oi strata- 
 gem. State secrets and weighty schemes were swallowed 
 at her banquets with the soup ; and freedom, like her sauces, 
 was used as a means, not an end. Morris grew intimate with 
 her, and perhaps this fact helped him to dislike Talleyrand. 
 " He appears to me a sly, cool, cunning, ambitious and 
 malicious man," he wrote ; " there is something of the 
 author about him. But a tender attachment to our 
 literary productions is by no means suitable to a Minister. 
 To sacrifice great objects for the sake of small ones is an 
 inverse ratio of moral proportion. ... I know not 
 why conclusions so disadvantageous to him are formed 
 in my mind ; but so it is, and I cannot help it." Lafayette 
 equally disliked the diplomatic priest. Talleyrand did 
 not dislike — he only despised ; and the enthusiastic 
 Marquis annoyed him. Still trop de zele had to be 
 reckoned with in public affairs, and events were rapidly 
 bringing Lafayette to the fore. 
 
 Things were going from bad to worse. The treasury 
 was as empty as ever. Lomenie de Brienne, with his 
 scheme for equal taxation, had replaced Necker, and 
 turned out more futile than his predecessors. Further 
 taxation was impossible. The towns had grown insolent ; 
 the country people were more seriously disaffected. La- 
 fayette declared that in his own province of Auvergne 
 the poverty-stricken peasants were leaving their ploughs, 
 and workmen their shops — that the only chance for most 
 
 98
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTION 
 
 diligent citizens lay in begging or starving. Many 
 thousands fled yearly across the frontier ; marriages be- 
 came of rare occurrence and population steadily decreased. 
 The Notables had not fulfilled their promise. A wit who 
 knew English had called them the " Not-ables " and the 
 name had stuck to them. They had, it is true, exposed 
 Calonne, instituted provincial assemblies and abolished 
 the Corvee, or labour tax, together with the restrictions 
 on the corn trade. But, on the whole, they were little 
 more than a bureau for advice. They had proved to be 
 what they were — a mere council of nobles, far less radical 
 than the salons. They could be liberal enough in theory, 
 but when it came to taking measures, they knew their 
 proper limitations. Lafayette was too consistent for them 
 — perhaps also too crude, for his methods were often 
 wholesale. From the first, they had tried to keep him 
 out, but in vain. " The Pit is unanimously in my favour 
 — the boxes are divided," he wrote to Washington, and 
 the boxes found him as disturbing as they expected. 
 
 He was supported by de S6gur, the Lameths, and his 
 two brothers-in-law, de Noailles and de Grammont. Im- 
 patient of shilly-shally, he drew up a formal protest, 
 destined for the King. It inveighed against the extra- 
 vagances of the Court and the misery these meant for the 
 peasants ; it proposed to abolish useless expenses ; it 
 ended by demanding the States-General or Parliament of 
 the Three Estates — an institution unheard of for one hun- 
 dred and seventy-three years. His suggestion did not 
 make him more popular with Queen and courtiers, though 
 the King remained friendly to him ; but it went beyond 
 Versailles and sank into the heart of the people. La- 
 fayette's hand had sown the dragon's teeth — the seed of 
 the Convention. 
 
 99
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Meanwhile, poor Louis blundered on, and sent his edicts, 
 as usual, to be registered by the Parlement of Paris. Anxious 
 to curry favour with the popular party and to escape frerh 
 burdens, the Parlement boldly resisted a new tax on land. 
 The King took advantage of his ancient prerogative, and 
 passed it in a Bed of Justice. The Parlement refused to 
 regard this proceeding as valid, and a hubbub ensued. 
 Something had to be done, and done at once. The only 
 question was who was to do it. 
 
 In our Revolution, the able men of either side were 
 opposed from the first. Falkland, Hyde, and Clarendon 
 never wished to work with Hampden, Pym, and Hazel- 
 rigg. In France, it was different. At the dawn of the 
 Revolution, the distinguished men of all professions took 
 counsel together. Kings-men and Republicans alike be- 
 lieved in reform ; the difference was only in the bounds 
 they set to it. Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Montmorin (the 
 friend of Louis and Minister for Foreign Affairs) laboured 
 side by side ; the wise busybody, Morris was never far out 
 of reach ; Sieyes, Jacobin from the first, helped in en- 
 gineering ; and Talleyrand was always within earshot, 
 when it suited his purposes to assist them. These men 
 were the sponsors of the new order, still innocent in its 
 cradle. The nation had taken up Lafayette's cry, and 
 clamoured for the States-General ; they cheered on the 
 nation ; the King went on refusing. At last, like Pharaoh, 
 he gave a tardy consent Preparation was made for its 
 assembly — the Passover of French history. After it came 
 the Exodus : the Exodus of a whole world. 
 
 lOO
 
 The Revolution 
 
 101
 
 CHArXER IV 
 
 The Revolution 
 
 I 
 
 T T was in May, 1789, that Nobles, Clergy, and Commons 
 ^ filed in solemn procession to the Church of Saint Louis 
 at Versailles, there to pray together for God's blessing on 
 their work. Lafayette walked in their midst ; Talleyrand 
 and the Bishops were there in golden vestments ; Mirabeau 
 towered amongst the Tzers Etat ; there, too, stepped the 
 philanthropic Dr. Guillotin, who had just completed his 
 report on the Penal Code and his invention for mitigating 
 the horrors of capital punishment. He had done signal 
 service to humanity ; any Parliament might be proud to 
 reckon him amongst its members. From church they 
 went straight to the famous Salle des Menus, soon to be 
 the stage of the greatest of modern dramas. Gouvcrneur 
 Morris was not the man to waste such an opportunity. 
 He was there, listening and observing. There is a letter 
 to his wife, written a few days later, when the whole scene 
 still belonged to the present ; it gives an account so fresh 
 and so vital that we cannot resist reproducing the whole 
 of it. 
 
 " I had the honour," he says, " to be present on the fifth 
 of this month at the opening of the States-General — a 
 spectacle more solemn to the mind than gaudy to the 
 eye. And yet, there was displayed everything of noble 
 and of royal in this titled country. A great number of 
 fine women, and a very great number of fine dresses 
 ranged round the hall. On a kind of stage, the throne ;
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 on the left of the King, and a little below him, the Queen ; 
 a little behind him to the right, and on chairs, the Princes 
 of the blood ; on the right and left, at some distance from 
 the throne, the various princesses, with the gentlemen and 
 ladies of their retinue. Advanced on the stage, to the 
 left of the throne, the Keeper of the Seals. Several officers 
 of the household, richly caparisoned, strewed about in 
 different places. Behind the throne, a cluster of guards, 
 of the largest size, dressed in ancient costumes, taken from 
 the times of chivalry. In front of the throne on the right, 
 below the stage, the Ministers of State, with a large table 
 before them. On the opposite side of the hall, some 
 benches, on which sat the Marshals of France, and other 
 great officers. In front of the Ministers, on benches facing 
 the opposite side of the hall, sat the Representatives of the 
 Clergy, being priests of all colours, scarlet, crimson, black, 
 white, and gray, to the number of three hundred. In 
 front of the Marshals of France, on benches facing the 
 Clergy, sat an equal number of Representatives of the 
 Nobility, dressed in a robe of black, waistcoats of cloth 
 of gold, and over their shoulders, so as to hang forward 
 to their waists, a kind of lappels, about a quarter of a 
 yard wide at top, and wider at bottom, made of cloth of 
 gold. On benches, which reached quite across the hall, 
 and facing the stage, sat the Representatives of the people 
 clothed in black. In the space between the Clergy and 
 Nobles, directly in front of the Representatives of the 
 People, and facing the throne, stood the heralds-at-arms, 
 with their staves, and in very rich dresses. 
 
 " When the King entered, he was saluted with a shout 
 of applause. Some time after he had taken his seat, he 
 put on a round beaver, ornamented with white plumes, 
 the part in front turned up, with a large diamond button 
 
 104
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 in the centre. He read his speech well, and was inter- 
 rupted at a part which affected his audience, by a loud 
 shout of ' Vive le Roi! ' After this had subsided, he finished 
 his speech, and received again an animated acclamation of 
 applause. He then took off his hat, and after a while put 
 it on again, at which the Nobles also put on their hats, 
 which resembled the King's, excepting the button. The 
 effect of this display of plumage was fine. 
 
 " The Keeper of the Seals then performed his genu- 
 flexions to the throne, and mumbled out, in a very 
 ungraceful manner, a speech of considerable length, 
 which nobody pretends to judge of, because nobody 
 heard it. He was succeeded by M. Necker, who soon 
 handed his speech to his clerk, being unable to go through 
 with it. The clerk delivered it much better than the 
 Minister, and that is no great praise. It was three hours 
 long, contained many excellent things, but too much of 
 compliment, too much of repetition, and indeed too much 
 of everything, for it was too long by two hours, and \-ct 
 fell short in some capital points of great expectation. He 
 received, however, very repeated plaudits from the audi- 
 ence, some of which were merited, but more were certainly 
 paid to his character than to his composition. M. 
 Xcckcr's long speech now comes to a close, and the King 
 rises to depart. The hall resounds with a long, loud 
 ' Viz'e le Roi ! ' He j)asses the Queen, who rises to follow 
 him. At this moment, some one, imbued with the milk of 
 human kindness, originates a faint ' Vive la Reiue !' She 
 makes a humble courtesy and presents the sinking of the 
 high Austrian spirit ; a livelier acclamation in return, and 
 to this her lowlier bending, which is succeeded by a shout 
 of loud applause. Here drops the curtain on the first 
 great act of this drama, in which Bourbon gives freedom. 
 
 105
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 His courtiers seem to feel, what he seems to be insensible 
 of, the pang of greatness going off." 
 
 The Third Estate had a sprinkling of cures and men of 
 letters, but consisted chiefly of lawyers. They had 
 arrived in Paris from all parts, without any concerted 
 scheme, or knowledge of each other. But all were alike 
 concentrated on Reform. The Court showed them no 
 conciliatory attentions, and they met in a stormy temper, 
 hardly knowing what they should first demand. Their 
 caprice weakened their force at the outset ; at one 
 moment they hold their breath before Mirabeau's elo- 
 quence ; " at another, they hiss, though not very loudly." 
 Morris dines with them at a restaurant ; one man 
 is violent against the nobles ; another against his own 
 order. An old man refuses to dress in the costume pre- 
 scribed for the Tiers^ and appears in his farmer's habit ; 
 he is received with long and loud plaudits. Perhaps their 
 heads were slightly turned, for they were much in fashion. 
 " What is this Tiers ? " writes a belle to her beau — " I 
 have not forgotten the pamphlet you recommended. 
 This morning whilst I was dressing, one of my maids 
 read me part of it " ; and again, after a few days' interval : 
 " Do you know that since you became a member of the 
 Tiers I have stopped scolding the servants ? " 
 
 The ideas of the Third Estate grew gradually calmer, 
 though it lacked a leading spirit. Lafayette had been 
 eager that he and some of his compeers should be elected 
 as commoners. But though the noblesse disliked his 
 presence amongst them, they were obliged to resist such 
 an infringement of tradition. He had to content himself 
 with forming an opposition in his own ranks, and rallying 
 de Bcauharnais, de Noailles, the Due d'Aiguillon and 
 the de Lameths round his standard. When the Tiers 
 
 1 06
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 stood out upon the manner of their voting, he found him- 
 self in the distracting predicament of being obliged to vote 
 with his party against his principles. The result must 
 have done much to console him. There is no need to 
 recapitulate the King's tottering obstinacies, the famous 
 session of the Tiers, their locking of the doors, their 
 final victory. These events have become epochs, and the 
 world is familiar with them. 
 
 On the 17th of June, Mirabeau gave the council its name. 
 He, Sieyes, and Lafayette had anxiously discussed its 
 right title. " The deputies of the different orders are 
 deputies at one and the same assembly — the National 
 Assembly," Mirabeau said, in a speech made on that day ; 
 and the National Assembly it became. Three days later, 
 it met in the Tennis Court at Versailles, elected Bailly as 
 its president, and swore not to disband till it had made the 
 Constitution, It summoned the clergy to join it — only 
 three of them obeyed. The King had been still waver- 
 ing and trying to resist it ; on the 25th of June he gave in, 
 and commanded the nobles to unite with it. Lafayette 
 lost no time in drawing up a Declaration of Rights, on 
 which the later one was based. It was much like our 
 own Petition of Rights, and only demanded such elemen- 
 tary reforms as protection against abuses, and equality of 
 taxation. To the English of that day it must have 
 seemed a list of truisms ; to the French it was a revelation. 
 They made Lafayette Vice-president of the National 
 Assembly. This was early in July; on the nth of that 
 month, Necker and the Ministry were dismissed. 
 
 " (Trt iral' Franklin was wont to reply, when young 
 France importuned him with inquiries after the American 
 war. His phrase became a watchword of freedom in 
 Paris, and now the Revolution took it up and marched to 
 
 107
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 its music. Lafayette and Morris had as yet only "con- 
 sidered of a revolt in Paris," and agreed that " it might 
 occasion much mischief, but could not produce any good." 
 Everything that had hitherto occurred had, in their 
 opinion, merely represented lawful reform. They, or, at 
 any rate, the acute Morris, soon suffered disillusion. On 
 the day of Necker's disgrace, there were serious riots. The 
 streets were unsafe. Morris was dining at the American 
 Embassy, where he met both the Lafayettes, who were 
 as calm and optimistic as ever. But the King and Queen, 
 he reports, " were confoundedly frightened." On returning 
 to his own house, Morris received a visit from an Abb6, 
 who had boldly sallied forth in a fiacre to observe the 
 insurgents ; he was so frightened that he fled to his 
 friend's rooms, where he was joined by another scared cleric. 
 Morris was constrained to see them safe home, and their 
 terror on the way " was truly diverting " ; they mistook 
 the ordinary passengers in the Rue St. Honore for a mob, 
 and were deposited trembling on their doorsteps. Their 
 escort, on his way back, was in time to watch a fight on 
 the Place Louis XV. ; the military were obliged to fire. 
 Next day, July the I2th, came news that the prison of La 
 Force had been opened — that all the grain had been stolen 
 from St. Lazare. The town jokes became ominous ; carts 
 were sent to market, each containing a fat friar. Trades- 
 men collected weapons. Morris did not think it safe to 
 walk out without the green oak-bough of the Tiers in his 
 hat. July the 13th slips by without his knowing what is 
 happening. On the 14th, he writes in his diary : 
 
 " While sitting here, a person comes and announces the 
 taking of the Bastille. . . . Yesterday it was the 
 fashion at Versailles not to believe that there were any 
 disturbances in Paris," 
 
 108
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 There was nothing for the moment there but merry- 
 making. The city and Lafayette were still under the 
 impression that there was no Revolution ; that the thunder 
 of cannon was but a military salute on their arrival in 
 Utopia ; and the storming of the Bastille a feat of heroism, 
 rather mismanaged. The Garde Franqaise deserved with- 
 out question to be canonized, especially he who had forced 
 the gate of the prison by hanging on to it and allowing his 
 legs to be pulled like ropes till it yielded. These were 
 the same soldiers who, a few days before, had refused to 
 mount guard in the rain. The Nation was evidently 
 educating itself; what might it not yet do? 
 
 Lafayette sent the key of the Bastille to Washington. 
 Its ruins became the fashionable promenade, and gallants 
 took their ladies there to pick up the stones and try how 
 far they could throw them ; they cried " Liberie ! " as 
 they did so. These same stones were collected by active- 
 minded shopmen, and there was a regular depot for them 
 in the Palais Royal. They were sold at a high price as 
 relics, or made up into still costlier brooches, one of which, 
 set in laurels, was worn by Madame de Genlis. 
 
 " The Storming of the Bastille," was posted in large 
 letters on the street placards, and acted at Ruggieri's 
 theatre with realistic effects. Then the tricolour began to 
 appear ; first it was only seen in cockades for the hat or 
 the hair ; presently it was worn everywhere. Clothes be- 
 came a significant uniform. The revolutionary ladies put 
 on long coats of red, white and blue, with little shoes, 
 three - cornered hats and even pocket-handkerchiefs to 
 match. The aristocrats took advantage of the Empress 
 of Austria's death to dress in black, with black cockades, 
 white cravats, and buttons engraved with the Fleur-de-lys, 
 and continued thus, in tacit opposition to Jacobin colours. 
 
 109
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The moderate Republicans were clad in black, with scarlet 
 waistcoats. There was so much to say just then that the 
 economical French nation did not care to waste words in 
 declaring its parties ; it enabled men to tell them at a glance. 
 
 The prescient Morris had already suggested that the 
 Garde Frangaise should be turned into a city regiment. It 
 was found necessary to re-organize the civic forces without 
 delay. On July the 15th, the monarch, still dazed by the 
 din of the Bastille, sent eighty members of the Assembly, 
 Lafayette amongst them, to Paris, with a message of good- 
 will. They were received by an ovation, and borne through 
 " a sea of tricolour cockades " to the Hotel de Ville. Here, 
 amidst tumultuous plaudits, arose the question of organi- 
 zing the municipal troops. Who was to be their leader ? 
 The Liberal, Moreau de St. M^ry, threw a significant glance 
 at the bust of Lafayette, which stood near — a monument of 
 his youthful feats for freedom. In a moment the crowd 
 took fire, proclaimed him commander-in-chief, and not con- 
 tent with one inauguration, went still farther, and made 
 Bailly Mayor of Paris. The two heroes were marched off 
 by the mob in compulsory jubilation to Notre Dame, 
 where the Te Deum was sung in their honour, amidst 
 huzzas and cannon-shots. It is true that the King at- 
 tempted a vacillating opposition to Lafayette's appoint- 
 ment, but it sank bewildered before the energy of the 
 populace, and the Assembly easily consoled its monarch 
 by voting for the erection of his statue. 
 
 Lafayette had accepted the office without hesitation. 
 The position he was to fill combined opportunities for mili- 
 tary heroism, with the furtherance of his abstract schemes. 
 There was no lack of volunteers. The National Guard, like 
 the Tiers, or the fragments of the Bastille, became a popu- 
 lar idol. Women professed indifference for all those who 
 
 no
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 had not joined it, and men of every class flocked to enrol 
 themselves. Cordons-bleus left their spoons and saucepans 
 for swords and helmets. We hear of a music-master of 
 sedentary habits, whose pupil, a lady of the old noblesse, 
 fainted on suddenly seeing him in martial costume. At 
 first, the soldiers had uniforms of all sorts and colours; after- 
 wards they wore blue, and were known as " Lafayette's corn- 
 flowers " ; they had tricolour cockades and waving plumes, 
 and the officers were distinguished by gold epaulettes. 
 
 Gouverneur Morris rejoiced at Lafayette's commander- 
 ship. He warmly approved of him as a soldier ; he 
 warmly disapproved of him as a statesman. It was not 
 only on account of his opinions. Both he and Talleyrand 
 agreed that Lafayette was weak and vague as a politician, 
 because, in spite of his clear principles, he had no definite 
 scheme for the moment. Even his conception of a com- 
 monwealth was confused by his demand for an hereditary 
 executive. His plans were too large and intellectual to be 
 of practical use. Intent upon the justice of his aims, he 
 could not see that France was not yet fit for so much liberty 
 as he prescribed. " He is too republican for the genius of 
 his country," — so said Morris, who begged him to resign his 
 seat in the Assembly and devote himself to a military 
 career. This was far from Lafayette's thoughts ; the 
 making of the Constitution was a matter of religion to 
 him ; all his castles in Spain and elsewhere were at stake, 
 and he clung to his parliamentary career. Besides (al- 
 though he hardly knew this), it afforded him tlie amplest 
 field for his ruling appetite — the love of popularity. His 
 " need of pleasing " and of universal applause is the 
 feeblest, and, perhaps, the most lovable point in his char- 
 acter. His vanity always sprang from the heart, and that 
 important organ was never turned, whatever happened to 
 
 III
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 his head. There is something innocent in his enjoyment 
 of political glory ; as a soldier, he had long ago gained all 
 that could be had. It was doubtless his prestige as a hero, 
 joined to his strong will, that blinded men to his incompe- 
 tency, and rapidly made him a leader where he should 
 have been a learner. He soon acquired influence in the 
 Assembly, where stormy scenes were being enacted. 
 
 Everything was expected of it. A peasant was asked 
 what he wanted it to grant him, " The suppression of 
 pigeons, rabbits, and monks," he replied. These were his 
 grievances, and his fellows had similar lists. The As- 
 sembly would certainly consider them. Its early days 
 were its best. " As for me," writes de Segur, " I shall 
 never forget the impression produced on my mind by the 
 vehemence of Mirabeau's speeches ; the pomp and har- 
 mony of the Abbe Maury's ; the brilliant improvising 
 subtleties of the Abb6 de Montesquiou ; the deep, lumi- 
 nous dialectics of Dupont ; the cold, severe reasoning of 
 Malouet ; the lucid reports of Thouret." 
 
 Add to these names those of Bailly, Matthieu de Mont- 
 morency, La Rochefoucauld, Liancourt, du Chatelet, 
 Montlosier, Boisgelin, Boissy d'Anglas, Maubourg, Custine, 
 d'Aguesseau, de Noailles, de Luzerne, de Broglie, de Beau- 
 harnais, the Chevalier de Boufflers, and the Marquis de 
 Talleyrand, and the wonder is that the " Constituante " 
 did not do more. A contemporary said that, in spite of its 
 failings, it formed the basis of all modern government, yet 
 its failings often impeded its immediate usefulness. Its 
 dignity varied with its mood ; it always spoke in heroics, 
 but the scale of its topics varied surprisingly. 
 
 On August the 4th, it almost attained sublimity. One 
 young noble after another rose from his seat to renounce his 
 privileges for Fraternity's sake. The Vicomte de Noailles 
 
 112
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ascended the " Tribune," amidst deafening applause, and 
 proposed doing away with all feudal rights, tithes and 
 taxes. The motion was carried with enthusiasm, in spite 
 of Sieyes' calm demonstration that to abolish the land-tax 
 was to make a gift to the landowner. There was generally 
 some point in the debates at which reason failed : often 
 they descended to puerile turbulence and useless interrup- 
 tions that had little to do with the making of a constitu- 
 tion. Once all the members, great and small, spent a day 
 in discussing the removal of such statues as represented 
 aristocratic persons and might cast a reflection upon 
 liberty ; one of them got up and proposed the destruction 
 of every monument, every mark, of nobility, including 
 titles. His audience consented with joy, more especially 
 Lafayette, who thenceforward rejected his aristocratic "de," 
 and never resumed it. Crests were erased from carriages, 
 mottoes discarded. The Liberals grew grandiloquent in 
 sacrificing the graces of life. They were more impressive 
 when they considered its utilities, 
 
 Necker's last financial scheme (completed just before his 
 disgrace) afforded matter for Mirabeau's eloquence. His 
 long speech upon it is a masterpiece of irony ; it seems 
 written in bronze, and Necker's ideas were crushed beneath 
 it. First, with veiled sarcasm, he proposed tr)ing the 
 project without alteration, or further discussion of it. The 
 glory would be Necker's, so would the responsibility ; if 
 it proved a failure, they must ap{)cal to the nation. Then 
 the orator threw off his mask and rejected the whole plan 
 with open scorn. So spontaneous is the outburst that we 
 can hardly believe, what people said then, that it was all a 
 plot with Talleyrand, who wanted Necker's place. The in- 
 defatigable Abb^ was, indeed, always manoeuvring. Rather 
 later we find him proposing to go to England, to turn out 
 
 113 I
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Pitt, and to make an English alliance which would counter- 
 balance the Royal Alliance with Austria. 
 
 There was nowhere a lack of intrigue. The names that 
 are most spoken of at a great political epoch are not 
 generally those of the finest men. It is the most active, 
 not the most thoughtful, who are then conspicuous and who 
 seem important, though they may not really be so. Thus 
 mediocre and restless spirits — schemers and agitators — 
 often acquire a contemporary reputation which dies away 
 when the true proportions of history are revealed. Such 
 were the ambitious Sieyes, and Brissot, the controversial 
 journalist. Miners and underminers, they seemed at one 
 moment to be managing the Revolution, though in 
 reality they were no more than its edged tools. They 
 spread their webs for every fly. Condorcet, large and 
 theoretic, was instantly caught ; so was Lafayette. These 
 four met at Condorcet's house, and, for a while, made 
 a kind of diminutive Cabinet. But their bond was ficti- 
 tious : real sympathy between them was wanting. Sieyes 
 started a plot to put Philippe Egalite at the head of the 
 Assembly ; Lafayette and Condorcet separated from him. 
 The former remained on friendly terms with him, but 
 there was no further intimacy between them. 
 
 The Royalists were no less busy than their opponents. 
 Favras hatched a forlorn conspiracy which ended in his 
 arrest and execution. His death was unjustly laid at the 
 door of Lafayette — a fact which did not diminish the 
 hatred of the Court party for him. Jefferson declared that 
 between Lafayette's abstract politics and his concrete foes, 
 France was not safe for him. 
 
 n 
 
 Outside Paris, there was great confusion. Every village 
 was trembling with "the great fear," or dread of the mys- 
 
 114
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 terious brigands who were expected to descend from the 
 mountains with fire and sword. The Assembly could pass 
 no measure against bogies. It had enough to do without 
 plots and panics ; and September found it trying, amid 
 much excitement, to decide whether the King should have 
 the Absolute or only the Suspensive Veto in legislation. 
 Lafayette, too, had his hands full, and needed no extra 
 work. As early as July, he had discovered that there were 
 stumbling blocks in L^topia. The massacre of Foulon, then 
 that of Berthier, on the 6th of that month, had compelled 
 him to resign his commandership — resumed at the suppli- 
 cation of the people. After that, it seemed as if matters 
 would settle down peacefully ; but disturbances increased in 
 a manner very puzzling to theorists. He had to double his 
 patrols and restrain the Press ; no hawkers were allowed 
 to cry their papers in the street, unless they wore a leaden 
 badge of their legitimacy. And now the question of the 
 Veto was agitating the mob afresh. Mirabeau was Lafay- 
 ette's rival in popularity ; they crowded round him, one 
 day, as he came out of a bookseller's, and implored him to 
 command acceptance of the veto siispensif. If that were 
 granted, there would be bread. Lafayette did not wish to 
 give them stones , but again he increased the patrols. 
 
 Then came the King's fateful importation of the 
 Flanders regiment ; the dinner given to it by the rc))'al 
 body-guard in the Opera House at Versailles ; the 
 Queen's appearance in the Hall ; the chivalrous orchestra's 
 " Richard, oh, mon Roi," as a fitting salute to her ; the 
 hoisting of the white cockades with an almost old-world 
 arrogance ; the umbrage taken by the tricolours ; the 
 return feast given by the Flemish soldiers ; the second 
 banquet of the Guards — and all this whilst Paris citizens 
 were starving, waiting all day before the bakers' shops, to 
 
 115
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 trudge home as empty as they came. When they thought 
 of Versailles, their patience was at an end. 
 
 October had come ; its fifth morning had dawned — that 
 morning whose tocsin sounds on in the pages of Carlyle. 
 Under his guidance, we can still watch the ten thousand 
 starving women, as they gather in the twilight streets ; we 
 can follow them to the H6tel de Ville, where the Guard, 
 without its Lafayette, admits them ; and on to Versailles, 
 led by " shifty Usher Maillard," with " Demoiselle The- 
 roigne" seated on the cannon in their midst. We can 
 enter the National Assembly with their deputation, and 
 look on at the obedient despatch of Mounier, Dr. Guillotin, 
 and others, with a petition for food to the King ; or we 
 can behold the crowd of Maenads surging outside the Salle 
 des Menus. At last, tired of waiting, it rushes in and only 
 waits for the disappearance of the Members to invade 
 their seats and hold a mock parliament of its own. A 
 final flash shows us the return of the emissaries with the 
 petition granted ; the carts laden with food that arrive 
 from the Palace ; the voracious banquet of the mob, more 
 jovial, if also more fierce, than any royal dinner. 
 
 Meanwhile, Lafayette had sent despatches to warn the 
 Court. He was not to be let off with mere pen-work. In 
 the forenoon, a detachment of the National Guards arrived 
 to explain their conduct to him. They could not, they 
 said, use force towards " de bonnes patriotes " — he must not 
 expect it. They confidingly begged him to depose the 
 King, to set the Dauphin in his place, and to force the 
 Court to come and live in Paris. He must start with them 
 at once, follow the women, and bring all this about. 
 Argument and persuasion fell on empty ears. He was still 
 resisting them when the Municipality sent orders to him 
 to depart. He saw that the only way of ruling Paris, 
 
 ii6
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 at this moment, was to obey it, and he bade his men 
 follow him to Versailles. He was more than ever a hero 
 of chivalry when he leaped on his white horse — that 
 curvetting steed which became inseparable from him, and 
 converted him into a premature monument in a public 
 square. Gallantly he rode it, and gallantly his men 
 marched behind him. They did not arrive at Versailles 
 till eight in the evening, when the Maenads had become 
 quiet. He placed his soldiers about the palace ; his 
 Central Grenadiers in the guard-house. He himself went 
 to keep vigil in the Noailles Hotel close by, where, 
 towards morning, he snatched some rest on a bed. 
 
 Again we may look with the Seer's eyes and witness 
 what happened — the King's body-guard, in the grey of the 
 morning, insulting the mob outside ; the sentimental rush 
 of the Republican grenadiers to rescue the courtly body- 
 guard ; the royal panic ; and, finally, Lafayette's appear- 
 ance. It had a marvellous effect on the populace. Per- 
 haps he reached the zenith of his fame when he brought 
 the Queen out on to the palace balcony and kissed her 
 hand before the crowd. The stiff old peers, even the royal 
 aunts, were compelled to admit that " Ce Lafayette," 
 whom they warmly disliked, had saved their honour, and 
 perhaps their lives. " Ces indignes Fran^ais ! " cried the 
 outraged Queen. " Dites plutot indignes, Madame" was 
 the reply of Madame Adelaide. They were glad of their 
 protector's escort back to Paris, for to Paris they were 
 obliged to go. The Assembly refused to be parted from 
 its sovereign ; eighteen members occupied one of his car- 
 riages ; the rest took other means to find their way to town. 
 The wh(^le procession from Versailles — royalty, dt'put^s, 
 dishevelled women, national guards, Lafayette and his 
 prancing steed — only reached the city when it was nearly 
 
 117
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 midnight. The Court went to the Tuileries ; and here, 
 too, in the Salle de Manege, the Assembly took up its 
 quarters. 
 
 Once more, all things seemed propitious ; the King was 
 content with the veto suspensif and granted all petitions 
 with amenity. The council could devote itself afresh to 
 the fashioning of a Constitution. But again, its futilities 
 maimed it. It had not enough strength to maintain unity, 
 and split into factions. The plot of Sieyes to make 
 Philippe Egalit6 parliamentary President, had been taken 
 up by the de Lameths ; they wanted to go farther than 
 Lafayette, who had no wish to stir from his classical 
 Republic. One evening, we find him dining with Alexandre 
 de Lameth at Duras' restaurant ; they argue loudly about 
 English methods of government, but are on their old friendly 
 terms. A few days later, they are bitter enemies in the 
 Assembly, and have formed hostile groups. The Fayettistes 
 represented the Moderate, the Lame'thigues, the Extreme 
 party. 
 
 This would not have been so important, had not the 
 mighty Mirabeau temporarily joined Lameth — at least so 
 far as the Orleans conspiracy was concerned. The tactics 
 of that Titan of romance remain a constant problem. 
 Where romance ended and self-interest began, it is hard 
 to discover. From May till the end of October, he was a 
 democrat amongst democrats ; after that he proclaimed 
 the necessity of restoring an Executive, and supported the 
 Court. It paid all his debts and allowed him a high 
 pension. His momentary partizanship with de Lameth de- 
 fined his difference with Lafayette ; but the real reason of 
 that difference lay far deeper — in the mysteries of human 
 nature. It is almost tragic that the two men, who to- 
 gether might have controlled the revolution, should have 
 
 ii8
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 been antipathetic one to another. Mirabeau despised 
 Lafayette's respectability ; he found his good manners 
 tedious, and his politics conventional. Lafayette disliked 
 Mirabeau's irregularity ; he distrusted his former vices 
 and, later, his conversion to the Court. They arranged to 
 meet early in October, and, for the sake of France, try to 
 come to some understanding ; but it was in vain. In the 
 course of their interview and discussion of affairs, Mira- 
 beau suggested that they should attempt speedier and 
 more violent measures. Lafayette coldly replied that 
 these could not be used by an honest man. " Un honnete 
 hoinme!" exclaimed Mirabeau. "Ah, M. Lafayette, je 
 vols bien que vous voulez etre un Cronnvell-Grandisoyi ; 
 vous verrez oil vous vienera ce ^n^lange-ld." He had the 
 power of putting his finger on a man's weak point and 
 preserving it in an epigram : Cromwell-Grandison is a 
 name that would have injured any man less popular than 
 Lafayette. Antipathy quickly grew to something like 
 hatred on Mirabeau's part — perhaps it was not unmixed 
 with jealousy of a rival influence. At any rate, he was 
 reported to be plotting against Lafayette's life. Morris 
 warned the latter of the danger and implored him to have 
 no dealings with his enemy. Lafayette's conduct was 
 characteristic. At another and equally futile meeting 
 with Mirabeau, he told him plainly of these rumours. 
 " ConDicnt, bouhomme, vous croycz ces choses-ld ? " was the 
 answer — " Vous voulez jouer un role dans une revolution. 
 Mirabeau had not the gift of detecting the good in a man 
 as well as his foibles. Lafayette never acted a part, even 
 when on his white horse. Sincerity was the keynote of 
 his character. He was able to judge his foe eijuably, even 
 in the face of a royal pension. 
 
 " Mirabeau was not inaccessible to mone)'," he wrote 
 
 119
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 after the latter's death in 1791, " but for no sum would he 
 have sustained an opinion destructive to Liberty, or dis- 
 honourable to his mind." Morris is more severe in his 
 summary of the man, and perhaps he was nearer the truth : 
 " Venal he was, and shameless, yet greatly virtuous when 
 pushed by a prevailing impulse ; but never truly virtuous, 
 because never under the steady control of reason, or the 
 firm authority of principle." 
 
 Morris was using his own reason to the best advantage. 
 During 1789 and 1790, the Constitution grew with more 
 or less speed. Everybody had a hand in it, and the broth 
 was well-nigh spoiled by the multitude of cooks. Some- 
 times it boiled over ; sometimes it was encumbered with 
 too many ingredients. Every man of weight — and some 
 who had none — drew up " memorials " or schemes of 
 government, and sent them to the King. Now it is 
 Montmorin who states his ideas ; now it is Morris. We 
 meet him at Madame Flahaut's toilet-table, where he is 
 planning out a ministry with her, while her dentist is in 
 attendance. After disposing of the notabilities, Madame 
 turns to Morris : " Well, my friend," she says, " in the 
 end, you and I shall govern France ; it will be an odd 
 combination, but the kingdom is actually in much worse 
 hands than ours." They ended by concocting a " scheme " 
 together, which contained sound counsel and was full of 
 uncommon sense. When it was finished, they despatched 
 it to the King and, had he acted on it, he would have been 
 a wiser man. But when he had read it, he put it away ; 
 like their proposed Cabinet, it ended in smoke. 
 
 It seemed more hopeful when Lafayette discussed the 
 formation of a ministry. A " little committee " was held 
 in the Lafayettes' drawing-room. Adricnne presided. 
 Morris and Clermont-Tonnerre were there ; so was M. 
 
 120
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 de Stael, without the Light that usually eclipsed him. 
 They all begged Lafayette to make a government. He 
 wished to take a Minister from each party and create an 
 " All-the-talents Cabinet." Morris assured him this was 
 unpractical. " Well then," said the sanguine Marquis, " we 
 must give each of the incapable Ministers a clerk who 
 understands affairs." Morris only laughed. " We can't 
 have clerks in a cabinet-council," he replied. Several 
 names were suggested ; Lafayette objected to some on 
 the score of their morals. Again Morris shook his head. 
 " Pray consider that men do not enter an administration 
 on the direct road to heaven," he observed, and this 
 ministry in the air fell to pieces. 
 
 The Lafayettes' house had become a great social centre. 
 Every Liberal who entered Paris — any man with an ideal, 
 from any country — found hospitality there. It is amusing 
 to find Morris (now American Ambassador) complaining 
 that there were too many people, and that he did not 
 receive enough attention. He had left off going to them ; 
 perhaps he found the company too extreme. The hostess 
 must often have done so. She was never nobler than 
 now, when she welcomed so many who offended her fine 
 instincts and family traditions. She tried to forget the 
 Liberals for the sake of Libert)-, and revealed nothing but 
 her graciousness. Only once did she demur, and then her 
 principles were concerned. It was in 1790, after the con- 
 stitutional priests had sworn allegiance to the Nation ; 
 Lafayette invited the new Archbishop of Paris to dinner, 
 and she took the marked step of dining out, at a friend's, on 
 that afternoon. This was because he came professionally, 
 as a pastor. When these Republican clergymen arrived 
 as guests, she treated them with her wonted courtesy, and 
 even discussed religious matters and their ecclesiastical 
 
 121
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 position with them. She recognised that many of them 
 were noble, conscientious men, and appreciated their point 
 of view, even while she held her own and firmly defended 
 the old order of bishops. 
 
 Her tolerance seems the more remarkable, when we find 
 that her partizanship was strong enough to spur her not 
 only to speech, but to action. A certain prelate, Bonal, 
 who had refused to take the oath, was making every effort 
 to prevent a rupture between the Assembly and the Holy 
 See ; and the d'Ayen ladies soon found themselves the 
 centre of negotiations. He sent his letters to the Pope, 
 under cover to the Duchess, who, in her turn, gave them 
 to her more influential daughter, Adrienne, that she might 
 contrive their despatch to Rome. Replies to them were 
 conveyed by the same road, and it was long before these 
 faithful women realized that the clerical difficulty could 
 not be settled in this way. 
 
 In truth, it had become a burning question. It was just 
 before this, in the earlier part of the year, that France 
 had achieved its Feast of Pikes in the Champ de Mars. 
 Deputies from every province had assembled there to 
 swear fealty to the Constitution upon the altar of the 
 Fatherland, which towered over the city, a hundred feet 
 high, as befitted the monument of Liberty. Here the oath 
 was uttered by three hundred thousand voices. Lafayette 
 led them, his hand on his heart. The King and Queen 
 were the last to swear ; and here, when they had done, 
 Talleyrand celebrated the first Constitutional Mass. Paris 
 was overflowing, and its houses vied with one another in 
 receiving the provincials. The Lafayettes entertained no 
 less than two hundred of them at their table ; the conver- 
 sation was brilliant and Madame charming. Lafayette 
 walked in and out among his guests, tall and commanding, 
 
 122
 
 THE REVOLUTION 
 
 still awkward, but never clumsy. His awkwardness had a 
 certain dignity of its own, now that it was joined to know- 
 ledge of the world and a genial bearing. In his eyes there 
 was always the look of expectancy which charmed all who 
 saw him. 
 
 Nothing had yet happened to embitter him. The 
 Revolution had been rash, even violent on occasion ; but 
 until now, it had remained generous. Civic sentiment was 
 lavish. Not content with possessing a National Guard, it 
 felt bound to support that and other patriotic objects by a 
 national cash-box. Peter the Hermit himself could not 
 have desired more bountiful gifts than poured into this 
 impromptu treasury. Ladies sent their jewels, public- 
 spirited infants their toys. One little girl precociously 
 sacrificed her best locket ; aiid a boy of twelve, the forty- 
 eight francs he had long saved to buy a watch with. As 
 we sow, so do we reap. These were the children who were 
 being educated on "Zig bon Citoyen ou le petit Eniilien" and 
 " The Civic Catechism" works which instructed them as to 
 their rights, their taxes, and the whole duty of man, in 
 clear language, adapted to four-year-old minds. " Le petit 
 Emilien " did his best to add a dash of amusement ; he 
 ended by dying patriotically in his crib. " My only grief 
 is to leave mamma, and not to be of use to the Republic," 
 were his last words. " The Eairchild Family," converted 
 to politics, could not have spoken more beautifully. 
 
 As for the less noble insurgents — the popular agitators 
 who began to be called Jacobins (distinct from the 
 Jacobins of the more dignified Club) — they were no more 
 seriously considered than our Hyde Park Socialists.^ 
 
 ' The Jacobin Club, which came into existence soon alter the King's 
 arrival in Paris (October, 1789), was, for a long time, a grave and 
 orderly assembly, attended every night by a fashionable audience. 
 
 123
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 They would never become a party ; their bloodthirsty talk 
 was all noise, and their reasoning unsound. But, unfortu- 
 nately, they gathered crowds round them. De S^gur, 
 walking in the streets, saw a knot of people collected 
 about such an orator, and stopped to listen. 
 
 " Messieurs ! " screams the orator, " we are starving for 
 bread, and here is the reason. Three days ago, the King 
 got this v^to suspensif, and already the aristocrats have 
 purchased ' suspensions ' and sent grain out of the king- 
 dom." " Ma foi, il a raison ! Ce n'est que ga" replies the 
 mob to this profoundly sensible speech. 
 
 Or it is pretty Madame Lebrun, tripping to her studio, 
 who overhears the following altercation between two 
 workmen : 
 
 A (a Jacobin) — " Would you like to earn ten francs ? 
 Come with us. You will only have to shout, ' Down with 
 this or that one.' " 
 
 B (cautiously) — " But shall we get no blows ourselves ? " 
 
 A — " The devil take you ! We shall be the ones to give 
 them." 
 
 No wonder that all sensible folk despised such parrots. 
 
 Still, they managed to get hold of the provincial 
 deputies, and to fill their heads with dangerous ideas. 
 However contemptible they might be, their number 
 swelled and their audiences increased. It is generally in 
 the beasts of the field that we first see symptoms of the 
 coming storm. 
 
 Madame de Genlis frequently took the Orleans children there, as a 
 lesson in reasoning ; Lord Sheffield and his daughters heard a debate 
 on their way through I'aris in 1791 ; belles went to the club as to a 
 theatre, and so did any foreigner of distinction who happened to be 
 staying in the town. 
 
 124
 
 The Eve of the Terror 
 
 125
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Eve of the Terror 
 
 'PXCEPTING as host and hostess, Lafayette and his 
 -*— ' wife had now Httle opportunity of meeting. His duties 
 left him no time for home Hfe. It was happy that she had 
 adopted his cause, not only because it was his and he had 
 converted her to it. It represented her ideal also, and his 
 career was to her the triumphal procession of her own faith 
 in good. She was ever a priestess, and sacrificed his 
 safety, besides his companionship, on her altar. She never 
 saw him go out without a presentiment that he would not 
 return. The streets were getting more dangerous day by 
 day, and the position of popular idol was less secure than 
 any other. 
 
 Sacrifice was not her only form of activity for the sake 
 of liberty. Outside her home ties, her life was full of 
 work. Some time before the Revolution, she and her 
 sister Pauline had together visited the prisons, a deed of 
 daring in those days ; and besides this, she was always 
 ministering to the poor, who came daily in and out of her 
 house. The loss of her sister, Madame de Thcsan, in 
 1788, made such occui)ation more congenial than ever to 
 her. Rut after her husband became commander of the 
 National Guard, she grew anxious for patriotic tasks. 
 Each of the sixty districts of Paris begged her in turn to 
 make a qncte, or public collection, for them, at national 
 festivals. She never refused, and we see her at the '' Con- 
 
 127
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 secration of the Flag," and the like ceremonies, walking 
 through the mob, bag in hand, asking for alms. Yet, 
 unlike her husband, she was not blinded by the splendid 
 rise of the Revolution comet. As events progressed, she 
 beheld the faults and dangers of the movement with a 
 vision the clearer for her prayers to reach the truth. " She 
 saw my father," wrote their daughter, " at the head of a 
 revolt of which it was impossible to foresee the end ; each 
 disorder was judged by her without the faintest illusion, 
 yet she was always supported by his principles and con- 
 vinced of the good he could do and the evil he could 
 avert." In her mother and elder sister, she found full 
 sympathy with her feelings about Lafayette. Both of 
 them had firmly kept their aristocratic opinions, though 
 the Duchess rejoiced at the abolition of her privileges as 
 a deliverance from responsibility. They hated the demo- 
 cratic movement, and the chaos of passions that it meant ; 
 but both of them, especially Madame d'Ayen, so loved the 
 man that they could appreciate his conduct. 
 
 One tradition of high birth was left in Adrienne's mind. 
 We have seen that she could not endure the new order of 
 constitutional priests, although she recognised the virtue in 
 many of them. Some were, indeed, saintly in their lives. 
 The Abb6 Fauchet, afterwards misled by enthusiasm for 
 humanity, had begun by stern efforts after primitive 
 Christianity. There were others as good as he. The in- 
 tention and first result of the constitutional oath was to 
 produce a reform in the Church. Elegant Abb^s, accus- 
 tomed to lounge in perfumed boudoirs, were counselled, at 
 the risk of their fortunes, to put on woollen soutanes and 
 to learn the Catechism, of which they did not know a 
 word. On the other hand, the monks, who had no luxury 
 to lose, could only rejoice in the change. Monasteries 
 
 128
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 were abolished as unworthy anachronisms ; the friars 
 flocked to the barbers and hid their tonsures under 
 powdered bagwigs ; or to the tailors, where they bought 
 handsome suits. One emancipated Capucin appeared at 
 the play in his cloistral dress, with an uncloistral beard, 
 and received prolonged applause. The caricatures of the 
 day are a journal in themselves. One represents the 
 radical Abbe Maury picking up the Pope's spectacles and 
 restoring the fragments to him ; another, a fat monk, enter- 
 ing a hairdresser's shop and exclaiming — " I am to be 
 shaved this morning ; I am to be married this evening ! " 
 
 This aspect of events, and a horror of the secular spirit 
 entering the sacred precincts, filled Adrienne's soul with 
 dismay. But her courage was high. In 1790, just before 
 the Feast of Pikes, when priests were becoming unpopulan 
 she and the Duchesse d'Ayen took her daughter to her 
 first Communion. And when unpopularity became actual 
 danger, her actions grew more marked. She felt that her 
 position as the wife of a leading Republican, demanded 
 some e.xhibition of her devotion to the Church. She took 
 care to be present, as were all the chief aristocrats, in her 
 parish Church of Saint Sulpice, when the Cur6 refused 
 to take the civic oath from its pulpit. She assiduously 
 frequented the churches and oratories in which the 
 persecuted clergy took refuge, and, like man}- of her old 
 friends, made her house into a sanctuar)- for them, where 
 she helped them to hold their services in peace. Here, 
 too, she received the homeless nuns, who soon followed 
 the monks, though, unlike these, they loudl}- bewailed their 
 compulsor)' emancipation. 
 
 By so doing, she was not only risking personal safety, 
 but, what was far dearer to her, Lafa)ette's popularity. It 
 was perhaps the highest sacrifice a loving character could
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 achieve, for she knew that, for the sake of principle, she 
 might be injuring his career, at a critical moment in his 
 life. It would have been still harder for her, had he not 
 supported her views, but he had always been keen to 
 remove from the " Constitutional Act " the clauses which 
 related to the new organization of the Church. Liberty 
 of worship for all creeds, ancient or modern, was his con- 
 stant aim, and his wife rejoiced that she gave him frequent 
 opportunities of proving this in the service of non-juring 
 Catholicism. Both tried alike to inspire the constitutional 
 bishops with a spirit of conciliation towards their pre- 
 decessors, and he, at any rate, imagined that he succeeded. 
 
 " I am in despair that you will get no letter to-day," he 
 wrote to his nameless lady, " but when one has become the 
 Public Protector of all religions upon earth, and also has to 
 reckon with the fervour of one's whole family, besides the 
 ' ifs ' and ' buts ' of administrative bodies and ecclesiastical 
 committees, one gets home later than one expected. For 
 the last two days, I have spent my life in discussions and 
 arrangements concerning the full and immediate exercise 
 of religious freedom. It is strange enough that both the 
 democratic and the moderate divots are contented ; even 
 the Cure of St. Sulpice seems reconciled. The real aristo- 
 crats are in a bad temper, because the cause of religion 
 is now separated from their party. The ecclesiastical 
 committee spoke to me to-day about taking precautions 
 against these ' rifractaires! I told them that the National 
 Guard was a first-rate instrument, and would play all the 
 tunes one wanted, provided nobody changed its sounding- 
 board — the ' Declaration of Rights.' " 
 
 As the democratic faction increased, tolerance became 
 more difficult. Between 1790 and 1791, the number and 
 importance of the Jacobins had swelled with startling 
 
 130
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 rapidity. They no longer figured as mere popular mouth- 
 pieces, but formed a political power that had to be 
 reckoned with. Lafayette they distrusted from the first, 
 as being too moderate. They soon discovered that he was 
 a drag upon their breakneck course, and grew to dislike 
 him even more than did the Royalists. Besides, he had 
 sent their moving spirit, Philippe Egalite, to London, on 
 some evidently forced pretext, just when he was becoming 
 useful. The American hero's services were forgotten. He 
 and his National Guard were no longer made much of 
 Perhaps " The Cornflowers " were conscious of it ; anyhow, 
 they were not so alert in putting down disturbances as at 
 first. A political lady gave them the name of " The Rain- 
 bow," because they always appeared when the storm was 
 well over. The storm never was over for more than a day 
 or so. Every disagreement in the streets now grew to a 
 revolt, and the temper in clubs and drawing-rooms was 
 quite as quarrelsome. Duels increased at an absurd rate ; 
 everybody was called out for everything. The adversaries 
 often hardly knew what had brought them to the field. In 
 one of these encounters, at the end of 1790, De Castries, 
 a Constitutional Monarchist and a friend of Lafayette's, 
 wounded Charles de Lameth. De Castries' house was 
 attacked and sacked, and Lafayette only just succeeded in 
 preventing its being burned to the ground. In spite of his 
 efforts, he was blamed by the Court, and the sacking was 
 laid at his door. Every day brought him fresh proof 
 that he was between two stools of a sadly explosive 
 nature, a position which did not admit of his resting for a 
 moment. 
 
 Both sides were busy. In 1791, the mob stormed the 
 empty fortress of Vincennes ; a detachment of the National 
 Guard, under Brewer Santerre, was sent to the rescue, 
 
 I.'-IJ
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 but the rascally leader went over to the foe. Lafayette 
 hastened to the scene, and quelled the riot with a flash of 
 his old splendour. That same day, events had been 
 stirring at the Palace. A group of gentlemen, secretly 
 armed, were living near it to protect the King, and whilst 
 the cannon boomed at Vincennes they blundered into a 
 quarrel with the Patriot Guard at the Tuileries. In their 
 excitement, they revealed their hidden weapons ; they 
 were disarmed ; and the affair would have ended there, 
 had not their opponents magnified it into a plot. Hence- 
 forward the King's friends were known as the CJuvaliers 
 au Poignard, and the Jacobins grew daily more clamor- 
 ous in declaring that Lafayette favoured them. 
 
 The course of events did not help him. The King was 
 bent on receiving the Sacrament at Easter from a non- 
 juring priest, and on retiring to St. Cloud for that purpose. 
 His unconstitutional chaplain there was already making 
 the people furious. In vain did he keep his project 
 dark ; when he was on the point of starting, he found his 
 coach surrounded by an angry crowd, who would not let 
 him stir. Lafayette summoned his Guard, and arrived, 
 white horse and all ; he pranced and expostulated without 
 effect. His soldiers actually disobeyed him, and refused to 
 dispel the populace. He had to retire defeated, and let his 
 crestfallen Majesty return to the Tuileries. A great deal 
 of bombast ensued. The Commander resigned his com- 
 mandership ; the Guard arrived to protest. Lafayette, 
 unable to face his men, went away from the house and left 
 his wife to cope with them. Adrienne, delighted at his 
 resignation and the peace it meant for her, came down 
 from her room to receive the Municipality and the sixty 
 suppliant battalions. She addressed each one of them 
 with dignity and precision, careful, in her speech to observe 
 
 132
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 every shade of designation, from that of the " Chef du 
 Batailion" to that of the incendiary, Santcrre. They re- 
 treated in despair, and her triumph was complete. Not 
 for long, however. Municipal courage took only four days 
 to revive. After that period had elapsed, they waited on 
 Lafayette again ; he appeared " without his blue uniform, 
 in civic pepper-and-salt frock . . . the National Guards 
 kneeling to him and declaring that it is not sycophancy ; 
 that they are free men kneeling here to the Statue of 
 Liberty." They promised to renew their oath of allegiance 
 to the law. On this, their General relented and resumed 
 his military functions, together with his former post as 
 hero. Nothing was settled then without dramatic swear- 
 ing, and — what was more fatal — an oath, once taken, was 
 looked upon as an action accomplished. Even Lafayette 
 felt satisfied by these regimental vows, and returned to 
 work, full of hope again. 
 
 The King's mood was less happy ; he complained to the 
 Assembly about St. Cloud, but he complained in vain. 
 Mirabeau was dead, and the voice of Robespierre already 
 prevailed. Day by day, the Revolutionaries became more 
 powerful in the Constituante. Three parties now dis- 
 puted the floor there : the extreme gaiicJie or Jacobin 
 opposition ; the Court party ; and the Feuillans, or Liberal- 
 Conservatives. The Girondin party was as yet hardly 
 formed, but was soon to detach itself and make a fourth 
 group. Parliament was not the only machinery of 
 Government. Outside it were other agencies, some dead, 
 some alive. There were the ghosts of ministries still 
 moving automatically ; there were ever-increasing clubs, 
 vital with the energy of youth. That of the Jacobins, 
 especially, was galvanizing public opinion, and pulling the 
 wires of the Assembly. From such tribunals, the royal 
 
 133
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 tenants of the Tuileries could not hope for much indul- 
 gence, nor did they take the right road to gain it. 
 
 On the night of June the 20th, came the tragic flight to 
 Varennes. That evening Lafayette had gone, as usual, to 
 attend the Couchh of the King. On coming out, as his 
 carriage rolled through the inner arch of the Carrousel, " a 
 lady in a gipsy hat " stepped aside into its shadow to let it 
 pass ; " she had even the whim to touch a spoke of it with 
 her badine" or fashionable cane ; it was the Queen herself. 
 Further on, he passed close to the famous glass Berline, 
 with Count Fersen on its box, and was seen by little 
 Madame Royale, as she sat there watching for her mother. 
 The Commander retired to bed, satisfied that all was as 
 usual. He slept till six, when a thundering at the door 
 awoke him. It was a Patriot deputy with a note. La- 
 fayette accompanied him to the palace : the great birds 
 had flown. He was summoned before the Assembly and 
 examined ; Paris even threatened him with pikes. But 
 his classical attitude once more saved him ; he was the 
 part he played, and his artistic audience was overcome 
 by the Roman effect. Whilst they awaited the return of 
 Royalty, the word " Republican " was for the first time 
 placarded on the city walls ; it was the name of a forth- 
 coming periodical, but its title was repudiated as too half- 
 hearted. 
 
 There was confusion everywhere. " This unhappy coun- 
 try," as Morris had already written, " bewildered in the 
 pursuit of metaphysical whimsies, presents to our view a 
 mighty ruin. . . . The sovereign humbled to the level 
 of a beggar, without pity, without resources, without 
 authority, without a friend : the Assembly at once a master 
 and a slave, new in power, wild in theory, raw in practice." 
 
 The people again petitioned Lafayette to depose Louis 
 
 134
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 XVI., and again he compromised. Nothing could be more 
 trying than the position in which he now found himself. 
 He was a fervent Republican, according to his own accept- 
 ance of the term. To him, it meant a hater of violence and 
 an advocate of absolute parliamentary control. So long 
 as this condition was respected, he could put up with a 
 nominal king, especially when he considered the crucial 
 state of affairs. 
 
 Events had tempered his absolutism, and the Jacobin 
 excesses made him begin to think that some form of 
 monarchy might be expedient 
 
 " You know," he writes to his wife, " that my heart 
 would have been wholly Republican, if my reason had not 
 given me this tinge of Royalism ; if my faith to my vows 
 and the will of the Nation had not made me a defender of 
 the constitutional rights of the King." 
 
 This sums up all the bitterness of his situation. As the 
 English Parliamentarians of 1649 to Cromwell and his In- 
 dependents, as the Liberal-Unionist to the Home Ruler, so 
 was he to the Jacobins, and they regarded him as a traitor 
 to liberty. Their abuse only made him hold the more 
 lovingly to his principles. Never, said his wife, did she so 
 much admire him as at this crisis. On the one hand, he 
 renounced his Republican prejudices for unity's sake, and 
 voted with the Jacobin majority in the hope that he might 
 thus control it ; on the other, he undertook all responsi- 
 bility and faced certain blame, that he might ensure the 
 safety of the royal family and spare them every possible 
 l)ain. His wife made a point of going to the Tuileries 
 directly the Queen received ; she was the only lad\' pre- 
 sent who belonged to the Patriotic party. Like her hus- 
 band, she believed that at such a juncture, personal 
 relations should not be controlled b}- politicb. But other 
 
 135
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 people had no such delicacy, and, at the last Royal Ball, the 
 two de Lameths refused to dance with Marie Antoinette. 
 Lafayette felt every discourtesy as a blot on the honour of 
 his party, and did his best to atone. He went to and fro 
 between Palace and Assembly, trying to negotiate between 
 sovereign and people, seconded by the revolutionary Bar- 
 nave, who had fallen captive to the Queen's charms. But 
 Lafayette began to feel depressed about his cause. No 
 doubt his wife's family were heartbroken at the misfor- 
 tunes of the Bourbons ; so was his anonymous friend. " I 
 can't tell you how deeply your letter afflicts me," he writes 
 to her. " A revolution invoked by my prayers, partly pro- 
 duced by my efforts, and supported with all my strength, 
 makes every one I love unhappy. I have devoted myself 
 to it to my last breath ; but the charm it possessed for me 
 is poisoned by the effect which it has on the objects dearest 
 to my heart." 
 
 Meanwhile, the over-social Revolution was eager to give 
 another entertainment ; it found occasions to hand. There 
 was a general desire to dethrone " Gros Louis" Why not 
 draw up a monster Petition to that effect and place it on 
 the Altar of the Fatherland in the Champ de Mars ? No 
 sooner said than done. July 17 was the date fixed. All 
 was proceeding in due order, when a disabled soldier and 
 his comrade were found hidden below the altar with their 
 luncheon. Surely they were aristocrats in disguise, with 
 gunpowder to blow up the whole of Patriotism ! They 
 must be destroyed. Fighting ensued ; the tumult grew 
 worse, and Lafayette was at last obliged to hoist the Red 
 Flag on the Hotel de Ville. Then he and Mayor Bailly 
 rode forth into the Champ de Mars, and Bailly read the 
 Riot Act with no effect. The Commander ordered his 
 Guard to fire — in the air. The scuffle became a battle. 
 
 136
 
 THE EVH OF THE TERROR 
 
 The Military fired again, this time in earnest. The mob, 
 threatening Lafayette's life, at last dispersed, vowing they 
 would assassinate his wife. She sat at home within hear- 
 ing of the storm, and trembled for her husband's safety. 
 Her children were with her, pale with panic. One of them 
 described in after years with what joyous calm she rose 
 and made all needful preparations when she saw the 
 brigand army approaching her house and knew they had 
 left the Champ de Mars and Lafayette. They were 
 actually scaling the garden wall and on the point of en- 
 tering the front door, when a regiment of Cavalry, riding 
 by chance across the Square, attacked and disbanded 
 them. But their memories were retentive, and they 
 nursed a fresh grudge against Lafayette for his part in 
 the affair. 
 
 Fatigue was beginning to tell on him. The best blood 
 was leaving the country. Ever since '89, emigration had 
 begun, and now a cloud of emigrants was hovering over 
 the frontier. They were speedily finding support and be- 
 coming a serious danger. The Sovereigns of Austria and 
 Prussia met the Comte d'Artois, the King's brother, and 
 General Bouillc, at Pilnitz, in Prussia, and there effected a 
 Coalition in the August of 1791. The nation was in dan- 
 ger — let the Patriots look to it ! 
 
 But it had other things to think of — -fcastings and re- 
 joicings ; for in ScjJtembcr, the Constitution was finished. 
 What is more, on the 21st, it was sworn to by the King, or 
 rather "the Executive Power," as he was henceforth to be 
 called. He and his family were no longer prisoners ; there 
 was a general amnesty ; all was [)eace and hope. Morris 
 said that if the new Constitution was to succeed, God 
 would have to create a new race of men to live under it. 
 But for Paris in general the Millennium had come. The 
 
 137
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Assemble Constituante had done its work ; it came to 
 an end amidst loud plaudits, and the L^gislatif reigned 
 in its stead. The work of Lafayette was also over — or 
 he thought so. He was longing for his quiet hearth at 
 Chavaniac. Once more he believed that the reign of 
 Liberty had come ; he resigned his commandership. His 
 Guards wept, and presented him with a sword made from 
 the bolts of the Bastille. The Municipality voted him the 
 slightly oppressive honours of a gold medal and a marble 
 bust of Washington ; they also decreed that their gift 
 should be recorded upon his statue in the Hotel de Ville. 
 He had a triumphal journey through Auvergne, on which 
 Adrienne accompanied him. Every village was decorated ; 
 every town sent forth its Mayor and illuminated scroll. 
 At Plauzat, on their road, Madame de Montagu was stay- 
 ing, in the company of her Conservative father-in-law, 
 the Marquis de Beaune. Madame Lafayette wished to 
 visit them, but the testy old Noble would not admit 
 Lafayette within his doors, and the two sisters could only 
 meet in secret, at a wayside inn. It was with tears that 
 Pauline de Montagu renounced the joy of sheltering the 
 forbidden guests ; with tears that she took leave of 
 Adrienne — a farewell for more years than she dreamed of 
 
 Lafayette settled at Chavaniac, with his wife, his three 
 children — Anastasie, George and Virginic— and his old 
 aunt, now seventy-two years of age, whose heart was with 
 him, if her prejudices were not. 
 
 " As a lover of Liberty and Equality," he wrote in the 
 autumn of 1791, " I enjoy the change which has placed all 
 citizens on one level and only respects legal authorities. I 
 can't tell you with what delight I bend my back before a 
 village Mayor. I put as much pleasure and perhaps as 
 much variety into absolute repose as, for these fifteen years 
 
 138
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 past, I have put into action. . . . It is only the duty 
 of defending my country which could snatch me from 
 private life." His wife was as happy as he, and they 
 dreamed they had at last found the Arcadia they 
 coveted. 
 
 In October, the L^gislatif had its first meeting ; it was 
 fated to sit for a year only — till September, 1792. Less 
 brilliant than the Constituante, it was also more Radical. 
 The position of parties had shifted in an almost farcical 
 way. All the Moderates, Constitutionalists as well as 
 Republicans, had united. To be curbed is a likelier fate 
 than to be abolished ; and to the Court, they were far 
 more formidable than the extravagant Jacobins. Accord- 
 ingly, the Royalists allied themselves with the Extreme 
 GaucJu ; they even supported the nomination to the 
 Mayorship of the king-hating Pction, against that of 
 Lafayette, which was mooted for a moment and dreaded 
 as a catastrophe. Petion came into office, and as time 
 went on, the Moderates were submerged and the Jacobins 
 prevailed. " Parties are at present divided as follows," 
 wrote Lafayette, rather later : " Robesj^ierre, Danton, Des- 
 moulins constitute the Jacobin mob. These marionettes 
 are worked from the wings, and serve the Court by 
 disorganizing everything. . . . The other faction, 
 general!}- called the " High Jacobins," supports the existing 
 Ministry, and is C(jmposed of Bordclais, the Abbe Sieyes, 
 Condorcet, Rcjedcrcr. These fear and hate Robespierre, 
 but d(Mi't dare to make themselves unpopular. They be- 
 lieve war to be inevitable . . . and agreed some time 
 ago that, even though they hate me personal!)-, they must 
 keep full ccjntulence in mc as the imperturbable friend of 
 Liberty and Equality, and the incorruptible defender of 
 the Constitution." 
 
 139
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 These same Jacobins were having a busy autumn. They 
 were anxious to get rid of their enemies. First they 
 passed a decree declaring that all ^migrh who had not 
 returned to France were guilty of high treason ; then they 
 schemed to get Lafayette out of the country. But the 
 adder had to be offered in a basket of roses. Events 
 provided them with one compatible with their interests. 
 War with the Allied Princes was now imminent. An army 
 was hastily formed ; and on December the 6th, Lafayette, 
 Liickner, and Rochambeau were appointed as its generals. 
 They were worthy comrades. Rochambeau had helped 
 Washington, and both he and Liickner were heroes of 
 the Seven Years' War. Lafayette's dream was over ; " the 
 duty of defending his country" called him. He had to 
 gird on his half-rusted sword and leave home at once for 
 the frontier. 
 
 It was a terrible blow to his wife. He was eager for her 
 to join him ; but she was afraid of cramping his freedom, or 
 compromising his safety, and courageously refused. They 
 tried to bridge over the gulf of absence by a correspond- 
 ence as steady as the times permitted, but dangers of all 
 sorts surrounded him. 
 
 What he dreaded most was the Patriots' criticism of his 
 actions — and with reason. No sooner had he gone, than 
 they accused him of " Republicanism ", now a cardinal 
 sin ; of deceiving the people ; and of being more dangerous 
 than the aristocracy. " I have no party excepting the 
 French nation," he bravely replied from Metz ; " but my 
 friends and I will serve anybody who wishes to do good, 
 defend Liberty and Equality, and uphold the Constitu- 
 tion." He had not long to wait before he proved his words. 
 Dumouriez was made War Minister, and war was declared 
 in April, 1792. 
 
 140
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 n 
 
 Within the walls of Paris, the rumour of battles pro- 
 duced only a pleasurable excitement. The spirit of 
 suspicion was beginning to glide with wakeful eyes through 
 its streets ; but, unaware of this, it continued its usual 
 round of work and gaieties. The Queen appeared at the 
 Opera Comique, held in what was formerly the Hotel de 
 Choiseul, in the Chaussce d'Antin — a theatre which was 
 an aristocratic centre. So at first was the Theatre de la 
 Nation, or Comcdie Frangaise, near the Luxembourg, 
 which the King and Queen also frequented, though it 
 afterwards became Republican. The younger and more 
 daring of the Court party went to the Theatre Fran<^ais 
 de la Rue Richelieu — the third great playhouse of Paris. 
 But the theatres increased amazingly ; in 1790, there 
 were no fewer than thirty-five of them, and nowhere else 
 was the gulf between parties more firmly fixed. At the 
 revolutionary theatres, there were almost revolts of en- 
 thusiasm. If an insufficiently heroic hero was crowned 
 on the boards, his crown was torn from his head. Mira- 
 beau, shortly before his death, was perceived in a box by 
 the actors and personally apostrophized. Not long after, 
 it was a soldier of the Bastille siege, who was discovered 
 amongst the audience, borne on to the stage, and crowned 
 with a grey woollen boiuiet du peiiple : the highest honour 
 attainable. On yet another occasion, Voltaire's nephew 
 was the sensation of the performance ; on being recognised 
 in the parterre, he rose and took the occasion to make a 
 fine oration, proposing the removal of his uncle's coffin 
 to Paris ; then he sat down, and the drama continued as 
 before. Voltaire's bust was always being spasmodically 
 shifted from one noble position to another, according to 
 the inspiration of the play. One performance was 
 
 141
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 altogether interrupted that it might be placed opposite that 
 of Brutus. These outbursts of democracy were matched 
 by patrician outbursts at the Royalist theatres. There 
 was one play at which both sides met ; boxes and amphi- 
 theatre exchanged invective, which grew to hubbub, and 
 threatened to become more tragic than the tragedy on the 
 stage. 
 
 Amongst the actors, party-spirit ran as high as amongst 
 the spectators. At the Theatre de la Nation, they divided 
 into a Right and Left. Talma led the Gauche ; Naudet the 
 Conservatives, There were serious quarrels about the 
 repertory, especially the performances of Charles IX. 
 and Brutus. Naudet made a personal attack upon 
 Talma and tried to get him arrested. Both were sum- 
 moned before Mayor Bailly, but Talma won the day. 
 The subject of the play then in hand was the storming 
 of the Bastille. It was planned that a scene of reconcilia- 
 tion should take place in the middle of the stage battle. 
 Mademoiselle Dugazon, the first actress, who sided with 
 the fascinating Talma, rose amidst the cannon and made 
 a soothing speech in blank verse to the whole staff ; then 
 Talma declaimed complimentary couplets to Naudet, and 
 ended by an effort to embrace him. Naudet sulkily turned 
 away his cheek, and the embrace did not succeed. More 
 compliments — more couplets. At last Naudet, still gloomy, 
 advanced and kissed Mademoiselle Dugazon and Talma 
 upon the forehead. The quarrel was over, and the 
 National Theatre henceforward acted Republican plays in 
 peace. 
 
 The story of the playhouse is always a handbook to 
 popular feeling. The strain of the real drama outside 
 made the public demand light relaxation within its walls. 
 Operettas and little scenes took hold of the stage ; leste 
 
 142
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 subjects invaded it, and the throng of events caused a 
 burst of topical songs. The names of the plays of 1791 
 are as good as a newspaper. Most of them quizzed the 
 ecclesiastical changes. The dissolution of the convents 
 was a favourite subject, so was " The Marria_i:;c of the 
 Pope" a farce of the period. These skits, together with 
 the fashionable caricatures, did no good to the cause of 
 religion. Coarse jokes held the Mass up to ridicule ; it 
 was profaned or fell into disuse, and " Vive la Nation " 
 was sung in the churches instead of the Credo. 
 
 The austerity of the early days of the movement was 
 fast fading away. As orderly belief disappeared, the 
 credulity which took its place became chaotic. Every- 
 body was believed in ; deputes had visions, and prophetesses 
 were easy to meet. There was a Jacobin Cassandra, 
 Mademoi.selle Brousse, who was especially in vogue, 
 and foretold all the events of the Revolution. Other 
 forms of spiritualism were also at work. St Martin, the 
 mystic, a kind of Swedenborgian, was starting on his 
 career, and had a large following ; every necromantic 
 novelty attracted a congregation ; and the more faith a man 
 had in his own infallibilit)-, the more he seemed to seek 
 credentials from the powers he did not believe in. Yet 
 throughout this whirl of disordered thought, side b}- side 
 with the increasing coarseness and commcjnness of life, the 
 Revolution never lets one forget it had a high and stern 
 standard — too high for its promiscuous powers. It tried 
 to impose Stoicism on a race of artists ; the Stoicism, 
 mixing with their blood, became first fanaticism, thirsting 
 to exterminate luxury — then licence. The Bacchanalia of a 
 great principle are even wilder than the orgies of pleasure. 
 
 The signs by which this principle — dying of its own 
 excesses — strove to assert its existence were as pathetic 
 
 143
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 as they were ineffectual. The tendency to renounce 
 luxury was visible in many ways. The very furni- 
 ture showed it. The great satin beds of the Old 
 World gave way to Lits a la F^d^ration, narrow and 
 unadorned, or to hard Lits Patriotiques, supported by 
 wooden columns. There were stiff Republican chairs and 
 couches, in imitation of ancient Rome, and marble clocks, 
 like the tombs of the Scipios, to match them. Madame 
 de Genlis even had a room painted with scenes from 
 Roman history, that her pupils might unconsciously im- 
 bibe classical virtues. Economy was one of them. 
 Hitherto no decent household could exist without a re- 
 tinue of servants, but now their number decreased, and 
 it was the fashion to treat them as equals. There was 
 a whole new circle of constitutional lackeys who called 
 themselves freres servans, and were content to accept 
 all the privileges of brothers without any of their responsi- 
 bilities. They were not so shamelessly Jacobin as to ignore 
 fine shades of rank amongst themselves, and formed a 
 club which was cut up into three classes, impassably 
 divided one from another : " the Bouche, the Ecurie, and 
 the Ckambre." These gentlemen-helps gave themselves up 
 to philosophy and to melancholy ; but the philosophy was 
 ill-digested, and suicide became a distinction amongst them. 
 Great honour was paid to a valet who killed himself by 
 the advice of Seneca and Rousseau — his favourite authors. 
 The shopkeepers had better reason to cut their throats. 
 This emancipation from luxury forced one after another 
 to put up his shutters ; milliners disappeared ; silk-mercers 
 were ruined ; they cursed the craze for unselfishness which 
 possessed the feminine world. The " Trait au Galant," 
 the great ladies' shop, alone remained to testify that 
 womanly vanity still existed. These critical conditions 
 
 144
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 were made more lurid by the money panic which soon 
 prevailed. The uncertainty of events, the fever for 
 gambling, and consequent creation of a paper currency, 
 produced crashes and scares innumerable. At last buy- 
 ing and selling came almost to a standstill. The paper 
 assignats were supposed to be the root of the evil, instead 
 of its symptom ; they were the only makeshift the Radicals 
 could invent to stop the mouth of the public. Madame 
 de Stael, who had been very busy with the Revolution 
 all this time, now tried her hand at keeping Republican 
 accounts, and concerted financial schemes with Talleyrand. 
 There is a caricature of her sitting as Venus at her toilet- 
 table ; the Tariff of Assignats lies upon it ; behind her 
 chair stands the Abbe in the character of a lame Cupid, 
 looking from her beaux yeux to the Tariff. 
 
 History is written in details ; at any rate, it is punctu- 
 ated by them. No sight or sound in the Paris of '91 to 
 '92 was devoid of meaning, and most things were extra- 
 ordinary. The city had reached that crisis of fever when 
 the abnormal is taken for the normal, and disorder is the 
 order of the day. Here we come across Boyer, the aspir- 
 ing Jacobin, who sets up a Bureau de Courage — a duelling 
 d^pot, where he pledges himself to fight all duels under- 
 taken by Revolutionaries, so that the lives of Patriots may 
 be spared. Further on in the street, stands a group of 
 coachmen playing at " Emigrette, or the game of Coblenz," 
 and knocking down imigr^s with marbles. This is now 
 the fashionable recreation of every circle — " a noble sport 
 which dispenses one from the fatigue of thinking," as 
 somebody said at the time. Twenty-five thousand cmi- 
 grettes are made, and live almost as short a time as most 
 of the tUnigres themselves. 
 
 Powder is disappearing from all reflective heads and 
 
 145 L
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 becomes a marked badge of opinion. When Madame de 
 Genlis' nephew (a good citizen, in spite of his birth) arrived 
 with aggressively straight black hair at one of the last 
 princely balls in Paris, he was mistaken for a jockey, and 
 nobody would speak to him. All the ladies wore the 
 white cockade hidden on their hearts, and danced with 
 none but the contre-rivolution cavaliers, who were careful 
 to wear their hair in a frizz, ending in a semi-circle of 
 curls. 
 
 In the daytime, these fine gentlemen still wandered 
 contentedly in and out of their cafes, in the green coats, 
 pink collars, black waistcoats and breeches, that had 
 superseded their deep mourning for Joseph H. The cafes 
 were quite as much party camps as the theatres. Royal- 
 ists, Republicans, Jacobins, and Girondins each had their 
 own. The very food was a chronicle ; one of them served 
 Sotipe a la Cocarde, another Bonbons aux Trois Ordres 
 rhinis, Gateaux a Lafayette^ or Entre-mets du Roi et de la 
 Reine. The Patriot houses were the most enterprising. 
 There was the Caf6 de la Monnaie which suspected 
 Lafayette, " the General of the Cornflowers," and took the 
 trouble to burn his Private Life, which had just been 
 published ; or the Caf^ des Arts, which maliciously spread 
 a rumour that he and Bailly had fled ; or Zoppe's Caf(f, 
 frequented by Hubert, which turned into a political club 
 every day at five, and celebrated Benjamin Franklin's 
 death by covering its chandeliers with crape, and writing 
 " Frank I if I est mart" in giant letters over the door. 
 
 It was at Mafs aristocratic restaurant, in the Palais 
 Royal, that the two chief Royalist newspapers, Les Actes 
 des Aputres and V Apocalypse, were composed. Here the 
 staff — the Apostles as they called themselves — met once 
 a week at their Diner ^vangiHique. They included 
 
 146
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 Rivarol, Lally-Tollendal, Lauragrais, R6gnier, Rulhi^re, 
 Montlosier, and the younger Mirabeau. As they talked, 
 their conversation was written down by an Apostle at 
 one corner of the dinner-table and sent straight to the 
 printer, as the new number. It was a brilliant periodical, 
 more literary than political, illuminated by grotesque civic 
 allegories, and sallies about the Assembly. It had its 
 rivals, Le Vieux Meraire de France — the Times of the day, 
 which boasted La Harpe and Chamfort as its literary 
 representatives ; Le Phimpiidding, full of patrician epi- 
 grams ; La Tasse de Cafi sans Sucre, edited by the younger 
 Mirabeau ; Les Oenfs frais de Besayiqon, in which Demoi- 
 selle Theroigne is described denouncing Lafayette's white 
 horse as an aristocrat; and La Lanterne Magique Nationale, 
 which makes " I'Eveque Clochant " (Talleyrand) exclaim 
 with triumph : " I have never walked straight ; I have 
 two bad legs ; I have made many faux pas in my life ; 
 but that does not hinder me from catching up other 
 people." 
 
 Ridicule, the forlorn hope of a failing party, was the 
 only weapon of the aristocratic papers. Their very names 
 were an index of their contents, and satire filled their 
 columns instead of news, for there was none that they 
 dared relate. The revolutionary journals, on the contrary, 
 were grave and earnest, in title as in matter. There are 
 La Passion, la Mort, et la Rifsurrcction du Peuple, which 
 savours of religious revival ; Marat's Ami du Peuple ; 
 Brissot's Patriate Frangais ; Desmoulin's brilliant Rh'olu- 
 tions de France et de Brabant ; Prudhomme's Rt'volutions 
 de Paris, and Le Courier Fran^ais, read by Charlotte 
 Corday before she set forth on her mission. In spite of 
 their number, all of them succeeded. The public cried 
 out for more. " What merit have you in being a Patriot," 
 
 147
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 asked St. Just, a little later, "when a newspaper brings 
 you in ;^ 1,200 a year ? " 
 
 The political ladies in their salons discussed the papers 
 eagerly. They had their own organs, but the chief of 
 these, Le Veritable Ami de la Reine, made fun of feminine 
 politics. What they liked best was the sparkling froth 
 of journalism — the pamphlets, lampoons, and topical 
 stories which were sold in the streets, and, like the songs, 
 increased with every fresh incident. There was a skit 
 on Royalty, '^ Le Grand Denouement de la Constitution" 
 which was highly fashionable in 1791. ^^ Gros Louis" is 
 discovered sitting motionless in his armchair. Enter a 
 citizen. ^^Allons, M, Gros Louis" he cries, " look sharp ! 
 Here is the nation come to visit you. Is it not time that 
 you declare freely that you are very free ? " Gros Louis 
 (out of breath) replies : " Oh, oh yes, gentlemen ; I answer 
 for it, gentlemen ; I declare it aloud — oh, goodness, how 
 free I am ! " 
 
 The hour was coming when he was not to be allowed 
 even to sit still. 
 
 HI 
 
 On the frontier, the army of the Revolution was fight- 
 ing with inauspicious results ; the hour of its success had 
 not yet come. In the Salle de Manege, the Girondins, 
 inspired by their prophetess, Madame Roland, were rising 
 into prominence. Her salon was the armoury whence 
 they came forth equipped for the battle, and when her 
 husband, the Minister of the Interior, opened his lips in 
 the Assembly, it was she who spoke through them ; Buzot, 
 a leading spirit, was hopelessly in love with her ; she 
 revived the souls that flagged, and cheered on the cour- 
 ageous ; she reasoned like a man ; she felt like a woman. 
 
 148
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 The handful of enthusiasts who had travelled in a coach 
 from their Gironde to Paris, bent upon an ideal, an almost 
 Platonic, Republic, had now swelled to a large and motley 
 faction, whose members came from other parts, and had 
 no geographical connection with the Girondins — only the 
 spiritual relationship of similar aspirations. Abstinence 
 from violent means was one of their original conditions, 
 and provincial self-government one of their secondary 
 aims. There seems no real reason why, in their earlier 
 days, they should not have co-operated with Lafayette ; 
 but he was too constitutional for their visionary ideas, and 
 there were minute technical differences which made a gulf 
 between them. Gradually they joined the cry for the 
 abdication of the King, and made common cause with the 
 Jacobins. Noble of intellect and, but for their women, 
 weak of will, they represented the Culture of the Revolu- 
 tion — Culture with its impressionable foibles, as well as 
 its refinements. Their temper and their views were both 
 academic, and their attitude resembled that of the Fabians 
 in our own day : the Fabians translated into the French 
 temperament. Like them, they were eloquent in debate, 
 lavish of theory, and confident of reaching their ends by 
 gradual methods and brilliant dialectics. They were far 
 more subtle than the Bonnets Rouges ; but it was these that 
 covered the most conspicuous heads.^ 
 
 ' The oii;;inal men of the Gironde were soon joined by two j^roups 
 of Jacobin Dissenters — Roland and his followers, Hrissot and his 
 Brissotins. (The term " Girondins," as a collective name for the wliole 
 part} , does not occur till afier August the loth, 1792 ; before that, they 
 were known by various designations.) It is true that the prominent 
 and active Brissot had much extremer tendencies than most of his 
 colleagues ; so had Pelion, and two or three others. Bui though tliey 
 wrote and spoke with some violence, their deeds did not match their 
 worda till later days, when the influence of Brissot and Potion, and 
 the growing ambition of Madame Roland, led the rest into excesbCa. 
 
 149
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 On June the i6th the irrepressible Lafayette wrote a letter 
 to the Legislatify warning it as to the growing influence 
 of the Jacobins. Their fury at this was unbounded : they 
 swore his destruction. The foolish King chose this mo- 
 ment to veto a popular decree for a camp of volunteers 
 near Paris ; what was worse, he dissolved the Patriot 
 Ministry. His action gave the signal to the Incendiaries. 
 Potion, Danton, and Santerre drilled and armed troops 
 of beggars ; ruffians were admitted to the L^gislatif, to 
 overawe the Moderates by their threats ; the Terror had 
 practically begun. The first step to be taken was the 
 abolition of the Royal Veto, and the measure was proposed 
 in the Salle de Manege. Debate followed upon debate ; 
 the people outside grew impatient for the result, and took 
 matters into their own hands. They would do away with 
 the Veto themselves. 
 
 Again we must look with the eyes of Carlyle to see how 
 they managed it. We can watch the " Procession of Black 
 Breeches " mustering in the streets, early in the morning 
 of June the 20th, '92, under Santerre and St. Huruge. A 
 pair of old black silk breeches floated flag-like on a pike- 
 staff in their midst, with ^^ Trembles, Tyrans; voild les Satis- 
 culottes," written over it. They marched to the Salle de 
 Manage, planting a Tree of Liberty in passing, on the 
 Feuillan terrace of the Tuileries. The D^puth promised 
 many things, soothed them about the Veto, and let them 
 go. On they rushed to the palace of the Tuileries, and 
 forced the doors ; they surged in and out, invading the 
 Royal presence, screaming that the Veto must disappear 
 and the Patriot Ministers come in. Gros Louis, with a 
 
 Even then, lurid action as well as lurid speech may always be traced 
 back to the same persons — the worst spirits of the faction, who by no 
 means represent the majority. 
 
 150
 
 TFIE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 bonnet rouge upon his head, did his best to mollify thcin. 
 At last he partly succeeded, and they dispersed, exhausted 
 by hunger and fatigue. 
 
 When Lafayette heard of this outrage, the news came 
 Hke an electric shock. With his usual impetuosity, and 
 his customary scorn of danger, he left the frontier at once, 
 and travelled night and day till he reached Paris, a week 
 and twenty-four hours after the occurrence. Travel-stained 
 and tired, the mud still on his riding-boots, he stood at the 
 bar of the Ldgislatif, expostulating, arguing and demand- 
 ing punishment of the malefactors. The silent members, 
 angry and concentrated, only spoke to censure his coming 
 without permission, and to ask for explanations. But out- 
 side their walls, he still had power. 
 
 When he came away, his coach rolled off, surrounded by 
 blue uniforms and enthusiastic Feuillans ; M. Resson, the 
 proprietor of a revolutionary cafe opposite, heard them 
 shout, " A has les Jacobins ! " as they went by. A crowd 
 collected on his track and accompanied him home ; they 
 planted one of their trees before his door. That same 
 night, in his deserted house, he held a council of National 
 Guards and Feuillans. They discussed what could be 
 done to save the nation from these regicide Jacobins who 
 were fatal to liberty. The high-spirited General decided 
 to review what forces he could collect on the Feuillans' 
 Terrace next day ; he was certain he could raise an army. 
 Only one hundred men appeared ; what matter ? There 
 would be more the day after. Meanwhile he paid the 
 King a visit. It was desperate work. The Oucen refused 
 her aid in any scheme, and he was forced to depart as 
 he came. Another council in his study ; another review. 
 This time only thirty recruits arrived. It was on .Satur- 
 day ; Sunday saw him on his road back to the army, 
 
 151
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 weary, disgusted, but not hopeless. At any rate he had 
 obtained the expulsion of Mayor Petion ; but, in two days, 
 this favourite of the Incendiaries was reinstated in full 
 civic glory. 
 
 His visit had other results ; he left his enemies behind 
 him. His action in leaving the frontier was still unex- 
 plained ; they would not let him off, but formed a com- 
 mittee to inquire into his conduct. Besides, he was giving 
 them fresh food for their suspicion. Why was he moving 
 towards Paris with his soldiers, at this particular moment, 
 when the terror-striking rumours of the Duke of Bruns- 
 wick's approach with an immense army were demanding 
 the concentration of all patriotic forces ? For once, La- 
 fayette's enemies were not wholly wrong ; he was planning 
 a march to Compiegne. The King was to ask permission 
 to take a change of air there ; Lafayette would then sur- 
 round and regenerate him. He was to swear afresh to the 
 Constitution, and emerge a new sort of King — a Repub- 
 lican Monarch, after Lafayette's own impossible pattern. 
 Then he, his brothers and the heroic General would march 
 against the imigris, those old friends of Versailles, whom 
 a Republican king was bound to look upon as his mortal 
 enemies. The scheme failed, and Lafayette was definitely 
 accused of marching on Paris. His aide-de-camp, Bureaux 
 de Pusy, got himself into danger by appearing before the 
 Ligislatif to refute these charges against his chief. But 
 the committee could not find sufficient evidence against 
 Lafayette, and were forced to acquit him. 
 
 This did not do at all. Iron-browed Danton and busy, 
 pioneering Brissot could not let the matter drop. With 
 Isnard, they formed a sub-committee to sift the facts 
 again. Their tempers were not improved by the fact that 
 the allies had crossed the frontier, and that the Duke of 
 
 iri2
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 Brunswick had issued his Proclamation threatening to 
 rase Paris to the ground, if it did not submit to the King. 
 The Lt'gislatif did not know what course to take ; it was 
 clogged by the hesitation of the Girondins, as much as by 
 the incoherence of the Gauche and the ruffians they had 
 imported. It ended by doing nothing but formulate its 
 hatred of Lafayette. The sub-committee's final verdict on 
 him was promised for August the 8th. 
 
 This was in July. At the close of the month, the call for 
 abdication was universal. Within a few days, it became a 
 shout. The question was being discussed in the Legislatif\ 
 they tried to pacify the mob by promising that on August 
 the 9th it should receive a decisive answer. The mob 
 replied that if it did not, it would take the matter into 
 its own hands. Lafayette's affairs were forgotten in more 
 crucial business. Debates raged, but August the 9th 
 passed, and no answer had been given. Meanwhile, the 
 people had made their preparations. Arms were distri- 
 buted ; barricades and camps sprang up throughout the 
 districts. The tinder was all ready. 
 
 The match was laid to it by Suleau, a National Guard 
 and a journalist. In the Actes des Apotres he had pub- 
 lished a satire upon Demoiselle Theroigne, making fun of 
 her amotirs with Populus. He was deputed by the fright- 
 ened Municipality to inspect and report upon the popular 
 fortifications. Theroigne was standing talking on the 
 Terrace of the Feuillans, a Grenadier cap on her head and 
 pistols in the belt of her short red skirt, when he passed 
 that way, intent upon his errand. She accused him to 
 the knot of people round her ; they seized him, and tore 
 him to pieces. It was a good enough pretext. The noise 
 had summoned their allies, and the whole army of ruffians 
 rushed upon the Tuileries. 
 
 153
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 We know how they stormed it ; how the chivalrous 
 Swiss — the King's soldiers — fought hand to hand with the 
 patriotic Marseillese, their rivals in courage ; how a hun- 
 dred carts of dead were driven to the Madeleine ; how the 
 mob rushed into the palace and found that their victims 
 had gone. For, at the first signal of danger, the Royal 
 party had slipped away and taken refuge in the Legislatif. 
 Here they remained for seventy-two hours, spending their 
 nights in three little upper closets, their days in the re- 
 porters' gallery, and listening to debates as to whether 
 they really existed, or were only the shadows of them- 
 selves. At the end of that time, the question was decided 
 — they were only shadows. Vergniaud's speech, proposing 
 to dethrone them, clinched their fate. They were driven 
 in Pdtion's coach to the Temple Prison, only to emerge for 
 supreme reasons. 
 
 Moderates and aristocrats were slaughtered all over 
 Paris ; the arrests soon became wholesale, and they did 
 not know where to turn, unless it were to their old friends. 
 It was the occasion for heroic hospitality, and a crucial test 
 of good faith. Morris stood it for one, the more safely 
 that he was a foreigner. All through the fatal loth, the 
 nobles crowded into his house, and he made it into a 
 secret inn for his ci-devant acquaintance. In a few days 
 the Jacobins had arranged a provisionary government — a 
 Council-general of the Commune, and a Committee of the 
 Revolution, led by Robespierre. These were to last till the 
 National Convention was organized — the National Con- 
 vention, which was to be absolute without tyranny. But, 
 meanwhile, Lafayette possessed the heart of the Military ; 
 the support of the Military was needful ; it might be wise 
 to win them over. So, without consulting him, the Com- 
 mune published in its newspapers his approval of August 
 
 154
 
 THE EVE OF THE TERROR 
 
 the loth, and contentedly sent commissioners to announce 
 the new Government to the different divisions of the army. 
 Lafayette was furious at these insolent measures, and im- 
 prisoned the commissioners. He would not stir an inch 
 from his position, but desired his troops to accompany him 
 to Paris ; this they refused to do, but they deputed him to 
 represent them there. In vain he obeyed them, and went 
 in company with Alexandre de Lameth. He came and 
 departed with as little result as before. 
 
 On August the 19th, the Commune declared him a traitor. 
 A Jacobin swore to bring him, alive or dead, to its bar. 
 He was back at the northern frontier. There were three 
 courses open to him : to go on resisting and be executed ; 
 to join the Jacobins ; or to flee to a foreign country. La- 
 fayette regarded his life as valuable, and chose the latter. 
 He planned to escape, by Brussels, to England or America. 
 He had already been deposed from his generalship, and 
 Dumouriez was to replace him. Lafayette confided his 
 men to Luckner's care, till the new commander should 
 arrive, and started at night with Alexandre de Lameth 
 and his aides-de-camp, Maubourg and Bureaux de Pusy. 
 Their journey was fraught with peril ; all the country on 
 their route was in the hands of the aristocratic Allies, who 
 rivalled the Jacobins in hating Lafayette. After some 
 travelling, they found themselves at Rochefort, an Austrian 
 outpost. Thence de Pusy started for Namur, where he 
 hoped to get their passports. This would have been easy, 
 if they had been less trusting and had changed Lafayette's 
 name. They thought the Governor was a friend ; but iiis 
 friendship was not proof against the triumph of producing 
 such a prize. He gave the passports, and allowed them to 
 proceed unconsciously as far as Liege. But here he had 
 them arrested. 
 
 155
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Belgium was occupied by Prussia, and it was Prussians 
 who examined the prisoners. Accusations were heaped 
 upon Lafayette. Amongst other things, he was said to 
 have stolen and secreted the public treasure of France. 
 Only one chance of freedom was given him — that of re- 
 canting his opinions. This he absolutely refused to do, 
 and he and his companions were imprisoned in the Prus- 
 sian fortress at Wegel, 
 
 Many things had happened to his wife before the news 
 of this calamity reached her. 
 
 I5t>
 
 Arrest 
 
 157
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Arrest 
 
 ALL these months, Adrienne had remained at Chavaniac. 
 Her mother and sister left her at the moment that 
 Lafayette departed for the army, and she said farewell to 
 them, little dreaming it was for the last time. Her grief 
 at losing them was the less that they were going to Paris, 
 where, if anywhere, they could get information about his 
 movements. Their feelings on leaving her were acute, 
 and a fresh sorrow was added to that of absence. Recent 
 events had doubtless unsettled her, and she was passing 
 through a phase of religious doubt — '' cojivalescetice 
 morale " — as she called it. Her faith in God was sure, but 
 certain dogmas filled her with questionings. She could 
 no longer take the Sacrament, or receive comfort from 
 the rites which fortified her mother's soul against every 
 event. Time brought back belief to her, the stronger 
 for her wrestlings, but it seemed to desert her just when 
 she most needed it. The tragedies of August the loth 
 were not calculated to restore it ; they shook her very soul. 
 Then came the news that a price had been set on her 
 husband's head. She waited, trembling, to hear of his 
 death. At last, on August the 24th, the Vicomtesse de 
 Noailles, her faithful correspondent, let her know of his 
 escape from France. Every inmate of the house came 
 to rejoice with her — the more touchingly that a sacking 
 
 159
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 of the Chateau by the fabulous " brigands " was hourly 
 expected. She put everything in order, burned or hid 
 his papers, and resolved to send away the children. A 
 constitutional Curd came to offer her a refuge in the 
 mountains. She accepted it for her son and his tutor, 
 M. Frestel, and sent the girls to a small town, two miles 
 off. She herself remained at Chavaniac with her old aunt, 
 who could not be moved. Her heart was calm now that 
 she believed Lafayette to be out of danger. 
 
 Her head was still calmer. Directly the roads seemed 
 fairly safe, she thought it expedient to show herself at 
 Brioude, the chief town of the district. Its citizens gave 
 her a kind of ovation ; the aristocratic ladies of the place 
 were as eager as they to do her honour, but she refused 
 their attentions. " I regard as an insult," she said, " every 
 tribute that I cannot share with my husband — every word 
 that tries to separate my cause from his." At the same 
 time she did not fear the Patriots, or retreat an inch from 
 her position. She went publicly to hear Mass celebrated 
 by an unconstitutional priest, and then returned quietly to 
 Chavaniac. 
 
 Here she found further fruits of her courageous deliber- 
 ation. She had actually asked the Jacobins to put their 
 mark, the famous seal, upon her doors, as a protection 
 against the mountain brigands, who were still looked for. 
 On her return, she found officials in the house, who 
 treated her with the greatest respect. The odious word 
 emigri was left out of the proccs-verbal which, according 
 to custom, they drew up, and there seemed nothing to fear 
 from Government. Under these circumstances, it ap- 
 peared safe to have her children back, and she sent for 
 them. It was now September. Just before their arrival, 
 came two letters from her husband, announcing his arrest, 
 
 i6o
 
 ARREST 
 
 Her daughters found her in great distress, but hopeful. 
 She could not believe that the Republic would lay hands 
 upon its father, Parmenides. This was in the first days 
 of September, 1792. She was only to hear from him once 
 in 1793, and then not again till the summer of 1795. This 
 silence was one of the worst horrors of the three years 
 before her. 
 
 As for Lafayette, even now, on his road to prison, he 
 was as sanguine as ever. He did not think that his arrest 
 was serious, and in one of the letters to his wife makes 
 a definite plan for his family to join him in England. He 
 would travel there the moment he was released — in a few 
 days at most. He recognised at last, however, that the 
 Revolution of '92 was not the Revolution of '89, and 
 that he could find no safety in his own country. 
 
 " My nation," he writes to Adrienne ..." would 
 have been free, and worthy of being so, if personal interests 
 had not combined to corrupt the mind of the public. 
 . . . As for me, it has sworn my ruin long since. If 
 I had more ambition than morality, I could lead a life 
 very different from this one ; but between crime and me, 
 there will never be anything in common. I was the last 
 man who defended the Constitution to which we had 
 plighted our troth." 
 
 The Stuart Royalists would not have felt more trium- 
 phant at the capture of Hampden, than did t'migrh and 
 princes at their possession of Lafayette. Such a prisoner 
 once in their power, they were in no hurry to let him go. 
 His imprisonment in the Prussian fortress of Wcsel was 
 incredibly severe. Daylight and air were denied him ; his 
 bed was so narrow that he could hardly turn in it ; his 
 food so coarse that often he could not tcjuch it. -At length 
 his health became endangered. His captors attempted to 
 
 161 M
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 make him reveal the plans of the Patriotic army ; he 
 refused, and his hardships were redoubled. 
 
 One pain at least was spared him : he did not see the 
 newspapers. From August onwards, they were full of 
 abominations. No aristocrat's life was now safe, and the 
 September massacres of countless prisoners were only a 
 corollary of the horrors. There was no appeal anywhere. 
 Nominally, the country was ruled by the National Con- 
 vention — in reality by the Committee of Public Safety. 
 Danton, Robespierre, Hubert, not yet divided, were its 
 leaders ; St. Just and Desmoulins were prominent names ; 
 Brissot and Roland worked round about it. It was a 
 committee of fanatics, each sincere according to his lights ; 
 as sincere, if not as deep, as our English Puritans. But 
 the Frenchmen lacked the God who alone makes fan- 
 aticism either logical, or forcible ; still more did they lack 
 the control of temperament which gave the weight of 
 morality to Cromwell's party, and even dignified regicide, 
 although it was unable to exculpate it. 
 
 On September the loth, the chateau at Chavaniac was 
 invested by the Republic. Armed men entered it at 
 eight o'clock in the morning, led by a Jacobin who was 
 suspected of just having murdered a prisoner. The com- 
 missioner, another man of ill-repute, showed Madame 
 Lafayette his warrant to remove her to Paris, and a 
 letter from M. Roland to the same effect. At this 
 moment her little girl, whom the governess could not 
 restrain, rushed into the room, resolved not to be parted 
 from her mother. Adrienne was forced to promise that 
 the child should go with her. Lafayette's wife was not the 
 woman to hesitate ; she felt that her safety lay in reaching 
 some authority that might protect her. Accordingly she 
 gave orders that the horses should be instantly put to, and, 
 
 162
 
 ARREST 
 
 whilst waiting for the carriage, she opened her desk and 
 took possession of her husband's letters. " You will see 
 by these, sir," she said to the Commissioner, " that if there 
 were a Tribunal in France, M. de Lafayette would have 
 brouf^ht them his head, confident that there was no action 
 of his life that could compromise him in the eyes of the 
 Patriots." " The Tribunal of to-day, madam," he replied, 
 " is public opinion." 
 
 All this time, the soldiers had been roaming over the 
 house. One of them was looking at the family portraits. 
 " Whose pictures are these ? — great aristocrats doubtless," 
 he asked of the aunt's maid, herself aged and almost 
 blind. " They are the pictures of honest folk," she 
 answered, " and if they were here now, things would not 
 go so badly." The soldier had his own repartee : he 
 pierced several of the canvases and walked off. 
 
 Adrienne managed to slip away to implore her younger 
 daughter to hide herself The elder stayed by her side 
 and helped her with the old aunt, now seventy-three, 
 whom no consideration had ever moved from Chavaniac, 
 but who, in this hour of danger, insisted on going with her 
 niece to Paris ; and the party set off for Puy, the capital 
 of the Department, where the legal examination was to 
 take place. They were accompanied by the faithful 
 servants, who marched with the soldiers, in the hope that 
 they might be of use to their mistress. The sad journey 
 was cheered by the honours paid them in every village 
 they passed through. They slept at one of them and 
 easily reached Puy next day. The entrance into the town 
 was nervous work. A few days earlier a prisoner had 
 been massacred as he approached it, but the Lafayette 
 party arrived safely, excepting for some stones that were 
 thrown at them. " If your father knew you were here, he 
 
 163
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 would be anxious, but he would be very proud of you," 
 said the mother to her daughter, who showed nothing but 
 joy at being present. Adrienne proudly asked to be 
 taken at once to the Dipartement, or Municipal Court 
 of Justice. " I respect the orders of Government as much 
 as I hate those that come from other sources," she said 
 to the official. 
 
 The members of the Dipartement were immediately 
 convoked, and she appeared before them. " I place myself 
 confidently under your protection," she began, " because 
 I see in you the authority of the people, and wherever I 
 see it, I respect it. You receive your orders from M. 
 Roland, or any one else you like ; as for me, I only wish 
 to receive them from you, and I make myself your 
 prisoner." Then she demanded that Lafayette's letters, 
 which had been taken from her, should be written out 
 before they were sent to Paris, and a copy given to her. 
 She also asked leave to read them aloud to the Court. 
 Consent was given. Some one objected that the task 
 might prove too painful for her. " On the contrary," she 
 rejoined, " the feelings they express support me and are 
 my best consolation." 
 
 She read out the letters in a firm voice. Their effect 
 upon the Court was extraordinary. All the bigwigs of 
 the town had been summoned, and had drifted into the 
 Hall, one after the other. The same emotion seized all of 
 them ; plaudits alternated with tears, and Lafayette's 
 eloquence, in the lips of his wife, once more prevailed. 
 She kept her spirit quiet, never allowed herself to re- 
 member the stake at issue, and observed every face with 
 undisturbed attention. She even had leisure to think of 
 others, and imagining that the Mayor would compromise 
 himself by his benevolence to her, she unselfishly re- 
 
 164
 
 ARREST 
 
 established him in public opinion by complaining that he 
 had long since ceased to visit her at Chavaniac. 
 
 When she had finished her reading, and had revised the 
 copy of the letters, she requested that she might lodge in 
 the house of the D^partement for the remainder of her 
 time at Puy. She tried to show the Court the danger of 
 a journey to Paris and the injustice of her detention, and 
 ended by saying that, if they persisted in imprisoning her, 
 she begged it might be at Chavaniac. If they consented, 
 she would give her word of honour never to go out. The 
 D^partement was obliging. It granted her the lodgings 
 she desired, and wrote to the Ministry, and M. Roland 
 in particular, to demonstrate the perils of proceeding to 
 Paris to present her petition about Chavaniac. She was 
 allowed to enclose a note to Brissot, whom she had known 
 of old. 
 
 " I believe you are a true fanatic for liberty," she wrote, 
 " it is an honour which at this moment I pay to very few 
 people. I will not inquire whether this fanaticism, like 
 that for religion, usually defeats its own object, but I am 
 convinced that a zealous friend of the slaves cannot be a 
 prop of tyranny ; that you esteem, nay, almost resp>ect, 
 M. Lafayette as a courageous and faithful friend of 
 freedom, even when you persecute him because his 
 opinions make against your new revolution and the party 
 you have embraced. ... I consent" (she proudly 
 ends) " to owe you this service." 
 
 Her confinement was not rigorous. The National 
 Guards of the town, remembering her name, offered to 
 take the place of her rude Patriotic gaolers. Her friends 
 were allowed to visit her, and managed to bring her news 
 of her children. Presently she heard the rumour that 
 Lafayette was imprisoned in a Prussian fortress. It filled 
 
 ib5
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 her with despair. Just at this moment, when she had 
 prayed to return to Chavaniac and given her word not 
 to leave it, came the imperative need to escape from 
 France and join her husband. She could neither forfeit 
 honour, nor rest till she had formed some plan. Her 
 exasperation was aggravated by a letter from Roland 
 granting her petition. He had seen her letter to Brissot, 
 however, had taken offence at its haughty tone, and 
 avenged himself by filling his note to her with insults to 
 Lafayette. " Your expression," he perorated, " about con- 
 senting to owe Brissot a service, savours of the super- 
 annuated pride that is commonly called noblesse^ As her 
 correspondence was under civic supervision, this composi- 
 tion was read aloud in the D^partement, and produced 
 much the same transports as Lafayette's writings had done, 
 a few days earlier. It did her no good with the Muni- 
 cipality. They now insisted that a perpetual guard should 
 be planted at the doors of her Chateau, as a condition of 
 her return there. One of the soldiers, engaged for this 
 purpose, asked if she had given her promise to stay there. 
 " Yes," said an official. " Dajis ce cas," replied the other, 
 "j'eft repondrais mime seul, car dest une brave femme." 
 But even one sentinel was too much for Madame La- 
 fayette. " I declare. Messieurs," she exclaimed, " that if 
 you put a guard at my door, I retract my word. I am 
 not shocked at your not believing me to be an honest 
 woman ; my husband proved much more effectually that 
 he was a good patriot ; but I must beg you to allow me 
 my faith in my own integrity, and not to cumber my word 
 with bayonets." 
 
 She gained her point, on condition that the Municipality 
 was to visit her every fortnight. Some of its officials were 
 there when she returned to Chavaniac, but, far from re- 
 
 i66
 
 ARREST 
 
 senting this, she invited them to supper and made them 
 join her in a toast to Lafayette. " I feel great pleasure 
 and am much honoured in being under the protection of 
 these gentlemen ; but that is because I respect them 
 highly," she said of them. It was now October. M. 
 Frestel had stolen from his hiding-place among the moun- 
 tains to welcome her. He appeared this same evening, 
 at midnight, and talked about the children with her till 
 the small hours of the morning. Her presence seems 
 to have infused the spirit of chivalry into all who 
 approached her, and her boy's tutor was no exception. 
 In her pain at being separated from her husband, she 
 determined to send him their son. Once out of France, 
 she thought, he would easily reach him. M. Frestel was 
 to get a merchant's patent and then a passport for the 
 fair at Bordeaux, whence he and the child would try to 
 reach London. Here they were to seek out Mr. Pinkney, 
 the American Ambassador, and consult with him about the 
 measures to be taken for Lafayette's deliverance. Every- 
 thing seemed to promise well for the scheme, but she felt 
 that her strength would fail her if she bade farewell to her 
 boy, and she refused to sec him again before he left. 
 
 Happily for her, at this critical moment one emotion 
 was overwhelmed by another. All her energies were now 
 devoted to procuring Lafayette's freedom. She wrote to 
 Washington begging him to address the Powers on his 
 behalf and fcjrce them to send him to America. If his 
 family could join him there, so much the happier ; if not, 
 thc\' would be content to know he was safe. She wrote 
 to M. Roland too, a letter full of proud humility — the 
 proudest jjride of all — and begged his pernn'ssion to travel 
 to her husband's [:)rison. She even conquered her reluc- 
 tance to address lirissot, after his last bctra>'al of her con- 
 
 l^>7
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 fidence, and sent him a note of thanks for his services, 
 and entreaty for his influence to help her reach her 
 husband. The fact that now, in October (every month 
 then was a generation), Brissot was gradually separating 
 himself from the Terrorists, made her task the easier ; and 
 the letter she wrote him was perhaps the most character- 
 istic that she ever penned — swift, lucid, eloquent with 
 emotion. 
 
 " I ought not to write to you again," she exclaims, 
 " after the use you make of my letters . . . but do not 
 expect to find either bitterness, or the pride of oppressed 
 innocence in my expressions. I shall plead my cause 
 with only one desire — to gain it. . . . My husband's 
 misfortunes, the risks to his health — everything that I fear, 
 everything that I ignore — all these evils coming together 
 are really not bearable, nailed as I am to a spot so far 
 from him. And when I wonder what service the torture 
 of my heart can render my country, I cannot believe that 
 it will persist in binding me with these leaden chains, 
 because of a promise that I made too lightly. ... It 
 is laying too much importance on my person to keep me 
 here. ... I confess, sir, that I can never believe that 
 the man who for so many years pursued the emancipation 
 of the Negroes, can refuse to use his eloquence in deliver- 
 ing from slavery a woman who asks no other liberty than 
 to go and shut herself up in the walls of a prison. . . . 
 In short you must deliver me." 
 
 Brissot sent a prevaricating answer, and hid his vague- 
 ness in elaborate phrases. He wished, he said, " that it 
 were possible to let Madame give herself up to " the dili- 
 gent sentiment which animated her." M. Roland was much 
 more moved, and replied at once that he had brought her 
 request before the Committee, but warned her that her 
 
 1 68
 
 ARREST 
 
 departure from France would give the worst impression 
 and be full of danger. She thanked him for his courtesy, 
 but nothing further resulted from the correspondence. 
 Something had to be done. In despair at getting no news 
 of Lafayette for three months, she wrote to Frederick of 
 Prussia to entreat his deliverance. Morris, whom she con- 
 sulted, sent her a model of the State letter he thought she 
 ought to send ; she refused to copy it, because she con- 
 sidered it too humble. Her grief, she told the king, should 
 be her only advocate. " As for me," her note goes on, " I 
 will only show how much he deserves to be loved." But 
 her words fell on deaf ears ; she received no reply. 
 
 New anxieties were besetting her. Her messenger to 
 Paris during all this correspondence had been the husband 
 of her mother's maid, the d'Ayens' faithful valet, Beauchet, 
 who was sent by the Duchess to her daughter. He had 
 also acted as newsbearer — a function of great value at this 
 moment, when they dared not write by the post. In 
 November, '92, he brought her tidings of Louis XVI.'s 
 impending trial ; later, of the majestic death which crowned 
 his unmajestic life. She trembled for her family, so in- 
 timately bound up with the Court 
 
 After their return from Chavaniac in '92, they lived 
 in the greatest seclusion, dee[)ened by Madame d'Ayen's 
 sorrow at the death of her saintly sister, Madame Lesparre. 
 It was only to get news of Lafayette that they went out 
 at all. The Duke had emigrated to Switzerland, but June 
 the 20th, the Day of Black Breeches, had brought him 
 back to protect his family and his King. When Lafayette 
 a[)peared to call the Ligislatif to account, the Duchess 
 thanked God for his salvation. For the first time, she felt 
 not only impersonal appreciation of his motives, but per- 
 sonal joy in his action. It was then that he saw her for 
 
 169
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the last time. The havoc that followed made it expedient 
 to leave the Hotel de Noailles, which was so near the 
 Tuileries, and she hid herself in a small house in the 
 Faubourg St. Germain. Through all this time of daily 
 peril, neither she nor the Vicomtesse de Noailles let any- 
 thing interfere with the punctuality of their gay letters to 
 their Adrienne, and it was only August the loth that put 
 an end to regular communication. A short while after 
 that day of terror — increased for the Duchess by her 
 husband's absence at the Tuileries — they were both sum- 
 moned to the Hotel de Ville to account for their conduct 
 in moving from their home. Even the Jacobins were 
 satisfied by their answers, and they returned to the Hotel 
 de Noailles. Not for long, however. The massacres of 
 September the 2nd again warned them to depart. 
 
 They went to the house of Madame d'Aguesseau at 
 Poissy, near St. Germain, where the news of Adrienne's 
 arrest reached them. The terrified mother wrote to 
 M. Roland ; he assured her the imprisonment was only 
 nominal, and she gradually calmed herself, soothed by 
 the chivalry of the Duke, who required middle age and a 
 Revolution to bring out his best qualities. The fate of the 
 Bourbons had made a deep mark upon his brilliant nature. 
 She felt that religion might come to him, and, for the first 
 time, he occupied her thoughts. 
 
 She had come to Poissy to be near her father-in-law, 
 the old Due de Noailles, until such time as it was safe 
 for him to have her under his roof At last the Marcchal, 
 now ill and shattered, was able to shelter her, and she and 
 her daughter migrated there. They led a life of devotion 
 to his ailments, only diversified by perilous expeditions 
 to Paris, as often as they could make them. Steadfast 
 amidst change, their journeys were always inspired by the 
 
 170
 
 ARREST 
 
 same motives : first, to seek those religious consolations 
 more necessary to them than bread, and impossible to 
 procure outside the labyrinthine city ; then to get news 
 of Lafayette to send to Adrienne. Their spiritual comfort 
 they found, with beating hearts, in underground cellars 
 and deserted garrets, at the hands of priests, pale from 
 starvation and from close concealment. In their other 
 task, they were helped by young M. de Custine, as well as 
 by the zeal of their friend, the Princcsse d'Henin, and that 
 of Mr. Pinkney, in London. At length, in the summer, 
 they contrived to see Lafayette's valet, who had been sent 
 home from the prison, but could tell them little of his 
 master, whom he had not been allowed to behold. They 
 were forced to rest content with sending him to Chavaniac. 
 Madame d'Ayen would have been alone, had it not been 
 for the angelic Louise de Noailles. The Duke had again 
 fled to Switzerland. Madame de Tessc had emigrated. 
 Madame de Montagu, who was hourly expecting a child, 
 had been obliged to walk with her husband all the way 
 from Paris to the sea-coast, in order to avoid the dangers 
 of public conveyances. Then she crossed to England. In 
 all her i)reparations for departure, she was helped by her 
 favourite sister, Rosalie de Grammont, also about to be- 
 come a mother. On their last day together, at five o'clock, 
 on a bitter December morning, they stole out through the 
 snow, to the hidden garret which was their oratory. So 
 fearful were they lest their footprints should reveal it, that 
 they did not stojj at the door, but made a wide circuit and 
 returned to it. Then they entered — to pray at a deal 
 altar, b}- the light of a solitary candle, amid a congregation 
 so still and cauti(;us that, until the sisters lifted their heads, 
 they were not aware of its presence. In the evening, the 
 Montagus started, with no future means of sub.sisitcncc but 
 
 171
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Pauline's diamonds, which Rosalie counselled her to take. 
 Madame de Grammont and her husband lingered in Paris 
 until lingering meant death; they then escaped to the 
 depths of Franche-Comt6, where they remained in hiding. 
 She did not dare even to visit Madame d'Ayen, whom 
 she never saw again. Under these circumstances, the Vi- 
 comtesse de Noailles could not leave the Duchess, though 
 her husband was in England, imploring her to come to 
 him. For the love of her mother and her sister, she 
 decided to make this supreme sacrifice and be faithful 
 to the end. It proved an offering greater than she ex- 
 pected — that of life itself Both women tried to console 
 themselves by planning a visit to Chavaniac ; but this last 
 comfort was also taken from them. As they were about 
 to set out, the old Marshal fell suddenly ill, and they 
 could not leave him. His death, directly afterwards, 
 changed all their plans, for they could not desert his 
 widow. To Madame Lafayette's dismay, she learned, 
 a short time after, that they had moved back again to 
 Paris — the centre of all danger. 
 
 Meanwhile, she had spent a troubled summer. It is true 
 that in the spring M. Roland had remembered his promise, 
 and sent her word that she was no longer a prisoner. But 
 her liberty was only nominal, hedged in as she was on every 
 side by the laws against the ci-devant nobles, which super- 
 vised all their actions. It was impossible to leave the 
 Department without permission. Still, she would not de- 
 spair of joining her husband. At last, in June, two letters 
 reached her through Morris, written from the prison at 
 Magdeburg to which Lafayette had been removed, and de- 
 scribing his sufferings there. This gave her fresh impetus. 
 On Morris' advice, she wrote to the Princess of Orange, 
 the King of Prussia's sister, but received nothing more 
 
 172
 
 ARREST 
 
 than a polite and evasive answer. An ardent article in 
 praise of Lafayette appeared in a German newspaper, and 
 she saw it. It turned out to be by Klopstock, the hero 
 of the Romantic Movement, and she at once addressed 
 him ; silence was the only result. It was a further blow 
 to her when she heard from M. Frestel, at Bordeaux, that 
 the journey to England was impossible and her boy must 
 return. The joy of having him back was almost destroyed 
 by disappointment. 
 
 Money difficulties added themselves to other anxieties. 
 Lafayette had been unjustly described as an Emigre, and 
 his fortune was consequently sequestrated according to 
 the Jacobin decrees. Debts pressed heavily upon her, 
 and her first aim was to discharge them. She would not 
 think of leaving France before doing this and securing the 
 comfort of her old aunt. Risky though it was, she made 
 journey after journey to Puy, to represent to the D^parte- 
 Tnent the iniquity of treating Lafayette as an itnigr^, 
 and to recover enough of his income to pay his debts 
 with. In vain ; the officials liked her personally, but they 
 could do nothing ; all that remained to her was to " en- 
 registrer les creanciers',' and go home. 
 
 Poverty pressed harder. The Chateau was almost starv- 
 ing. For her children's sake, she at last wrote to Gouver- 
 neur Morris and begged him to advance her a moderate 
 sum on the surety of any pecuniary claims she might 
 possess in the future. He responded generously with 
 a large loan, and refused the security. Upon this they 
 lived with the greatest austerity, and out of this they had 
 to save. Their home life at this moment was touching, 
 both in its sternness and its gaiety, Madame Lafayette 
 provided for everything ; all her efforts went to lighten 
 the load for her children, from the youngest to the eldest, 
 
 173
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 who, at fifteen, had suffered imprisonment with her. She 
 went on with their education ; she invented amusements 
 for them ; she spent whole mornings reading to them by 
 the river, where they could look at the hills and forget the 
 gloom inside the house. Nor did she limit her exertions 
 to her family. Every Sunday, she gathered it around 
 her, together with the poor of the village ; then she read 
 and prayed with them, and ended by reciting the Mass. 
 The suspense of these last months had made her feel 
 such a need of faith that belief had returned to her. She 
 was called a fanatic in the country, a name as dangerous 
 then as that of Aristocrat. As it was impossible to accuse 
 her of being the one, the Jacobins caught hold of the other 
 charge against her, and used it to the best advantage. 
 
 It was an evil moment ; the persecution of the priests 
 had reached its height. Several had been massacred at 
 Puy, and one at Brioude. Now the Cur6 of Chavaniac 
 was arrested. Madame de Lafayette intervened on his 
 behalf. Montfleury, President of the local Courts — one 
 of the few noble-hearted Jacobins — had once told her that 
 whenever she sent him an unfortunate to be saved, she 
 would make him her grateful and devoted servant. She 
 remembered this, and begged him to help her with the 
 Cur6. The result was that the accused was acquitted by 
 the peasants of the Village Council. But the town of 
 Brioude refused to execute such a favourable verdict. She 
 went there at once, on the pretext of some business. The 
 poor man's friends implored him to take the civic oath and 
 save himself ; his enemies schemed his execution. At last 
 the town agreed to await the decision of the D^parte- 
 ment. Knowing that this meant death, she contrived 
 to delay the messenger and get hold of the kindlier offi- 
 cials. The civic oath was dispensed with, and before the 
 
 174
 
 ARREST 
 
 fiercer party could do anything, the Cur6 was sent home 
 free. The affair made a noise in the country, and was 
 carefully stored up against her. 
 
 It was the turn of the Girondins to be persecuted, 
 classed as they now were with the Moderates and the 
 " Limited Republicans." They had gone farther than they 
 meant, in voting with the Unlimited Republicans for the 
 death of the King. Their central principle of avoiding 
 violence was betrayed, and they were punished by losing 
 unity. But the logical consequences of regicide they could 
 not face. The September massacres had disgusted Ro- 
 land ; his colleagues followed his example and fell off from 
 the Terrorists. The people cried out upon their vacillation 
 and swore to have their blood. Twenty-two among them 
 were especially mentioned. They hoped the Convention 
 would save them, though the mob had forced Danton 
 to sift matters — Danton, the mighty Atlas who upbore 
 the " Mountain," as the extreme party was called. The 
 desertion of General Dumouriez — " himself a kind of 
 Girondin " — in April, just after his brilliant victories for 
 the Republic, had precipitated matters. Between Giron- 
 dins and Mountain, in the month of May, a terrible split 
 arose ; it ended with the famous scene in the Convention 
 (June the 2nd), when the twenty-two were arrested, with 
 ten of their fellow Girondins. Vergniaud, Brissot, Buzot, 
 Barbaroux, Guadet, Lasource, Gensonne, Rabaut, the 
 Rolands, were removed from the stage. In July, their 
 Jael arose : Charlotte Corday killed Marat, and was guil- 
 lotined. Some of the twenty-two contrived to get away 
 from Paris, but others of their colleagues were promptly 
 imprisoned in their stead, till the original number was 
 made up. The luckless captives lingered on for five weary 
 months in confinement, and then died on the scaffold. 
 
 175
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The rest of the seventy-two who made up the party 
 wandered forth over land and sea, starving in forests or 
 freezing in hay-lofts, and Louvet, Isnard, and three others 
 were the only ones that escaped. Even the immoderate 
 Thomas Paine, -whosQ'' Rights of Man " had fired the Con- 
 vention to invite him to Paris as a D6put6, was now cast 
 into the Luxembourg for his Girondism, because he was 
 rather more humane than was expected of him. Released 
 months afterwards, by a stroke of fortune, this Girondin 
 malgr^ lui reaped the fruits of others' heroism, and survived 
 the Rolands as the sufferer for a cause with which he had 
 no real connection. 
 
 The condemnation of the Girondins and their identifica- 
 tion with the Moderates cast a fresh odium on Lafayette's 
 name. Dumouriez' desertion had already redoubled the 
 dangers of aristocrats, and a commission was instigated to 
 examine all ci-devant papers. The officials came to Cha- 
 vaniac, but departed content. They were soon followed 
 by Lacoste, the Jacobin D6put6 for the department, who 
 went about distributing incendiary writings against the 
 Girondins and covering Lafayette with insults. He killed 
 two men suspected of moderation, and swore to arrest 
 Madame Lafayette. She wisely thought it better to fore- 
 stall him by visiting him at Brioude and explaining the 
 innocence of her retreat. He received her with unction, 
 and assured her there was no question of danger, only of 
 a decree forbidding more than three aristocrats to be found 
 together. " Your sentiments are worthy of you, Madame," 
 he concluded. " I don't trouble myself, Monsieur, as to 
 whether or no they are worthy of me," she replied — " I 
 only wish them to be worthy of him." 
 
 There was certainly no hesitation about her. At a 
 moment when nearly all the wives of the fated imigrh^ 
 
 176
 
 ARREST 
 
 however devoted, were trying to get papers of divorce and 
 thus save their lives, she not only refused to think of such 
 a thing, but rejoiced to sign every paper with " La femme 
 Lafayette!' She knew now that she must remain at her 
 post. At one moment, she had some idea of migration to 
 Girondin Lyons ; but the terrible siege and devastation 
 that punished its Girondism put an end to her plan. 
 
 At the end of the summer, Lafayette's estates were put 
 up to sale. The Patriots began with a mill near Chavaniac. 
 This was more than his old aunt could bear. In spite of 
 her seventy-three years, she insisted on going to the Dis- 
 trict Council, accompanied by Adrienne, and on protesting 
 in person. Its impressionable members applauded her, and 
 even wished to record her words in the papers they were 
 drawing up. " No, gentlemen," she said, " that might com- 
 promise you. But I should like to enter my separate 
 protest. I have never been anybody's accomplice ; I 
 should be one if I were silent now." 
 
 The terrible Dt^cret des Suspects of September 17th com- 
 manded the arrest of all relations of emigres, and the super- 
 vision of all aristocrats suspected of lukewarm patriotism. 
 Domiciliary visits never ceased, and the prisons were over- 
 flowing. Committees to make lists of suspected persons 
 and maisons it arret to receive them were instituted in every 
 district. All the officials about Chavaniac were Jacobins 
 of the most pronounced description. Every individual was 
 eager to ensure his safety by obtaining a certificat de 
 civisme from his Departenient. Madame Lafayette could 
 have a very good one ; but her old aunt bravely refused 
 to let hers be made out in too patriotic a spirit for her 
 principles, and Adrienne would not separate their fates by 
 having her own papers drawn up differently. Those for 
 the rest of the houscht)ld, however, were satisfactc^ry, and 
 
 177 N
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 she was forced to go to Brioude with them to have them 
 properly stamped by the Revolutionary Committee there. 
 There is nothing more striking, or more tragically laugh- 
 able, than the elaborate order with which disorder was 
 conducted ; there were as many ceremonies to be gone 
 through then to prove yourself a Patriot — and finally to 
 get yourself arrested — as we now suffer in having our 
 luggage weighed at a French railway station. Civic fuss 
 was the most prominent feature of revolutionary com- 
 mittees, and shows how normal they thought themselves. 
 Perhaps it is to the credit of human nature that, to each 
 other, at least, they had to pretend they were conscientious. 
 The members of the Brioude Council were so ominous, 
 even about the correct certificates from Chavaniac, that 
 Adrienne did not dare show them either her aunt's or 
 her own, and returned home with them unstamped and 
 therefore invalid. 
 
 A few days later a commissioner arrived to re-examine 
 all the papers in the house and destroy those that " were 
 tainted with feudalism," Her excessive indifference ended 
 by amazing even him, and yet desolation was in her heart. 
 The persecutions were getting more frenzied. Now it was 
 not only aristocrats that were taken, but all Patriots 
 suspected of insufficient allegiance to Jacobinism ; trades- 
 people, peasants, and citizens choked the prisons. On the 
 r6th of October, the Queen had perished, followed on the 
 31st by the ill-starred Twenty-two. Philippe Egalit6, 
 Mayor Bailly, and Madame Roland were guillotined early 
 in November, and the middle of the next month brought 
 the Noyades de Nantes — those infamous " marriages of the 
 Loire " which drowned aristocrats wholesale. The existing 
 agencies no longer sufficed for these new cruelties. Not 
 content with the Co^nitt^ du Saint Public^ the Convention 
 
 178
 
 ARREST 
 
 (now sitting in the deserted Palace Hall of the Tuileries) 
 organized a " Tribunal Extraordinaire" or Tribunal de la 
 Revolution. Fouquier-Tinville was appointed as Accuser- 
 General, and reigned over it — the very king of confusion. 
 
 It was on November the I2th, whilst the official was still 
 doing his work, that Madame Lafayette received definite 
 intelligence that she would be arrested next day. It was 
 spent in horrible suspense. The commissioners were just 
 completing their task by piling all the papers on a cart, 
 together with the busts of Mirabeau and the King, and 
 carrying them off to light a bonfire in the village round 
 which they meant to dance and hold a fete de j'oie. But 
 the villagers refused to join them ; they were too sad to 
 dance, they said, on the day their dear lady was to be 
 arrested. 
 
 In the evening the officer of injustice arrived. There 
 was irony in the fact that he brought with him a detach- 
 ment of National Guards. All the children met in their 
 mother's room, and he proceeded to read aloud the Deed 
 of Accusation. She produced her certificate. He replied 
 that it was too old, and not legally stamped. Resistance 
 was useless. She was to be taken to the prison at Brioude, 
 the chief town of her district. 
 
 " Citizen," asked Anastasie, the eldest girl, "are children 
 prevented from following their mother?" "Yes, Made- 
 moiselle," he answered. She insisted that she was sixteen, 
 and subject to the " Decree of the Suspected." Touched 
 at her devotion, he tried to divert her by describing all the 
 arrests he had made in the neighbourhood, and how he 
 had assembled his victims in a Church close by, where 
 the}' were to pass the night. On condition that Adrienne 
 promised to meet him there the next morning, he allowed 
 her to remain at Chavaniac. Her family were to continue 
 
 179
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 in the Chateau, under charge of M. Frestel. They clung 
 round her till she stepped into the cart. Nor were they 
 alone ; as it rolled off, the air resounded with the cries of 
 children whose parents had been torn from them. 
 
 The prison of Brioude was already overflowing, and yet 
 cart after cart deposited fresh loads. The only space that 
 could be allowed to Adrienne was a narrow passage which 
 she shared with three other women. They learned to love 
 her at once, especially a pious baker's wife, from whose 
 simple faith Madame Lafayette drew sustenance for her 
 spirit. Here too she found many of the aristocratic ladies 
 whom she had not seen since the first days of the Revolu- 
 tion, when they had ostracised her for her Republicanism. 
 Human nature is the only thing that never changes, though 
 all about it suffer transformation. When they met in the 
 prison corridors, she found these great ladies as chilly as 
 ever in their manner to her. Tribulation produces irrita- 
 tion as well as endurance. The whole prison was divided 
 into exclusive circles detesting each other, and contained 
 as much acrimony as a provincial town. But Adrienne's 
 sweetness won them all over, including her haughty ene- 
 mies. Though they could not live without occupation, 
 and so continued their hatreds, they were now at least 
 united in one thing — their love of her. There was hardly 
 one that did not lean upon her. For herself she had 
 given up all hope of release, but she daily used her influ- 
 ence to try and get liberty and comforts for others. 
 
 In the wretched passage that served her for a room, five 
 or six persons were now sleeping besides herself; there was 
 only a screen between it and the common corridor, where 
 shrill quarrels went on all day to crown her other miseries. 
 Yet she added to these of her own free will, and shirked 
 nothing that could serve a fellow-creature. She per- 
 
 i8o
 
 ARREST 
 
 suaded some infirm old women — a blind nun amongst them 
 — to keep house in common with her, on the pretext that 
 it lessened her expenses. They always thought that they 
 contributed equally with herself, and never knew that she 
 bore almost the whole cost, besides cooking for them and 
 tending them. Delicately nurtured though she was, her 
 health withstood all these hardships and her nerves were 
 as calm as ever. She had to be sick-nurse too, and her 
 patients were numerous. The fetid conditions under which 
 she and her companions lived bred fever. On one occa- 
 sion, she entreated that a sick woman, the twelfth in a 
 tiny room, should be moved into better air. Insults and 
 foul language were her only answer, but, on the whole, the 
 gaolers respected her more than the other prisoners. On 
 these they lavished their grossness. The brutalities they 
 invented for the torture of refinement were unimaginable. 
 But so gregarious is man, and more especially woman, 
 by nature, that even here the prison world found distrac- 
 tion in an organized society of its own. Calls were inter- 
 changed between the crowd in one room and the crowd 
 in another ; meals were shared ; topics were discussed, and 
 friendships were formed. 
 
 From the outside, little news penetrated — enough how- 
 ever to bring Madame Lafayette the overwhelming in- 
 telligence that her mother, Louise de Noailles, and the old 
 grandmother had all three been arrested. As yet they 
 were imprisoned in their Hotel only — a mitigated evil, for 
 the Vicomtcssc's three children were left with them, their 
 friends dined with them, and their favourite priest, M. 
 Carrichon, still contrived to visit them. Madame d'Ayen, 
 bent upon discharging her debts before a worse fate befell 
 her, was able to steal out and sell her diamonds. The 
 jeweller who bought them gave her part of the sum down, 
 
 l8i
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 that she might pay her bills at once ; the rest was to follow. 
 But the next day he went to the guillotine, and she lost 
 this one remaining source of income. They continued to 
 live upon almost nothing — loving and praying, happy to be 
 together. But of all this Adrienne knew little ; she could 
 only surmise, and her surmises were not hopeful. 
 
 Early in 1794, the old Aunt at Chavaniac was also ac- 
 cused. The crime with which they charged her was that 
 " she was the mother of an emigr^." To her arrest she had 
 been indifferent ; but when these words were read out to 
 her, the word " mother " fell like a blow on her heart : 
 " Citizen," she replied, " I have no longer the happiness of 
 being a mother " — and she burst into tears, the tears that 
 had not ceased to flow since she had lost her only daughter, 
 sixteen years before. She was too old to be moved, and 
 they left her under guard at Chavaniac. 
 
 It was a sad household there. Though the younger 
 children could play and forget, Anastasie and M. Frestel 
 had not a moment's peace. They found means to com- 
 municate with Madame Lafayette. Every week they 
 sent her linen with the laundress's bill sewn on it ; on 
 the other side of the paper — which nobody thought of 
 unfastening — they wrote a bare report of their health. 
 It was all that it was safe to send by such precarious 
 means, and she answered them in the same manner. 
 Then there was the Patriot, Madame P^latan, an old friend 
 of the Lafayettes', who kept an inn at Brioude, and 
 provided the prison meals ; she sent them in by her 
 daughter, a girl of thirteen years, who occasionally con- 
 trived to enter Madame Lafayette's cell and bring news 
 of her to her family. At last the faithful Frestel found 
 that, by using influence, he could actually smuggle her 
 children into the prison. Anastasie was the first to go ; 
 
 182
 
 ARREST 
 
 she rode on horseback to Brioudc, spent the day with 
 the kind innkeeper, ci,nd the night, when conceHlment was 
 easier, with her mother. After this, all the children 
 came in turn ; the tutor brought the younger ones ; and 
 "hough there was often time for no more than an embrace, 
 these moments were the mother's only relief. 
 
 This same winter of '94, the Revolutionary Committee 
 again set about the sale of Lafayette's property, Adrienne 
 sent M. Frestel to them to implore them to allow her 
 to be present, guarded, if they thought it necessary, by 
 a regiment of gunners. His request was insolently refused 
 by Citizen Solon Reynaud, and he was forced to listen 
 to a storm of abuse from him, first of Lafayette, " whose 
 entrails he longed to tear out"; then of Adrienne, who 
 was " the pride of the de Noailles incarnate." " As for 
 her children," he added, " they were serpents nourished 
 in the bosom of the Republic." He did not take into 
 account that the poor little serpents had been given no 
 choice, and would greatly have preferred a bosom rather 
 less flinty. Soon after, to their great jo)-, Solon Reynaud 
 was transferred to Paris and replaced by a less violent 
 official, who was proud of his Republican simplicity, and 
 wore a wooden spoon and fork in his button-hole as 
 an emblem of his principles. But the Lafayettes' hai)pi- 
 ness was unfounded. Solon's presence in Paris, and his 
 report of them to the central authorities, did them serious 
 mischief 
 
 The rest of the de Noailles family were attacked first. 
 Madame d'Ayen, her daughter, antl the old Marcchale 
 were ordered to leave their Hotel. They moved at once 
 into lodgings, but the necessar)' negotiations drew public 
 attention upon them, and before they could ask a (]ucstii)n, 
 they were taken to the prison of the Lu.xenibourg. The 
 
 183
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 dread news reached Adrienne in the spring. On May the 
 8th, came the command that she herself was to be moved 
 from Brioude to Paris. The captain who brought ic 
 (brother of her old friend; Montfleury, now himself in 
 prison) was so moved that he could not read it aloud 
 to her, but pointed to it in silence. Consternation filled 
 the minds of all those in the cell with her, but she 
 tried to console them by showing them that the decree 
 was only one of transference, not a summons before 
 the revolutionary tribunal. The captain begged to 
 escort her himself all the way, to save her from the 
 rough relays of guards who would otherwise accompany 
 her. At first she refused his offer. Vague plans of 
 escape were floating through her brain, and she feared 
 to compromise his life and that of his brother ; but con- 
 viction that any attempt at escape was impracticable and 
 would only increase the hardships of the prison inmates, 
 made her renounce her plans and accept his proposal. 
 
 She gained a reprieve of twenty-four hours, and used 
 it to send an express messenger to her children. Then 
 she mounted the stairs to the cell of the Cur6 of Chava- 
 niac, now her fellow prisoner, and confessed to him, 
 though emotion made him less fit to hear than she was 
 to speak. Her confession over, she took leave of him 
 and went to the barn where the nuns of Brioude were 
 confined ; she prayed with them there, and peace returned 
 to her heart. It was now time for her to be removed 
 to the criminal prison of the town, the only one to 
 which M. Frestel would be admitted. 
 
 The terrible tidings had reached Chavaniac at break 
 of day. The messenger had been retarded on his road, 
 and the distraught children feared they would arrive 
 too late. To save time, M. Frestel started at once with 
 
 184
 
 ARREST 
 
 all the jewels he could collect, in hopes that they mi^^jht 
 procure her some conveyance less painful than the 
 revolutionary cart. Anastasie was to follow him with 
 the children. He found the whole of Brioude — many of 
 the Jacobins even — dumbfounded by the news of her 
 arrest, and easily obtained another day's delay of her 
 departure. He entered her cell ; she had thrown herself 
 upon her pallet, and heavy chains lay on the ground 
 near her. His arrival was closely followed by that of 
 the children. It was hastily decided that the tutor should 
 follow her carriage as far as Melun, then seek out 
 Morris, who had a country house there, and beg him to 
 intervene on her behalf. Anastasie, crushed with sorrow, 
 entreated so fervently to come too that at last her mother 
 consented. Despair was turned to transports of joy ; 
 and, unwilling to lose a moment, she hastened to Puy 
 to get the necessary permission for leaving the depart- 
 ment. The other children remained with Madame 
 Lafayette. She told them to kneel by her side, and 
 prayed with them ; as it was Ascension week, she ended 
 with the Veni Sancte Spiritiis, which they repeated with 
 her. Then, after charging her boy with many commis- 
 sions for her aunt, she made them both promise solemnly 
 that, if she died, they would seek and grasp every possible 
 chance of rejoining their father. After that, she bade 
 them farewell. 
 
 The time had come for Anastasie's return, but she 
 did not appear. At noon the carriage came round and 
 her mother had to depart without her. The successor 
 of Solon had, alas, inherited his obstinacy. He not only 
 denied the girl a permit and assailed her with insults 
 and coarse jokes, but refused to write to Paris on Madame 
 Lafayette's account, or to read the letter she had written 
 
 185
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 him. She tried elsewhere with the same ill success. 
 Dead tired and distracted with grief, she returned empty- 
 handed to the prison, to find her mother gone and M. 
 Frestel waiting for her. She was obliged to let him start 
 without her and to go back to Chavaniac with the children. 
 He had only just time. " There goes an officious fellow 
 who wants to defend those who ought not to be defended," 
 cried a Patriot official. " I only wish I could succeed ! " 
 he bravely replied — " and if I did, there are many here 
 who would envy me." He was right. The sympathy he 
 had found in Brioude had been no passing emotion. 
 
 Madame Lafayette's journey went smoothly as far as 
 Fontainebleau. Here she met with torrents of abuse 
 from the mob that surrounded her carriage. Not only 
 was her own resolution failing, but that of her escort, the 
 captain, also. She felt that if she said one word to him, 
 he would try to escape with her and meet certain death. 
 There was nothing for it but silence, and she kept her 
 peace. At Melun, where there was a halt, Frestel met 
 her and, after a short interview, proceeded to Morris' 
 house. The rest of her time in the place she spent in 
 writing letters to her children — the longest to Anastasie, 
 imploring her to forgive from her heart the man who had 
 refused her the permit. 
 
 Madame Lafayette reached Paris on May the 19th. 
 She was stunned by the horrors which met her everywhere. 
 The executions ordered by the Central Tribunal now 
 numbered sixty a day, and the Carmagnole was danced 
 through the streets by men and women drunk with their 
 own cruelty. No one was silent ; no one was at rest ; 
 and the city which had once seemed the capital of Utopia 
 had become Pandemonium. It was small wonder that 
 Adrienne had again to repress her guard's zeal for her 
 
 186
 
 ARREST 
 
 and to show him the folly of any rashness, now that 
 it must prove futile. They parted in sorrow at the 
 door of the prison of La Petite Force, and her last 
 injunction to him was to take a messai^e to the old valet, 
 M. Beauchet, begging him to discontinue his services to 
 her, as they would endanger him. In stjite of this, his 
 wife — the d'Ayens' former maid — came every day to the 
 prison-wicket, to inquire if she were there. This was 
 the only knowledge she could get to send to the poor 
 children at Chavaniac. 
 
 They were living there in dire poverty, the devoted 
 peasants of the District Committee bringing them their 
 food and fuel. Till M. Frestel's return, the people of 
 the village had provided them with money. Soon after 
 their mother's arrival in Paris, Chavaniac was sold by 
 the Republic, but it was arranged that they should stay 
 on for the moment. This was the only indulgence 
 vouchsafed them. The old aunt, it is true, was allowed 
 to buy back her bed, but not the picture of her be- 
 loved brother, Lafayette's father, which she had kept 
 by her bedside, ever since his death at the battle of 
 Minden. Not content with this, they constantly disturbed 
 her repose by threatening to arrest both her and the 
 children. 
 
 Of all these things Adrienne knew nothing in La 
 Petite Force. Her one wish was to communicate with 
 her beloved ones at the Luxembourg, but she dared not 
 attempt it. Every morning's experience — the constant 
 disappearance of fresh faces from the prison, the roll of 
 the tumbril wheels — initiated her into the meaning of the 
 Terror. She waited for what would happen next. In 
 a fortnight's time, came orders to transfer her to Le 
 Plessis, It was her husband's old college, now turned 
 
 187
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 into a prison. When she got there, she found the walls 
 covered with the names that school-boys had scribbled 
 there — the school-boys who had been the comrades of 
 his youth. 
 
 i88
 
 The Prisons of the Revolution 
 
 189
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Prisons of the Revolution 
 
 ]\ yT ADAME LAFAYETTE had arrived in Paris on 
 -^ » -*- May the 19th. It was the eve of the Fete de I Eire 
 Supreme — that pathetic orgy of man's ineradicable instinct 
 to bend his knee at some altar, even though he lay piety 
 as a sacrifice upon it. Early on that May morning, the 
 drums were heard summoning Patriots to their Sections ; 
 windows and doors were wreathed with flowers and oak- 
 branches ; young girls dressed in white, with roses in 
 their hands, passed in procession through the streets. 
 From North, South, East, and West, the Sections streamed 
 forth and met in the Jardin National, or old Garden of 
 the Tuilcries, where they danced round the royal trees — 
 the David version of a Watteau picture. Presently the 
 trumpets sounded, and the whole Convention appeared 
 upon the palace terrace. Robespierre, at once High 
 Priest and Orator, made an opening speech. There was 
 a pause ; then the whole of Paris burst forth into the new 
 hymn of their new religion. 
 
 " Ton temple est sur les monts, dans les airs, sur les ondes ; 
 Tu n'as point de passd ; tu n'as point d'avenir ; 
 Et huns les occuper, tu remplis tous les mondes, 
 Qui ne peuvent te contenir." 
 
 In the silence that followed, Robespierre, in sky-blue 
 satin coat, white and silver waistcoat, and gold shoe- 
 buckles, stepped forward, torch in hand, and set fire to a 
 
 191
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 monster figure of Atheism standing in their midst. Wis- 
 dom appeared, in trailing robes, with one hand uphfted 
 to heaven, a diadem of stars in the other. New flourishes 
 of drums and trumpets — the Convention began to move, 
 and marched out, followed by the people, in two long 
 lines — the women on the right side, the men on the left. 
 
 This new revelation, however wildly it confused its 
 terms, however capriciously it manufactured a god ac- 
 cording to its needs, was yet straining after a transcen- 
 dental ideal. It could not be really either true or deep. 
 The sentimental Robespierre who, without goodness, had 
 all its susceptibilities, was its pontiff — and even dreamed 
 of a regenerate Paris, with marble temples and ornate 
 altars built by himself But such as it was, it fed the 
 heart of the people and restored belief in immortality. 
 Like other cults, it had its ritual, its saints and saints' 
 days without number. It canonized all its heroes, and 
 celebrated all their anniversaries ; the bulk of its calendar 
 has perhaps never been exceeded, unless it be by that of 
 the Positivists. Besides these ordinary holy days, it could 
 boast thirty-six festivals of Abstract Ideas, beginning 
 with I' Eire Supreme , the Human Race, and the French 
 People ; going on to the Liberty of the World, Love, 
 Friendship, Good Faith and Immortality ; and ending 
 with Sorrow, Agriculture, Industry, the Idea of Ancestors, 
 Posterity and Joy. 
 
 There was more than emotion in all this ; it was no 
 mere spasm of worship, but a natural reaction against the 
 gross atheism of the last years. " I have lived," wrote the 
 orthodox Morris, twelve months before the birthday of 
 VEtre Supreme, " to see a new religion arise. It consists 
 in a denial of all religion, and its votaries have the super- 
 stition of not being superstitious. They have this with as 
 
 192
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 much zeal as any other sect, and are as ready to lay siege 
 to the world in order to make proselytes." 
 
 They even had their Credo, these highly-organized 
 Atheists, which they piously repeated. " I swear," this 
 ran, " to have no religion but that of Nature, no temple 
 but that of Reason, no altars but those of the Nation, no 
 priests but our Legislators, no service but that of Liberty, 
 Equality, and Fraternity." There were prayers and cere- 
 monies too, as sensational as Robespierre's oratory, but 
 more easily abused. Bacchantes, who called themselves 
 Goddesses of Reason, clothed in classic njbes and crowned 
 with bay-leaves, were borne through the streets to the 
 chief churches and there worshipped with revolutionary 
 rites. 
 
 The first of these divinities, highly rouged and attended 
 by tricolor priestesses, had begun her career by sailing 
 into the Convention in a palanquin, and was there hailed 
 as an Apocalypse. All the Deputes filed out after her 
 to Notre Dame and held an impromptu service in her 
 honour. Another lady of the same race, the opera-dancer 
 Sannier, asked David, the fanatic for freedom, to design 
 a dress for her which would make an era in impropriety, 
 and when he did so, she was borne in this guise to the 
 High Altar of the Cathedral, there to be worshipped on his 
 knees b\' the President of the Convention. As for the old 
 favourites, the)' had become heretics and were discrowned. 
 Demoiselle Thcroigne, like many successful enthusiasts, 
 had relapsed into a carriage and pair, and the desire for 
 Respectability combined with Liberty. The rising feminine 
 generation dragged her from the coach and so scourged 
 her that her nerves never recovered, and she died in a 
 madhouse. "The Nation," said Tallexrand, "is a. far- 
 venue, so of course she is insolent," and, like a parvenue 
 
 193 U
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 also, she was most insolent to the ranks from which she 
 had risen. She required distraction, however, and Paris 
 provided it, as usual. The stage was still " the accomplice 
 of the Revolution," and tried at the same moment to 
 amuse and fortify its votaries. It grew more active than 
 ever, till, one by one, the high-spirited actors disappeared 
 into the voracious prisons. The plays — the dead them- 
 selves — became " suspects " ; Corneille's " Cinna " was being 
 performed at one of the theatres, and a patriot lady of 
 the audience, unable to endure hearing a law-abiding 
 passage in it, rose in her seat and shouted " A la Lanterne 
 rAuteur" an injunction which for once was impracticable. 
 Even the old fairy tales were disennoblis and deprived of 
 their kings and their princesses ; elfin princes were turned 
 into citoyens, and " the Fair One with the Golden Locks " 
 became " /,« Belle aux Cheveux d'Assignats." 
 
 Confusion was, indeed, becoming worse confounded. 
 Faster and faster rolled the Dance of Death through the city. 
 The Republic was triumphant, without as well as within. 
 In the February of 1793, England had declared war against 
 it, but had not been able to stem its victorious course. In 
 December, the Patriot army, with Napoleon in its Artillery, 
 took Toulon from Hood and his men — Louis XVIII. 
 amongst them — and all through the summer of 1794 the 
 Jacobins' luck did not fail them. In the Convention, how- 
 ever, the seeing eye might long ere this have detected 
 marks of decadence. Suspicion had entered even there, and 
 three distinct parties had begun to show themselves. Dan- 
 ton, Robespierre, and Hebert had gradually divided on 
 various pretexts, all of them resolving themselves into 
 that greatest of all reasons — human nature, and the love of 
 power which belongs to it. The first person attacked had 
 been Camille Desmoulins, the Shelley of the Revolution, 
 
 194
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 too brilliant of tongue to be safe in any time of danger. 
 As one of the old Cordeliers and the editor of their 
 chief newspaper, he resented the rise of the new Cor- 
 deliers under the relentless Hubert ; he dared to make 
 fun of the solemn Covenanter, St. Just, and said that " he 
 carried his head as if it were the Saint Sacrcineni " ; 
 worse still, he urged the need of a " Committee of Mercy." 
 This was enough ; Robespierre and Hebcrt jf)ined in in- 
 triguing against him, and he was expelled from the Con- 
 vention ; nothing further as yet. It was Ilebert's turn 
 next. The Mountain suspected him of daring to lift his 
 head against it — the Mountain crushed him. He and his 
 ibilowers went to their death on March the 24th, 1794. The 
 crack that had at first seemed so small was widening, and 
 the vessel was bound to s[)lit. Now it was Danton himself 
 who was accused in company with Desmoulins. They 
 were arrested, imprisoned. Camillc's soul failed him 
 when he thought of his young wife. He tried to fortif)' 
 it — somewhat inadequately, so it seems to us — by reading 
 Young's '■'■ Niglit ThotigJits" and Hervey's ''Meditations" 
 in his cell. They had a moment's hope when it was dis- 
 covered that they could not be condemned by any existing 
 law ; but new decrees were instantly invented to declare 
 them rebels, and they died at the close of the month, 
 taking with them the last fragmeiits of Jacobin morality. 
 
 Robespierre, Couthon, and Fouquier-Tinville seized 
 their o{)portunity and formed an undisturbed Triumvi- 
 rate, of which Robes{)ierre was the Ca:sar. His popu- 
 larity was at its height. He was not only the special 
 agent of the Eire Sitprnne, but the one typical Repub- 
 lican — the redeemer of the Revolution. Prophetesses 
 were busy about him ; one of them, Catherine Th^ot, 
 found out for certain from the Book of Revelations that 
 
 195
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 he was to regenerate the world, and Paris wept and be- 
 lieved. Sentimental principle is harsher than Puritanism 
 itself, and " Rousseau's Valet," as he has been called, was 
 never idle. Plots against the Mountain were everywhere 
 suspected, even in the prisons themselves, and now no- 
 body was safe. The tumbrils rolled more busily than 
 ever, filled with a motley crew : stately marquises and 
 Patriot journalists ; brawling fish-women and Republican 
 generals in uniform ; opera-dancers lamenting shrilly, and 
 emaciated dandies paying them compliments to the last ; 
 grocers and poets side by side, inspired by the same 
 feeling ; saints, resplendent in courage, consoling the 
 terrors of girls off the streets. 
 
 Robespierre's policy was short-sighted. Suspicion so 
 hungry could not have overlooked him, even had he been 
 less conspicuous a mark for its arrows. Even now — early 
 in June — there were rumours abroad. A hair-dresser, trim- 
 ming his hair, had seen him read a list of a Jacobin House 
 of Lords, with his own name at the head as Dictator. 
 Mere gossip, it is true, but gossip of a dangerous kind. 
 
 When Madame Lafayette entered the prison of Le 
 Plessis, in the June of 1794, she found her cousin Madame 
 de Duras, sister-in-law of Louise de Noailles, already there. 
 The ladies had not met since the opening days of the 
 Revolution, when the aristocratic Madame de Duras had 
 taken offence at Adrienne's Republican opinions. No 
 coldness now remained, only joy that each should be able 
 to pour out her fears and her experience to the other. 
 They had another strong bond in their filial affection ; a 
 stronger still in the terrible fact that Madame de Duras' 
 parents — Trojans of eighty and sixty, who had worked 
 on their land with their peasants — had been dragged 
 away to the Luxembourg, and there awaited their fate, 
 
 196
 
 THE PRISONS OF TUK REVOLUTION 
 
 in company with Madame d'Ayen, her daut^hter, and her 
 mother-in-law. The two women spent hours in scheming 
 to communicate with them, and eased their heavy hearts 
 by rccalh'ng memories of childhood. Of the future they 
 spoke also. " Madame Lafayette," wrote Madame de 
 Duras, "seemed much less well-informed than I was 
 about what we had to fear both publicly and privately. 
 She thought, for instance, that she could defend her hus- 
 band's cause and her own before the Revolutionary Tri- 
 bunal, and that there was no danger for those who had 
 committed neither wrong nor folly towards the Republic." 
 They had time enough for conversation. When Adri- 
 enne arrived, there were already nineteen hundred 
 prisoners in Le Plessis. Though it seemed to her better 
 than her last experience, the overcrowding was terrible ; 
 twenty-five people were put into oiie room ; but thanks 
 to her cousin's intervention, she was allowed a closet to 
 herself on the fifth floor. She often talked of her joy at 
 waking and finding herself alone, though her domain was 
 so small that she could not put a chair between her pallet 
 and the wall. The commonest necessaries were denied 
 them, and want taught these gentl}- nurtured women un- 
 dreamed-of resources. Their walls were never dry, their 
 food was of the worst ; candles were forbidden them, and 
 daylight hardly entered through the heavy gratings, put 
 up to prevent Ictter-thrcnving or intercourse with friends 
 below. Most of the aristocrats sle[)t upon damj) stones ; 
 in a normal time they w(juld have died of it. It is almost 
 incredible tliat tb.ose who survived left prison with un- 
 imj)airecl health — st)me even the better for their confine- 
 ment. One consumptive Marquise was mortally ill when 
 she was first arrested, and imprisoned with more than the 
 ordinar}' severity ; but she came out cured — a feat which 
 
 197
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 she herself attributed to the plain fare and regular hours 
 of prison life. Stranger still, when small-pox broke out 
 in Le Plessis, it spread very little, in spite of the over- 
 population, and the impossibility of getting any attend- 
 ance or remedies, were it even a cup of water. 
 
 Madame Lafayette's discomfort was greatly increased by 
 compulsory intercourse with the bad women of Paris who 
 were lodged here, and whose shameless manners were in 
 keeping with their ill repute. It was one of the favourite 
 tortures of the gaolers to put these creatures, some of 
 them girls of the town, some the coarsest fish-women, in 
 the same rooms as the best-born aristocrats, or the most 
 pious nuns. Madame de Duras found herself next door 
 to the executioner's mistress, some girls from Les Halles, 
 two or three disreputable characters, and a drunkard, who, 
 imagining herself to be a woman of quality, burst day and 
 night into her neighbour's room and covered her with 
 abuse. So great was the crush of this prison population, 
 that intercourse with friends was difficult. In Le Plessis, 
 unlike the other houses, the men and women were kept 
 apart till the end of the Terror — a cause for fresh separa- 
 tions. A relation of the de Duras' was for five hours 
 under the same roof as his adoring daughter, but was not 
 allowed to see her before he died ; and Councillor Rethon, 
 of the Paris Parlement^ could do no more than cast a fare- 
 well glance at the window belonging to his wife's room, as 
 he went forth to the guillotine. 
 
 The gaolers were always rough, sometimes good-natured, 
 but frequently ruffians ; one of those at Le Plessis was a 
 September inassacreur\ another was taken from a menagerie, 
 where he had tamed wild beasts ; a third, in contrast to them, 
 was a sculptor infected by the prevalent thirst for cruelty. 
 Their power over the prisoners was almost unlimited. 
 
 198
 
 THE PRISONS OK THE REVOLUTION 
 
 They robbed them of their clothes, if they had a change 
 of garments ; they sold their property when the tumbrils 
 bore them away. At eight o'clock in the morning, they 
 undid the bolts of the cells — " a moment really agree- 
 able, if one may use the expression," says Madame de 
 Duras in her Memoirs. Then they enrolled the names 
 of the inmates on registers. Even this function was turned 
 into a source of discomfort. As few of them could write 
 properly, they repeated the teasing process two or three 
 times a day ; sometimes they counted their victims in 
 their rooms, sometimes they were made to stand like 
 sentinels at their doors. They had to ask permission to 
 go down the long staircase for their water ; and if an official 
 fetched them anything, his charges were prepostert)Us. 
 Their food was equally expensive. It was supposed to 
 come in from neighbouring restaurants — three or four 
 women taking their meals together ; but this proved an 
 unsafe plan for those who lived on the higher floors, as 
 their provisions were always snatched on the way up by 
 their fellow-sufferers below. Later on a gamellc, or common 
 tabic, was arranged for each section of the prison : a kind 
 of nightmare table d'hote. Hairs were deliberately mixed 
 with the food ; the dirty table, devoid of any cloth, was 
 laid with utensils that were never washed ; pigs were let 
 in to wander about the hall ; knives were forbidden, since 
 the day when a nobleman used one as a means of suicide ; 
 forks were also discovered to be possible weapons, and a 
 wooden spoon and bowl were the only conveniences ad- 
 mitted. The filthiest of the prisoners were told off as 
 waiters, and the food decreased rapidly, till there was little 
 left to serve. Yet it was the mob and the servant class 
 who grumbled at their fare ; the nobles kept their g()od 
 humour, and the officials preferred having them to de.il 
 
 199
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 with. A commissioner had been listening to the com- 
 plaints of a fish-woman. "Ask those citoyennes" replied 
 the turnkey, pointing to some aristocrats — "they never 
 make any fuss." 
 
 At first the prisoners stayed in their rooms for the 
 greater part of the day ; but a commissioner discovered 
 that the want of air would rob the guillotine of its prey, 
 and decreed a daily walk in the courtyard. The two 
 cousins, like many other ladies, began by refusing to toil 
 down a hundred steps and through six wickets, preceded, 
 accompanied, and followed by gaolers, in order to gain the 
 murky little square, shut in by boards, surrounded by 
 gendarmes, and filled by the low faces they most wished 
 to avoid. But they were told that resistance wquld result 
 in an accusation of aristocracy, and they had to yield. 
 Even one of the gaolers — let us hope the sculptor — was 
 reduced to tears, as he led this purgatorial walk. One 
 day, while they paced as usual, Madame de Duras, who 
 was looking down, saw a paper pushed up, apparently 
 through the ground ; the young lady in front of her took 
 advantage of an auspicious moment to pick it up unseen. 
 It contained a petition from a poor wretch, confined under- 
 ground au secret and deprived of all alleviations, to give 
 him a little assistance. The girl seized another oppor- 
 tunity, and let some money fall through the aperture which 
 the turnkey had forgotten to close. They could hear a 
 faint clapping of hands, as the coins dropped ; that was 
 all they ever learned of their unknown comrade in sorrow. 
 
 The last ceremony of their day was the fastening of the 
 bolts — far more solemn than their unfastening. It was 
 perf(jrmed at any liour between ten and midnight, by the 
 porter, accompanied by the wicket-keepers and a huge 
 dog. They went into each room in turn, and took par- 
 
 200
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 ticular pleasure in waking the prisoners from sleep, and in 
 makinj^ coarse jokes to the ladies. Besides these regular 
 functions, there was no hour of the day when they might 
 not appear to spy upon the doings of the aristocrats, or 
 command them to descend on some pointless errand, with 
 no other object than to interrupt their occupations. 
 
 These were monotonous, but as manifold as they could 
 make them. Madame de Duras said that she had always 
 looked upon prison as a place for unbroken study, but 
 she soon found that these inroads of the gaolers made 
 continuous reading impossible, even for half an hour. 
 There were few books within their reach. Adrienne got 
 possession of a Latin Psalter, which became her great 
 consolation, and had the additional advantage of con- 
 centrating her sad thoughts on the study of a dead 
 language. There were living tasks, also, all round them, 
 more fortifying, says Madame de Duras, than any other 
 pursuit. Never was there such an arena for charity as 
 this prison of the Revolution, and never was mercy more 
 active. At one moment, they were nursing cases of 
 virulent small-pox ; at another, encouraging the con- 
 demned Sansculottes, and giving up their beds to people 
 needier than themselves. There was no kindness too 
 small for them. They cooked pancakes in secret for the 
 fastidious, and even wrote the gaolers' letters for them. 
 
 Much time, too, especially in the early days of Le Plessis 
 life, went in the composition of petitions to Fouquier- 
 Tinville — " V Exterminateur-GL'm'raV^ — for themselves and 
 their relations. Not one of these reached him, though they 
 would have filled volumes, for every prisoner sent more than 
 one, and those that could not write begged the services 
 of those that could. On one occasion, Madame Lafayette 
 was asked to perform this favour for a peasant ; but as 
 
 201
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 her handwriting was bad, she gave it to some one else to 
 copy, who, in his turn, sent it to an imprisoned journaHst, 
 well-versed in patriotic flourishes. It was returned to 
 Adrienne with many words erased, and copious notes on 
 the margin. " This petition is aristocratic," they ran, 
 " such words are not used . . . this person does not 
 know how to draw up a petition." "We had a hearty 
 laugh over this severe criticism of a good work," said 
 Madame de Duras, and the sound of their laughter is 
 more pathetic than tears. This was not the only employ- 
 ment left to their pens ; most of the aristocratic prisoners 
 made their wills, as a last message which might some day 
 reach their families, even though, like Madame Lafayette, 
 they had nothing to bequeathe but their love, their faith, and 
 their blessing. " I forgive my enemies — if I have any — 
 with all my heart," she writes in hers, " and my persecutors, 
 whoever they be, even the persecutors of those I love." 
 
 But the great excitement of their dreary hours was the 
 arrival of new prisoners, which sometimes occurred several 
 times a day. Madame de Duras wondered how people like 
 herself and her cousin, who had always turned away from 
 disturbing sights, should now run to the window to be in 
 time for the most shocking of spectacles. It was, she 
 thought, the constant association with brutality which had 
 corrupted them, and she had yet to learn that curiosity 
 often wears the same face as cruelty. They had enough 
 to look at. Now it was a crowd of poor, patois-speaking 
 peasants from Vivarais, who were imprisoned for attending 
 Mass, and could make no one in Le Plessis understand 
 them ; now it was a band of priests, breviary in hand, 
 chained together by twos and threes. Or, again, it was 
 the grand Madame de Richelieu, who was kicked upstairs 
 by the gaoler, because she could not move quickly enough 
 
 202
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 after a three days' journey in a jolting cart, and a three 
 nights' sojourn in infected provincial prisons. Few of 
 these new-comers stayed long, and none knew which of 
 them would next be taken. 
 
 For no less regular, and still more tragic than the 
 arrival of the carts was the daily departure of the tumbrils. 
 From twenty to sixty prisoners were despatched every 
 morning to sit in the fatal " red velvet armchair " of the 
 Tribunal, and thence they took their last journey. The ap- 
 petite for blood had become a mania. On one occasion, a 
 Le Plessis gaoler returned from a business visit to Fou- 
 quier-Tinville, and told the prisoners that he had found his 
 master stretched on the ground, pale and exhausted. His 
 children were caressing him and wiping the sweat from 
 his brow. " I asked him his orders for to-morrow's list," 
 said the gaoler. " ' Leave me, my good fellow,' replied 
 Fouquier, ' I'm not up to it! Ah, what a trade !' Then 
 he added, as if instinctively, ' See my secretary ; I must 
 have sixty ; it doesn't matter which ; let him sort them.' " 
 
 The victims were allowed few farewells and no religious 
 consolation, a privation the more marked that two hundred 
 priests were actually under the Le Plessis roof. Madame 
 de Duras used to watch the condemned travellers set forth ; 
 her demeanour was so calm that one of the gaolers com- 
 plimented her upon it. " You would do very well on the 
 guillotine," he observed. '' I trust that I should," was her 
 reply. She was fully prepared for her turn ; and her one 
 regret in thinking of it was that she should not die for the 
 sake of religicjn, but because of the aristc^cracy she had in- 
 herited. Adrienne de Lafa)ette had not even such regrets 
 as these ; she only longed for the end. " The idea that one 
 will soon be of their number makes me strong enough to 
 endure such a sight," she exclaimed, after she had seen a 
 
 203
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 detachment of prisoners drive away. When she felt her 
 soul failing her in this chaos of desecration, she revived 
 her strength by whispering : " I believe in God the Father 
 Almighty," and, refreshed by the sense of His Presence, 
 she resumed her self-appointed tasks. 
 
 With tragedy all round and the guillotine so near them, 
 it is incredible that these victims could amuse themselves. 
 But here, in Le Plessis, as at Brioude, human nature 
 asserted itself, and custom created a weird order of its own. 
 A little society set itself up in all the prisons ; in some, 
 there were clubs and salons ; in others, actually balls, to 
 which none were invited but the relations of the guillotined. 
 In the Luxembourg, which was the chief aristocratic prison, 
 every shade of etiquette and formality of address was 
 observed, and opera-glasses were handed round so that 
 each noble marquis in turn might stand at the upper win- 
 dows and look down on his former Hotel, or at any rate 
 the place were it should be. There were concerts too, and 
 Republican choruses — not to speak of coquetries in dress, 
 of love intrigues, and hot jealousies, that lasted till the 
 moment of death. " Very singular to look into it," cries 
 Carlyle, " how wherever two or three are gathered to- 
 gether, there are formed modes of existing together, habi- 
 tudes, observances, nay gracefulnesses, joys. Citoyen 
 Coittant will explain how our bare dinner of herbs and 
 carrion was consumed not without politeness and place 
 aux dames : ... at what hour the Citoyennes took to 
 their needlework ; and we, yielding the chairs to them, 
 endeavoured to talk gallantly in a standing posture, or 
 even to sing and harp, more or less." 
 
 Once, and once only, a festival was prepared for them — 
 a festival which for the aristocrats was worse than their 
 daily routine. Just before Adricnne arrived, the women 
 
 204
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 of Le Plessis had been summoned to the courtyard, which 
 was full of oak boughs, and bidden to make garlands for 
 the Fete de VEtre Supreme. Madame de Duras pretended 
 to comply, but managed to steal back to her cell. The 
 Patriot prisoners had no such scruples. They enjoyed 
 their work, and went so far as to propose planting a Tree 
 of Liberty in the yard. Rut this request even the gaolers 
 rejected as absurdly unfitting for a prison, and the Sans- 
 culotte ladies were obliged to content themselves by 
 danciiig in a ring with the turnkeys. " Thus we cele- 
 brated," wrote a prisoner, " that strange festival in which 
 Robespierre allowed us to worship a God, so long as He 
 had not the name of one." 
 
 As suspicion grew fiercer, and plots were suspected, the 
 horrors grew worse. Former dangers themselves seemed 
 security compared with the dread now prevailing. Peti- 
 tions were discontinued ; they had become an almost cer- 
 tain road to destruction. Fresh reports were spread every 
 day : one morning all the prisoners were to be shot down, 
 standing against the wall of their courtyard, like the 
 victims at Lyons ; another time, there was to be a general 
 massacre, like that of the September of '92. Both cousins 
 were sick with apprehension for their parents, since escape 
 now seemed impossible. 
 
 They had discovered that, by sending trifles to the 
 Luxembourg, they could contrive the conveyance of open 
 n(jtes to their relations, and receive news from them in the 
 same manner, Madame d'Ayen, terrified to hear of her 
 daughter's whereabouts, could only implore her to observe 
 every precaution. It was not safe to say more, but these 
 messages were at least a sign to Adrienne that the beloved 
 trio was still in existence, though the details of that exist- 
 ence were unknown to her. 
 
 205
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 II 
 
 The d'Ayens were living as much as possible in common 
 with the de Mouchys, though this was a matter of some 
 difficulty. Louise de Noailles, " /« cdeste Vicomtesse" 
 ministered to her whole family, in a way that seemed 
 incredible to those who saw her. Frail as she always was, 
 she seemed to become pure spirit in her self-forgetfulness. 
 Not a moment's leisure was allowed her. She scrubbed 
 their cell, did all the housework, and washed their utensils, 
 besides nursing mother and grandmother, who were both 
 ill. By night she never lay down without tying one end 
 of a string round her grandmother's bed and the other 
 round her own arm, that she might wake if the invalid 
 needed her. Every hardship found her not only calm but 
 gay, with the sweet gaiety that distinguished her. Never- 
 theless, the two elder women were more sanguine than the 
 younger, who had felt no hope from the first moment she 
 entered the Luxembourg. She would have been content 
 to die, had it not been for the thought of her husband, now 
 in England, but sure to return to death ; still more, that of 
 her three helpless children. They continued in the H6tel 
 de Noailles, under the care of M. Grelet, another heroic 
 tutor of the Revolution, who had identified his life with 
 that of the d'Ayen family. The tender mother of twenty- 
 four years always called him her eldest son. " I was 
 wrong to say ' the mother and the children,' in my letter 
 yesterday," she writes to him from prison — "the article 
 ' the ' gives me pain. I ought to have said, as usual (and 
 I do say it with all my heart), ^ your mother and your 
 brothers,' who are your especial charge, since you are the 
 eldest of them. . . . Tell yourself often and often that 
 you are my only but most bountiful consolation." They 
 
 206
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 were the last words she sent him : the answer to his 
 patient visits each morning to the Luxembourg wicket, 
 and his efforts to give her regular news of her children. 
 Knowing her husband's danger as an hnigr^, she be- 
 queathed them formally to the tutor's keeping, in a paper 
 signed by herself and separate from her real will, which 
 she also drew up in her cell. Her legacies, like Adrienne's, 
 were chiefly spiritual, but she begged her husband to 
 accept the bust of Adrian, the child that had died, to- 
 gether with the portraits of the others. " I entreat 
 Madame Lafayette," ends the document, " in the name of 
 the feeling that unites us, not to give herself up to her 
 grief, but to preserve herself for her husband and her 
 children. Her true happiness, her interests, and those of 
 her dear ones, will always be mine, and will occupy me 
 unceasingly. I implore both her and my other sisters to 
 remember that the union which has been the sweetness 
 and consolation of our lives, is not broken ; we are only 
 divided for a few moments." 
 
 Those moments were approaching for her and hers, 
 ihough the verdict was not yet spoken. It was the turn 
 of the de Mouchys first. On June the 26th, the old couple 
 were transferred to the Conciergerie, which was known as 
 " the Antechamber of Death." " At seventeen," said the 
 Marcchal, as he bade farewell to his comrades at the 
 Luxembourg, " I sprang to the saddle for my King ; at 
 seventy-eight, I go to the scaffold for my God. My 
 friends, I am not unhappy." On the 27th, his wife and 
 he were taken out to die. "The Sansculottes will devour 
 your substance and drink your wine," shouted a Jacobin, 
 who recognised them as their tumbril rolled past him. 
 " God grant there may be bread for you to eat in a year's 
 time ! " the old man answered serenely, " and that you 
 
 207
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 may not be reduced to eating one another." They ended 
 in peace. Their faithful priest, M. Carrichon, stood in the 
 crowd, according to promise, and gave them Absolution. 
 Their sins were not many. 
 
 On the evening of the 26th, Madame de Duras had 
 already observed the embarrassment of the new arrivals 
 from the Luxembourg, when she questioned them about 
 her parents. "You will have awful news to tell me to- 
 morrow," she said to her cousin. The next day, she read 
 the whole tragedy in the face of Madame Lafayette. 
 There was no softening the blow. The poor daughter 
 shut herself into her room and remained there many days, 
 only leaving it to minister to a woman who, in one day, 
 had lost both her husband and her boy of sixteen. 
 
 It was not long before all her tenderness was needed 
 for Adrienne. On July 21st, the Duchesse d'Ayen, her 
 mother-in-law and the Vicomtesse, were transferred to the 
 fatal Conciergerie. Their Act of Accusation was read to 
 them in the Luxembourg ; to their surprise, they were 
 accused of conspiring with a person unknown to them, 
 and dead at the time of the alleged plot, to assassinate 
 the Committee of Public Safety. When they went up- 
 stairs again, they visited their great friend, the Duchess of 
 Orl(^ans, who occupied a cell next to theirs. So great was 
 their self-control, that their faces told her nothing of what 
 had happened, but they prepared her gently all that day 
 for what was to come. In the late afternoon, when the 
 cart arrived for them, Madame d'Ayen was reading " The 
 Imitation of Christ!' She hastily wrote upon a piece of 
 paper : " My children, courage and prayer ! " She placed 
 this as a marker in the place where she was reading — it 
 was the beautiful chapter called " The Cross " — then she 
 gave the book to the Duchess of Orleans, and asked hc;r, 
 
 208
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 if she lived, to give it one day to Madame d'Ayen's chil- 
 dren, as a token of her tenderness. But when she pro- 
 nounced the names of her daughters, her calm deserted 
 her, and her tears fell on the book. The marks were 
 still upon it when the Duchess of Orleans fulfilled her 
 word. 
 
 It was soon after seven, on a hot July evening, when the 
 three ladies started from the Luxembourg. As they drove 
 away, M. Grelet stood amongst the mob that was looking 
 on. Louise de Noailles saw him, and managed to press 
 his hand as she passed him, a fact not unobserved by 
 an oflRcial who was standing close by them. When she 
 had got into the cart, she folded her hands as a sign that 
 she wished to pray with him, and bent her head in devo- 
 tion. Presently she lifted it, raised her hand to heaven, 
 and blessed him. Her mother, too, made him signs of 
 benediction ; but though he saw all that happened, he 
 assumed a blank expression, so that no one could dis- 
 cover the object of their greetings. When the cart rolled 
 off, he followed it at a distance, and in the narrow Rue de 
 Condd, where the projecting houses threw a deep shade, 
 he came so close to them that the Vicomtesse was able 
 to look at him and raise her hand three times. He under- 
 stood the sign : it meant three separate blessings for each 
 of her children — Alexis, Alfred, and Euphc^mie. As the 
 procession emerged on to the Pont Neuf, Grelet felt a hand 
 upon him and heard words of arrest ; he was pursued 
 by the official who had observed his salutation of the 
 Vicomtesse. In vain did he run for dear life. Just 
 within sight of the prisoners' descent at the Conciergerie, 
 he was caught, taken to the prt^fcciiire, and there shut up 
 in a cell. There were compromising papers in his pocket, 
 but happily the gaoler left him. In a moment, not know- 
 
 209 P
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 ing how else to destroy them, he had swallowed them all, 
 only leaving his carte de sHreti, which he fortunately had 
 with him. Directly after, the commissioners entered ; they 
 examined, they cross-examined, they looked at his carte : 
 it was correct. After some debate, they actually set him 
 at liberty, and he arrived at home in time to say evening 
 prayers with the children. He allowed them that night 
 of untroubled sleep — the last hours of childhood's igno- 
 rance they would ever know. 
 
 In the prison of the Conciergerie there was little sleep 
 that night. The ladies were kept standing for hours in 
 the hall, and it was nearly eleven when, faint with ex- 
 haustion, they were put into a cell already full of inmates. 
 Fifty sous in the Vicomtesse's pocket was all the money 
 they possessed between them, so they could buy no com- 
 forts, and a glass of currant wine was all the sustenance 
 they could get at such a late hour. Happily Madame 
 Lavet, one of their fellow-prisoners, was a woman who had 
 heard of Madame Lafayette. She at once gave up her 
 bed to the old Mardchale, and made up a pallet for the 
 other ladies. The Vicomtesse still ministered to all. Her 
 mother kept begging her to lie down with her and take 
 rest against the morrow. " No, mamma ; there is no good 
 in resting before eternity," the daughter replied. She 
 remained at a table reading the New Testament by the 
 light of a candle. The mother, more sanguine than her 
 child, still dreamed she would prove her innocence, and 
 snatched a fitful sleep ; but the old grandmother sat up 
 all night in her bed, reading and re-reading her Act of 
 Accusation, and assuring her companions that there was 
 some mistake : she had never plotted, so she could not 
 be condemned. At one moment, she argued ; at another, 
 she anxiously consulted her granddaughter about her cap. 
 
 210
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 She wondered if it were too much trimmed for a revolu- 
 tionary tribunal. The times had changed, indeed, since 
 the days of wreaths and roses, when her nephews were 
 painted as aristocratic Cupids. 
 
 Next day, the Vicomtesse dressed her grandmother more 
 carefully than usual, and acted as maid to her mother. 
 As she was doing her hair, " Courage, mamma ! " she said, 
 " we have only an hour more." An old acquaintance, 
 Madame de Boufflers, brought them some chocolate. 
 Nine o'clock struck, and the guards came to fetch them 
 amidst the tears of the prisoners in their cell, though they 
 had known them for one night only. The Vicomtesse, 
 with her wonted grace, thanked Madame Lavet for her 
 kindness. " Your face is happy," she said — "you will not 
 die," and her prophecy was fulfilled. 
 
 That same morning, at six o'clock, the tutor bade his 
 pupils get ready for a visit to their little sister Euph^mie, 
 who was staying with a good citoyenne just outside Paris. 
 He meant to tell them his terrible tidings in the wood on 
 the way. But first he took them to the lodgings of P^re 
 Carrichon, the priest who had already given Absolution 
 to the de Mouchys, and had solemnly promised, what- 
 ever happened, to perform the same service for the 
 d'Ayens. M. Grelet went to warn him that the hour had 
 come. They left the boys in one room and withdrew to 
 another. When they returned, they found the unconscious 
 children playing, and they could hardly restrain their tears ; 
 words failed them, and the tutor departed with his charges, 
 in silence. The priest had once told the de Noailles ladies 
 that if the occasion should come, they would recognise 
 him in the crowd by his blue coat and red waistcoat. 
 They were part of a farmer's suit of clothes which he had 
 by him, and now put on. 
 
 2U
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 There was no time to be lost; no time even for the 
 emotion which almost choked him. When he was dressed 
 in his disguise, he hastened to the Palais de Justice, where 
 the trial was going on. No information to be had ; no 
 helpful face to be seen. In the anguish of his suspense, 
 he wandered to the Faubourg St. Antoine, and fortified 
 himself by some coffee in the house of a woman he knew 
 there — then back to the Palais. It was now near ten 
 o'clock : a day of storm and wind. He had not to wait 
 long ; in a few minutes the tumbrils drove up, the con- 
 demned prisoners came down the steps, and his worst 
 fears were realized. 
 
 The old Mar^chale was the first to get up into the cart, 
 clad in the mourning she wore for her husband, her grey 
 hair blown by the wind, her hands tied behind her with a 
 rope. At first she looked scared, but the dignity of the 
 supreme moment soon calmed her face. In the second 
 tumbril came Madame d'Ayen — in a blue and white n^gligi 
 — and her daughter, in pure white. They were both lean- 
 ing forward and looking for the priest in the crowd, as 
 eagerly as they dared, but it was in vain that he tried to 
 make them see him — the throng was too dense. The Vi- 
 comtesse was talking with animation and trying to reassure 
 her mother. " Look at that young one how she talks, how 
 she excites herself ! " said a woman in the mob. Still 
 they did not see him. The tumbrils set off. In despair 
 of their finding him in the first crush of the bystanders, 
 he took a short cut through the hall of the Palais and 
 caught them up. They seemed more anxious than ever ; 
 their eyes were straining for the sight of him, but all in 
 vain. At last the heavens themselves helped him. As 
 the wheels rolled along the Faubourg St. Antoine, a 
 heavy thunder-shower broke. In an instant, the streets 
 
 212
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 were empty. The priest, who was in advance of the 
 prisoners, took shelter in a doorway and, as the last drops 
 fell, he stepped forth, almost the only person within sight. 
 The Vicomtesse saw him now ; he could read it in her 
 face, in the way she whispered to her mother. He stood 
 at the edge of the pavement and, as they passed, he raised 
 his hand and distinctly murmured the words of the Abso- 
 lution. He had satisfied their hearts' desire. Their faces, 
 he says, became radiant with " the peace which passeth all 
 understanding." 
 
 He followed them to the guillotine, and stood with the 
 spectators, his hat slouched over his face, trembling at 
 what he was to see, yet unable to forsake them while they 
 lived. The Vicomtesse gave him a long look, then she 
 bade farewell to her companions and bent her head in 
 prayer. " Ah, that young one, how happy she sjems ! " 
 cried a Sansculotte — " how she lifts her eyes to heaven ! 
 how she prays! but what good is that to her?" Then, 
 after recollecting his principles : " Accursed scoundrels ! 
 the devil ta.kG aW d-devants/ " he concluded. The guards 
 had surrounded the first cart, and were helping its occu- 
 pants to descend. Perc Carrichon saw the old Marechale 
 sitting on a block of stone which lay there, with a fixed 
 look in her eyes ; her comrades were drawn up in two 
 lines on the side of the Faubourg St. Antoine, whilst 
 the executioner lounged close by, chewing the stalk of 
 a full-blown rose. He did not wait long. The eldest 
 woman's turn came third ; seventh after her was Madame 
 d'A}'en. The executioner tore her cap from her head 
 without taking out the pin that fastened it, and for a 
 moment, her face was contracted with pain ; but its calm 
 as quickly returned to it. Her daughter followed her, 
 smiling, to undergo the same violence and suffering, 
 
 213
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 succeeded by the same deep tranquillity. The guillotine 
 fell again, and, in a quarter of an hour, three generations 
 had perished. 
 
 Next morning, Madame de Duras heard a rumour of 
 the tragedy. A newspaper that she saw confirmed it, but 
 did not mention the Vicomtesse. She refrained from say- 
 ing anything until she knew for certain, and bribed a 
 gaoler to find out the truth. He left her no doubt. It 
 was enough for Madame Lafayette to look at her cousin's 
 face ; she stammered out some question, and was answered 
 by a torrent of tears. They were more eloquent than 
 words. For a long time, Adrienne could not believe in the 
 full extent of her sorrow. She accepted the death of her 
 mother and grandmother, but she could not imagine that 
 her sister too had been taken. When the whole truth 
 penetrated her numbed senses, she remained plunged in 
 speechless grief " Thank God," she wrote later to her 
 children, " for having preserved my life, my head, my 
 strength ; do not regret having been far from me. God 
 kept me from revolting against Him, but I should not 
 have been able for a long time to endure even the sem- 
 blance of human consolation." 
 
 There must have been torture in the thought that, had 
 they lived a few days longer, they might have been spared 
 altogether. The reports of Robespierre and his intention 
 of seizing the Dictatorship had rapidly increased and as- 
 sumed ominous proportions. When, after the long absence 
 which prudence had prescribed to him, he returned to the 
 Convention on July the 26th, he tried his last card, and 
 began by denouncing the degenerate moderation of the 
 whole Assembly. Where was Patriotism in this mass of 
 corruption? It had no other home now but Jus incorrup- 
 tible heart. A threatening silence met him, and he realized 
 
 214
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 that the whole House was an Opposition, and every man's 
 hand was against him. He hastened to his Jacobin Club, 
 and that at least was true to him ; but it was powerless in 
 face of such mighty numbers. Next day, the 27th, he sat 
 again in the Convention, festively clad in the sky-blue coat 
 of the Fete dc V Etre Suprinu. Suddenly Tallien, the 
 leader of his enemies, arose ; he drew his sword, and point- 
 ing it at Robespierre, denouncedhim as a corrupt tyrant and 
 a traitor to the Republic. All tongues were now loosed ; 
 the flood-gates were opened, and the tide was too strong 
 to be resisted. Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just were 
 condemned to death, followed by the younger Robespierre, 
 who refused to separate his fate from his brother's. 
 
 But the last act of the drama was not yet. Every 
 prison refused this dangerous prey, and the Jacobins' Club 
 seized its opportunity. They bore their Dictator in pomp 
 to the Hotel de Ville, and there sat in solemn Committee 
 over his adversaries. The Convention, nothing daunted, 
 passed a unanimous decree that the men it had condemned 
 were outlaws, and sent out its armed forces to take them. 
 In hurried disorder, the troops of the Club mustered also 
 and met their brother Terrorists in the blood-stained Place 
 de Greve. They might yet have won the diiy had their 
 General Henriot been with them, instead of sitting drunk 
 with ill-timed carousings in Robespierre's Committee-room 
 just above. Panic-struck at his absence, they were routed 
 in a moment. As the soldiers of the Convention rushed 
 victoriously into the Council Chamber, Robespierre fired 
 his [)istol at himself, staining the sky-blue satin with red ; 
 his brother and Henriot leaped from the window, and the 
 coward Couthon crept under the table. St. Just alone 
 stood up and faced his fate. Not one of the suicides suc- 
 ceeded, and the victims were taken, mutilated as they were, 
 
 215
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 together with their companions. Their imprisonment, 
 their mock trial, were the work of a few hours. On the 
 afternoon of July the 28th, the guillotine, insensate as 
 Nature herself, devoured her lovers with the same keen 
 appetite she had displayed towards her foes. 
 
 Robespierre was dead ! Inexpressible was the effect of 
 the tidings upon France. It was a blow of happiness that 
 stunned her for the moment. One man dropped down 
 dead for joy when he heard the news. Others stared 
 at each other in silence, not daring to break the spell by 
 speech. The great fact penetrated the prisons with amaz- 
 ing speed. On the evening of the 27th, the inmates of 
 Le Plessis were aware that some horror was imminent. 
 Precautions were redoubled, and there was a rumour of an 
 approaching massacre. " There was no fear of death left 
 in us," says Madame de Duras, "but the dread of being 
 slaughtered by inches was an extra terror." Next morn- 
 ing the alarm was increased by the sound of distant 
 cannon and the haggard faces of the gaolers. But towards 
 evening, their expressions changed ; the houses opposite 
 the prison hung out gay-coloured stuffs ; and when night 
 fell, it was known to all that Robespierre was no more. 
 
 Strange were the sounds throughout Le Plessis that 
 night — cries of joy, clapping of hands, acclamation at the 
 deliverance of a prisoner who had been five months ati 
 secret, without any man knowing of his existence. There 
 were immediate changes, too, in the daily routine ; letters 
 and visitors were allowed, food and accommodation were 
 better, the men and women were no longer kept apart, 
 a few victims were even released, and some were allowed 
 to remove to the more comfortable uiaison de satite. 
 Madame de Duras herself might have done so, but she 
 refused both from piety and economy ; she did not wish 
 
 216
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 to oppose herself to Providence, who had placed her in 
 Le Plessis, and she objected to the extra expense such 
 a course would involve. 
 
 The population of the prisons changed. Terrorists came 
 in, and aristocrats went out in increasing numbers, bearing 
 letters and tokens from those they left behind. The 
 Committee of Safety at last tried to realize its name, and 
 sent commissioners to investigate the condition of the 
 prisoners. It was rumoured that special deputies were 
 to arrive and set everybody free, and the officers destined 
 for Le Plessis were mentioned by name. Legendre and 
 Bourdon do I'Qise were expected from day to day. 
 
 On October the i6th, 1794, just one year after the 
 Queen's death, the great door opened and their coach 
 rolled in. That day they released eighty prisoners, but 
 neither of the cousins was amongst them. Two days later 
 they came again, and both ladies were summoned to the 
 Grcffe, where the examination took place. A good many 
 others accompanied them. When they entered, Bourdon 
 looked at them severely. " Let the ci-devants go out ! " 
 he exclaimed — " it is not fitting that they should be ex- 
 amined before the honest Sansculottes." They withdrew, 
 and stood waiting for three hours outside ; then Madame 
 flc Duras was recalled. "Your names?" said Bourdon. 
 She gave them. He leaped on his chair with irritation. 
 " The)' are horrid names ! " he shouted : " we cannot set 
 this woman at liberty ; we must speak to the Committee of 
 Safety." After a few trifling questions, Legendre, predis- 
 posed in her favour, pointed out that her papers were 
 satisfactory, and that she had been a " lady of Charity of 
 St. Sulpice." The porter too, and a Sansculotte prisoner 
 who happened to be there, sang her praises loudly. " What 
 have you done for the Revolution ? " asked the commis- 
 
 217
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 sioners. " At every time of my life," she replied, " I have 
 done all the good I could, and I always gave money to the 
 poor volunteers on our estate, who were leaving for the 
 army." She was leaning easily against the deputies' table 
 as she spoke. They found her demeanour haughty, and 
 she did not appease them by reminding them that they 
 owed her justice, in return for her undeserved misfortunes. 
 When she left them, she felt that her cause was lost. 
 
 Madame Lafayette fared still worse. Legendre treated 
 her with ignominy. " I have old scores against you," he 
 said — " I detest yourself, your husband, and your name." 
 " I shall always defend my husband," was her answer, 
 " and a name is not a wrong." She replied with great 
 firmness to his inquiries, and begged him to show her 
 papers to the Committee of Safety. " You did not talk 
 so humbly in the old days ; you are an insolent ! " was all 
 he rejoined ; and then their interview was at an end. 
 His deeds matched his words. She was told that her 
 husband's treachery to his country was such that she could 
 not be released ; and she stayed on in prison with several 
 other unfortunates. She was indifferent to what became 
 of her now — captivity had lost its sting. Her cousin's fate 
 was different; the next morning, as she was sweeping her 
 room, her door was opened ; she heard a voice saying, 
 " You are free," and the porter followed with her Act of 
 Release. Freedom had come to her when the motive for 
 it seemed gone ; even the thought of a possible reunion 
 with her son did not revive her, and the congratulations 
 of the gaolers vexed her more than tiieir brutality had 
 done. She feared they might embrace her as they did 
 most departing aristocrats ; but this climax was spared 
 her, and one of them even had the grace to restore to her 
 a family clock which had been taken from her. In silence 
 
 21b
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 she made up her scanty parcels, and took a tender leave of 
 Madame Lafayette. Before the evening came, she was out 
 again in Paris, dazed by the traffic and hardly knowing 
 where to turn. She found a resting-place in the house of her 
 mother-in-law, whence she migrated to the squalid lodg- 
 ings of her mother's old maid. Here, penniless and bewil- 
 dered, she passed the severe winter in a freezing garret, 
 devoting herself to the interests of Madame Lafayette and 
 to the practices of religion. Disguised as milliners and 
 fish-girls, she and the few friends she still found in Paris at- 
 tended secret Mass in the underground cellars, which served 
 as catacombs to the brave priests who were in hiding. 
 
 Others, besides Madame de Duras, were busy on Adri- 
 enne's behalf. Gouverneur Morris had practically saved 
 her life, at an earlier period, by writing to the Committee of 
 Safety, and warning them that, if they killed Lafayette's 
 wife, all the enemies of the Republic would rejoice and 
 England would be justified in her slanders of Jacobinism. 
 He had now retired from office, but his successor, Mr. 
 Monroe, was doing his best to plead for her. He and his 
 wife visited her in prison and tried to relieve its monotony. 
 A much greater event was the arrival of Pere Carrichon, 
 who penetrated into her cell, disguised as a miller, and not 
 only gave her every detail of her beloveds' last hours, but 
 received her confession and administered the Holy Sacra- 
 ment to her weary soul. She was soon transferred — first 
 to the prison in the Rue des Amandiers, then to that of 
 Notre Dame des Champs. The inmates of the first were 
 nearly all of them colonial women, who looked askance 
 upon her because of her well-known zeal for the negroes ; 
 but tlicy were not proof against her charm, and were 
 quickly won over. It was the same in the second house, 
 where she found herself in a mixed company, all alike 
 
 219
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 devoted to her. There were men of every party : criminal 
 Sansculottes ; the Accuser-General of Orange, famed for 
 his atrocities ; the tutor of St. Just, glorying in his pupil. 
 
 Just as the bitter cold was beginning to tell on her 
 bruised nerves, came her Act of Release. Her arch-enemy, 
 Legendre had hitherto refused his signature, but Madame 
 de Duras, conquering her repugnance, had paid him a com- 
 plimentary visit at his toilet, and at last obtained his con- 
 sent. On January the 22nd, 1795, Adrienne de Lafayette 
 again found herself a free woman. But she felt as if she 
 were dead. Even the idea of rejoining her husband, still 
 the one thought that kept her alive, seemed blurred and 
 confused to her. Like one in a dream, she went to thank 
 the American Minister for his services, and begged him to 
 try and get her a passport for herself and her family. Then 
 she set forth for the de Segurs, Lafayette's faithful friends 
 and cousins, who lived just out of Paris. Her visit to 
 them, she says, was the first thing that brought her back 
 to life and once more humanized her. " Madame de 
 S^gur," she wrote, " has breathed into my numb heart a 
 great and tender interest." She began to make plans. It 
 was decided that her boy should not accompany her and 
 her daughters to Germany, but should be sent with M. 
 Frestel to the United States, and there placed under 
 Washington's care. Through the Comte de Segur's inter- 
 vention, she got a passport for the boy under the name of 
 Motier, from Boissy d'Anglas, the member of the Com- 
 mittee of Safety who was most anxious to repair the evils 
 it had wrought. George and M. Frestel were to sail in 
 separate boats, in order to avoid suspicion, and to meet at 
 Boston, in the house of an American friend. 
 
 Six days later, she met her boy again — not at the de 
 Segurs, whom she feared to compromise, but at a house in 
 
 220
 
 THE PRISONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 the neighbourhood. She could not have believed, she said, 
 that her heart could again have felt such joy. It was only 
 for a moment. He had to depart at once, and her embrace 
 of welcome was also one of farewell. 
 
 " My wish," she wrote to Washington, " is that my son 
 should lead a very obscure life in America ; that he should 
 resume the studies which three years of misfortunes have 
 interrupted, and that, far from those places which might 
 too strongly excite or deject his spirit, he should work at 
 making himself a capable citizen of the United States. 
 The feelings and principles of such an one will always 
 suit a French citizen." 
 
 There was now nothing to keep her from rejoining her 
 children at Chavaniac. They met her on the way, in a 
 mountain village near Clermont The joy was almost 
 pain. They could only express it in prayer. The priests 
 were just beginning to emerge and once more to officiate. 
 The day following her arrival was a Sunday, and they 
 went all together to hear Mass, in a chapel amongst the 
 hills. Soon after, the mother conducted her Virginie to 
 her First Communion, and then the party journeyed slowly 
 to Chavaniac, where the old aunt, who had survived so 
 many generations, was anxiously expecting them. At 
 Brioude — the town of many memories — an unexpected joy 
 awaited them. Madame de Grammont, who had all this 
 time remained safely in the depths of the country, had 
 heard of her sister's release and resolved to join her. She 
 had no money, and public conveyances were still danger- 
 ous. But she took her diamonds and, mounted on a mule, 
 with her husband trudging by her side, she rode to Paris — 
 the three children, whom she could not leave, slung in a 
 pannier before her. When she reached Paris, Madame 
 Lafayette had already left, but she pursued her to 
 
 221
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Auvergne, and caught her up in the little provincial 
 city. 
 
 The diamonds were sold by M. de Grammont to liqui- 
 date the remainder of the debt on Chavaniac, which the 
 old aunt had managed to re-purchase. The whole family 
 made it their headquarters, whilst the Lafayettes were 
 waiting for their passport, which was delayed by endless 
 technicalities. Adrienne used the time to save what she 
 could of her husband's property, and to secure for herself 
 Lagrange, which her mother's will had bequeathed to her. 
 Never before had her business powers shone forth so 
 brilliantly. It seemed as if necessity had endowed her 
 with the brain of a man. She not only gained her own 
 objects, but even managed to look after some charitable 
 legacies left by the Duchesse d'Ayen, and all this at a 
 time when the suspense about her passport was unbear- 
 able. Her many negotiations, too, needed her bodily 
 strength ; they frequently took her to Paris, a journey 
 which she had to perform for the most part on foot, 
 consoling herself, on her way, by rests in the deserted 
 churches, now once more open to her. 
 
 The fresh split, in May, of the decadent Revolutionary 
 party — and the fresh Proscription — made a second Terror 
 imminent. The passport now seemed an impossibility. 
 Her highest hope had been to reach Germany, so as to be 
 near her husband, and then take what measures she could 
 to share his imprisonment. But now she resolved to be 
 content with emigration to any country she could reach, 
 and thus ensure the safety of her family and her property. 
 For once, events were better than her fears. The disturb- 
 ances came to nothing ; order re-established itself, and she 
 and her children moved to Paris. Early in September her 
 passport was given her, but one for America was all that 
 
 222
 
 THE I'RIS^NS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 could be obtained. She decided to make a false start on 
 the American boat and then diverge to Germany; she 
 was to travel by Altona on the Baltic (where Madame de 
 Tes.s6 had made a home for the whole Montagu family), 
 and the Grammonts were to accompany her. On Sep- 
 tember the 5th, the party set sail from Dunquerque, and 
 left the American boat at Hamburg. In one week from 
 their landing, they found themselves at Altona 
 
 223
 
 Emigres and Captives 
 
 225
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Emigres and Captives 
 
 1\ /T ADAME DE MONTAGU and Madame de Tess6, 
 ■^^ ^ in their house on the Baltic, had no idea of 
 Atiricnne's fate, and their means of information were 
 scanty and precarious. They were leading the life of 
 hiiigrcs, and the life of the emigres was the queerest life 
 imaginable — a jumble of pathos and bathos, in which 
 comedy was not the less amusing because it was uncon- 
 scious. In every Swiss and Belgian village, in every little 
 German town, however bleak and remote, from Schleswig 
 liolstcin to Livonia — towns where nothing has ever 
 occurred excepting the birth of metaphysicians and 
 waiters — the French nobles tried to settle. Penniless, 
 courageous, unpractical, and constantly chased away by 
 the local governments, the)' lived from day to day, yet 
 contrived to keep up most of their old social habits in their 
 new surroundings. The men gave lessons, for a trifle, in 
 languages, dancing, and mathematics ; the women earned 
 stray shillings by coarse sewing and embroidery, liut in 
 the evening they came forth and had their salons as gaily 
 as ever. Notliing destroyed their capacity for conversation, 
 though the\' talked on the sourest of wines, and on meat 
 (jiice a week. Their powers of endurance stood every test. 
 Lt)uis Phi]ipi)e, a lad of sevenl en, wandered for months 
 amongst the Alps, with no companion but a valet, and 
 Hvi.hI ow scvenpence a day, till he eked out his income 
 
 227
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 by becoming a Professor at the College of Reichenau. 
 We have many other glimpses into this strange migratory 
 existence — its discomforts, and its ceremonies. Now it is 
 the elder Madame Talleyrand, in her economical room at 
 Brussels, where the wit threw more light than the candles ; 
 now Madame d'Escars, at Aix-la-Chapelle, with worn-out 
 clothes and fresh spirit ; or Madame de Genlis, that Venus 
 Victrix of governesses, in her convent refuge near Geneva, 
 receiving passionate advances from Swiss gentlemen, in the 
 moments she could spare from painting snow mountains 
 in water-colours, with her royal charge, little Mademoiselle 
 d'Orleans. 
 
 Only from time to time, did these unfortunates see 
 a newspaper and learn the catastrophes, public and 
 private, that had befallen them. It is Madame de Genlis 
 who records the effect produced by Robespierre's death. 
 She was living in a pension full of hnigrh at Dresden. 
 Alone in her room, and divided, as usual, between thoughts 
 of pedantry and of love, she was pursuing her nightly study 
 of geology and of the harp. It was just striking twelve 
 when a knock at her door startled her. She at once 
 apprehended a midnight lover, prepared herself for de- 
 fence, and told him to come in. Her fears seemed fulfilled 
 when a bald old gentleman, her fellow pensionnaire, rushed 
 into the apartment and folded her in his arms. She 
 struggled in vain, " Robespierre is dead ! " he cried, 
 "therefore I kiss you, Madame !" and, propriety satisfied, 
 she conscientiously returned his embrace. 
 
 Little Madame de Montagu, a nomad even amongst 
 cinii^n's, had few such distractions. After her departure 
 from ]\'iris and her walk to the sea-coast, she travelled to 
 London and took up her abode at Richmond, where a 
 gr<iup of exiles were struggling for existence. Her hus- 
 
 228
 
 EMIGRES AND CAPTIVES 
 
 band courageously returned to France, and left her in 
 dusty apartments with her grand-seigneur father-in-law. 
 Here she struggled on, ignorant of English, uncertain 
 whether a beefsteak was bought at a butcher's or a 
 grocer's — blushing to inquire ; trying to make her own 
 dresses ; supporting her household upon tenpence a day, 
 and crowning her achievements by bringing a daughter 
 into existence. In the intervals of baby-nursing, she 
 studied English, German, and the Lives of the Martyrs, 
 and even found dissipation of a spiritual kind. The great 
 excitement of the emigre world was the establishment of 
 a chapel from their savings (a fund impossible to conceive), 
 and the celebration of their maidens' first Communion 
 there — a ceremony festively attended by all the emigrants, 
 even by the pJiilosopJies amongst them, humbled by their 
 apartments at Richmond. 
 
 Even this wretched repose was doomed to be broken by 
 a more wretched journey to Brussels, where her husband 
 wanted her — a journey with her baby and her father-in-law, 
 through a country overturned by war. Romance makes 
 good reading, but bad experience. They travelled, now on 
 foot, now in a cart full of refugee actors, and only halted at 
 a wayside tavern, where she got a sabre-cut in trying to 
 separate two dangerous brawlers. In Brussels she led 
 much the same life as at Richmond, somewhat cheered by 
 the presence of the saintly Princesse de Chimay, with whom 
 she shared good works and exchanged Prayer-books — an 
 innocent attention common amongst emigra. They had 
 no other property left them to exchange. But Belgium 
 became unsafe ; the de Montagus migrated again to Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, but were hardly settled there, when the 
 sudden movement of the army again compelled them to 
 flee in the first carriage at hand, whither they knew not. 
 
 2^9
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 It was mid-winter ; they could see nothing but snow, and 
 the cold was intense. Their fortunes led them along the 
 bank of the Rhine and past Wesel ; Madame looked 
 longingly at the grated windows, in the vain hope of 
 seeing the prisoner she knew to be there. 
 
 They had now resolved to go to the Hague, and thence 
 cross the Meuse and reach a port for England. When 
 they got to the river, it was frozen hard ; no skates were 
 to be had, the boat they were making for was about to 
 start, and there was nothing for it but to walk, baby and 
 all. The old father-in-law was infirm ; Madame de 
 Montagu was again expecting to be a mother. Leaning 
 on her husband's arm, or carried by careless boors, she led 
 her little family ; and they slipped and stumbled on over 
 miles of ice, till they at last reached the coast, faint and 
 half frozen. Their sailing vessel landed them in safety, 
 and this time it was at Margate that they took up their 
 quarters, and in Margate lodgings that their third child 
 was born. Here also she received a letter from Madame de 
 Tesse, then at Lowenberg in Switzerland, offering a gene- 
 rous shelter to her and her whole family. She hesitated 
 awhile, remembering her aunt's freethinking tendencies, 
 but affection conquered, and she set forth to join her. 
 
 She found the strangest household. Madame de Tess6, 
 as an hnigrtf, was the same as Madame de Tesse in 
 Paris — as eccentric and warm-hearted as ever. Her hair 
 kept its blackness, her movements their impulsive energy. 
 She was still a sort of Sybil, who spoke " in an impressive, 
 dogmatic tone, with many grimaces and a very odd ' tic' 
 and yet with an incomparable nobility of manners and 
 feelings — a mixture of severe reason and visionary ex- 
 altation, as strange as it was piquant." She was positive 
 about things and persons, and speculative about theories 
 
 230
 
 liMIGRES x\iND CAPTIVES 
 
 and ideas ; and, wherever she was, she invented outlets 
 for her energies. Politics remained her strong point and 
 Lafayette her political hero. As for her love of the 
 practical, it was now amply satisfied by a virile superin- 
 tendence of her house and her farm. " She imitates those 
 hens who, as they grow old, assume the bearing and crow of 
 the cock," some one once said of her. A needle had never 
 been seen in her hand, and no one had ever known her 
 to sit down excepting to read or, above all, to talk. Con- 
 versation all day was her ideal of enjoyment, and she 
 had uprooted from Paris a witty and imperturbable old 
 Marquis, M. de Mun, whom she always carried about as 
 her salon to talk to whenever she felt inclined. Without 
 him she could not have endured the silence of the Swiss 
 snow mountains. Her husband was there, it is true, but 
 nobody noticed his presence. 
 
 She and M. de Mun discussed metaphysics — her favour- 
 ite topic — for some hours daily, debates from which 
 Madame de Montagu piously retired. Madame de Tessc 
 was still a follower of Voltaire — a fact which did not pre- 
 vent her from making the sign of the cross behind her 
 bed-curtains whenever she took a medicine. She was, 
 as became her, the sworn foe of the clergy ; but when she 
 found a persecuted curd, she loved him with all her heart. 
 This Church-hater even had a chaplain. She had dis- 
 covered a poor priest starving in a garret, too proud to 
 accept charity, and she could find no other way of ad- 
 ministering it than by taking him into her household as 
 her confessor, and attending divine service every day — the 
 sole member of his limited congregation — so that he 
 should not smart under the sense of a sinecure. When 
 her niece came, her mind was at ease. She knew he would 
 now have enough occupation. 
 
 231
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Besides the chaplain, she supported a family of poor 
 cur6s near Lowenberg, on the produce of her kitchen- 
 garden. The ecstatic Pauline no sooner discovered this 
 fact than she made it her duty to water the vegetables, 
 and conscientiously inundated the nettles, which she was 
 too aristocratic to recognise ; but she was amply rewarded 
 by a round of ecclesiastical visits to her aunt's friends. 
 Her evenings were not so happy, for when Madame de 
 Tess6 was not conversing, she made M. de Mun read aloud. 
 Their choice of literature was not very profane — "C/arissa 
 Har/ozve," " Tristram Shandy" the works of Madame 
 de Genlis, and Plutarch's "Lives"] but they offended 
 her transcendental niece, who preferred to read Fenelon 
 in her room, or concentrate her attention upon knitting 
 counterpanes for the poor. 
 
 Meanwhile, she could get no tidings of her mother and 
 sister. Remote as she was from Paris, she allowed herself 
 to hope, in spite of her haunting anxiety. The news of 
 the de Mouchys' fate first broke her peace. About the 
 same time, she heard from her father in Vaud, and decided 
 to visit him there. She started on July the 28th, her heart 
 unaccountably heavy. In vain did her cavalier, the son 
 of M. de Mun, try to cheer her by making posies or im- 
 provising verses. He left her when her father met her, in 
 a country char-a-banc, half-way to her destination. One 
 glance at his face warned her of a tragedy. " Ask me 
 no questions till we reach the next village," he said, as he 
 embraced her and lifted her into the carriage. It seemed 
 to her, as they drove along, that she was travelling in a 
 tumbril, and " the spirit of sacrifice occupied all the forces 
 of her bewildered soul." 
 
 One faint inquiry about Madame de Grammont she 
 managed to make. " Of her I know nothing," the Duke 
 
 232
 
 Emigres and captives 
 
 replied. They reached the village, dismounted at the inn, 
 and entered its parlour. Here, in this Swiss tavern, the 
 mountains and the summer glory outside, she learned the 
 tragedy of her family. Her father was controlling his 
 sobs. " Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, soumettons-ywus ! " she cried, 
 when he had done ; then, in the midst of her tears, she 
 remembered the Magnificat, which her mother was ac- 
 customed to say upon days of sorrow, and she began to 
 recite it, her whole heart in her voice. Soothed by prayer, 
 she was able to continue her journey, but instead of pro- 
 ceeding to Vaud, her father took her back to Lowenberg. 
 
 A few weeks later, a messenger arrived from Franche- 
 Comte, with two letters — written on cambric handker- 
 chiefs — sewn into the lining of his vest. They were from 
 Madame de Grammont to her sister and her father. In 
 the midst of her mourning, she had succeeded in learning 
 that they had survived. 
 
 " You are still alive then, my darling," she wrote to 
 Pauline — " it would be better to say your sacrifice is not yet 
 completed like that of our beloved martyrs. . . . There 
 is only one thing left us now, my sister, to listen to the 
 voice of that new Mother of the Maccabees, who exhorts 
 us to turn our eyes to heaven . . . Your own heart 
 will make you judge of mine, which is less horror-stricken 
 than you would suppose. For the third time since our sor- 
 rows, Christ has visited me, and upheld me in my human 
 agony. But Adrienne ! The strength of Adrienne ! It 
 must be the same Arm that sustains her in her dungeon, 
 for where else could she get her courage ? " 
 
 There was reviving power for Madame de Montagu in 
 the thought that her best-loved companion was still in 
 existence. The children of the Vicomtesse de Noailles 
 had also b;jcn saved, with their faiihful tutor, and all four 
 
 233
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 had found a home with Madame de Grammont, till the 
 Vicomte should return from America, whither he had 
 escaped. But the thought of the dead overpowered the 
 thought of the living, and Pauline was crushed by her 
 griefs. At this terrible crisis, Madame de Tesse's brain 
 was entirely merged in her heart ; Voltaire was despatched 
 to the four winds, and, with infinite trouble, she collected 
 her priests and arranged to hold a public Mass for the 
 dead, in the church of the neighbouring town. It was 
 attended by the whole family, including M. de Mun, and 
 led by the Duke, so shaken by emotion that his daugh- 
 ter thought he was converted. As the whole procession 
 wound on foot through the pine-woods between Lowen- 
 berg and the chapel, the peasants of the Canton joined 
 them, the tears coursing down their cheeks. Madame de 
 Tesse's charity had already made her one of them. 
 
 Her ecclesiastical feats at this juncture were the more 
 admirable that she herself was in danger because of her 
 niece. The Government of her Canton forbade her to 
 shelter the daughter of a proscribed family, on pain of 
 being chased from the province, yet she persisted in her 
 course with her usual leonine spirit. But when Madame 
 de Montagu found it out, she would not stay, and migrated 
 once more to Constance, where some of her husband's 
 family had settled. Here she lived awhile, often on bread 
 and water, absorbed in writing her mother's life, a work 
 unfortunately lost in her many flittings. Madame de 
 Tesse, however, was never fond of resignation. It took 
 her a month to argue with the Canton, but at last she 
 made them listen to reason, and her niece returned to 
 her. 
 
 The aunt dreamed she could now farm and talk again 
 in peace, but her hopes were vain. New cares beset 
 
 234
 
 Emigres and captives 
 
 her. Her mother, the old Marcchale de Noaillcs, had died 
 in debt, and one of her creditors was a rich Swiss, who 
 dunned Madame de Tessc for large sums. Payment 
 meant something like ruin, but that was more possible to 
 face than dishonour, and she sold her little estate to pro- 
 duce the amount required. With only the smallest of 
 incomes left her, it became impossible to continue at 
 Lowenberg. There was nothing for it but a fresh exodus, 
 and whither became the matter of daily discussion. Meta- 
 physics were eclipsed by the topic of house-hunting, and 
 M. de Mun read aloud advertisements instead of romances. 
 At last, for reasons impossible to conceive, but connected 
 with the general discomfort of emigre existence, they 
 fixed on the shores of the Baltic, and set out with their 
 chattels for Livonia. It was at the seaport of Altona that 
 they alighted, escorted by their faithful de Mun, who 
 talked and argued, undaunted by the taciturn northern 
 town, where they resumed, as much as possible, the routine 
 of their days in Switzerland. 
 
 Of their family they could gain little informati(Mi. 
 Lafayette, the\- heard, had been transferred from the 
 custody of Prussia to that of Austria ; of Adrienne they 
 learned nothing, except tliat she had been in prison — 
 where and when they knew not. In the September of 
 1795, Madame de Tesse suddenly received a letter from the 
 d'Ayens' old friend, the Princesse d'Henin, who, though in 
 London, was kept well posted up in Paris news. She told 
 her correspondent that Madame Lafayette had started 
 for Livonia. These tidings produced such agitation in 
 Pauline that the counterpane she was knitting for her 
 confessor dro{)ped from her hands and, disciplined though 
 she was, she could neither work nor read for the next few 
 days. On the first of October, as she sat needle in hand, 
 
 ^35
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the sound of a cannon from the harbour announced the 
 arrival of a ship. Pale and trembling, she did not know 
 whether to sit still or to go out, and she turned her eyes 
 from the window, in her fear of disappointment. Madame 
 de Tesse, meanwhile, slipped from the room, and almost 
 ran to the Harbour Inn, where she knew that all new- 
 comers stopped to make inquiries. As she entered the 
 smoky passage, she walked straight into Adrienne's arms. 
 
 The two sisters met in silence — a silence charged with 
 emotion too great for words. They were alone ; for 
 Madame de Tess6 had retired from the room, taking her 
 great-nieces, Anastasie and Virginie, with her. At last 
 Madame de Montagu broke into sobs : " Did you see 
 them ? " she whispered. " I did not have that happiness," 
 was all that her sister could reply, and by a common im- 
 pulse, which needed no explanation, they knelt together 
 and sought relief in prayer. 
 
 In spite of all there was to say and to hear, Madame 
 Lafayette would not stay long in Altona, but, keeping her 
 central aim in view, only waited for a passport before 
 setting forth again for Austria. She spent the interval 
 worthily, in bringing what news she could of their relations 
 to the exiles in Livonia, though it was the hnigr^ party 
 that was guilty of her husband's imprisonment. Her plans 
 for rejoining him were now matured. No French person 
 was allowed to enter Austria, under pain of arrest, but she 
 and her daughters would travel to Vienna under the name 
 of the Motiers, a family from Connecticut ; there she would 
 throw herself at the Emperor's feet, and implore him, if he 
 would not free Lafayette, to allow her to share his im- 
 prisonment. 
 
 What this imprisonment had been, it is now time to 
 enquire. While the Terror had been raging in France, 
 
 2.q6
 
 fiMIGRfiS AND CAPTIVES 
 
 Lafayette's fortunes had undergone many vicissitudes. In 
 March, 1793, he had been removed to the prison at Mag- 
 deburg. His journey did no good to his oppressors ; it 
 proved a triumphal march; for, in spite of risk, people 
 crowded to hail him on his road, and even attempted 
 his release. Their efforts were feeble, but the movement 
 in the fresh air and the company of his fellow-sufferers 
 were thrilling after his solitary confinement, and, in spite 
 of his fever, produced one of those instantaneous cures, 
 so astonishing to read of in these days of neurotic self- 
 preservation. At the town of Ham, where they halted, 
 they managed to get a few minutes' conversation with a 
 traveller on the roadside — a Moderate who had escaped 
 from Paris and who gave them their first news of events 
 there. When they heard of the King's death, dumbness 
 fell upon them — above all upon Lafayette, to whom prison 
 now seemed the least of evils. 
 
 The Allies were as fierce as the Jacobins, and subjected 
 him and his comrades to a confinement as cruel as that 
 of Le Plessis. After five months of this, Alexandre de 
 Lameth, who was dying of his hardships, was released on 
 parole, and Maubourg, whose altered face Lafayette could 
 sometimes see through his bars, was moved to Glatz. 
 Lafayette and Pusy were both transferred to Neisse, but 
 the King of Prussia, foreseeing the need of soon making 
 peace with PVance, and the complications that would arise 
 from his possession of the prisoners, seized this opportunity 
 of giving them up to Austria. The Emperor accepted the 
 questionable gift, and sent them to the P'ortress of Olmiitz, 
 where Maubourg soon joined them. Here, severit\- was 
 redoubled. The gaolers were only allowed to address 
 them by numbers that were substituted for their names, 
 and, to increase the sense of isolation, each man's meals 
 
 237
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 were served at a different time from the other's. Lafay- 
 ette's knife and fork were taken away from him, though he 
 assured his turnkey that he " was not prudent enough to 
 kill himself" ; as for his books, they were all carried off, 
 including one called ^^L Esprit et le Sens Commim." "Does 
 Government think those qualities contraband ? " he asked, 
 with a gaiety which recalls Sir Thomas More in the Tower. 
 Even the dungeon-damp could not extinguish the fire 
 upon Lafayette's altar. " The popular cause is not the less 
 sacred to me," he wrote with his toothpick — the only pen 
 left to him — " for that, I would give my blood drop by 
 drop ; I should reproach myself at every instant of my life 
 which was not devoted to that cause ; but the charm is 
 lost. . . . The injustice of the people has destroyed for 
 me that delicious sensation of the smile of the multitude." 
 The old American days were still present with him, and 
 he kept July 4 solemnly in his cell, in spite of the shades 
 of illness which were closing round him. He was never 
 tempted to confound Religion with its professors, and his 
 faith in freedom sustained him, even through the absence 
 of it. 
 
 To save his life, which was despaired of, the Olmiitz 
 authorities at last allowed him to take the air, sometimes 
 on foot, sometimes in a carriage. This was the opportun- 
 ity for his friends. Dr. Bollmann, a Hanoverian, and his 
 ardent but unknown admirer, had in vain petitioned the 
 King of Prussia for his release, although he did not know 
 where he was confined. Hearing there were important 
 prisoners at Olmiitz, he straightway concluded Lafayette 
 was there, took up his abode in the neighbouring town, 
 and made acquaintance with the prison surgeon. Perhaps 
 it was only a German who could have acted on such meta- 
 [)h)-sical rc^nance for a man he had never seen. One da}- 
 
 2.0.8
 
 fiMIGRllS AND CAPTIVES 
 
 he bc^an a conversation with the surgeon about the effect 
 of the mind on the body. " You have Lafayette amongst 
 your patients," he concluded with calm assurance — " give 
 him this " (and he drew a paper from his pocket) — " it 
 contains news of his friends, and will do him more good 
 than all your medicines." His new acquaintance complied, 
 and returned with a list of questions from Lafayette. 
 Bollmann answered them. " These few words," he con- 
 cluded, " if read with your usual warmth, may bring some 
 consolation to a heart like yours." Lafayette understood 
 the hint : the paper that Bollmann had appeared to take 
 out so casual!)' was carefully written in sympathetic ink, 
 and, when held to a candle, proved to contain a detailed 
 plan of escape and a request for necessary information. 
 The prisoner wrote his " Thanks for the news," on the 
 margin of one of the few books now allowed him. " I am 
 trying to defend my own constitution as constantly, and 
 apparently as unsuccessfully, as the national Constitution," 
 he said, and added, in lime-juice, that his drive was his one 
 chance of escape. Bollmann had meanwhile left the town 
 to avoid suspicion, and had joined his accomplice, Hliger, 
 the son of Lafaj-ette's old friend in America. They dis- 
 covered from the surgeon the date of Lafayette's next 
 drive, and Bollmann cleverly spread abroad the report that 
 it was the day of their departure for England. They made 
 ready their saddle-horses, watched Lafayette start on his 
 drive, accompanied by an officer, and when he dismounted 
 for a walk, they exchanged a signal with him. He was 
 ready for the part he had to play. Bollmann and Hliger 
 rushed out and began the attack ; the officer struggled 
 with Lafayette and bit a piece out of his thumb, but was 
 finally thrown down and gagged b)- the other two. "Get 
 to Hoff," cried Bollmann, who had prc|)ared relays in that 
 
 239
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 town. He said it in English, which the officer could not 
 understand. Lafayette seized the horse that stood waiting 
 for him, sprang into the saddle, and was away. But unfor- 
 tunately, in his hurry, he had understood Bollmann to say 
 " Get off! " and went to a wrong town. No fresh mount 
 met him there as he expected, and he galloped on to the 
 frontier. Here his request for relays created suspicion. 
 He was re-arrested, a fate not sweetened by the news that 
 his friends had shared the same fate. They were cast into a 
 captivity which they had to endure for years. As for him, 
 he returned to Olmiitz, where his hardships were trebled. 
 No prisoner in an operatic dungeon could fare worse. 
 Every book was taken away from him, the straw of his bed 
 was hardly ever changed, and his clothes were replaced by 
 rags. Even his buoyant soul had to resist the impulse to 
 pray for death. The year '95 dawned drearily, but help 
 was at hand. Little did he dream, whilst he lay there, as 
 near despair as he could be, that the wife he counted 
 amongst the dead was daily drawing nearer to him. 
 
 One morning — it was the first of October — he was sit- 
 ting in his cell, ill and half stupefied. To his surprise, at 
 this unwonted hour, he heard the clanking of bolts ; his 
 door opened, and without a word of warning, as if they 
 were spirits from a world of shadows, his wife and children 
 entered. It must have taken hours to realize that they 
 were not dreams — .hours to regain speech. He was so 
 changed by illness and starvation that Adrienne hardly 
 recognised him. It was a whole day before he dared ask a 
 question about his country. He knew that there had been 
 a Terror, but he knew nothing more, and the names of the 
 victims were a blank to him. It was only in the evening, 
 when the two girls had retired, that his wife ventured to 
 tell him that the beings whom, next to her, he loved best 
 
 240
 
 £migr£s and captives 
 
 in the world had perished, in company with nearly every 
 friend he possessed. Happily, there were other and brighter 
 things to relate : the explanation of her unaccountable 
 arrival, and the history of her adventures in Austria which 
 had brought it about. 
 
 Fate had been kinder than she had expected. By dint 
 of blinding herself to difficulties, she hafl trodden them 
 underfoot and achieved the impossible. Once in Vienna, 
 she paid an unannounced visit to the Grand Chamberlain, 
 the old Prince of Rosemberg, who had formerly had rela- 
 tions with the de Xoailles, and, overcome by the sorrowful 
 beauty of her countenance, he consented to introduce her 
 and her daughters into the Imperial presence without the 
 knowledge of the Ministers. The Emperor received her 
 [)f)litely, and she, containing herself, asked him in calm 
 tones to allow them to live with Lafayette. He looked at 
 her, deeply moved : " I grant your request," he answered — 
 "as for his liberty, I cannot give it you, for my hands are 
 tied." When she had thanked him, she said that the 
 wives of her husband's fellow-prisoners would env)' her 
 happiness. " They have only to do as )ou have done," 
 replied the Emperor, "and I will do as I have done to 
 )-ou." Emboldened by his kindness, she told him she had 
 heard that abuses were common in the German prisons, 
 and asked leave to write to him direct from Olmiitz, if she 
 had any pctitir>n to make. He complied immediately, but 
 added that she would find her husband well lodged and 
 (cd, that he was treated with courtesy, and that her 
 presence would add a crowning charm to an easy exist- 
 ence. " When you see him, I beg you t(j (\u me justice," 
 he concluded. Such was the ignorance of S(-\ereigns, even 
 after the lesson of the Revolution. 
 
 Not cfjiitent with the R(j\-al permission, and obliged to 
 
 24,1 i-
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 wait for the drawing up of the official permit, she counted 
 every moment as wasted which was not employed in trying 
 to gain her husband's freedom. For this end, she conquered 
 her reluctance to visit the Prime Minister, Thugut. It was 
 an inopportune moment, for the exchange of prisoners 
 was taking place, and the Patriot captives were just start- 
 ing homewards, in return for little Madame Royale, 
 Louis XVI.'s daughter. Adrienne was too proud to entreat 
 liberty for a victim of loyalty, just when Austria was show- 
 ing indulgence to the King's assassins — too merciful not 
 to rejoice in the deliverance of any prisoner. She could 
 neither put warmth into her voice, nor do anything to 
 thaw Thugut's cold manner. " Surely," she said to him, 
 " the Coalition lays too much stress on the importance of 
 one man." " Too much importance ! " he repeated several 
 times, with such venom in his look and tone that she at 
 once saw her mission was useless. 
 
 The formalities for which she had lingered had now 
 been completed, and she and her girls set out for Olmiitz. 
 " I do not know," she wrote the evening before her arrival, 
 " how people bear what we are going to bear to-morrow." 
 They drove to Olmiitz in an open chaise ; when the 
 postilion pointed out with his whip the distant towers 
 of the town, Madame Lafayette shed tears of exaltation. 
 Then, with faltering voice, she broke forth into the 
 triumphal Song of Tobit — sung as his son and his son's 
 bride approached their home, the home of Babylonian 
 captivity. " Blessed be God that liveth for ever, and 
 blessed be His kingdom," she chanted — " I will extol 
 my God, and my soul shall praise the King of heaven." 
 
 The life they now led together might have been worse. 
 It is true that they had an open sewer below their 
 window ; that it looked upon the court-yard where refrac- 
 
 242
 
 itMIGRfiS AND CAPTIVES 
 
 tory soldiers were flogged ; that the ladies were obliged 
 to walk into their bedrooms beneath the crossed sabres of 
 the soldiers ; to eat with their fingers, and submit to a 
 hundred petty regulations. Still they were all together, 
 Lafayette's health improved every day of their presence, 
 and they contrived enough occupations to make the time 
 pass. He read a good deal aloud to them ; and though 
 paper and pens were denied them, Anastasie was not 
 daunted, but made sketches of the gaoler on her thumb- 
 nail with Lafayette's illustrious toothpick ; her mother 
 wrote Madame d'Ayen's life with the same instrument, 
 on the margin of some engravings in a volume of Buffon ; 
 Virginie made her father's shoes, beside a suit of serge 
 clothes which would not fasten and had to be re-adapted 
 by Madame Lafayette ; and the girls studied with their 
 mother every morning till noon, the hour of their admit- 
 tance to Lafayette's cell. 
 
 The tainted air, however, could not but end by telling 
 upon his wife and children's strength. One of the girls 
 fell ill of an infectious fever, but was not even allowed a 
 separate bed from her sister ; and Madame Lafayette at 
 last broke down with blood-poisoning. In vain she wrote 
 to the Emperor, thanking him for his past kindness, and 
 entreating him to allow her to see a doctor in Vienna. 
 Her friends urged him to comply, and he answered that 
 she might only undertake the journey on condition that 
 she did not return. There was nothing for it but to en- 
 dure without a murmur. Fortunately, the daughters had 
 inherited their parents' sweetness and vigour, and, as usual, 
 all three were supported by Lafayette's equanimity. " He 
 has lost none of his gentleness," wrote Adrienne to her 
 aunt, " and is pushing to e.KCcss what you call the weak- 
 ness of a great passion. You will not be surprised to hear 
 
 ---to
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 that he makes his friends swear not to plead for him on 
 any occasion, except in a way that is compatible with his 
 principles. " 
 
 It was fitting that the Esquire of Freedom should at 
 last find a champion in Freedom's fatherland. His own 
 country deserted him, but England came to his aid. As 
 early as 1795, General Fitzpatrick, who had been La- 
 fayette's foe in America, but had now become his 
 defender, proposed a motion in the House to urge the 
 alleviation of his imprisonment. It was defeated by the 
 eloquence of Burke, who looked upon Lafayette as the 
 father of the hated Revolution. Meanwhile, Lally- 
 Tollendal, his old comrade in thought, now an exile in 
 England, undertook his cause, and wrote to the King of 
 Prussia, demanding his deliverance. The King replied 
 that it was no concern of his — that the Emperor of 
 Austria was alone responsible. Lally-Tollendal addressed 
 the Emperor, but his Imperial Majesty answered that he 
 had nothing to do with it : it was the King of Prussia's 
 business. Pitt, supposed to be in the pay of Austria, 
 was next appealed to, but he shrugged his shoulders 
 and said he knew nothing of the whole affair. At this 
 moment, there appeared, in an English newspaper a series 
 of forcible letters on the subject, signed by " Eleutherus " 
 and written by Masclet, an obscure emtgrt^, and a friend 
 of Talleyrand's. Lafayette's captivity, the author main- 
 tained, was a blot on the reputation of Europe. The 
 articles created a sensation, and tiie whole London world 
 was taken up with wondering who " Eleutherus " might be, 
 whilst the Court at Vienna fumed helplessly in its vain 
 attempts to discover and silence the writer. He had, at 
 any rate, succeeded in rousing the sleepy British Lion — 
 and Sheridan, VVilberforce, Lord Lauderdale, the beautiful 
 
 244
 
 EMIGRES AND CAPTIVES 
 
 Duchess of Devonshire herself, now entered the lists on 
 behalf of Lafayette. They urged that Government should 
 put pressure upon Austria, and the subject was once more 
 brought forward in the House of Commons. 
 
 Burke was no longer there ; since the death of his son, 
 he had retired from public life. But Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, 
 Wilberforce, and Wyndham formed a serried legion of 
 great spirits. Fitzpatrick again threw down the gauntlet, 
 and opened the debate by insisting that, if England moved, 
 the prisoner would be set at liberty. Wyndham leaped 
 to his feet to oppose him, but Pitt begged leave to speak, 
 and coldly urged the folly of interfering with another 
 nation's business. Then Fox arose and let loose the 
 forces of his tongue. It was like fire after ice to hear 
 him — Etna spitting flame at Mont Blanc. Pitt's speech 
 he dismissed as " the laborious efforts of a cold and 
 sophisticated argument, which he could not resist answer- 
 ing, in the name of Justice, of Freedom, and of Lafayette." 
 " I am pleading," he perorated, " in favour of a noble 
 character, which will flourish in the annals of the world, 
 and live in the veneration of posterity, when kings and 
 the crowns they wear will be no more regarded than the 
 dust to which they must return." 
 
 It was in vain that Sheridan seconded him, and flashed 
 the nimble sword of his wit in the face of their oj)[Jonents, 
 " Lafayette," he cried, " unites Hampden's courage to Falk- 
 land's loyalty ! " With unruffled manners and scholarly 
 acrimony, Wyndham got u[j to rcpl\-. " He rejoiced," he 
 said, " in the Incendiary's imprisonment, and in seeing him 
 drink the dregs of the Revcjlution he had Withered. " Fox 
 ex{)loded again, but his flame produced little but smoke ; 
 and though Wilberforce pro[)osed an amendment, and 
 Sheridan seconded it, it was summarily rejected, and the 
 nioLion was allowed to drop. 
 
 245
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 But though the efforts of the Liberals had failed 
 directly, indirectly they bore fruit. " The eloquence of 
 Mr. Fox," wrote Adrienne to the Princesse d'Henin, then 
 in London, " has forced Mr. Pitt to deny his relations with 
 Austria in public, and has also produced a great effect 
 on the Court at Vienna, and on our very gaolers. This 
 cannot be too often repeated both to Mr. Fox and to 
 General Fitzpatrick, whose movements have been so much 
 impeded by their delicacy, and their fear of doing harm 
 to the cause of the prisoners. If the King of Prussia lets 
 them go, it will be due to the measures of Mr. Fox, and 
 it is probably because of these that M. Lafayette is still 
 alive." 
 
 She did not exaggerate. The noise of the debate had 
 made an echo in Europe, and beyond it, and events were 
 further helped by the position of international affairs. 
 The light of Napoleon had risen. Meteoric in action, as 
 in sudden reputation, the young General had spent the 
 winter of 1796 in crushing the Imperial troops in Italy, 
 and was now marching across the Alps towards Austria. 
 The Emperor could not afford to be proud, and Lafayette's 
 friends took advantage of the moment. Madame de Tess6 
 wrote to Fox to make fresh efforts, and Madame de Montagu 
 to Morris to use his influence ; Madame de Stael penned 
 impassioned reams to Ministers, and overflowed with per- 
 sonal politics ; Washington sent an impressive letter to the 
 Emperor, in the name of Lafayette's America. Last of 
 all, impetuous France, settling down to her Directoire and 
 to comparative regularity, awoke to a consciousness of the 
 prisoners' existence and a desire for their release. But it 
 needed a strong hand to open the doors of Olmiitz, and 
 there was but one man who was equal to the task. 
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte had passed the Alps, and was 
 
 24b
 
 Emigres and captives 
 
 nearing the walls of Vienna, where he meant to dictate 
 his own terms to the Emperor. In the dazzling dawn of 
 Napoleon's career, it was impossible for any one, least of 
 all the believing Lafayette, to see him in any other light 
 than that of his country's deliverer. The prisoner of 
 Olmiitz was ready for more than this ; he had heard 
 rumours of his doings, and exalted him as the true 
 Brutus, who was to succeed where he had failed and to 
 establish the Republic of his dreams. In these early days 
 of military prowess, Napoleon was at his best. Even in 
 later times, he was too great a man not to be sincere, at 
 least in the part he had allotted to himself. As he never 
 took off the mask of the Liberator, he caught no glimpse 
 of the Dictator's face behind it, and could accustom him- 
 self to believe that the mask was his own countenance. 
 But his real self instinctively warned him, from the first, 
 to beware of Lafayette as the faithful lover of liberty, 
 and therefore the arch foe of despotism — the one man 
 who could not, in the end, be duped by any disguise of 
 tyranny, however classical. He feared him for the future 
 more than he feared all the Jacobins, and, had he con- 
 sulted his own wishes, would have left him safely in his 
 cell. He was too strong a genius, however, to oppose 
 public opinion at so early a stage in his career, and the 
 wishes of England, America, and France were too wciglity 
 to be dismissed. Besides, he was more than compensated 
 by the triumph of his power which the cession of the 
 prisoners implied. If the part had to be acted, he would 
 act it well. With resplendent graciousness, and a re- 
 luctant spirit, he stepped forward and made the release 
 of the captives the crucial condition of the treaty. The 
 Emperor tried subter fu;^e in vain ; he had no choice but 
 to submit. The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed 
 
 247
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 in the late summer, and the doors of Olmiitz flew open. 
 Lafayette was free, by the grace of Napoleon Bonaparte; 
 it was as when Sindbad the Sailor burst the sealed casket 
 and let loose the Genius who was destined to defy him. 
 
 It was in September, 1797, when Maubourg, De Pusy, 
 and Lafayette, after five years' confinement, once more 
 emerged into the open air, with Adrienne and her 
 daughters. There were many enthusiasts for them in 
 Germany, and, in spite of officials, their journey was 
 diversified by ovations. They all travelled to Dresden, 
 where the two officers were met by their wives. Then 
 the party made its way to Hamburg, whence Lafayette 
 sent a note to Napoleon — signed by himself and his two 
 comrades — touching in its eloquent gratitude and bound- 
 less admiration. 
 
 He also wrote gratefully to Talleyrand, then Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, but, as usual, his principles clashed with 
 his interests. The Jacobin scare and fresh proscription of 
 the 1 8th of Fructidor (Sept. 4), 1796, futile as they had 
 proved, had thoroughly disgusted him with the Govern- 
 ment, and he could not bring himself to thank them for 
 his deliverance. The Directoire took dire offence at his 
 silence, and refused to remove from him the ban of exile. 
 Shut out from France as he was, it became necessary for 
 him and his family to fix on some place to live in, but 
 their choice was so restricted that they hardly knew 
 where to turn. Germany was shut to them ; his health 
 forbade a journey to the United States, and public events 
 made Holland impracticable. All their ready money 
 consisted in a gift from America, sent by Washington to 
 Madame Lafayette, in gratitude for her husband's former 
 services. Elijah's ravens came to them, however, in the 
 shape of a quixotic gift of ;^ 1,000 a year from an obscure 
 
 248
 
 £migr£s and captives 
 
 English lady, devoted to Liberty and Lafayette. They 
 could now choose their destination, and it was not lo.ng 
 before they did so. Letters poured in upon them from all 
 their friends and relations — the longest from Madame de 
 Stael — entreating them to come back to Paris, a place 
 impossible for them. But it was Madame de Tess6 who 
 finally made up their minds, and, before many days had 
 elapsed, they had started for Wittmold, near Altona, where 
 she and the de Montagus were living. 
 
 249
 
 Repose 
 
 -'51
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 Repose 
 
 \T /"ITH the crisis of Thermidor, the fever-strength 
 ^ ^ and incoherent energy of the Convention gradually- 
 subsided, and the practical aims it had originally set itself 
 at last came to the fore. New men began to emerge, 
 devoid of histrionic glamour, but bent upon substantial 
 reform, and a chastened but active Assembly proceeded to 
 found a System of National Education — a Conservatoire 
 of Music — an Academy of Art — finally, the " Constitution 
 de I'Ati III.", which formed the stock-in-trade of the next 
 administration. 
 
 It was in 1795 that the corrupt and impotent Directoire 
 began its sway, with its five Directors ; its Conseil des 
 Anciens, or Second Chamber, where no man was admitted 
 under forty ; and its Conseil des Cinq Cents, or popular 
 Assembly, defamed by a thousand abuses. The power of 
 the Jacobins was rapidly, if imperceptibly, becoming 
 attenuated, but they still had an illusive prestige ; the 
 general feeling was so strongl)' anti-aristocratic that there 
 was no cjucstion of recalling the proscribed t'niigrc's, and 
 all the de Xcjailles family remained in banishment. 
 
 The Due d'Ayen himself knew how to make the best 
 of exile, and gathered roses whilst he might, however 
 cosmopolitan their petals. The T^rench Rev<:)hition made 
 him sober ; the Mass for his dear ones made him pious ; 
 the solitude of the Alps made him solitary ; and he found 
 
 2o?>
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the company of the Princess Golovkin less cold and 
 impenetrable than their snows. As early as 1795, he 
 began to woo her — a courtship crowned by their marriage 
 in 1797. 
 
 This was a terrible blow to Madame de Montagu, who 
 was the first to receive the news. She was no longer in 
 Altona. The whole household had moved a little way off, 
 first to the small town of Ploen, then to Wittmold close by, 
 where Madame de Tess6 impetuously purchased a farm. 
 She had debated about it for months with everybody in 
 general, and M. de Mun in particular, and then bought 
 it in a moment of rage at the universal vacillation. They 
 went on pursuing their even and tedious course, made 
 rather more tedious by ceremonious visits to the stiff little 
 Duke of Oldenburg, or by tea-parties and clavecin pieces 
 at the house of Madame la Baillive, the number of whose 
 etiquette curtseys exhausted the energy even of Madame 
 de Tess6. Their other variations might be reckoned as 
 routine. Two children, a boy and girl, were born to 
 Madame de Montagu in the years '96 and '97, occasions 
 on which Madame de Tesse sent away the nurse, and 
 nearly killed her niece with too much cherishing and too 
 much conversation. There was no subject on which she 
 was content to be ignorant, not even sick-nursing, and the 
 speed of her metamorphosis from the femme sage to the 
 sage femme, and back again, was almost violent. She 
 was best in her usual role. There were difficulties about 
 the private christening of the first child according to the 
 Catholic ritual, and she overcame them with her wonted 
 force. But when she was officiating as godmother at the 
 font, she appeased her Voltairian conscience by interrupt- 
 ing the ceremony, and arguing with her chaplain that a 
 Protestant service was as good. The baby in her arms, 
 
 254
 
 REPOSE 
 
 the water in the font, were alike fors^otten in her heat ; and 
 a return to them required all the dignity of the priest, and 
 the conjugal calm of M. de Tessc, who had been with- 
 drawn from his habitual seclusion to act as her fellow- 
 sponsor. At the next christening, a year later, when a 
 little girl was born, she was even more prominent, and, in 
 the cure's absence and her zeal to allay the mother's 
 anxiety, she insisted on baptizing the infant herself But 
 as she inundated it with eau-de-Cologne, in mistake for 
 water, the chaplain had to perform the rite all over again, 
 and the high priestess retired, once and for all, from 
 sacerdotal life. 
 
 Her powers of converssftion increased with use, and 
 the discussions with her old Marquis now lasted for five 
 hours a day. Madame de Montagu, on her part, doubled 
 her works of charity, and added to them the supervision 
 of the farm, in which she showed all the business talents 
 of the d'Ayens. In spite of her nursery duties, she 
 was up in the stables before dawn to look after the 
 milking ; she kept the accounts, managed the parish, 
 toiled with the labourers, and danced with the harvesters, 
 by way of a Christian dissi[)ation. Presently, we even 
 find her, hardly recovered from her confinement, converting 
 the Lutheran Archbishop of Lubeck and his family to 
 Catholicism, and f)rganizing with them a vast financial 
 scheme for relieving the tUnigrrs, which spread its net- 
 work all over Europe and became a public concern. The 
 freethinking old de Mun said that she was the only ch'vote 
 who gave him the least wish for salvation. Madame de 
 Tesse was, in turn, exalted and irritated by her. At one 
 moment, she was in ecstasies over I'auline's resemblance to 
 Rapliaei's St. Michael crushing the devil with the tip of 
 his heel ; at another, she scolded her for her retinue of 
 
 255
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 lachrymose dependents, or was bored by what she called 
 her niece's faniilomanie. The aunt had no taste for the 
 anniversaries which Madame de Montagu kept every day 
 in commemoration of everything she could think of, from 
 her servants' first Communions to the sorrows of her 
 friends. She had her grievances too. We almost sigh 
 with relief when we discover that even saints can find 
 monotony monotonous. " It is not a good thing," she 
 writes in her journal, " for everybody to see each other 
 every day and too closely ; they risk becoming uncon- 
 scious egoists, critics, rulers, or subjects, and exhaust them- 
 selves by revolving perpetually on a tiny axis. Here we 
 only turn round ourselves, like the bears of Berne in their 
 pit" 
 
 This narrow circle became a magic ring when the news 
 of the Lafayettes' release reached Wittmold. The two 
 families had contrived to exchange a few letters in the 
 last three years, some secret, some sent open through the 
 prison authorities, but the tidings they conveyed were but 
 scanty. It was a warm autumn afternoon when the 
 prisoners arrived. Madame de Tess^ had offered hospi- 
 tality not only to the Lafayettes, but to their companions, 
 Maubourg, De Pusy, and their families. She went about 
 in a state of ferment, which was sentimental when she 
 thought of embracing her nephew, and political when she 
 remembered that she would also be embracing her hero. 
 The flourish of a postilion's horn announced the arrival 
 of the party at Ploen, on the other side of the lake. 
 Madame de Montagu and old M. de Mun ran to the shore, 
 laid hold of a little boat, and rowed to the other side, 
 where they fell into the arms of the travellers. They 
 found them in the company of one of the de Lameths, 
 who had journeyed for miles to welcome them, and now 
 
 256
 
 REPOSE 
 
 joined the triumphal procession to the hospitable gate of 
 the fiirm. 
 
 There was high festival within its walls during all the 
 days that followed. Madame de Tessc was in her element 
 with four good talkers in the house, all bent on discussing 
 politics ; not to speak of M. de Mun, or of herself, who 
 sometimes held forth for fifteen minutes together, " alter- 
 nately biting and grave, strange to watch and almost 
 beautiful, amidst the fire of these debates." The Revolu- 
 tion, under all its aspects, was their one topic ; Lafayette's 
 comrades, de Lameth in particular, could not speak of it 
 without passion, without a certain bitterness, less towards 
 the Jacobins than towards the atiign^s. Lafayette alone 
 remained calm, and showed no vestige of rancour, either to 
 parties or persons. " He is still at the dawn of the Revo- 
 lution and at the Declaration of Rights," it was said of 
 him ; " everything else is a great misfortune, an accident ; 
 deplorable, no doubt, but no more discouraging than the 
 history of shipwrecks to good sailors." He was as 
 confident as ever that the Constitution of 1791 would 
 succeed, regretted nothing that he had said or done, and 
 was ready to begin again, directly an opportunity should 
 [^resent itself 
 
 In vain did Madame de Montagu, alone of all his 
 audience, argue that his idea of a Republican king made 
 monarchy impossible ; that the democracy he advocated 
 must lead in the end to despotism, with lapses into 
 anarchy in between. Enthusiasm is sublimely deaf, and 
 he did not hear her. The poor little lady was horrified 
 at his revolutionary ardour, at " the new constitutional 
 faces," and at talk which seemed to her criminal. She 
 could not aKva}-s contain herself, and one da)', when 
 Lafa)'ette was explaining the real origin of the Revolution
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 to a visitor at Wittmold, her control gave way ; she rose 
 and left the room. " I admire you," she burst forth as she 
 went, " for being able to distract and console yourself, after 
 so many tragedies, by this glib little review of the abuses 
 of the Ancien Regime !" Another time, when de Lameth, 
 whose vehemence especially irritated her, was declaiming 
 about Liberty, tears of anger came into her eyes. One of 
 the guests knew her taste for Scriptural precedents : " M, 
 de Lameth is only talking like King David," he whispered 
 to her — " Don't you remember the psalm, ' Dominus con- 
 f regit in die irce Suce reges ' ?" " Yes," replied Pauline, 
 who knew her Latin Psalter by heart, " but don't j^ou 
 remember that David was a prophet, and that he adds : 
 '■ Judicahit in nationibus ; implebit ruinas ; conquissabit 
 capita in terra multorum ' ? " We may hope that this 
 Biblical repartee may have helped to calm her feelings ; 
 at any rate, affection did so and her love for Lafayette 
 overcame her disapproval. 
 
 " Gilbert," she wrote to Madame de Grammont, " is just 
 as good, as caressive, as simple in his manners, and as 
 gentle in dispute as when you knew him. He loves his 
 children tenderly, and, in spite of his cold bearing, he is 
 devoted to his wife. He has affable ways, a certain apathy 
 which never deceives me, a secret desire to be within reach 
 of action. I try as much as possible to avoid direct 
 discussion with him about anything concerning the Revo- 
 lution — the things he defends, as much as the things he 
 condemns. I'm afraid of losing my temper, and quite 
 as much afraid of wounding him. . . . That poor 
 Gilbert ! God preserve him from ever re-appearing on 
 the scene." 
 
 Lafayette is not the first man whose view of himself is 
 not the view of his family. But there was much more
 
 REPOSE 
 
 peace than controversy at VVittmold, where the Lafayettes 
 still spent most of their time, thou<^h they inhabited 
 another house, that of Lemkuhlen, close by, which they 
 had taken for some months. Adrienne, whose illness had 
 broken out again, liked to sit quietly in Pauline's room 
 u[)stairs and talk of old times, or make eloquent comments, 
 which fascinated her hearers, upon the Puritanical works 
 that her sister read out to their girls. She helped Madame 
 de Montagu too in her vast financial scheme for the 
 nnigr^s, and the two together often received visits from 
 their fellow-workers, the Archbishop of Llibcck and his 
 wife, in process of conversion to Catholicism, whose 
 theological turn made them unwelcome interruptions in 
 Madame de Tesse's drawing-room downstairs. 
 
 It is gayer to read of George Lafayette's return from 
 America, and of the unexpected arrival of Lafayette's 
 mysterious admirer, Madame de Simiane, who travelled 
 day and night to see him, and for some time took up her 
 abode with the Lafayettes. Next, appeared the aide-de- 
 camp's son, the silent young De Maubourg, who promptly 
 fell in love with Anastasie. She returned his affection, 
 chiefly on the ground of his taciturnity, for she was almost 
 as critical as she was retiring, and " preferred no speech 
 at all to the slightest thing said at random " — on which 
 excellent understanding the two young {)eople became 
 cng;igccl. He had not a penny, but he believed in P'ra- 
 teniity, and the unworldly parents were delighted. M. de 
 Mun held up his gloved hands in horror, and exclaimed 
 that only Red Indians could marry in this fashion. 
 Madame de Tesse said she had heard of nothing like it 
 since Adam and PIve, and bought the trousseau. Mother 
 and aunt worked indefatigably at the bride's clothes, 
 and in May, 1798, Madame Lafayette, still too weak to 
 
 2o9
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 walk, was carried to the little church at Wittmold, where 
 the long-suffering chaplain married them. 
 
 It was the last event of their sojourn in that neighbour- 
 hood. The next year, affairs in Holland having changed, 
 there was no longer any obstacle to Lafayette's residing 
 there, and the Republican-minded Dutch invited him to 
 do so. His wife's failing health determined him to accept, 
 and early in 1799, the family caravan took leave of 
 Madame de Tesse and set forth once again — this time for 
 Vianen, a small town near Utrecht. 
 
 Madame de Montagu followed them, and, more than 
 this, Madame de Grammont was at last able to leave her 
 country hiding-place and join them again. It was on 
 Easter Eve, in this unknown Dutch hamlet, that the three 
 sisters met once more, after eight years' separation. They 
 had all changed, and yet remained the same. Madame 
 Lafayette was grey-haired at forty ; and Rosalie de Gram- 
 mont, at thirty-one, looked much older than Pauline de 
 Montagu — her senior by a year — who had managed to 
 keep her girlish looks, though Rosalie told her that " the 
 trials of her soul were written in flame in her eyes." 
 Both she and Adrienne possessed beauty in their different 
 ways; Pauline's was delicate and dainty, Adrienne's on a 
 grander scale. Madame de Grammont, on the contrary, 
 was plain, small, rather stiff, with stern, strongly marked 
 features — a convent countenance which did not express 
 the tender kindness within. 
 
 Their characters, matured by experience, were as dif- 
 ferent as their appearances. Madame Lafayette was the 
 heroine, Madame de Montagu the missionary, and Madame 
 de Grammont the nun of the trio. A friend of all three 
 once said of them that their mother must have been a 
 blessed woman to have hatched a brood of angels beneath 
 
 260
 
 REPOSE 
 
 her wings. It would have been unfair if Heaven had 
 crowned its work by endowing them with humour, the 
 only virtue of mind which was denied to them. Perhaps 
 we are wrong to regret it, for it would only have compli- 
 cated their simple pursuit of righteousness. It is charac- 
 teristic that, at their first meeting, their loving greetings 
 over, they should at once have set to work to analyse their 
 spiritual errors and tell each other their faults during the 
 eight )'ears' lapse in their intercourse. Adrienne had far 
 more of intellectual and social gifts than the other two, and 
 her love for her kind applied to equals as much as to the 
 poor and sorrowful. She was free from pedantry and 
 well-ccjuipped for conversation, not only in her powers of 
 discussion, but also in the charm of her talk. Confident as 
 she was in action, when it came to thought, she had all her 
 mother's hesitation. Pauline blamed her for not being 
 sufficiently " intcrieiire " and for allowing her heart to 
 disturb her too often. " She reckons too much on happi- 
 ness," she said, " or, at least, on the consolations she can 
 get upon this earth — but her goodness is imperturbable." 
 
 Madame de Montagu herself, again like Madame 
 d'Ayen, was for ever striving with agitation, especially in 
 trifles. " Everything disturbs me — nothing shakes me," 
 slic once exclaimed ; and it was true, in spite of snubs 
 from Madame de Tesse, and sisterly exhortations. She 
 was almost divine in her humility and self-effacement, but 
 she added to them a vehemence which overwhelmed her 
 tact and sometimes gave offence. " Vou exaggerate 
 ever\lhing," said her aunt, who herself was not famous for 
 moderation, " and give out all your impressions in their 
 first vivacity." 
 
 Madame de Grammont tried to teach her the science of 
 calm ; it was a branch of knowledge in which she had 
 
 201
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 certainly taken her degree, " Waiting, tribulation, the 
 everlastingness of grief, have at last made me impassive," 
 she wrote of herself ; and indeed " it seemed as if Nature 
 had lost its empire over her body, and duty alone pre- 
 vailed — even in her love to her neighbour." Nine times 
 she had been a mother ; she had mourned for eight of her 
 children. " The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken 
 away ; blessed be the name of the Lord," was all her 
 comment. She was as stoically tranquil at eighty, as at 
 thirty. In the Revolution of 1848, one of her grand- 
 children said to her : " But, grandmother, if they were to 
 set up the guillotine in the Square, as they did in the 
 Terror, surely you would be rather frightened ? " " Poor 
 darling," she answered with a smile, "that is not the 
 question. Must we not die ? The great thing is always 
 to be ready ; as for the kind of death, that is only a detail." 
 She did not die till 1853. 
 
 Yet unbending though she was, her admiration of her 
 sisters was almost worship. " You incite me to good," she 
 said one day to Pauline de Montagu. " That surprises 
 me," replied the modest little lady, " and reminds me of 
 one of those horses that one sees here on the banks of the 
 canals ; they are lean and wretched-looking, and yet they 
 drag great barges after them." One day she asked 
 Madame de Grammont if she did not feel the need of a 
 special prayer to say daily, at the hour of their mother's 
 execution ; her sister replied that she did, and all three set 
 to work to compose a litany, in memory of their dear 
 ones — Rosalie holding the pen and writing, now on her 
 own inspiration, now on that of the other two. They 
 promised one another to say it every day at the same 
 moment, wherever they were, in church or at home. The 
 churches were not yet acknowledged by the State, but 
 
 2b2
 
 REPOSE 
 
 they were gradually opening, and the sisters found a 
 seventh heaven in attending Mass together once again. 
 It was more than they could have hoped. 
 
 They spent a month together under Lafayette's roof, in 
 poverty and happiness, sitting down sixteen, to dine on 
 nothing but oeufs a la veige ; returning to a fireless draw- 
 ing-room, and forgetting both cold and hunger in the 
 delight of their intercourse. M. de Montagu (of whom 
 fame took no notice, though he seems to have fulfilled all 
 the functions of a hero) declared that he only dined once 
 during the whole four weeks, and that was at the house of 
 a friend. At the end of that time, the Montagus returned 
 to Wittmold, the Grammonts to France, and Madame 
 Lafayette to Paris. The Lafayettes were still poor, in 
 spite of another gift from a second Donna Quixote in 
 England, who left a large legacy " to Liberty and therefore 
 to Lafayette." It will be remembered that before the 
 journey to Olmiitz, Adrienne had gained possession of part 
 of the property her mother had bequeathed to her. She 
 was now bent upon recovering the rest of her inheritance, 
 which consisted of some money and in the estate of 
 Lagrange ; and as she was still free from the taint of 
 proscription, she was able to go to Paris and see after 
 things for herself 
 
 In March, 1799, soon after her departure, came the 
 tidings that the war with the Allies had broken out again, 
 and that Holland was invaded by the Duke of York. 
 Lafa\ctte was unable \.o withstand his boy's entreaties to 
 serve, and let him enlist as a private, under a feigned 
 name, so that his parentage might gain him no unearned 
 promotion among the liberty-loving Hollanders. Adri- 
 ennc's fears, trebled by distance, might have been spared. 
 A more impotent invasion, under a more ignorant leader, 
 
 263
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 was never heard of ; the English returned crestfallen, and 
 George without having seen action. For the rest, Lafay- 
 ette's letters to his wife are at first peaceful. He celebrates 
 his Holy-days — the American 4th of July and the Bastille 
 14th — by sitting under a shady tree and reading a history 
 of the Terror, with feelings that he could not express. He 
 writes his own Souvenirs of the Revolution, and his 
 Apologia for 1791. Four evenings a week, he takes his 
 young people to General van Ryssel's, where the two old 
 soldiers play at chess, whilst the girls and boys play at 
 "lotteries." Or he is full of plans for farming, in pros- 
 pect of settling at Lagrange, and is deep in Arthur 
 Young's book on Agriculture, lent him by the Due de 
 Liancourt. "Please make a fine plump farm of Lagrange," 
 he writes to Adrienne ; " for if we are destined to settle in 
 France, I feel that my energy will spend itself in agricul- 
 ture, which I am studying with all the ardour I had in 
 youth for other occupations. . . . For my friends, I 
 shall be full of life ; for the public, I shall be like a picture 
 in a museum, or a library-book." 
 
 Anything less like can hardly be imagined. However 
 quiet and pastoral he thought himself, peace for more than 
 a few weeks was impossible to him. What he called rest 
 was only compulsory confinement to one spot, and the 
 chains of Olmiitz alone could curb his activity, which 
 needed wider harvest-fields than those of Lagrange. " We 
 must go on fishing," he cried, " in this swamp of the Nation 
 for the Liberty which nobody bothers about because nobody 
 believes in it any more than in the Philosopher's Stone." 
 
 The reorganization of the Coalition by Pitt, when the 
 war broke out again, created fresh dangers and difficulties 
 for Lafayette. If the army of the Allies were to come to 
 Holland, it would be no safe country for him. For some 
 
 264
 
 REPOSE 
 
 time these military matters kept his mind occupied. He 
 corresponded energetically about them with Fox and 
 Fitzpatrick, Washington and Jefferson, but his pen was 
 not enough for him. The position of affairs made him 
 restless, and he felt that it demanded his presence. 
 
 A more wretched apology for a Government than the 
 Directoire, has perhaps never existed. It lacked purpose, 
 it lacked unity, it lacked will, it lacked leaders, it even 
 lacked picturesqueness, and was in fact nothing better than 
 a despotic National Committee of contending parties, 
 perplexed by continual intrigues, Bourbon and Jacobin. 
 Roughly speaking, the country was divided between three 
 factions : the Contre-Revolutionnaircs, the Democrats, and 
 the Constitutionalists. The Contre-Revolutionnaires in- 
 cluded every sort of Royalist, from such of the reactionary 
 old nobles as still existed, to the lazier Legitimists, who 
 waited for a king to be wafted to them on the wings of 
 fortune. Amongst the Democrats, even finer distinctions 
 prevailed. There were the survivors of the Terrorists, 
 most of them creatures of the mob, lawless but impotent ; 
 and the feebler Jacobins, who had not dared oppose Robes- 
 pierre, and who now " no longer ventured to look honest 
 folk in the eyes " ; there were also the " absolute Republi- 
 cans," fierce but few, who preferred " an elective despot- 
 ism " to the most constitutional monarchy. " They want 
 to be free, and they don't even know how to be just," it 
 was said of them ; and they achieved nothing more definite 
 than an ill-managed aspiration. The third party — that of 
 the Constitutionalists — was the smallest and the best, and 
 consisted in a coalition between the Limited Monarchists 
 (distinct from the Royalists) and the temperate Republi- 
 cans, who wanted a Government like America's, with a 
 President at its head. 
 
 265
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The masses, as a whole, were Contre-Revolutionnaires, 
 but rather from exhaustion and desire for repose after so 
 many vicissitudes than from any Royalist enthusiasm. 
 They longed to enjoy the security of a king, not the king ; 
 and even amongst these, few seem to have been eager for 
 the Bourbons. Lafayette declares that all thinking people 
 were really Constitutionalists, and had relapsed into 
 Royalism from laziness and the lack of a leader. This 
 leader, needless to say, he was longing to be. "If the 
 prisoners of Olmiitz were on the stage," he exclaimed, 
 " the situation would be saved." He could hardly keep 
 from starting for Paris, and indeed events seemed to 
 favour him. 
 
 In spite of Jacobin sallies and occasional victories, the 
 Constitutional party was prevailing, no less in the Councils, 
 than amongst the Directors and Ministers. It was led by 
 Director Sieyes, the incarnation of effective cleverness — 
 the laborious workman who possessed all the tools of 
 greatness without the greatness to handle them. Once a 
 Jacobin amongst Jacobins, events and his own interests 
 had trained him to adopt the more moderate views which 
 he now represented. Barras and Carnot, his fellow 
 Directors, seconded him ; Talleyrand, Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, gave him the right hand of fellowship, which did 
 not prevent his left hand from picking the Royalists' 
 pockets. It is the only remaining sign of his priestly 
 education that his left hand was always so scrupulously 
 ignorant of what his right hand was doing. In the mean- 
 time, Fouchd de Nantes, the only man who ever rivalled 
 him in intrigue, was rising on the political horizon and 
 wearing the winning colours wherever he found them. 
 
 All looked fair for Lafayette's party ; he received secret 
 entreaties from Sieyes not to leave Europe for America, 
 
 266
 
 REPOSE 
 
 or even to go far off. It was no wonder that he was ex- 
 pectant, and felt that his seclusion and abstention from 
 plotting, during the two years of his freedom, were to be 
 rewarded. His hopes were further flattered, when Carnot 
 sent a private ambassador with proposals for his taking 
 office, and for his immediate return. But when the mes- 
 senger refused to tell Lafayette what this would bind him 
 to, he refused to join a Government without knowing where 
 he was going, and the offers were withdrawn. As usual, 
 the sanguine Lafayette had reckoned without his host ; 
 Sieyes, whom he imagined after his own heart, was not 
 what he took him for. The nimble politician was eluding 
 denunciation from the Jacobins by coquetting with them 
 all the time that he was posing as a Constitutionalist, and 
 he would not dream of committing himself to a definite 
 Constitutional programme. 
 
 He was too subtle even for a wife in love with her hus- 
 band. Directly Madame Lafayette heard from Holland, 
 she hastened to visit him. She made the dangers of her 
 husband's residence in Holland and of her return journey, 
 in the midst of the war, the pretext of her visit. He wel- 
 comed her with effusion, and at once began talking of 
 Lafayette. Evading all difficulties, he assured her of his 
 friendship for her husband, of his an.xict)- for his safet)', 
 of his personal longing for the return of the Patriots of 
 '89. He recommended Lafayette to take up his abode 
 in Prussia, should the Allies come to Holland. She replied 
 that he would prefer a prison in his own countr\-, but had 
 more confidence in it than to c.\i)ect one. " What would 
 }-ou have him do in Prussia? " she asked bluiitl}-. "What 
 he is doing at this moment- qii'il attcndc',' Sie)-es 
 blandly replied, and she could get nothing further out of 
 him. 
 
 267
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 The Constitutional party proved almost as sterile. No 
 doubt, the disillusioned Lafayette was right when he threw 
 all the blame upon Sieyes. " Sieyes," he wrote a few days 
 later, " arriva comme la divinity du denouement, et ne dinoua 
 rien." " And yet," he added, " he is possessed by a pride 
 which makes him wish to save France single-handed, with- 
 out either the faculties or the courage for his task. . . . 
 Besides, he is timid, peevish, and unpleasing ; he can 
 neither talk nor ride ; he is an add^ in the full sense of 
 the term : so that with a great intellect, considerable 
 powers of intrigue, and good intentions, he remains below 
 the level of his task and of public expectation, especially 
 the expectation of Europe, where his fame has been grossly 
 exaggerated. All the world stood on tip-toe to see him 
 on his pedestal, and now they are astonished to find him 
 so small." 
 
 Lafayette was not to be discouraged, but inactivity made 
 him desperate, and his plans became almost histrionic. 
 There was one moment when — spurred perhaps by 
 memories of his famous white steed — this St. George of 
 the Revolution proposed going secretly to Paris, and sud- 
 denly appearing there on horseback, to proclaim Liberty 
 in the streets, confident that the whole of France would 
 rally to his call. His horse was certainly the emblem of 
 his high-mettled soul ; he could not get rid of his youth, 
 and it was with difficulty that it was proved to him that 
 his scheme could bear no fruits, except certain death for 
 himself. He fell back on theories. " The misfortunes of 
 my countrymen, in public and in private, torment me day 
 and night," he wrote. " Who will be King ? Who will be 
 President ? The Duke of Brunswick might take the 
 Presidency. But I think the Bonaparte family think of 
 it for themselves, Sieyes, too, would have no objection 
 
 268
 
 REPOSE 
 
 to putting on the robes of First Magistrate of the French 
 Republic." 
 
 Lafayette himself would, of course, have preferred a 
 Presidenc)', but the difficulties of election were so great 
 that the second-best, in the form of an absolutely limited 
 Monarchy, sometimes seemed advisable. If that were to 
 come about, Louis XVIII. and his brothers must be set 
 aside, on the score of treason to the Republic, and the 
 crown offered to the young Dukes of Berri and of An- 
 gouleme, or, failing them, to the Duke of Chartres, 
 
 In the depths of his mind there yet lurked a hope that 
 Napoleon would leave the distractions of military glory, 
 and return to play Brutus in earnest. There were some 
 of the Liberals who distrusted him, but most of them still 
 saw in him an angel of light — this General who was, even 
 at that moment, fighting with sumptuous chivalry for the 
 deliverance of Egypt from the Turk. " He has partisans 
 rather than friends," said Lafayette, " but everybody wants 
 a change of administration ; tlic)- are tired of the rulers 
 that govern them and the institutions by which they are 
 governed, ... If a man has the strength to upset 
 what exists, it will be enough to make him popular. . . . 
 It is a good moment then for Bonaparte. He won't risk 
 an)' personal advantage for the sake of Liberty ; besides, 
 he has proved that he can endure such sacrifice, and him- 
 self help to produce it. If anibiti(jn and glory, alike, com- 
 mand him to come forward in the good cause, he will do 
 so. I feel convinced that his true prayer is for the estab- 
 lishment of the Republic, on the solid foundations of free- 
 dom and justice. If he wishes to be President for life, I 
 shall only rejoice." There are seasons when the optimist 
 sees farther than the pessimist and St. George is a better 
 prophet than Jeremiah. 
 
 20 q
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Adrienne, meanwhile, in that Paris which for her had 
 become Gehenna, was writing him masterly summaries of 
 political events, and signing deeds about the possession 
 of Lagrange. At the same time, she was seeking out not 
 only Sieyes, but Moreau, and every person she could think 
 of who could promote her husband's interests, " It is you 
 who bear all the burden of the day," he says — " I am 
 satisfied with all you do, with all you say, still more with 
 all you are." 
 
 Events came to her aid. On the 9th October (15 Vend^- 
 miaire), 1799, Napoleon, recalled by a secret letter from his 
 brother Joseph, suddenly returned from Egypt, bent upon 
 a greater victory than the Battle of the Nile. He allowed 
 himself time to take breath and to settle his wife's flirtations 
 before he took his leap in the daylight. His career since 
 1797 had been a triumphal procession. After the Treaty 
 of Campo Formio, he had returned to France, where the 
 Directors dreamed they could manage him. Barras 
 imagined him to be \{\'& protege, Sieyes his tool. But they 
 soon grew jealous of his power, and were glad to despatch 
 him, in 1798, to Egypt. Meanwhile, the constant defeats 
 of the Republican army in Italy and elsewhere, proved 
 how much his j^rescnce was needed, and the Allies were 
 only checked in their march on France, by Massena's 
 victory at Zurich. These signal disasters added the last 
 touch of unpopularity to the already tottering Directoire, 
 and the country was more than ready for Napoleon's coup 
 d'etat. The stroke was no invention of his own ; some 
 such idea had been for months in the air, and several men, 
 Moreau amongst them, liad been proposed to execute it. 
 But it required a greater spirit than theirs to attempt it — 
 still mrjrc to make it succeed. Napoleon had watched 
 from afar ; he had chosen his moment superbly. 
 
 270
 
 REPOSE 
 
 Adrienne felt that his return meant a change in 
 Lafayette's fortunes. Directly after his arrival, she wrote 
 to her husband, and begged him to address Napoleon in 
 " a short, dry letter," thanking him for past services, and 
 pledging him his attachment. Lafaj-ette prudently sent 
 the required note under cover to her, in case it needed 
 correction. " Your arrival is enough in itself to fill me 
 with joy and hope," was the driest style he could attain to 
 in approaching the ideal head of an ideal Re[niblic. Pisgah 
 was in sight at last. 
 
 " Here is my letter for Bonajmrte, short and rather dry, 
 according to your advice," he wrote to his wife, " But all 
 the letters and all the common friends in the world aren't 
 worth half an hour's conversation. The people who are 
 jealous of him want to make out that I shall oppose him. 
 They would be right if he were going to oppress freedom, 
 but I know that he could never be such a fool as to wish 
 to be nothing more than a despot. , . . Meanwhile 
 what ought I to do? Perhaps Napoleon wants me merely 
 to come and unite with those who seek after g(Jod, without 
 any public office and only as a simple citizen. I ask 
 notlu'ng better. As for me, indeed, my dear Adrienne, 
 though I know yf)U greatly fear my return to public life, 
 I protest that I cart,' very little for many of the joys on 
 which I used to set most store. The needs of my soul are 
 the same, but they have taken a graver charactt'i-. I am 
 more independent of ni}' colleagues, and also of the puljlic, 
 whose suffrage I now a[j[)raise more justly. To end the 
 Revohition for the gt)od of my fellows, and help on the 
 measures which will benefit them ; to sanctify m\- regrets, 
 to heal old wounds, and do homage to the martyrs of the 
 good cause, would still make my heart beat for happiness. 
 lUit 1 am thonnighly out of tune — most of all with puhHc 
 
 271
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 affairs. I will only approach them if I'm kicked into them, 
 and nothing, nothing in the world — I swear it to you, on 
 my honour, on my tender love for you, on the beloved 
 shades we mourn together — will make me renounce my 
 plans for retirement, and for spending the rest of my life 
 quietly at your side." 
 
 He liked to please his wife by domestic dreams, but his 
 asseverations soon broke down. Why should he wait for 
 his public pardon before returning to Paris ? he asks at the 
 end of his letter. Why should not Bonaparte, Moreau, 
 and Sieyes connive at his arrival incognito, in order to talk 
 matters over with him ? " If we agree, so much the better ; 
 if they are not satisfied with me, I will come back here." 
 He only required a signal to take matters into his own 
 hands. 
 
 On the 1 8th of Brumaire, Napoleon stormed the 
 Directoire and took it. His chief weapon was his will, 
 and both the Councils bowed beneath it. He spoke, 
 and the walls of Paris fell down, as at the trumpets of 
 Jericho. The Republic was at last established, with its 
 two provisional Consuls, Napoleon and Sieyes — a man and 
 a shadow. The nonentity Lebrun afterwards made a third. 
 For Lafayette, the Millennium had come, and he did not 
 doubt that he would be especially welcome at it. He 
 never dreamed that the victorious Joshua could do other- 
 wise than desire the presence of Moses — a Moses still way- 
 worn from the wilderness ; and a rumour had reached him 
 that Napoleon had already spoken of him as General- 
 issimo of the Forces. His own little world in Republican 
 Utrecht, flattered him in his confidence. " Liberty, Paris, 
 and Lafayette," was the watchword given by the Governor 
 to the troops, on hearing of Napoleon's action. Adrienne, 
 too, wrote inciting him to come. He needed no sect)nd 
 
 272
 
 REPOSE 
 
 bidding. Hardly had he heard the news when he made 
 his preparations, set out for Paris, and ah'ghtcd at the 
 house of M. de Mun, who had just been allowed to return 
 there. The first thing he did was to .send word to Napoleon 
 of his arrival. 
 
 273
 
 Lafayette and Napoleon 
 
 275
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Lafayette and Napoleon 
 
 \T7"HETHER Napoleon was demi-god or devil, will 
 ^ ^ for ever remain a problem. Half bourgeois and 
 half barbarian, the secrets of his nature defy analysis, and 
 only one thing can be affirmed of him for certain— that 
 he was a tyrant. The paternal discipline which, when he 
 was emperor, made him plague his Chamberlain about the 
 quantity of lemonade and the number of lettuces used in 
 the palace — the love of power which impelled him to 
 supervise his brothers' evening parties, as well as to con- 
 quer countries — were not likely to pass over a breach of 
 obedience. He was furious with Lafayette for arriving 
 without permission, and his anger was only the match 
 which set light to the fuel. Time had not lessened his 
 dislike and dread of the hero of '89 — the friend of con- 
 stitutional liberty — so much more dangerous to him than 
 the weakened and irrational Jacobins, of whom the nation 
 was tired. He wished to destroy the Moderate party, and 
 the creation of Sieyes as Consul seemed likely to deal it 
 a deathblow. The ex-Director welcomed his all\- from 
 Holland ; but he was the only statesman who did so, for 
 Napoleon had been heard to threaten Lafa)ette in public, 
 and all wise men urged him to depart. Talle)-rand advised 
 him to return at once to the Dutch; but Napoleon's threats 
 had made Lafayette obstinate, and nothing would induce 
 him to stir. It would be amusing, he said, to be arrested 
 
 277
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 by the National Guard, and imprisoned in the Temple by 
 the restorer of the principles of '89. Optimist as he was, 
 he was beginning to find that glitter does not always mean 
 gold. 
 
 Madame Lafayette hastened to visit the First Consul on 
 her own account. He received her graciously, and told 
 her he only regretted her husband's return, because it re- 
 tarded the restoration of Lafayette's own principles, and 
 made him (Napoleon) " take in sail." He was a masterly 
 engineer in a cul de sac. " I am charmed to make your 
 acquaintance, Madame, and you have a great deal of mind ; 
 but you do not understand me," he observed astutely — 
 " General Lafayette, however, will understand ; and as he 
 has not been in the midst of affairs, he will feel that I can 
 judge better than he. I therefore conjure him to avoid all 
 publicity; I leave it to his patriotism." Madame replied 
 that such had been her husband's intentions, but the Consul 
 would say nothing more. He dismissed her politely, but 
 arrived at his Council in an ill-humour, which did not make 
 his councillors bless Lafayette. 
 
 Napoleon loved scenes, whether of rage or reconciliation ; 
 they unbent his mind and amused him like the play — a 
 play in which he acted the best part, with the world for 
 audience. He liked to see it gape, and the childish huffs, 
 or monstrous scoldings in which he indulged, were all part 
 of this entertaining farce. There was not a statesman or 
 a courtier, however important, whom he had not treated 
 like a child in disgrace. But with the fundamental insight 
 which belongs to big minds, he was swift to see that scenes 
 would not pay with Lafayette, and he never attempted 
 them with him. Like all great men, too, he recognised 
 what was great in others, and tried to turn it to account ; 
 yet when he could not achieve this, he could be generous 
 
 278
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 enough to go on admiring the admirable. It was so now 
 with this chivalrous adversary. In i8oo, Bonaparte had 
 the grace to restore him to citizenship, and even to grant 
 his prayer for the pardon of his aides-de-camp, Maubourg 
 and de Pusy. He was still denied admittance to the 
 Tuileries, where the Consul held court with his wife, and it 
 was a long time before the ban was removed ; but at 
 last Bonaparte gave in, and Lafayette was received in state. 
 Napoleon's amiability, he says, on this occasion, was like 
 that of Frederick the Great. " I don't know what the deuce 
 you had done to the Powers," he observed laughingly, 
 " but they found it very hard to let you go." Then, talk- 
 ing of the absent Pusy, whose gratitude for his pardon 
 Lafayette conveyed — " On revient toujours a Veau de la 
 Seine" Napoleon said, as gaily as if he had promoted the 
 exile's return, instead of preventing it. Even then, the new- 
 comers dared not trust their own impressions, and it was 
 only when they looked at the faces of the Councillors of 
 State, that they felt sure of their good luck. 
 
 After this, Lafayette saw him frequently, and an odd 
 kind of friendship sprang up between them. It was the 
 friendship of direct opposites — of the absolutely abstract 
 man and the absolutely concrete. Both were sumptuously 
 romantic — Napoleon, with the romance of materialism, 
 Lafayette, with that of idealism. Napoleon lived in the 
 present, and tried to make it into the future ; Lafayette 
 lived in the future, and tried to make it into the present. 
 But their antagonism produced an especial fascination — 
 a receding and drawing together again — which lent a 
 freshness to their intercourse. Lafayette, who now fully 
 recognised the tyrant in the Consul, always made some 
 business pretext for his visits — usually a {)etition for a 
 friend. He came, as he said, for three minutes, and 
 
 2/9
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 rarely stayed less than three hours, rooted to the spot by 
 Napoleon's charm and frank gaiety. " I was more attracted 
 than I ought to have been by a despot — ^just as I was in 
 old days, by Frederick the Great," he wrote : " Napoleon's 
 conversation was marked by the simplicity of genius, by 
 depth of mind and sagacity of perception ... I 
 always found him ready to give himself out most ex- 
 pansively, about anything concerning our political interests 
 or the glory of France, of which he talked in a way that 
 enchanted his audience. With me, he had no other re- 
 serves than those of ambition and despotism — qualities 
 which one felt in him, though he never unveiled his plans." 
 Napoleon, on his side, liked those whom he respected ; 
 and though he still regarded Lafayette as a political foe, 
 he made no secret of his personal inclination for him. It 
 was heightened by the difficulty he found in winning 
 Lafayette ; for Napoleon had love of power in all its 
 phases, and was actuated by a feminine vanity and need 
 of pleasing, which made him put a hundred coquetries 
 into his intercourse with those he wished to captivate. In 
 Lafayette's case, he had solid ground to go upon. Not 
 that he kept his temper with him ; had he not condemned 
 all ideologues ? " Monsieur de Lafayette," he said to 
 Bourrienne, " is perhaps right in theory ; but what on earth 
 is theory ? " All the same, though he shrugged his 
 shoulders at the shadow which the dog found so alluring, 
 he appreciated the fact that it had deliberately dropped 
 a bone for its vision's sake — a bone which would have kept 
 it in comfort. " Tenez^ man cher" he once exclaimed to 
 Lafayette, ''your conduct is what I really think fine." " To 
 manage the affairs of one's country, and, in case of ship- 
 wreck, to have nothing in common with one's enemies, 
 voild ce qiiil faut." He did not only admire Lafayette — 
 
 2 So
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 sometimes he envied him. The supreme egoist seldom 
 dealt in pathos, but he grew almost wistful when he 
 talked of Lafayette's extraordinary power of making 
 friends. " If fortune abandoned me" he concluded, " I 
 should keep nobody except my wife, and perhaps my 
 brother, Joseph." In spite, however, of all this goodwill, 
 he never allowed Lafayette to act where his principles 
 would take effect, and would not even have his name 
 uttered where it was likely to provoke sentiment. The 
 young aristocrats hated the Consul, and would not join 
 the army ; but when he was pressed to use the General's 
 name in urging them to serve as volunteers, he refused, 
 "There are objections to such a course," he said. His 
 plan was to make Frenchmen forget Libtnty by never 
 mentioning her name, and he forbade Fontanes, in his 
 speech at a public function on Washington's death, to pro- 
 nounce the word " Lafayette." The champion of American 
 Independence was not even invited to the ccrcmon}', no 
 more was any American. George Lafayette went, but he 
 was coldly received, and Napoleon took care to drape 
 Washington's bust in his own Italian banners. The en- 
 thusiasm of the mob must be for him alone. 
 
 Lafayette's pardon had restored him to his rank of 
 Major-GtMieral, but he abstained from asking for a com- 
 mand, and told George (who had a comnu'ssion in the 
 Hussars) to offer himself as a volunteer, should Napoleon 
 fail in the war of i8oo, in Italy. The Consul, hearing of 
 this, was [)leasc(l, and shortly after, askt-rl the father for 
 news of his son. "He is at the outposts of the Italian 
 arm)'," was the answer. " y>>/<?/V4? .'" exclaimed r)onaj)arte, 
 with a!i expressive tone, "and he an on))- son!" And 
 after the passage of the Mincio, when the boy had been 
 tnice wounded, "That's l,<'"(1," he said affectionate!}' — 
 
 281
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 " what a charming beginning for a young man ! I rejoice 
 with you ! " But he made no more solid advances. 
 
 Socially, on the contrary, he paid the General every 
 honour, and we soon find him a welcome guest at 
 Josephine's receptions, which he attended frequently. 
 " The evening at the Tuileries which I think of as most 
 memorable," he writes, " was one when, instead of ap- 
 proaching me, Napoleon continued to talk to an officer 
 in a riding-coat. I learned from Madame Bonaparte that 
 it was Moreau.^ ' Your salonl I replied to her, * is like a 
 volume of Plutarch,' It was then for the first time that 
 I thanked Moreau for the interest he had taken in my 
 imprisonment." After the storms and earthquakes of the 
 Revolution and the big sentiments it entailed, it is refresh- 
 ing to find Lafayette recording nothing more public-spirited 
 than his own repartee to a lady. He stepped through the 
 Tuileries drawing-room a little upborne, we may assume, 
 by the sense that his own soul was always nobly dressed 
 in a toga, and that he himself represented not the least 
 Plutarchian page in the social volume. 
 
 But his most interesting conversations were held in 
 Napoleon's cabinet, where the Consul was always ready to 
 give him a vigilant attention. He only once came to him 
 for a private concern : the redemption of his model planta- 
 tion at Cayenne, for which he had been offered an in- 
 sufficient indemnity. Bonaparte affably helped him to 
 settle the affair witli advantage to himself and his negroes, 
 
 * Moreau, like Lafayette, had been a Moderate Republican in '89, 
 when he had taken part in affairs. Later, he had become the 
 champion of the prisoner at Ohniitz and, after Napoleon's accession 
 to power, Moreau shared Lafayette's views of him, though he 
 criticised him more severely. He was afterwards accused of being 
 implicated in the Pichegru plot against Bonaparte, and was banished 
 to Spain. 
 
 282
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 and never let Lafayette know that, at that very moment, he 
 was working at a measure for restoring slavery, which soon 
 after came into effect. But it was usually on behalf of the 
 ^migris that the General asked for an audience, and he 
 seldom failed to gain the pardon of his friends, including 
 Madame de Tesse, who returned to her much-loved Paris. 
 He rendered them other services too, and coaxed away the 
 Consul's ill-humour against General d'Arblay, Fanny 
 Burney's husband and Lafayette's old comradc-at-arms, 
 who had irritated Bonaparte by a letter too full of respect 
 for England. " All right," he said at last, " I will keep no 
 grudge against your friend, and Pll promise to see nothing 
 in all this but the husband of ' Cecilia.' " 
 
 Perhaps the General's success was helped by Napoleon's 
 secret hankering after the old noblesse. Like most bour- 
 geois^ he loved aristocrats, and was nettled at their standing 
 aloof from him. He revenged himself by listening to 
 every scandal against them. A certain lady, a friend of 
 the Lafayettes, had taken refuge with them, after being 
 maligned and threatened with exile in the Moniteur. 
 Lafayette com{)lained to the Consul. " You have allowed 
 a res{jectable mother of a family to be defamed," he said, 
 "and there is not one of these aristocrats, down to Monsieur 
 de la Har[)e, whom you don't make more interesting by 
 your punishments." Bona[jarte replied that he could not 
 answer for the folly of the newspapers; and when Lafa\ette 
 pressed him to mention some periodical in which the 
 slander ccjuld be refuted, he bade liim write a book. " And 
 what printer would dare conlra(Uct Government?" asked 
 the intrepid General. Na})oleon took refuge in an out- 
 burst against the aristocrats. " You are too good to 
 them," he cried, " there isn't one of lluMn but would rejoice 
 to see you hanged." He compl.iined bitterly of the be- 
 
 283
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 haviour of the Paris salons to him. "They have only 
 the importance one gives them," answered Lafayette — 
 " I'm astonished that generals who have conquered Europe 
 should care a fig for the grimaces of the Faubourg St. 
 Germain. Do be just to everybody ! Besides, in the end, 
 this crestfallen, ruined party will return to you." " I be- 
 lieve you are right," said the Consul, " but they make me 
 furious. It's not only the generals ; the politicians are 
 worst of all. When I opened the door of the army to 
 them, not a soul came ; when I opened the door of the 
 antechamber, they all flocked." 
 
 But he was flattered by the flocking, and dazzled by the 
 flock ; the grace of the dames du Palais, says Lafayette, 
 overcame him. " These aristocrats are the only people 
 who know how to serve," he remarked. One noble after 
 another was restored by him, and he only required to be 
 assured that they had not borne arms, before granting their 
 pardon. This was as much policy as inclination ; for hav- 
 ing created his opportunity, and made his capital out of 
 the dissensions of Jacobins and Royalists, he was now 
 anxious to reconcile the two parties and merge them in 
 his over-ruling power. " He will end by pardoning Louis 
 XVIII. and the Comte d'Artois," some one muttered in 
 his hearing. "And why not?" he asked good-temperedly, 
 " they have not borne arms ! " 
 
 He could be generous to the liourbons, in action as well 
 as in word. The terrible explosion of "the third of Nivose " 
 (Dec. 23, 1800) — the result of a Chouan conspiracy — left him 
 calm and gentle. He told Lafayette one day that Louis 
 XVIII. had written to him to disown the crime. " His letter 
 was very nice, and so was my answer," he observed, "but he 
 ended by asking me one thing that I can't do — to put him 
 on the throne." Then, with great gaiety, he began telling 
 
 -84
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 his companion all the absurd propositions from the 
 Ro}-alists, of which his wife was made the messenger, and 
 which he made her repeat to him in the evenint^, to amuse 
 him. " They promise me a statue," he said, " in which I 
 shall be represented offering the crown to the King. I 
 replied that I should be afraid of being shut up, by mistake, 
 inside the pedestal." And when Lafayette said that they 
 would be sure to draw him out again, in order to do worse 
 to him — " You know," he resumed, " that for us this 
 danger is nothing ; but to restore them to power would 
 be infamous cowardice on my part. You can disap- 
 prove of my government, you can consider me a despot ; 
 but they — even you — will see, one day, whether I work for 
 myself or for posterity. . . . When all is said and done, 
 I am master of the movement ; I, whom the Revolution, 
 you, all the patriots, have borne whither I am ; and if I 
 summoned those Royalist dogs, it would be to give you 
 all up to their vengeance." 
 
 " These sentiments," adds Lafayette, " were so nobly 
 expressed, he spoke so well of the glory of France, that I 
 took his hand and told him of the pleasure he had given 
 me." The Dictator still wtjre the heroic mask before him- 
 self and all who apprt)ached him, and was never so bad as 
 not to feel the need of justifying himself He was always 
 jealous of Lafayette's original conception of him, and tried 
 to regain it by a sympathetic rendering of Brutus. But 
 sometimes — unconsciously— he half dropped the mask, as, 
 for instance, when he defended his new Constitution of the 
 Year Eight (1799), which established the Consulships. 
 Bonaparte had thrown all the odium of the coup detat 
 upon Sieyes, and had then destroyed the remains of that 
 politician's power by smothering him under big public 
 perquisites. Lafayette taxed the Consul with his arbi- 
 
 285
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 trariness. " You dictated the Executive yourself/' he ex- 
 claimed. " Well, what was I to do ? " inquired the despot. 
 " You know that Sieyes had only put shadows everywhere 
 — shadows of legislative power, shadows of judicial power, 
 shadows of government. There had to be substance some- 
 where ; ma foi, I put it there ! " 
 
 Another time, early in their intercourse, they discussed 
 First Principles, at Joseph Bonaparte's. Lafayette was 
 going to call one day upon Talleyrand, and met him com- 
 ing out, with some one whom he took for Napoleon. It 
 proved to be Joseph, closely resembling his brother, who 
 greeted him warmly and invited him to stay for two days 
 at his country-seat of Mortefontaine, where a new treaty 
 with the United States was to be signed. The General 
 went and found some old American friends there, not to 
 speak of Napoleon, who sought him out as a companion. 
 The Consul's talk was never more brilliant nor more solid. 
 With his firm mastery of the value of time, he always 
 plunged at once into the middle of a topic. " You must 
 find France looking very coldly upon Liberty," he began. 
 
 Lafayette : Yes, but they are in a condition to re- 
 ceive it. 
 
 Napoleon : They are much disgusted : the shopkeepers, 
 for instance. Really, the Parisians want no more of it ! " 
 
 Lafayette : I was not speaking lightly, General ; I am 
 not ignorant of the effect produced by the crimes and 
 follies which have profaned the name of Liberty. But 
 the French have perhaps never been so fit to receive it. 
 It is for you to give it ; it is from you that it is ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Napoleon showed no irritation, but went on discussing 
 the military and political prospects of France. Presently, 
 he cross-examined Lafayette about his American cam- 
 
 286
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 paigns. " They represented the biggest interests in the 
 universe," answered the General, " and these interests 
 were decided by the encounters of patrols ! " Soon La- 
 fayette passed to a more dangerous topic. " I spoke to 
 him in my turn," he continues, " about the idea of a Presi- 
 dent for life, which so many members of Congress enter- 
 tained. I saw his eyes grow bright. I added that, with 
 a national representation and suitable limitations, this idea 
 might hold good in France. He fixed me with an at- 
 tentive look. I gave some details about the American 
 Presidency and its austere simplicity. He said with some 
 vehemence : ' You must see that all these restrictions 
 would never do in France.' " 
 
 It was not long before Napoleon tried to serve his own 
 interests and win over Lafayette by offering him a post in 
 the Government. Cabanis and other inheritors of the 
 Girondin principles pressed him to become a Senator. He 
 replied that, having refused the sanction of his silence to 
 the Jacobins of '92, and then made his supreme sacrifice, 
 he could not now think of adopting a course so adverse to 
 his views of liberty. If he consented to take an active 
 part in affairs, he should be obliged to adopt a course 
 which Government would call insurrection, and the Op- 
 position audacity. But he encouraged all his friends to 
 play a public role, though he himself could not see his 
 way to it. Talle^'rand, tlu' State Reynard, first offered 
 him the American Ambassadorship, which domestic rea- 
 sons compelled him to reject, then again urged the 
 Senatorship. Lafayette only laughed, arxl reix^ated his 
 reasons for abstention, but the First Consul was not so 
 easily defeated. He was stung afresh by Lafayette's ob- 
 durate refusal to bow the k«ee and regard him as of old, 
 and he sent to General Dumas, {officicr dctat-viajor in the 
 
 287
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 National Guard of '89) to ask for an explanation of this 
 disapproving attitude, " Nobody likes to pass for a 
 tyrant," Napoleon had said — " General Lafayette seems 
 to consider me as such." Lafayette replied that his con- 
 tinued silence was the highest mark of his devotion. 
 Were the Consul a pillar of freedom, he would gladly co- 
 operate with him, but, as it was, he could not support an 
 arbitrary Government. " I have wished for glory and not 
 for power ! " he exclaimed. The indefatigable conqueror of 
 the world was growing excited in his chase of this unit. 
 His next step was to have the unit's name put down as 
 General Council Member of the Haute Loire, but Lafayette 
 withdrew it. " I shall always be like the child who would 
 not say A, lest it should have to say B also," he remarked 
 to a certain Minister, and no more overtures were made 
 him. Later on, he accepted the title of " Electeur dcparte- 
 mentall' or Elector of the Electors in a Department, but 
 that was only because his right of voting was based upon 
 popular suffrage. 
 
 The Consul, however, did not allow his good humour to 
 be ruffled. It had become necessary to him to see La- 
 fayette, and he continued to discuss affairs with him. He 
 was continuously reverting to the enmity of the aristocrats 
 and the foreign princes. "They hate me well," he once 
 said, " but bah ! all that is nothing to their hatred for you. 
 I have been in a position to see it ; I could not have 
 believed that human hatred could go so far. Why the 
 devil did the Republicans think their cause was separate 
 from yours ? But now they do you complete justice. Oh, 
 yes (significantly), complete justice." Lafayette perceived 
 signs of a storm and, with the new diplomacy with whiqli 
 middle-age had endowed him, he diverted the conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 288
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 Another day, their talk turned on the Revolution. 
 " General Lafayette," he said, " you have overthrown the 
 strongest monarchy that ever existed. Look at every 
 monarchy in Europe. Ours, in spite of its faults, was the 
 best constituted. Yours was a fine and bold enterprise, 
 but you made a great mistake in your scheme of revolu- 
 tion ; you tried to preserve the old dynasty. If you had 
 denied it all power, the Government could not have 
 worked ; yet if you had given it power, it would have 
 used the power against yourselves. The problem was 
 insoluble." 
 
 Lafayette replied that to find Napoleon unable to solve 
 the problem in which Ju had failed, was enough to console 
 his personal vanity, but that the popular desire, in which 
 lay alike their means and their duty, was still the same. 
 It was the desire for a Republic with a king at its head ; 
 and the Constitution of 1791, however it had failed, had 
 been an attempt to realize this. Napoleon listened atten- 
 tively to the sanguine speaker, and, strange to say, both 
 men were equally agreed that, if the advocates of these 
 principles had not been overwhelmed by the Jacobins of 
 '92, the whole of Europe would have been converted to the 
 Declaration of Rights, before ten years had passed. Bona- 
 parte regretted that the Assemblee Constituante had not 
 replaced the Three Orders by Three Chambers — one of 
 Proprittaires, one of Ni'gociants, and one of Lettrcs — "a 
 crude idea which he fulfilled in Italy, but which surprised 
 me considerably," adds his listener. He was less aston- 
 ished when Napoleon said that it was natural that each 
 Chief should wish to make the greatest fortune possible for 
 himself and his family, and that therefore, if Government 
 was to be durable, it was best to have only one ruler to 
 satisfy. " It is impossible to make a good Senate," ended 
 
 289 U
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the Consul ; " landowners of the old rigime hate those of 
 the new, and the new fortunes are all ill-gotten." 
 
 There is irony in Napoleon's impossibles. He was a 
 supremely practical man, and the supremely practical 
 man is one who is neither cautious nor rash ; who dares 
 attempt the impossible, when his purpose demands it and 
 events smile upon it ; who yet has the dash of pessimism, 
 which comes of life in the present and a lucid perception 
 of limitations. At a crisis. Napoleon became an optimist. 
 In the daily conduct of affairs, he was three-quarters a 
 cynic — a divinity of common sense. " Always forward 
 and always as far as possible — that is my policy," he said 
 one day ; but then he knew how far, and never failed to 
 draw the line, though the distance at which he drew it 
 often made it invisible. " Napoleon," wrote Lafayette in 
 later years, " united four essential qualities, in their highest 
 degree : he could calculate, he could j^repare, he could 
 dare, he could wait." And though seeing things exactly 
 as they are, is not seeing them as they might be, the 
 material view was generally best suited to his purposes, 
 and he was always able to convert his absolutism into 
 maxims of piety. 
 
 There were moments, not so peaceful as others, when 
 Lafayette tried to bring his casuistry home to him, and 
 to show him his motives as they really were. " You still 
 feel yourself too active to be a Senator ? " Napoleon asked 
 him one day, with a good-humoured laugh ; he was in his 
 most expansive mood. " It is not that," replied Lafayette, 
 " but I think that retirement suits me best." The Consul 
 was angry, and moved towards his inner study. " Good- 
 bye, General Lafayette," he said with a concentrated 
 manner — " very glad to have spent all this time with you." 
 He was already at the door. His guest bade him good- 
 
 290
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEOiN 
 
 bye simply, but took the opportunity to add a few words 
 ot thanks for a service Napoleon had done a friend of his. 
 Ready to be mollified, he immediately returned and 
 resumed the conversation ; but before taking leave of him, 
 Lafayette returned to the thorny subject. " Permit me," 
 he said, " to talk again about a point on which I wish to 
 leave you no false impressions. I must repeat to you that, 
 after the events of my stormy life, after my shipwreck and 
 all that you know of me, you ought to think it natural and 
 fitting that I should live as a simple citizen, in the bosom 
 of my family. I should have long since asked you to 
 accept my military resignation, if I had not wanted my 
 comrades-at-arms to have the precedence of me." 
 
 " You may retire from the army too," said Bonaparte 
 graciously — " Please speak to Berthier, and he will present 
 your demand," an injunction which the General followed, 
 with a pension as the result. 
 
 Lafayette, the soul of energy, must have exercised the 
 greatest self-control in sacrificing his political activity to 
 his principles, and Napoleon was not inclined to let the 
 matter drop. It is true that he turned a deaf ear to some 
 slanderers who tried to persuade him that Lafayette had 
 plotted against him. " He will never say more than what 
 he tells me himself," he declared in a convinced tone. But 
 his mood was not always so trustful. In March, 1802, he 
 made his peace with the world, and signed the Treaty of 
 Amiens, Lord Cornwallis came over on the part of Eng- 
 land, and Lafayette hastened to visit his friendly old 
 enemy. He met him also at Joseph Bonaparte's dinner- 
 table. S(X)n after, Lafayette saw Napoleon. " 1 warn 
 you," began the despot with a sneer, " that L(jrd Corn- 
 wallis sa)s you are not yet cured." 
 
 Lafavp:ttE (with animation) : Of what ? Of loving 
 
 291
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Liberty ? What could have wearied me of it ? The extra- 
 vagances and crimes of the Terror? They only made me 
 hate arbitrary government the more, and bound me more 
 closely to my principles. 
 
 Napoleon : Anyhow, that is Lord Cornwallis' opinion. 
 You talked to him about our affairs, and this is what he says. 
 
 Lafayette : I don't remember anything accurately. 
 No one could be farther off than I am from seeking out an 
 English ambassador to depreciate what is happening in 
 my own country ; but if he had asked me whether I called 
 that Liberty, I should have replied, " No," though I would 
 rather say it to anybody than to him. 
 
 Napoleon (gravely) : I ought to tell you. General 
 Lafayette — and I see it with regret — that, by your manner 
 of expressing yourself about the actions of Government, 
 you give the weight of your name to its enemies. 
 
 Lafayette : What better can I do ? I live in the 
 country ; I remain in retreat ; I avoid any occasion of 
 speaking ; but every time I am asked whether your 
 Government accords with my ideas of Liberty, I shall an- 
 swer : " No " — because, when all is said and done. General, 
 I wish to be a prudent man, but not a renegade. 
 
 Napoleon : And what do you mean by your eternal 
 "arbitrary Government"? Yours was not arbitrary, I 
 own ; but then you had a resource against your enemies 
 — the resource of riots. I was only in the parterre when 
 you were on the stage ; but I was watching closely. 
 
 Lafayette : If you call the national insurrection of 
 '89, a riot, well and good. But I never wished for another, 
 and I suppressed many. My own experience is that there 
 was not a single deviation from justice and freedom in the 
 Revolution which did not injure the Revolution itself 
 
 Napoleon : But don't you agree that, in the condition 
 
 292
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 in which I found France, I was forced into irregular 
 measures ? 
 
 Lafayette : That is not the question ; I am not talk- 
 in[T of any particular moment, or that action ; it is the 
 tendency ; yes, it is the tendency which I complain and 
 grieve about. 
 
 Napoleon : Well, well, it is the head of the Govern- 
 ment who has been speaking to you all this time, and, in 
 that character, I have reason to complain of you ; but when 
 I retire into my private shell, I am pleased with you ; for 
 though you are severe in your political judgments, I 
 always find you full of personal kindness for myself. 
 
 Lafayette : I have but one wish — a free Government, 
 and you at the head of it. 
 
 This desire of Lafayette's was one that he often 
 reiterated. Though he had discovered the tyrant in 
 Bonaparte, he still made the mistake of a hopeful nature, 
 and believed that the apostate would return to his first 
 faith. Not for a moment did he doubt that all the 
 Consul's early impulses had been true and freedom-loving, 
 but (so he thought) temptation had been too much for him, 
 and power had found him a mortal, instead of an angel. 
 And his blindness was not only that of ardour ; it was the 
 blindness of the innocent vanity which made him believe 
 himself to be Napoleon's Mentor, the one person capable 
 of influencing him. No doubt, personal magnetism, that 
 unknown magic of Napoleon's which it is almost a platitude 
 to recall, helped to foster Lafayette's illusions. They were 
 strong enough to make him indulgent, in spite of himself, 
 and often led him to do no more than laugh at Napoleon's 
 flirtations with Liberty. One day the Consul began talk- 
 ing of his plans — then still vague — for the Concordat : the 
 truce between Church and State and the restoration of 
 
 293
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 Catholicism, which took effect in April, 1802, a year or so 
 later than this interview. " You needn't be afraid," said 
 Napoleon — " the position of the priests will be even lower 
 than when you left it. A bishop will feel himself deeply 
 honoured at dining with a prefect." Lafayette interrupted 
 him with a laugh. " Confess," he cried, " that the only 
 object of all this scheme is to get the Sacred Coronation 
 Vial broken upon your head." " You damn the Sacred Vial, 
 and so do I," Napoleon answered — " but believe me, it is 
 highly important for us, at home and abroad, to make the 
 Pope and all his set declare against the legitimacy of the 
 Bourbons." Two years later, his purpose was fulfilled ; 
 he was blessed, even re-married, by Mother Church ; he 
 was her Prodigal Son, who killed her fatted calves for him- 
 self. But that was as yet far off, and before then, Lafayette 
 had many things to learn. 
 
 In the summer of 1802, the life-presidency of Napoleon 
 was voted for and carried. The Jacobins gave their voices 
 against, the Royalists mostly for him, partly in opposition 
 to the Jacobins, partly because in the Consul lay their one 
 hope of return to arbitrary government. The best men 
 either supported him, or were silent ; but Lafayette took 
 no such course. He proclaimed openly, and wrote to 
 Napoleon that he wished him to gain the permanent 
 magistracy, if he gave a sufficient guarantee for the main- 
 tenance of liberty ; that, in that case, he would vote for 
 him, but otherwise not. He could not believe, he said, in 
 the failure of his ideal. His letter to the Consul is hot 
 with eloquence. " It is impossible that _;/<7z/ can desire that 
 such a Revolution, such blood-stained victories, should only 
 end in an unconstitutional Government," he wrote. But 
 Lafayette's impossible was Napoleon's possible ; and he 
 was not slow to prove it, though he could still be just to 
 
 294
 
 LAFAYETTE AN' I) NAPOLEON 
 
 his opponent. When one of his courtiers remarked that 
 the only votes against him were due to Jacobinism, " No ; 
 some were due to enthusiasm," he repHed — " Lafayette's, 
 for instance." 
 
 This equity, however, was only the bridging of a gulf; 
 and their separation, though hidden at first, was destined 
 to be final. In a dangerous illness which Lafayette had 
 about this time, Bonaparte did not once ask after him, 
 though his brother Joseph sent every day to enquire. 
 Worse than that, by one of those pettinesses which pro- 
 claimed him a bourgeois, the first Consul wreaked his 
 vengeance upon George. He asked the young man's 
 name one day upon parade, and on hearing it was Lafay- 
 ette, " Ah ! his son ! " he exclaimed impatiently, and passed 
 on. George, worthy of his father, had refused a captaincy 
 after his Italian campaign, that he might not have an 
 advantage over fellow-officers and friends who were older 
 than himself When, some years later, his name was given 
 in to Napoleon as deserving a ca[)taincy, he at once con- 
 sented, but soon after denied that he had done so, and 
 refused the prom(,>tion not only once, but twice. In vain 
 did Prince Murat intercede : at the first word that he 
 uttered in praise of the )'oung officer, Bonaparte turned his 
 back. -As for Lafayette, he was only prevented from 
 demanding an explanatory interview by George and his 
 wife, who assured him they could not bear it ; that he 
 would end by creating fresh irritation, or — what was worse 
 — by departing from his principles, for their sake. Young 
 de Lasteyrie, his second son-in-law, also an officer, saw his 
 military career blighted in the same manner ; and for 
 George, matters grew so disagreeable, that he was eventu- 
 ally forced to leave the army. The Consul did nothing 
 by halves. 
 
 293
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 His second coup d'dtat, when — in 1804 — he made himself 
 Emperor, was a death-blow to Republicanism which shat- 
 tered even Lafayette's hopes. Napoleon had stabbed 
 Liberty in the back, and henceforward the separation be- 
 tween the two men was complete. Their interviews ceased, 
 and the General's despair changed into disgust when, two 
 months after his accession, the Emperor seized the Due 
 d'Enghien, and secretly made away with him, with no 
 better motive, says Lafayette, than to frighten the princes 
 of the blood, once for all, by making one of them a 
 warning. Napoleon, on his side, was aware of Lafay- 
 ette's contempt, and was compelled to acknowledge that 
 he could not win him over ; but he never left feelings 
 at a standstill, and soon nursed his estrangement into 
 suspicion. In the same year, soon after the discovery of 
 the Chouan plot, with the arrest of its leaders, George 
 Cadoudal and Pichegru, and of their supposed accomplice, 
 Moreau, Napoleon was also meditating the imprisonment 
 of Lafayette on the same grounds. " But how the devil," 
 he asked, " shall we ever find him out in such an intricate 
 plot as this one ? " " Don't be afraid," remarked Joseph, 
 " wherever there are aristocrats and kings, you are certain 
 not to find Lafayette," The matter rested there, and 
 when Cadoudal and Pichegru were beheaded, and Moreau 
 banished to Spain, Lafayette was safe at Lagrange. 
 
 Courtiers and politicians, however, did their best to fan 
 the flame against him. Lucien Bonaparte, as warm in 
 enmity to Lafayette, as Joseph was in friendship, had 
 spoken of him to his brother as " the man most irrecon- 
 cilable with his projects"; and one of the chief Ministers 
 had not improved matters by referring to him as " the 
 only general whose character, in itself, was a sufficient 
 warrant for conspiracy." 
 
 296
 
 LAFAYETTE AND NAPOLEON 
 
 " Lafayette is my enemy, the enemy of the Government ; 
 he has only to choose his moment for playing the part 
 of rebel," the Emperor exclaimed ; and when Alexandre 
 de Lameth once observed that he liked to feel that his 
 enemies were His Majesty's also, "You mean Lafayette?" 
 replied Napoleon violently, and said no more. He had 
 for his opponent what he had for few of his allies — 
 affection ; and his wounded feelings, though they made 
 him more bitter, also made him more generous. He pur- 
 sued his vengeance no farther ; and even when the General 
 refused to congratulate him after Austerlitz, he showed 
 no resentment, but let him live on in seclusion. 
 
 As for Lafayette, he saw at length that clay feet, even 
 those of a god, stick fast to the earth of which they are 
 made. He was not bitter, but stunned — as a dreamer who 
 awakes. 
 
 He saw that what he had taken for virtue was success ; 
 what he had hailed as nobility was charm — a charm so 
 potent that " it breathed into his military power the genius 
 which leads men, and the magic which enchants them." 
 He recognised, too, the colossal opportunism of the man 
 who " reaped an endless harvest from circumstances ; took 
 possession of every adverse event with prodigious skill ; 
 gleaned advantage, at his leisure, from the old vices and 
 new passions of all the Courts and all the factions of 
 Europe, and, far from checking them, encouraged them 
 and made them serve his own ends." He even made profit 
 out of his affections. ** They say," some one remarked 
 to him, " that Paul of Russia is mad for love of you." " It 
 is true,'' replied Napoleon, " and we must make hay whilst 
 the sun shines ; it will not last." 
 
 But Lafaj'ctte's regret for his fallen idol remained. 
 " Had Bonaparte's character," he wrote in after years, 
 
 297
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 " been better regulated for the happiness of the public and 
 of himself, he could, with less cost and greater glory, have 
 settled the destiny of the world, and put himself at the 
 head of the human race. Alas, for the secondary ambition 
 which seized him — the ambition to reign over the whole 
 of Europe ! To satisfy this mania, geographically gigantic 
 and morally evil, he has had to fritter away an immense 
 fund of intellectual and physical force. . . . He has 
 had to combine the splendour of a brilliant administration 
 with the puerilities, burdens, and vexations necessary to 
 a scheme of despotism and conquest ; to keep himself for 
 ever on guard against independence and industry ; and in 
 hostility to knowledge and the natural march of his cen- 
 tury. He has had to seek in his own heart a justification 
 for his contempt of his fellows, and in the heart of base 
 men for a means to sustain it. He has had to renounce 
 being loved and, through treachery political, philosophical 
 and religious, he has had to renounce being believed in, 
 . . . He has preferred the Republic to Liberty . . . 
 and Mahomet to Jesus Christ." 
 
 Some of the feats of great men are unconscious ; 
 
 Napoleon never knew that he had taught Lafayette 
 
 experience. 
 
 2Q8
 
 Before the End 
 
 299
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Before the End 
 
 THE greater part of Lafayette's property in Auvergne 
 had been abolished or devastated, and his relations 
 with Napoleon were conducted from his wife's estate of 
 Lagrange — also in a condition of dilapidation, but capable 
 of repair and only forty miles from town. Here he deter- 
 mined to live with his whole family and pay off his debts, 
 and here most of his grandchildren were born. He made 
 it his home, though Paris at first saw more of him and 
 business frequently drew him there. 
 
 It was a consistent Paris, living on excitement and 
 shocking him by its easily recovered levity. As early as 
 the first years of the Directoire^ the Parisians had thrown 
 their sorrows to the winds. It had become the custom 
 for the young nobles to give Bah des Guillotines, to which 
 no one was admitted but the sons and daughters of those 
 who had been guillotined, and they pirouetted festiveh* 
 with bands of crape round their arms. Lafayette was even 
 more shocked by a party of aristocrats who celebrated 
 the anniversary of the King's death by acting a proverb : 
 " There is no grief that endures," before a laughing audience. 
 He himself did not shun the society of his friends. It 
 affects us with a sense of miracle when we meet him — 
 straight, as it were, from the Valley of Death — walking 
 in and out of the Tuileries drawing-rooms, where he had 
 not been since his last conference with Marie Antoinette ; 
 
 301
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 or brilliant amidst the brilliant, over Joseph Bonaparte's 
 wines ; or sitting at the table of Madame de Stael and 
 listening to the cataract of her eloquence, before Napoleon 
 finally chased her from Swiss pillar to Alsatian post. We 
 find him also in the house of Moreau, whom he began by 
 heroizing and ended by hardly respecting ; and in the 
 H6tel of his cousin, the lame Princesse de Poix, who had 
 hidden with her son in Paris all through the Revolution, 
 and now reopened a salon, where the last of the nobles 
 met the first stars of the Empire. Like the Spirit of 
 Freedom, he moved about amongst them, and was wel- 
 comed everywhere as the god returning to the machine. 
 
 Adrienne, meanwhile, only came to Paris to plead for 
 certain emigre friends of hers with the Directors, one or 
 two of whom she knew. And gradually, as the impos- 
 sibility of holding a public office impressed itself on her 
 husband's conscience, he too withdrew more and more 
 into the seclusion of Lagrange. He had a remarkable 
 faculty for happiness, and his fire was glowing enough to 
 heat a hundred irons. One of his first occupations was to 
 draw up a report on the state of the French peasants of 
 1800, as compared with their condition before '89, and 
 he made a trip through Auvergne to collect statistics. The 
 result filled him with thankfulness ; for though the towns 
 and their shops had suffered from panic and devastation, 
 rural prosperity now seemed established. It was a mis- 
 take, he added, to attribute this improvement to Napoleon ; 
 it was the Revolution of '89 that set it going, and the 
 Consul's only merit was in allowing the ball to roll. The 
 next week he was once more absorbed in agriculture and 
 the joys of his hearth. " I live in an agreeable place," he 
 wrote — " My children are with me. George has married 
 the daughter of Tracy, (an old member of the Constituante). 
 
 302
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 M\- eldest daughter has two lovely little girls. Virginie, 
 my youngest girl, will probably be married before long. 
 The health of my wife, though it can never be perfectly 
 restored, is now tolerably good. You know I am not very 
 fond of money, yet I wish I had more of it. Had I a large 
 sum at my disposal, I might set up a delightful farm. All 
 my studies and activities are now devoted to that sort of 
 pursuit, but, situated as I am, it is as much as I can do 
 to begin the spring with one plough." 
 
 His Boeotian instincts proved lasting, his plough 
 effectual, and, by slow degrees, the neglected land re- 
 covered its former fertility. All his correspondence, with 
 whatever statesman now becomes exclusively agrarian. 
 " I am very glad," writes Charles Fox to him, " to see that 
 )'ou possess those agricultural tastes which will make the 
 retired life you propose to lead delightful. There must be 
 great consolation in the reflection which you, almost alone 
 of all men, have the right to make — that you have played 
 a part in all that has happened in France without having 
 an}'thing to reproach yourself with. Cruel though your 
 imprisonment has been, you must confess that it spared 
 you the necessity of making a ciioice at many a crisis 
 when it must have been very difficult for an honest man 
 ti) make one which befitted him." 
 
 Lafayette responded bv pressing Fox to pay hiin a long 
 visit in his country home ; it would be a goorl opp(jrtunity, 
 he urged, for his friend to work quietly at his " History 
 of the Two Last Stuarts." In 1802, when the l*eace of 
 Amiens brought Fox to Paris with his wife, he accepted 
 the invitation, and came with her to Lagrange, to enchant 
 all whom he found there. Much had happened in the 
 twenty-six years that hatl passed since the two men had 
 met, and many were the goldiMi-tongued discussions as 
 
 303
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 of youth, "when hot thought followed hard upon hot 
 thought," that they held in Lafayette's study, or at his 
 simple dinner-table. One day, in George's presence, Fox, 
 with the utmost sweetness, begged Lafayette not to grieve 
 too much at the delay in the fulfilment of his hopes. 
 " Liberty," cried Fox, " will be born again, but not for us ; 
 if not for George, yet surely for his children ! " He grew 
 fond of the whole family, and Madame Lafayette con- 
 quered him at once : " the woman," as he called her, " who 
 flew to Olmiitz on the wings of Love and Duty." They 
 parted with regret. Before he went, Fox planted against 
 the house an ivy tree, which had overrun its walls before 
 Lafayette died. 
 
 General Fitzpatrick, the single-hearted Liberal, accom- 
 panied Fox to Lagrange. He was only one of many 
 English politicians who, after the Peace, came over to 
 observe for themselves the results of the Revolution. 
 Lord Holland, Lord Lauderdale, Erskine, Adair, and the 
 Duke of Bedford were of the number, and hastened to 
 assure Lafayette that he was a chief object of their visit. 
 He joined them in Paris, and spent some time with them. 
 They were all more or less disappointed. Some had 
 expected to find France a desert, and had to own that it 
 was flourishing ; others had hoped to see the footprint 
 of Liberty, and were undeceived. They were depressing 
 enough over the result of '92, and declared that, even in 
 England, it had compromised liberty. " The first years of 
 the Revolution," they said, " did us all a great service ; its 
 excesses ruined the good cause." Yet, until they came to 
 France, they had believed the Terrorists to be enthusiasts 
 carried away by their Republican principles. A little con- 
 tact with the surviving Patriots soon opened their eyes. 
 Lafayette came to see Lord Holland one morning, and 
 
 304
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 found him quite dumbfounded by a talk he had had 
 with the ci-devant Jacobin, Fouche. That statesman had 
 accused the General of a great error, and Lord Holland 
 thought that he referred to the protest against the loth of 
 August. "Not at all," replied Fouch^ — "he should have 
 overturned the Assembly a year earlier, re-established a 
 Monarchy, and then seized the throne for himself." The 
 answer, at any rate, served to destroy Lord Holland's 
 faith in the simple Republican sincerity of Fouche and 
 his colleagues. 
 
 Lafayette's intercourse with his friends was broken by 
 a rude shock. A dungeon, after all, has its own peculiar 
 safety — freedom its own accidents ; and heroes, especially 
 enthusiasts, are not exempt from them. This hero slipped 
 on the ice and broke his thigh-bone. The doctors gave 
 him the choice between lameness for life and a surgical 
 treatment, terribly painful, but certain to cure. He chose 
 the latter alternative ; but the surgeon blundered, and after 
 weeks of what even Lafa)'ette called torture, the limb was 
 pronounced to be worse than before. " We are on the 
 wheel — God turn it into the Cross ! " wrote his wife. 
 Again he was told that he must be a cripple, or begin 
 the cure again. This time, the lameness seemed the least 
 of the two evils, and he let matters rest where the}- were. 
 Martyrs choose their suffering and they seldom make good 
 invalids, but Lafayette remained as sweet and serene as 
 in health, and he onl)' made one comment on the doctor's 
 mistake : " At any rate," he said, " Humanity will benefit 
 by the ex[)eriment ; I am glad of it" 
 
 His confinement to the house was cheered by the affec- 
 tion of friends and the visits of relations. Most of these 
 had gone back to Paris. Madame de Tessd settled first 
 in the Rue d'Anjou St. Honore, then in the Rue Vevte ; 
 
 305 X
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the Due de Noailles and his second wife were not far off, 
 in the Rue Royale. Madame de Montagu took tea with 
 him here once a week. She and her husband had obtained 
 their radiation from the list of emigrh with great diffi- 
 culty, and had travelled to Paris to procure it, under a 
 false name and with very few pence in their pockets. 
 At first they had lodged in a garret under the same roof 
 as Madame de Duras, but when their fortune was restored 
 to them, they moved to a house in the Place Beauvau, 
 opposite Madame de Tessd's, Madame de Montagu 
 pursued her regular course, attending Mass under the 
 guidance of Madame de Duras, in a dressmaker's attic ; 
 for even after the Concordat, the churches of Paris, unlike 
 those in the country, were afraid to open. She had the 
 unexpected joy of reunion with the two de Noailles boys, 
 whom she found on her first arrival, but otherwise her life 
 was stern. At first every sound of the city, especially the 
 noise of the cart-wheels, made Pauline shudder, and she 
 felt as if she herself were a ghost who knew little of the 
 world around her. She once had occasion to visit the 
 Temple prison, where a friend of hers was confined for 
 coming to Paris without the proper passport. To reach 
 him she had to walk through the rooms of the royal 
 prisoners. Her emotion made her footsteps falter, and 
 she began looking about in the cupboards, on the chance 
 of finding some relic. It was not in vain ; at the back of 
 a forgotten shelf she found a coarse blue and white salad- 
 bowl, and carried it away beneath her cloak as the symbol 
 of her most sacred memories. But she would not dwell 
 on the past. Courageous as ever, she even attended the 
 soirees given in the Pavilion de Flore by the Consul 
 Lebrun, because she wanted to rescue from his clutches 
 the old Hotel de Noailles, in which he was about to live. 
 
 30O
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 She failed in her object ; the house was not restored to 
 the family till 1814 ; and the Duke, who had waited on, 
 in hopes of regaining it, now returned to Switzerland and 
 became a neighbour of Necker's. In his new home he 
 found peace and leisure for study, and at Coppet, when 
 he wanted it, the sublime hubbub of Madame de Stael's 
 conversation. And thus, like the philosopher he was, he 
 passed cheerfully out of history. 
 
 Lafayette, meanwhile, had gone to some baths, in the 
 hope of restoring his health, but even here he could not 
 escape popularity. " Is that Lafayette ? " asked a peasant 
 who saw him carried by in a litter, and the General re- 
 plied that it was. " I congratulate you upon it," said the 
 man, and the litter passed on, with much the same glory as 
 the white horse had done of old. Soon after, the family 
 went to Chavaniac to stay with their old aunt, who was 
 still strong and alert, "and kept all her faculties alive in 
 her loving heart." Here Madame de Montagu joined 
 them, bringing with her a preux chevalier, young Louis 
 (le Laste)Tie, whom she intended for her niece, Virginie. 
 The young people were obliging enough to fall in love 
 with one another, and their engagement followed im- 
 mediately. Madame de Tessc once more bought the 
 trousseau ; the rest of the relations presented them with 
 a purse containing two thousand francs ; and the marriage 
 was celebrated by Pere Carrichon, who had lived to give 
 his blessing to life, as well as to death. 
 
 It was to Aulnay, the country house — only three leagues 
 from I'aris — which Madame de Tessc had purchased, that 
 the bride and bridegroom went for their honeymoon. 
 Here the veteran talker was enjoying not so much the 
 twilight, as the lamplight of existence. She spent the 
 mornings in bed, with a book in one hand and a pencil 
 
 307
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 in the other ; rose at noon ; and passed the rest of the day 
 in conversation, inside a highly-coloured Kiosk which she 
 had built in her garden — in memory, no doubt, of the 
 eloquent Ottoman, so dear to the Voltairian generation. 
 There was one marked difference in her, however ; whether 
 from spiritual conversion, or from the long habit due to 
 the involuntary possession of a chaplain, she continued to 
 attend Mass regularly — and she prided herself on never 
 saying a word that could shake the faith of her great- 
 nephews and nieces. She found compensation in be- 
 coming a centre for all of them, and in giving her opinion 
 on every other subject upon earth. 
 
 Virginie and her husband soon returned to Lagrange, 
 where they were going to live. Her parents were in 
 money straits, and had been so for a twelvemonth. It is 
 disagreeable to find dusty corners in the characters of 
 acquaintances, still more in those of old friends. Gou- 
 verneur Morris had grown old, and the faults of a shrewd 
 character are those which age makes most prominent. He 
 clamoured politely for the satisfaction of the loan he had 
 made to Adrienne, during her husband's confinement at 
 Olmiitz and, whereas it had been paid her in assignats, 
 the value of which had since fallen, he would not face any 
 loss, and demanded repayment in cash. It was with great 
 difficulty and the strictest economy that Lafayette met 
 his claim, and it was all the more cheering to him when 
 America vindicated her good fame by presenting him with 
 a large piece of land in Louisiana. Presently he was 
 offered the governorship of that province, but he could 
 neither part from his family nor transplant it ; and as he 
 still believed that his country needed him, he gratefully 
 refused the honour. 
 
 He and Adrienne absorbed themselves in good works 
 
 308
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 for the benefit of the estate. There was a private hospital 
 — La Charite de Noailles — which they supported ; their 
 house was a Bureau for kindness, and their park open to 
 the pubh'c. The peasants were allowed to cut wood upon 
 their grounds. Adrienne once asked her husband if she 
 might give a quart of wood to an infirm couple who 
 lived too far off to fetch it. " No darling, you may not," 
 he answered, " I had rather you gave them a hundred- 
 weight." 
 
 Soon after Virginie's marriage, Adrienne went to Paris, 
 and, together with Madame de Montagu, embarked on a 
 new task. Pauline had long been bent upon discovering 
 the burial place of the guillotined, where her mother and 
 sister lay, but her efforts to get a clue had been vain. At 
 last she heard of a poor girl who was said to know, and, 
 after some search, found her in an attic. She proved to be 
 a half-starved lace-mender who, unseen, had followed the 
 tumbril containing her father's and brother's bodies to the 
 place where the cart unloaded. Next day, she guided 
 Adrienne and Pauline to the spot. It was a desert region 
 outside the Barriere du Trone, and belonged to a ruined 
 Augustinian convent. The Cemetery of Picpus was its 
 name and, as the two sisters looked upon it, they de- 
 cifled, with emotion, that the land — could they buy it — 
 -hnuld be no private affair of their own, but should belong 
 to all who had relations lying there. They could not get 
 possession of the actual piece of ground where the victims 
 were buried, because it had already been purchased by 
 the Princess Hohenzollern, whose brother had been guillo- 
 tined ; but, with the help of some kindly priests, they 
 raised a large sum from the aristocrats of their acquaint- 
 ance, and bought the adjoining waste and the convent in 
 its midst. As soon as the fund permitted, they restored 
 
 309
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 and enlarged the Chapel, and — copying from the list in the 
 Conciergerie — they put up a marble tablet behind the altar, 
 with the names of sixteen hundred human beings who had 
 perished in the last six weeks of the Terror. Amongst 
 these were more than a hundred under twenty-five years 
 old — boys and girls of sixteen and one child of fourteen ; 
 not to speak of a hundred and forty-two men from sixty 
 to seventy-nine, and ten from eighty to eighty-five. And, 
 strange to say, by far the greater number were obscure 
 people : labourers, artisans, tradesmen, even hawkers. It 
 was not enough to commemorate them ; the sisters gave 
 the Church to the Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration of the 
 Sacrament, so that prayer might never cease within its 
 walls. Communion was daily administered at its altar, in 
 memory of all who had died in the Revolution. And 
 every year, at the end of April, or the beginning of May, 
 a solemn service was held there, at the end of which all the 
 families of the dead, in deep mourning, followed by the 
 congregation and preceded by the clergy, marched in 
 procession out of the Church, and wound in double file 
 through the garden-alleys, chanting the Miserere^ "until 
 they reached a little walled-in enclosure, in the midst of 
 which stood a hillock shaded by cypresses and poplars, 
 and crowned by a wooden cross." Here they knelt 
 down to pray — on the ground they had made into God's 
 Acre. Later on, some missionaries settled there also, 
 and the whole place became sacred to memory and to 
 labour. 
 
 One sorrow more had come to fill the cup of the de 
 Noailles to the brim. This was the death of the Vicomte 
 de Noailles, in 1804, at San Domingo. He was brought 
 there by some business undertaken by him in the 
 course of the mercantile career that he had adopted ; but 
 
 310
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 when he arrived, he found that the negroes had revolted 
 and, allied to the English, were in possession of the French 
 dominions. He put himself under the orders of Rocham- 
 beau, then commanding, and sought the thick of the 
 danger. His excellent English accent helped him. See- 
 ing a British vessel, he too hoisted British colours, chatted 
 with the captain, who took him for a compatriot, and 
 boldly sailed alongside the English ship. It had come 
 out, said the Captain, to take the Vicomte de Noailles. 
 " Why ! I am out on the same mission," the Vicomte 
 exclaimed. Presently, when night fell, he proposed to his 
 men to board the enemy's vessel, and they did so vic- 
 toriously. But at the end of the battle, a ball struck him 
 down and killed him. His country had banished him ; 
 he gave her his life in return. 
 
 It was Adrienne's last sorrow. Her joys in these years 
 had been many ; her grandchildren were growing up round 
 her and learning their lessons with her ; her husband was 
 working at her side ; and, in 1807, her happiness was 
 crowned by the return of her son and young de Lasteyrie 
 from the Austrian campaign. But the terrible blood- 
 poisoning which had prostrated her at Olmiitz had never 
 left her, and now it re-asserted its virulent strength. A few 
 days after her son's arrival, her sufferings became acute, 
 and on October the nth, she went to Mass for the last 
 time. A few days later, she was moved to Madame de 
 Tcsse's country-place at Aulnay, and thence, as the illness 
 did not abate, to that lady's Hotel in Paris. The sanguine 
 Lafayette, who was staying at Chavaniac, was alarmed — 
 for the first time — by an anxious note from Madame de 
 Tessc, and hastened to town with George. The joy of 
 seeing them caused an immediate improvement ; the dc^ctor 
 was hopeful, and she herself said to Madame de Simiane : 
 
 311
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 " It is a malignant fever, but I am being well treated ; I 
 shall pull through." 
 
 Her pain became terrible, but her serenity was unchange- 
 able. One day, when Lafayette was talking to her of her 
 angelic gentleness, " It is true," she replied, " God made 
 me gentle ; but it is not like your gentleness — I have no 
 such high pretension. You are as strong as you are gentle ; 
 you see things on such a big scale. But it is true that I 
 am gentle, and you are very good to me." " It is you 
 who are good and generous, above all other women," he 
 answered — " Do you remember my first departure for 
 America ? how all the world was in arms against me, 
 and you managed to hide your tears at M. de S^gur's 
 wedding? You did not want to look unhappy, for fear 
 I should be blamed for it." " You are right," said 
 Adrienne, " it was pretty good for a child ; but how nice 
 of you to remember things that happened so long ago." 
 
 Another day, she said to Virginie and Emilie (her 
 daughter-in-law) : " My condition disturbs your joys, but 
 none of mine are affected by it ! " The thought of her 
 children never left her ; even in her delirium, though con- 
 fused as to their whereabouts, she never made a mistake 
 about their characters. One day, when she was still wan- 
 dering, she called Anastasie to her bedside : " Have you 
 any idea what maternal love is ? " she asked impetuously — 
 " Do you revel in it as I do ? Is there anything sweeter, 
 stronger, more intimate ? Do you feel, as I do, the need to 
 love and to be loved ? " 
 
 She found matter for rejoicing everywhere, even in her 
 sufferings. Her body was covered with open wounds. 
 " What a fitting thing it is," she exclaimed, " that your 
 wife should be the living representation of a martyr ! " 
 " But when she was pitied for her pain," wrote Lafayette, 
 
 312
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 " she became afraid of exaggerating it to herself and 
 others. One day, when she was being bandaged, and I 
 was looking at her with compassion, * Ah,' she cried, ' I 
 am more than rewarded by those loving glances.' "... 
 " Often " — he resumes — " she begged me to stay because 
 my presence calmed her ; at other times, her discretion 
 resumed its sway, and she wanted me to attend to my 
 business. When I said that I had none excepting to tend 
 her, ' How good you are ! ' she exclaimed, with her weak 
 but penetrating voice — ' you are much too kind ; you spoil 
 me ; I don't deserve all that ; I am too happy.' " She 
 thought of every detail. " Is it not rather inconsiderate," 
 she asked one day, " for so many of us to be staying 
 here ? " " Certainly not," responded her husband laughing, 
 " there are only sixteen of us to feed ! " " It is true," she 
 added, " that my aunt has as much pleasure in doing us 
 a kindness, as we have in receiving it from her." 
 
 All her being, indeed, seemed to be dissolved in love, 
 and whether conscious or delirious, she was constantly 
 expressing the two things which made the sum of her — 
 her heart and her faith. And this, too, was love. " Her 
 religion," wrote Lafayette, in his description of these last 
 weeks, " was all tenderness and confidence ; the fear of hell 
 had never come near her. She did not believe in it for the 
 good, the sincere, the noble, whatever their creed. ' I don't 
 know what will happen at the moment of their death,' she 
 said, ' but God will illumine them and save them.' The 
 only Divine punishment she could understand was to be 
 debarred from the sight of God. How often, indeed, have 
 I teased her about her amiable heresies ! . . . She 
 had that merit, so rare in pious people towards those who 
 do not share their opinions — she could believe entirely in 
 their goodness and recognise it without rcj^crve." 
 
 313
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 She, on her side, was always preoccupied about his 
 heterodoxy, even when her mind was beclouded. " Her 
 confessor," he continues, " came to see her. In the even- 
 ing she said to me, * If I go into another world, you will 
 know that I shall be very busy about you. The sacrifice 
 of my life would be nothing, whatever it cost me to part 
 with you, if it assured your eternal happiness.' The day 
 on which she took the Sacrament (which she did so that 
 her daughters might not feel troubled at the last moment), 
 she set great store on my being present. After this, she 
 fell into a state of chronic wandering (lasting till her 
 death). . . . Yet I never saw her mistaken about me, 
 excepting once or twice for a moment, when she imagined 
 that I was a fervent Christian. But this error was only 
 transitory, and accompanied by doubts and questions 
 which proved the nature of her wishes as strongly as that 
 of her delusions. ' You are not a Christian ? ' she asked 
 me one day — and when I did not answer, 'Ah, I know 
 what you are, you are a Fayettist ? ' ' You credit me with 
 a great deal of pride,' I answered, ' but are you not some- 
 thing of a Fayettist yourself? ' ' Oh, yes ! ' she said, ' with 
 all my soul ! I feel that I would give my life for that 
 sect. . . .'" 
 
 " But above all things," she added later, " one must be 
 a Christian. You admire Jesus Christ ; one day you will 
 recognise His Divinity. Do you want to go with me to 
 martyrdom ? " "I would follow you anywhere," answered 
 Lafayette — and content with his reply, she began to praise 
 God for his salvation. 
 
 Madame de Tess^ used to say that the Creed of this 
 passionate sectarian was a curious compound of the 
 Catechism and the Declaration of Rights, though she 
 added she had never seen a fanatic so free from party- 
 
 314
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 spirit. Had she never married, her politics would have 
 naturally made for freedom and justice ; as it was, the 
 passions of her mind were joined to her passion for her 
 husband. Now, when her poor brain was overshadowed, 
 that feeling, alone, seemed to give her a steady light. 
 
 " Her disordered imagination," Lafayette's account goes 
 on, "was never invariably fixed, except in her relations 
 with me. It seemed as if this impression was too deep 
 to be affected ; stronger than disease ; stronger than death 
 itself. For this angelic creature already no longer existed 
 here ; everything in her was frozen ; and feeling, as well 
 as vitality, had found their last refuge in the hand that 
 pressed mine. Perhaps she abandoned herself more freely 
 to the expression of her tenderness than if she had had 
 all her reason. . . . She would have felt obliged to 
 distract herself more severely from the sentiment which, as 
 she said, gave life to every fibre of her body. . . . ' How 
 fervently I ought to thank God,' she exclaimed during her 
 illness, ' that my strongest passion has also been my duty ! ' 
 And on the day of her death, ' How happ)- I have been ! ' 
 she whispered — ' What a destiny to have been your wife ! ' 
 Then when I spoke to her of my love, ' True,' she an- 
 swered, in the most touching voice, ' Yes, it is true. How 
 kind you are ! Say it once again ; it gives me such 
 pleasure to hear it. If you think I do not love you 
 enough, you must blame God for it ; He has not given 
 me more faculty than that.' ' I love you,' she cried, ' I 
 love you, Christianly, mundanely, passionately ! ' " 
 
 Once she told him of those early days following his first 
 return from America, when his entrance into the room 
 made her almost faint for joy, and she feared lest she 
 should importune him by her affection. " So I tried to 
 moderate m)-self," she concluded, "and you ought not to 
 
 315
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 be discontented with what remains of me." Another time, 
 she was talking quite sensibly of her daughters' happy 
 marriages. " But I have not been able to make them as 
 happy as myself," she ended — " one would want the power 
 of God to re-create such a miracle ; you are incomparable." 
 Towards the end, she made him promise to love her 
 always, and they plighted their troth for eternity, as they 
 had done for time. But even about this she had com- 
 punctions, and was afraid she had been selfish. "Dear 
 heart," she said, "do not be troubled about me, if you 
 want to marry again. Perfect happiness is in Paradise, 
 but there are good moments on this earth." 
 
 " In spite of the confusion of her ideas," writes her 
 husband, " she had a presentiment of death. On her last 
 night but one, I heard her say to her nurse : ' Do not leave 
 me ; tell me when the moment for death comes.' I ap- 
 proached her, and she grew calm immediately ; but when 
 I spoke to her of returning to Lagrange, ' Oh no ! ' she 
 exclaimed, ' I shall die. Have you anything against 
 me ? ' ' Why should I, my darling ? ' I answered — ' you 
 have always been so good and tender ! ' ' So I have been 
 a pleasant companion to you?' she asked. 'You have 
 indeed ! ' ' Well, then, bless me ! ' All these last evenings, 
 when I left her, or she thought I was doing so, she begged 
 me to bless her." 
 
 Yet she wished to live, and kept all her hold on life, 
 constantly asking him about his pursuits. She had been 
 deeply interested in his farming, " and it remained clear in 
 her head, because it was my daily interest," he tells us. He 
 planned their journey to their country home. " Ah ! " she 
 exclaimed, "that would be too delicious" — and shortly 
 after, " My God, my God ! " she cried, " give me six poor 
 weeks more of Lagrange." Sometimes she grew restless 
 
 3it3
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 and wanted to start with him at once, or be^^ged him to go 
 first and prepare the house ; but it was enough for him to 
 ask her to rest. " Very well, wait a moment," she would 
 SH)-, " and I will fall asleep quite quietly." Even when 
 she most disliked food or medicine, a word from him or 
 her children, even the idea that her nurse might be blamed, 
 always determined her to obey — and she never showed 
 impatience at her pain, only gratitude for every service. 
 She had her fits of excitement, but it was nearly always, 
 joyous : as when George entered the room and she held 
 out her arms to him, imagining that he had just re- 
 turned from the wars. Only once was she agitated 
 about herself, when she found out that she was wandering, 
 and imagined herself to be insane. " Am I mad ? " she 
 enquired. " I should be sorry to think so," replied Lafay- 
 ette, smiling, " after all the nice things you have said of 
 me." " What ! " she cried ; " I am married to the sincerest 
 of men, and cannot get at the truth. ... I must 
 resign m}-self to the ignominy of insanity." He answered 
 that she deceived herself — that she was loved and re- 
 spected. " I don't care about being respected, if I am 
 loved," she rejoined. . . . "I am tedious and burden- 
 some, but my children must make the best of having a 
 mad mother, since their father is contented to have a 
 mad wife." Her tender raillery was like a smile on the 
 face of Death. 
 
 " And," writes Lafa}-ette, " it was not only her imper- 
 turbable sweetness, her consideration for others and con- 
 tinual need of sa\'ing something gracious which illuminated 
 the wanderings of her mind, even whilst she confused 
 every idea which was not connected with the heart. . . . 
 There was also an elevation in her thoughts, a subtlety in 
 her definitions, a precision and elegance in her expressions, 
 
 317
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 which surprised all who came near her. . . , This 
 chronic delirium which took possession of her was the 
 strangest and most touching that I have ever seen. Her 
 troubled brain was always in Egypt or Syria, in the midst 
 of the events of the reign of Athaliah, which her grandchild 
 C61estine's lessons had left in her imagination." 
 
 At one moment, she fancied herself with the De Tess6s 
 at Memphis. At another, she strayed into the Old Testa- 
 ment and begged her husband to tell her how her children 
 stood with the family of Jacob, which she fondly invested 
 with the warmest affection for Lafayette. Or it was the 
 quarrels of Israel and Judah which absorbed her. " It 
 would be funny," she said to him, " if your wife should be 
 forced in the end to sacrifice herself for a king." Often 
 she returned to the events of her own life. " She was 
 seized with the fear of disturbances and proscriptions, and 
 prepared herself for them with the gentleness and firmness 
 which distinguished her at real crises. She kept congratu- 
 lating herself on the noble courage and high-mindedness 
 of her sons-in-law ; then began enquiring whether there 
 was going to be a persecution of the Christian martyrs, and 
 counted on me to protect the oppressed. * It seems to me,' 
 she said, ' that the world is beginning over again ; always, 
 and always fresh experiences ! When will it run on two 
 wheels as you want it to ? ' One day she had a hazy 
 notion that she was an empress. ' But if I were,' she 
 added, ' you would be an emperor, and then it would be 
 you who would have a guilty conscience ! ' . . . Some- 
 times she was heard to pray in her bed . . . and once 
 she improvised a beautiful prayer which lasted an hour. 
 She made her daughters read aloud to her the prayers of 
 the Mass, and noticed whatever was left out for fear of 
 fatiguing her. There was something heavenly about the 
 
 318
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 way in which, on one of her last nights, in a strong, em- 
 phatic voice, she twice repeated the Song of Tobit, the 
 same that she had sung to her daughters when she first 
 caught sight of the towers of Olmiitz. I went to her. ' It 
 is by Tobit,' she said, ' I sing badly now ; that is why I 
 recited it ! ' Her doctor said that never, in the whole course 
 of his long practice, had he seen anything approaching her 
 adorable character and her strange delirium. ' No,' he 
 exclaimed, ' I have never seen anything which could give 
 me an idea that human perfection could go so far ! ' 
 
 "Her ravings," continued her husband, "were remarkable 
 also by their correspondence with the degree of her affec- 
 tion. For me she always had a steady judgment, which 
 mingled strangely with the fantastic situations in which 
 she imagined us, and she always saw me in the light of my 
 principles, my feelings, my tastes, or my antipathies : for 
 mej too, she showed an amazing sagacity — a constant and 
 detailed preoccupation. In her hallucinations she would 
 say to me : ' Decide ! you are our chief ; it is our happy 
 fate to obey you.' And once, when I implored her to 
 calm herself, she turned to me and gaily quoted : 
 
 "'A vos sa.i^es conseils, seigneur, je in'ah.uulonne.' " 
 
 " I do not sa\- all this to boast," adds Lafayette. . , . 
 " Onlv Ix-cau^e 1 like to recall how tender she was, and 
 how hap|j)'. Dear God, how radiant she would have been 
 this winter! The three households united — the war ended 
 fcjr George and Louis — Virginie with a child of her own ! " 
 
 All her dear ones were near her now. Children and 
 grandchiUh-en surrounded her ; Madame de Tess^, who 
 was ill all the last weeks of her niece's life, was carried to 
 her bedside ; Madame de Montagu never left it. She 
 enquired after everybody, and sent them f)nd messages. 
 
 319
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 " Give mille tendresses to Madame de Simiane," she once 
 said to her husband, in allusion to his great friend. She 
 continually asked both him and Pauline for news of her 
 mother, and thought she had seen her in the morning. 
 " We shivered," he writes, " when we heard her say calmly, 
 on the day of her death, ' To-day I shall see my mother.' 
 . . . Later on in the day, instead of renewing her 
 enquiries, as was her wont, she only said to Madame de 
 Montagu, ' I look upon you as her successor.' When 
 her confessor came one morning, he could see that I 
 respected what I believed to be my wife's last wishes. 
 I easily persuaded him that his seeing her would be 
 superfluous and might do harm. But on the eve of her 
 death, as my daughters attached great value to the re- 
 petition of certain Prayers and Observances in her room, 
 the Vicar of the parish came and stood behind the curtain 
 which screened her and me, and performed these last 
 offices, without her knowledge." 
 
 This same night, she took a ring in the shape of a 
 crucifix from her finger and put it on that of her sister, 
 Pauline de Montagu. "The peace of God be with you, 
 dear Pauline," she said, as if to show that the Cross could 
 alone bring the peace. 
 
 " The next day," continues Lafayette, " was an anniver- 
 sary very dear to our hearts — the day when, twenty-eight 
 years before, she had given me George. It seemed, this 
 time, as if she were intoxicated with bliss. This day of 
 rejoicing between her and me was that of her death." 
 
 It was Christmas Eve, in the year 1807 ; they lost her, 
 as they said afterwards, at the foot of Christ's manger. 
 Her last day was, perhaps, her most wonderful. 
 
 " It appears to me," exclaims her husband, " that I am 
 dwelling upon these details in order to put off the shock of 
 
 320
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 that final moment when we saw that the doctor was giving 
 up every effort to cure her, and onl)' tr)'ing to prolong her 
 life — when we knew too well she would have no to-morrow. 
 Till then, we had onl\' come to her by twos and threes ; 
 but all day she had exhausted herself in sending for us, and 
 there was no longer any reason against the presence of the 
 whole family. They sat round her bed in a semi-circle, 
 and she could see everybody. ' What a charming party ! ' 
 she said, looking at them with infinite content. She 
 called all her daughters to her in turn, and said the 
 sweetest things to them. She gave each of them her 
 blessing. I am sure that this last morning was rapture to 
 her heart. . . . She kept repeating that she thanked 
 God for the mercies He had lavished, and was still lavish- 
 uig, upon her. She certainly had some idea that death 
 was approaching her ; for after she had said to me, as she 
 often did, 'Have }'ou been pleased with me? Are you 
 really so good as to love me ? Then do bless me ! ' 
 And after I had answered, ' You love me too, and you 
 will bless )ne,' she gave me her benediction, for the first 
 and last time, with the most moving tenderness. Then 
 her children went up to her, one after the other, and 
 kissed her hand and face. She looked at them with in- 
 expressible affection. 
 
 " She had an even stronger consciousness of the end 
 when, evidently fearing some convulsion, she made a sign 
 to me to go away. When I remained, she took m\' hand, 
 and, with a glance of Icjving gratitude, put it over her e)-es, 
 as an indication of the last duty she desired of me. All 
 through these hours, we felt a gentle agony in our hearts, 
 which were torn between the wish to show her the love 
 that delighted her and tlic conviction that emotion would 
 use up her flickering vitality. So I was repressing my 
 
 :;ji Y
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 words as carefully as my sobs when the touching expres- 
 sion in her eyes, and some half-articulated words of hers, 
 suddenly forced me to express the feelings with which my 
 heart was stifled. Her voice revived, and she cried out, 
 ' Then it is true — you have loved me ! Ah, how happy I 
 am ! Kiss me ! ' Those poor arms, which had been almost 
 motionless, came out from beneath her coverlet with a 
 force that amazed the nurse. She put one of them round 
 my neck and, drawing my head down to hers, she pressed 
 me to her heart and repeated, ' What joy, . . . How 
 lucky I am to belong to you ! ' . . . 
 
 " Rather later, towards the end of her agony, and whilst 
 she could still speak, my daughters feared that her habit 
 of putting away religious observances in my presence> 
 might hamper her wish to hear prayers or to offer them. 
 A little crucifix happened to lie near her hand. Instead 
 of taking it, she took hold of my hand, which she clasped 
 between hers in an attitude of prayer, and probably it was 
 for me she was praying. They asked me to go away, so 
 that Madame de Montagu, who had had her confidence 
 from the first upon such matters, could find out if she had 
 anything to tell her. My first impulse was to resist this 
 request, tender and timid though it was. I feared lest her 
 last moments should be disturbed ; and as a husband, I 
 confess that my faithful heart experienced its first pang of 
 jealousy. I felt a passionate need to occupy her ex- 
 clusively. I wanted all her looks, all her thoughts. But 
 I repressed myself so that she might have no desire unful- 
 filled, and I made way for her sister, who repeated her 
 question twice. The beloved patient, who generally de- 
 lighted in Madame de Montagu's presence, twice replied, 
 'No,' and added, 'go to supper.' She appeared impatient 
 to sec mc back in my place. Directly I returned, she 
 
 322
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 again took my hand in hers and said, ' I am all your own.' 
 Those words were the last she uttered, 
 
 " People say that she was always preaching at me. 
 That was not her way. In her delirium, she often ex- 
 pressed the thought that she would go to heaven, and — 
 dare I write it ? — even this idea did not console her for 
 leaving me. Several times she exclaimed, ' This life is 
 short ; let us meet in God and abide together for eter- 
 nity.' . . . ' I wish you the peace of God,' she mur- 
 mured to me and her children a little before the end ; 
 and just before her last words to me, she told us that 
 she did not suffer. ' No wonder,' said the nurse, ' for she 
 is already an angel.' 
 
 " As long as her right hand could move, she put mine 
 in turn on her lips and her heart. My left hand never 
 left hers ; I felt its motion ; and when she drew her last 
 breath, it seemed to be once more expressing those last 
 words of hers — ' I am all your own.' . . . We stood 
 round the bed which we had put well forward in the room, 
 and she signed to her sister to sit down on it. Her three 
 daughters never ceased laying hot cloths on her hands 
 and arms, to preserve some vestige of heat in them. We 
 all fell on our knees round the bed and followed the slow 
 movements of her breathing. It was without any appear- 
 ance of suffering, with the smile of kindness on her face, 
 and clinging closely to my hand, that this angel of tender- 
 ness and goodness ceased to live. I fulfilled the duty 
 which she had assigned to me. . . . 
 
 ". . . On Monday she was borne with great sim- 
 plicity, as she had desired, to a place close by the ditch 
 where her grandmother, mother, and sister lie hidden 
 amongst sixteen hundred victims." 
 
 It was to M. de Maubourg, his old comrade at Olmiitz, 
 
 323
 
 THE HOUSE?IOLD OF THE LAFAVETTES 
 
 and the trusted friend of his wife, that he wrote the long 
 diary of her sufferings, " out of the abyss of grief in which 
 he was plunged." He ends it with a noble summary of 
 all that she was. " My sorrow," he says, " likes to pour 
 itself out to him who was ever the dear confidant of my 
 thoughts, in the midst of all the troubles which often 
 made me think myself unhappy. But till now, you have 
 found me stronger than circumstances ; to-day, a circum- 
 stance is stronger than I am. I shall never rise again. 
 During the thirty-four years of a union, in which the love 
 and the elevation, the delicacy and the generosity of her 
 soul, charmed, adorned and honoured my days, I was so 
 much accustomed to all that she was to me that I did 
 not distinguish her from my own existence. Her heart 
 wedded all that interested me. I thought that I loved 
 her, needed her ; but it is only in losing her that I can 
 at last clearly see the wreck of me that remains for the 
 rest of my life — a life which was to have been given up 
 to many distractions, but for which neither joy nor care 
 is any longer possible. . . . For there only remain 
 memories of the woman to whom I owed the happiness 
 of every moment, undimmed by any cloud. Although 
 I may say that she was passionately attached to me, 
 I never saw the slightest tinge of exactingness, displeasure, 
 or jealousy in her ; never anything which did not leave 
 me perfectly free as to my enterprises, my affections, 
 even my absences. . . . And her passion for me and 
 for our doctrines never for a moment lessened her pity 
 or her indulgence for people of other parties, nor was she 
 ever embittered by the violent hatreds of which I was the 
 object. . . . 
 
 " You know as well as I all that she was, all that she 
 did, during the Revolution. It is not so much for coming 
 
 324
 
 BEFORE THE END 
 
 to Olmiitz that I wish to praise her here ; it is for refusing 
 to come without first assuring my aunt's comfort, and 
 settling with our creditors; it is for having had the courage 
 to send George to America. What a noble imprudence 
 she showed in remaining the only woman in France who, 
 compromised by her name, never wished to change it! 
 . . . She was ready to speak in the same way before 
 the Tribunal, and )-et we all know that this woman, so 
 high-souled in great circumstances, was as simple and 
 easy as a child in daily intercourse. She would have been 
 too easy and too kind, indeed, had not her virtue made of 
 all this a law of life entirely apart. So also was it with 
 her piety. I can truthfully say that, in all these thirty- 
 four years, I never felt a moment's constraint ; that her 
 religious exercises were unaffectedly subjugated to my 
 convenience ; that I had the satisfaction of seeing my 
 most unbelieving friends as often welcomed, as much 
 loved, esteemed, and appreciated, as if there had been no 
 difference of opinion. She never said an)thing more than 
 that, when she thought matters over, she ahva)-s hoped, 
 t.'i.iL, with m)- innate sincerity, I should end by being 
 convinced. All the messages she left behind for me are 
 written in the same sense, and entreat me to read, for the 
 love of her, certain books which I shall now examine 
 afresh, with true reverence. And I shall name her religion 
 ' Sovereign Liberty,' so as to endear it the more to myself; 
 il will remind me of her when she used to quote with such 
 pleasure the words of the Abbe Fauchet : 'Jesus Christ, 
 ni\- only .Ma-.tcr.' 
 
 " liut thoip^h I am given up to a deep and enduring 
 sorrow ; thoii-h I have dedicated my being to one thought 
 alone, and to a \vor>hip bcNdiul this world ; th(jugh I 
 have a greater need than ever before to believe thai every- 
 
 0^0
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 thing does not die when we do, I am still susceptible to 
 the sweetness of friendship — and what a friendship, my 
 dear Maubourg, is yours ! " 
 
 So ends his account of the woman who was to him "a 
 model of love's eloquence." 
 
 She lived on in other hearts, besides those of her 
 nearest. Years after, the Comte de S6gur, the friend of 
 Lafayette's youth, refreshed himself with the memory of 
 her sweet brave spirit. " Faithful to all her duties," he 
 wrote, " she found in them her only pleasures. . . . 
 Pious, modest, charitable, severe to herself, indulgent to 
 others, she counts among the very few whose pure names 
 gain a fresh glory from the tragedy of the Revolution. 
 Ruined by its storms, she hardly seemed to remember 
 that she had once enjoyed a great fortune. She was the 
 happiness of her family, the staff of the poor, the conso- 
 lation of her country, and the honour of her sex." 
 
 Lafayette's grief for her was no fickle emotion which 
 passed with the expression of it. The waters ran deep. 
 Till the end of his life, he wore her portrait round his 
 neck. On the gold medallion that contained it were 
 engraved her words to him : " So I have been a pleasant 
 companion to you ? Well then, bless me ! " And every 
 morning, before leaving his bedroom, he spent a quarter 
 of an hour in looking at her face, in kissing it, in medi- 
 tating deeply. " On the rare occasions," says his daughter, 
 " when something prevented him from doing this, he was 
 perturbed for the rest of the day." Adrienne's room at 
 Lagrange was always kept as she left it, and the anni- 
 versary of her death he spent there alone — with her. 
 
 326
 
 Conclusion 
 
 3^7
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Conclusion 
 
 I ^HE soul had departerl from the household of the 
 -*- Lafayettes ; as a whole, it existed no longer. Paris 
 saw little of Lafayette after his wife's death. He retired 
 to Lagran_[^e, where he lived with all his children and 
 their families, intent on his crops and sheep, and onl\- 
 watching Napoleon's doings from afar. But he was still 
 talked of at Court — a Court now largely composed of the 
 old Noblesse, who had ended by yielding to the Emperor 
 and fl'>cking rf)und him. Had he not a providential — 
 or was it a fairy-tale — power of dispensing crowns or 
 dukedoms to those whom he favoured ? When General 
 Bernadotte received the throne of Sweden, he came to 
 see his old friend, Lafayette, before starting for Chris- 
 tiania, and warned him of the (ianger of his single-handed 
 opposition to Bonaparte. The risk, so he said, la)' not 
 so much in the tyrant's own mood as in that of the 
 aristocrats, who were alwavs trj-ing to fan liis irritation 
 against Laf<i\ette. His fur\- broke out one day in the 
 Cduncil, when it was again proposed to have a National 
 (luard. " ( ientlemen, " he {)erorate(l, "my speeeli is not 
 aimed at \-ou. I know \-i>ur devotion to the power of the 
 throne. E\er\' one in France has Ix-en corrected ot his 
 errors. 1 was thinking of the only man in m)- l'".mi)ire 
 who i- not Lafa)-ette ! You see him (]uiet at thi> mo- 
 ment. \\ ell, I a.-i.-^ure )-ou, he is ready to begin again." 
 
 3-9
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 It was no longer generosity which withheld the Im- 
 perial hand from his adversary, only the fear of the masses, 
 who still made the General their hero. For seven years, 
 however, from 1807-14, he remained safe in his seclusion ; 
 the Spanish and Russian campaigns did not draw him 
 forth ; nor did the Emperor's seizure of the Pope — who 
 blocked the royal road — and the Pontiff's imprisonment, 
 in 1809, at Savona and at Fontainebleau, force any utter- 
 ance from Lagrange. But if the uncle had learned to 
 hold his tongue, his nephew had not, and young Alexis 
 de Noailles, a true son of his parents, was thrown into 
 prison for disseminating the Papal Bull against Napoleon. 
 He was offered release, if he would serve in Bonaparte's 
 army, but refused. His younger brother, Alfred, who had 
 different opinions, and fought with distinction under the 
 Imperial standard, obtained his freedom. Alexis sought 
 refuge in England, and only came back to France with 
 the Bourbons, in 1814; Alfred left his country for 
 Russia, but was struck dead, at the age of twenty-six, by a 
 cannon-ball, in the heroic charge of the Berezina — a fresh 
 shock to the heart of his adopted mother, Madame de 
 Montagu, who mourned him as if he were her son. 
 
 The de Tess6s did not long survive him. Mademoi- 
 selle de Montagu had just married M. de M6rode, and 
 the honeymoon had again been spent at Aulnay. Soon 
 after, in January, 18 14, M. de Tesse was seized with par- 
 alysis, and died in his H<*)tel at Paris. Some people — those 
 who form a constant background to existence — live more 
 in their death than in their life. " A habit of fifty-eight 
 years," said his widow, " is not one which I can get rid of" 
 Though she kept both her reason and her firm will, she 
 sank into a state of languor from which she could not 
 rally. The tottering Empire and the invading armies, all 
 
 330
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 the events which a month earlier would have filled her 
 with excitement, were now powerless to move her. " I 
 have a great deal of business to settle ; I must be quick. 
 My dear niece, I feel the heel of death already upon me," 
 she exclaimed to Madame de Montagu, to whom she was 
 dictating her will. When her niece left her, Lafayette and 
 his family came to nurse her ; but soon after their arrival, 
 and only a week after her husband's death, she followed 
 him to the grave. She had begged to have a priest at the 
 first signal of danger, but there was not even time to fetch 
 one. And so her soul passed out into the unseen — if not 
 in the odour of sanctity, at least in an odour as acceptable 
 to God — that of a tender heart, whose charity was never 
 impaired by her mind : a mind which Madame de Stael 
 describes as " the greatest she had ever known." 
 
 It seemed quite in character that the public spirit of 
 Madame de Tess6 should vanish with an empire ; that her 
 light should set together with the star of Napoleon. The 
 news which he had received of the Allies' movements, whilst 
 he was still in Russia, had made him leave the ruins of his 
 army and hasten back to France. His hour had struck. 
 The enemy was marching on the capital, and he met them 
 on the banks of the Marne. Tive\- succeeded in laying siege 
 to Paris, and his brilliant mana-uvres could only stave off 
 disgrace, not prevent it. In March, 1814, .Maiint)nt and 
 Mortier signed the Deed of Capitul.ition, and on the 3Fst, 
 Hlucher and his arni)- entered the city. A few days later, 
 Napoleon signed his abdication at I'ontaiiiebleau, at the 
 same table on which, not long before, the prisoner Pope, 
 Pius VII., h.id "leamd his trembling hand"; and thence, 
 early in April, he departed for his unkingly prison at 
 Elba. 
 
 Such were the scenes enacted at a stone's throw from 
 
 331
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the Rue d'Anjou, where Lafayette had been watching by 
 Madame de Tess6's death-bed. On the day that the Allies 
 entered Paris, he shut himself up in his room and wept in 
 solitude. It must have seemed like a dream — this tur- 
 bulent Paris which he had once commanded — where he 
 now had to lie inactive. His grief for his country was 
 heightened by personal anxiety. His son and young de 
 Lasteyrie were serving in the National Guard, and his 
 other son-in-law, Maubourg, an officer of the Imperial 
 army, was taken prisoner by the Powers, though, by the 
 grace of the Prussian King, he soon obtained his release. 
 Lafayette hastened to call upon that sovereign and thank 
 him for what he had done. He saw the Czar also, on two 
 occasions, at Madame de Stael's. The first time they 
 talked of the abolition of slavery ; the second, the Czar 
 withdrew with him into the embrasure of a window and 
 broke out into lamentations over P'rance and its lack of 
 vigour. He was led into a discussion of the Bourbons, 
 and deplored their obstinate adherence to the old regime. 
 Lafayette replied that their experience should have cor- 
 rected them. " They are uncorrected and incorrigible ! " 
 the Czar exclaimed — " The Duke of Orleans is the only 
 one of them worth anything : the only one who has any 
 notion of Liberalism." 
 
 It was natural that Louis XVIII, should have no liking 
 for the Frenchman who, of all others, had consistently 
 opposed his restoration — who, in much remoter days, when 
 Louis was but Duke of Provence, had refused to be his 
 Secretary, and had wounded his royal sensibilities by 
 offensive Republican talk. 
 
 A king does not forget such things, and his feelings 
 became evident in the year's interval before Napoleon's 
 return. At first, there was some show of reconciliation ; 
 
 332
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Louis sent messages and compliments ; Lafayette ap- 
 peared at Court. " I had scruples," he wrote, " about 
 recalling the Bcnirbons, and yet the strength of first im- 
 pressions is such, that I felt pleasure in beholding them 
 again, and the sight of the (Omte d'Artois in the streets 
 mcncd me strangely; I forgave their sins, even those 
 against their country, and wished with all my heart that 
 Liberty could be wedded to the reign of Louis XV I. 's 
 brothers and daughter . . . After several fruitless 
 efforts to keep our cockade, I resigned myself to pure 
 white, and presented m\self in uniform at the first Royal 
 Audience. I was very well received by the King and by 
 his brother. " lUit there was a sense of strain in all this 
 goodwill, and both King and subject soon relapsed into 
 more natural attitudes towards each other. 
 
 It was very different with the rest of his family. Alexis 
 de Xoailles came back in the suite of the Comte d'Artois, 
 was made Ro\'al Cc^nmissioner at Lyons, and, later, an 
 Enu'ssar)' to the C'ongress at Vienna, together with Talley- 
 rand, who entrusted him with all the negijtiations about 
 Ital)-. The old Due de Ncxailles, meanwhile, returned to 
 his Hi;tel at Paris, and lived there with the Laste)Ties and 
 the .Montagus. Throught)ut the lunperor's reign, Madame 
 de Montagu had lived between her testate at Fcjntenay (the 
 becjuest of her mother) and her town house in the Place 
 Beauvau, where she opened a little K())'alist salon, one 
 cjuarter pcjlitical, and three cjuarters ecclesiastical. Her 
 life in the country was entirel)- one of charit\-, and she was 
 the close friend of all the villagers. .She made a school for 
 their children in a part of her Chateau, which the peasants 
 named " r Hotel de la Provide>ice " ; she gave them her 
 lawn for their weekly balls, ajid she and her family danced 
 w ith them. " Cesl la phis lionmte fevime que je nai jamais 
 
 333
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 vtie — elle est pire qu'une mere" the village postilion said of 
 her. 
 
 When the Allies were marching on the capital, their 
 troops invested Fontenay, and it was no longer safe for 
 the Montagus to stay there. They came to Paris, bring- 
 ing with them the recalcitrant village conscripts who 
 sought shelter under their wing ; and they converted their 
 small house into a temporary refuge, which contained, as 
 by a miracle, the cart-loads of fugitive peasants who, in 
 terror of fire and sword, soon arrived there from Fontenay. 
 
 When the Bourbons returned, Madame de Montagu 
 hastened with her niece, Euphemie de Noailles (then 
 Madame de Verac) to pay her respects to the Comte 
 d'Artois. They were received with effusion. " You will 
 find my daughter-in-law (Madame d'Angouleme, Louis 
 XVI.'s daughter) perfectly simple, and devoid of any 
 luxury," he remarked to them in the course of conversa- 
 tion. A few days later, they saw her at the King's recep- 
 tion, clad in a plain brown dress and a blue gauze scarf, 
 the picture ol pensive graciousness, though not beautiful 
 like Marie Antoinette. Louis XVHI. recognised Euphemie 
 at once, by her likeness to her mother ; Madame de Mon- 
 tagu he knew of old. " I am acquainted with all you 
 have done, Madame," he said to her — " You are charity 
 personified." 
 
 The Royalists' rejoicings were of short duration. In 
 March, 1815, came the news of Napoleon's escape from 
 Elba, the triumphal progress of " the little Corporal " 
 through France, and the rallying of his troops around 
 him ; of his entry into Paris, and his reign of a hundred 
 days. Lafayette, together with Benjamin Constant, Lally 
 Tollendal, De Broglie, and Chateaubriand, formed part of 
 a Committee to prevent his return to power, but their 
 
 334
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 efforts were in vain. Men who but yesterday had been 
 Monarchists, had to-day sold their souls to the magician — 
 a magician who no longer trusted only to his spells, but 
 set about practical measures for the conciliation of the 
 Liberals. He reformed the Government, and submitted 
 his neck to a political bridle, in the shape of a National 
 Representation and an organized Constitution. Lafay- 
 ette, though he still distrusted him, recogin'sed an oppor- 
 tunity for his own principles, and became a member of 
 the Chamber. Like a ghost of the Revolution, he also 
 appeared in the Champ de Mai (that watery reflection of 
 the Cha7np de Mars), where, in 1815, was proclaimed, 
 amidst high festival, the Acte additio7iel aux Constitutions 
 de VEnipire — a measure apparently reinstating the sove- 
 reignty of the people. Republican spirits could not but 
 feel encouraged at this ; still more when, soon after, the 
 Chamber set to work to produce a second edition of the 
 Constitution of 1791. Hut these hopes were even more 
 short-lived than those of the preceding Government. The 
 Allies, furious at their enemies' success, left their disputes 
 over the spoils of 1H14, and united to (just him at Waterloo. 
 Almost crushed by his defeat, he again returned to Paris, 
 speedily summoned a Council of his Ministers, and, Lucifer- 
 like to the end, proposed to reassemble the arm)' for a last 
 attempt. They listened in silence, till St. Jean d'Angcly 
 rose and suggested the Emperor's second abdication. 
 Lafayette had, meanwhile, bec(jme the head of a Committee 
 to force on such a decision, and when Napoleon looked 
 round, his old friends had vanished : only Lucien Bona- 
 parte remained, faithful and her)-, pleading for him in the 
 Chamber. Joseph, whom Napoleon had once pointed out 
 as the friend who would alone remain true to him, had 
 long since deserted his fortunes. The tyrant at last saw 
 
 335
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 that the game was up, and finally abdicated at the 
 Tuileries, whence he proceeded to Malmaison. 
 
 Paris could breathe again, and formed a provisional 
 Government of five, with Fouch^ at its head. Lafayette 
 had been busy republishing his Declaration of Rights of 
 '89 — a document not calculated to find favour with officials. 
 In spite of this, he was surprised — almost offended — at 
 being excluded from the Five, and was only half appeased 
 by being sent as representative to the Allies. He was to 
 make peace with them, but only on condition that they 
 would not support the return of the Bourbons. They de- 
 manded the Emperor's person ; the French Government, 
 however, had pledged its faith to Bonaparte that it would 
 not give him up, and Lafayette firmly refused the enemy's 
 request, with the natural result that no terms were arrived 
 at. But when he returned to Paris, a shock awaited him. 
 He found that Fouche had made a shameful capitulation, 
 accepted Louis XVHI., and given up Napoleon, who was 
 sent to St. Helena. 
 
 Lafayette was disgusted with politics, and longed to 
 retire to the country ; but he was still a member of the 
 Chamber, and had to return for his parliamentary duties. 
 He watched in silence the doings he had prophesied as 
 the outcome of the Bourbons' accession. All the follies of 
 the old order were revived, popular rights were curtailed, 
 taxation increased, and the clergy resumed their sway. 
 The General made no protest except by his inaction, but 
 the Court was not deceived as to his opinions, and its 
 liking for him did not grow warmer. He was stung into 
 movement at last, in 1820, by the passing of the thoroughly 
 unconstitutional law which restricted the electoral ballot to 
 the number of 12,000 — an aristocratic measure which en- 
 raged him. He sprang to arms and became the heart of 
 
 336
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 every conspiracy against the King. One plot evolved by 
 him had its centre at Vinccnnes, and was ruined by an 
 untimely explosion. Anfjther, in the following year (1821), 
 spread its network all over F'rance, and aimed at putting 
 him at the head of Government. It was also spoiled by 
 a blunder, and the Royalists tried hard to collect evidence 
 against him. There was not enough to convict him, but 
 by dint of stratagem and obstruction he was gradual 1\- 
 forced to give up his place in the Chamber and to retire 
 for good to Lagrange. 
 
 Here he lived serenely, amidst his good works, with his 
 children and his twelve grandchildren about him. They 
 formed a kind of early Christian community, with him for 
 their pastor — not an ecclesiastical pastor, perhaj)s, though 
 — since his wife's death — he attended Mass regularly. 
 But the Gospel guided their actions, and their peasants 
 blessed them. When the cholera broke out in the village, 
 and its inhabitants fled, the)' stayed behind to nurse the 
 victims, and brought back the fugitives by force of their 
 example. Every Monday, two hundred pounds of bread 
 of the same quality as their own was distributed amongst 
 the i^oor, and in times of dearth the suppl\- increased to 
 si.x hundred pounds, with the addition of soup aiid a sou 
 for each j>erson. In the famine of 1817, the\- opened a 
 soup-kitchen, in which the)- all helped. It was pointed 
 out to Lafa)-ette that if this generosit)- continued, in si.x 
 weeks the provisions of the district would be exhausted, 
 and he and his famil)- would themsehes he without food. 
 " All right," he said, " 7ue can live \n .Auvergne, and these 
 peasants will at any rate })e kept alive till harvest-time" 
 — and he was as good as his word. 
 
 It is pleasant to fiiui mirth and hospitalit)- flourishing, 
 as well as charity. The large tribe of ct)usins made one 
 
 ■r>.7 Z
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 family, and were constantly interchanging visits. La- 
 fayette himself was the youngest of the young and the 
 soul of all their doings. His laugh, says some one who 
 knew him then, was very low, but frank and gay ; his 
 skin smooth and fresh as a boy's. He extended his circle 
 beyond his family, and, indeed, Lagrange became a centre 
 for every shade of democrat. No American came to 
 France without going there, and the English were not 
 slow to follow — Mrs, Opie amongst them, who describes 
 her visit to the veteran with evangelical effusion. 
 
 The greatest contrast to this mixed assembly was the 
 strictly Royalist society at Fontenay, the home of the 
 Montagus, between which and Lagrange there was con- 
 tinual intercourse. " Have you read my brother-in-law, 
 Lafayette's speech in the Chamber, and his praise of the 
 Revolution ?" wrote Pauline to a friend, in 1821 — "I am 
 indignant with him ; but nobody knows it, and I continue 
 to see him as usual ; for in family relations, he is always 
 perfect and of good counsel. Still, his blindness and his 
 moral frenzy for Liberty are a cross to me." 
 
 The poor little lady had by no means done with crosses. 
 She had but a few years' happiness, greatly increased by 
 the arrival of her father, who lost his second wife in 1824, 
 and came to live with his ^^ chere Montagu" as he called 
 her. " Of all my faculties," he said to her, " I shall soon 
 have only one left, my love and admiration for you." He 
 lingered on till 1828, when he died, with her at his side. 
 But before that, in 1825, when she was slowly recovering 
 from what had seemed to be a mortal illness, she was 
 overwhelmed by the sudden death of her only son, just 
 twenty-eight years old, who fired his gun by accident, 
 whilst out shooting, and killed himself on the spot. For 
 the moment, even /ler soul was crushed. " Lord, cease to 
 
 338
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 strike me ! " she prayed, " for I am about to sink beneath 
 the weight of my cross." She revived, but only to give 
 her days to others : her own life was over. 
 
 In 1823, Lafayette yielded to pressing invitations and 
 went over to America, where he renewed his youth 
 and saw his age crowned. Greetings met him at every 
 step, from friends old and new. Here he saw Joseph 
 Bonaparte and Achille Murat, son of the King of Naples. 
 Better still, Jefferson and John Adams were yet alive to 
 welcome him, and Colonel Nicholas Fish, his old comrade- 
 at-arms. Together they re-visited Yorktown. Lafayette 
 seemed lost in meditation, as was natural in the place 
 which had witnessed the climax of his military acliicve- 
 mcnt. " Nick, old fellow," he said at last, " do you 
 remember our sledding here with the Sedburgh girls ? " 
 Sic transit gloria miindi ! and thus happiness outlives it ! 
 After revisiting Mount Vernon and its memory-haunted 
 garden, after countless ovations almost royal in their 
 splendour, he returned to his country, to be hailed in 
 song by B^ranger and met by fresh ovations from all 
 good Republicans. Ary Scheffer also commemorated him 
 in a life-size portrait. Madame de Montagu was much 
 harassed by the thought that he would probably have 
 been painted with the Declaration of Rights in his hand, 
 but she was too delicate to ask him. On his first visit to 
 Fontena)' after his return home, she enquired wliat pose 
 he had chosen. Her curiosity made him smile. " Well, 
 m)' dear sister," he replied, " I am taking a walk — my hat 
 and cane in my hand — like this," and he iiTiitated the 
 attitude he had described. " And the other hand ? " asked 
 Madame de Montagu an.xiousl)-. " It is in my pocket," 
 answered the General, " which is much better than having 
 it in somebody else's." 
 
 339
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 He had left Louis XYHI. on the throne, and came back 
 to find Charles X. in his place. Charles had an odd kind 
 of affection for Lafayette, with whom he remembered 
 having riding-lessons at Versailles, when both of them were 
 boys. They had also sat together amongst the Notables. 
 But Lafayette did not break his country retirement, and 
 Charles proved as blind as Louis. He violated liberty 
 whenever he could, and constantly disobeyed the Chartre 
 — drawn up in the last reign to force the Bourbons into 
 constitutional limits. Not content with this, he twice 
 dissolved Parliament, because the Opposition was too 
 strong for his taste ; and on the second occasion, in the 
 summer of 1830, he commanded a new Parliament to meet 
 on August the 3rd, in the hopes of increasing his power. 
 The Polignac Ministry, appointed by him the year before 
 and already terribly unpopular, chose this moment to pass 
 four unconstitutional measures, signed by both Sovereign 
 and Ministers, and destructive to the liberty of the Press 
 and the rights of Representatives. They were published 
 in " Le Moniteur" of Monday, July the 26th, without any 
 further precaution — apparently with no further foreboding. 
 The King and Dauphin went out hunting as usual, but in 
 Paris, fury prevailed. The Journalists were the first to 
 organize themselves ; Government securities fell with 
 alarming rapidity ; the money-panic spread ; barricades 
 were raised ; and the tumult became universal. General 
 Marmont took fright and hastened to warn the King, who 
 was still indifferent and gay. " Shares have gone down," 
 said Marmont. " Oh, they will go up again ! " replied 
 the Dauphin. His forbears' experience had not been of 
 much use to him. Charles, still refusing to be perturbed, 
 consented to send some soldiers under Marmont to Paris ; 
 but when he got there, on Tuesda)% the 27th, he found his 
 
 340
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 troops insufficient. He divided them, however, as well as 
 he could, into three sections, and met his maddened adver- 
 saries on July the 28th, with a bloody repulse as the result. 
 In the nicmiiine, Lafayette, summoned by his son, had 
 made all haste to Paris. Soon after his arrival, he was 
 entreated to accept the commandership of the National 
 Guard — or ^^)rccs, as they were now called. He showed 
 no hesitation : " I will not refuse," he exclaimed, " I will 
 behave at seventy-three, as I did at thirty-two." History 
 repeats itself in different tones of voice, and its note this 
 time was a thin one, when compared to that of '89. The 
 crowd bore him on its shoulders to the Hotel de Ville. 
 " Let me alone ! " he cried — " I know my wa>- about the 
 Hotel flc Ville better than you do." This was Thursday, 
 July the 29th, and late in the saine da\', Marmont and his 
 trf)ops returned to St. ("loud. The Kinj^ was at last frifjht- 
 ened, and despatched Commissioners to Paris the same 
 evening, but Lafa\-ette refused to see them. He was once 
 more Icadiii:; a Revolution. On Frida\-, the 30th, Charles 
 X. tried to mend his fortunes b\- revoking the four Ordi- 
 nances, but it was too late. All that day, the Deputes had 
 been discussing the future Government of France, and the 
 answer to the l^ourbon's concessicm was a message, telling 
 him that the Ordinances had been already repealed and 
 that he was no longer King. That night Louis Philippe, 
 Duke of Orleans, returned to Paris ; and on Saturday- morn- 
 ing, he received the offer of the Lieutenant-Governorship 
 of his countr)-, f)n condition that he submitted to proper 
 constitutioiial limitations. On his acceptance, the deputies 
 conducted him to the Hotel de Ville, but the surrounding 
 crowd shiiwrd much more disaffection than enthusiasm. 
 Again L.ifajette came to the rescue, and climbing on to 
 the roof of the Hotel de Ville, proposed the new rules to 
 
 341
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 the mob. The dramatic apparition of their hero changed 
 their mood ; dislike changed to clamorous welcome, and 
 Louis Philippe received his office from the hand of the 
 People. 
 
 Charles X., meanwhile, fled with his family to the Grand 
 Trianon and, later on, to Cherbourg and England. The 
 French Captain of the vessel which took him there talked 
 to him about Lafayette. " He started well," said Charles — 
 " for a long time he wished to be the King of the Masses, 
 but he will never be anything. He is at once ambitious 
 and a fool. . . . He has turned out badly." " Your 
 Majesty knew him when you were very young. Sire ? " 
 asked the Captain, " Certainly," was the answer — " we 
 used to have our gymnastic exercises together ; he was 
 clumsy and awkward, but he was gracious and amiable, 
 and amused us all. Never could we have dreamed that 
 he would have turned out so badly." It was the verdict 
 of a deposed monarch ; but kings, with or without their 
 crowns, were bound to dislike Lafayette. 
 
 He straightway went to Louis Philippe, and proposed 
 to him in detail the " Programme of the Hotel de Ville," 
 which was based on the American Constitution, but urged 
 " a Popular Monarchy, surrounded by Republican institu- 
 tions." The throne he kept as a tradition needful for 
 France. Louis Philippe was all graciousness, and on 
 August the 3rd, when the Chamber met, he came out 
 thence as King. Once more the young heart of the veteran 
 Lafayette beat high ; once more Canaan was in sight ; 
 once more, also, the inevitable riot occurred, caused by 
 some slight changes in the Constitution ; and once more, 
 when he had quelled it, it seemed to him no more than 
 a deplorable accident on a smooth road. The dis- 
 turbance, however, made it expedient to continue the 
 
 342
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 National Guard, and the General remodelled it with all 
 his old prestige. A monster banquet was given in his 
 honour, and, wherever he turned, he was feasted and 
 petted — the Phcenix of Revolution. Onl>- tiie new King, 
 stung by increasing jealousy of his influence, remained 
 cold towards him, and was anxious to discard his support. 
 But the trial of Charles X.'s hated Ministers produced a 
 new wave of feeling against the Bourbons, and the throne 
 was no very secure place. Lafayette alone could protect 
 it and put down the rising bitterness, and Louis Philippe 
 found it impo.ssible, for the moment, to do without him. 
 So the Sovereign bided his time, and when affairs were 
 calmer again, there were subtle Court plottings against 
 the overruling subject. At last his enemies succeerled in 
 abolishing the commandership of the National Guard, a 
 post which, for some time, Lafayette had been anxious to 
 resign. He gladly seized his opjiortunity for retirement 
 to Lagrange, where great-grandchildren now awaited him ; 
 and though he remained a member of the Chamber, the 
 evening of his days was spent in peace and in leisure. 
 
 Only once, was there a.ny attempt to disturb him — when 
 Belgium offered him its crown. " It would become me as 
 well as a ring bect)ines a cat," he answered, with a laugh, 
 and with a decisive consistency rare in Republicans. 
 
 For the rest, he led a happy patriarchal existence, still 
 scheming for mankind, anrl surrounded by all he loved. 
 The son of M. de Mun had settled down in the neigh- 
 bourhood, where he carried on the traditions of Madame 
 de Tesse anrl made his Chateau a centre for youth : the 
 Lafayette and Montagu youth, in particular. Here they 
 talked and laughed, and acted " Proverbs," with Lafa)-ette 
 for audience, and made the house their home almost as 
 much as Fontenay, where Madame de Montagu continued 
 
 343
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTE S 
 
 to live in faith, hope, and charity. The charity, indeed, 
 became almost alarming, especially when the Montagus 
 made their winter move to Paris, to their new Hotel in the 
 Rue Hilbertin, where they had to hide away their mother's 
 clothes and linen, lest she should give all to the poor who 
 thronged her doors. She had even cut off her beautiful 
 hair, because a barber had told her it would fetch eighty 
 francs — an irresistible addition to her funds. But she had 
 not much time left, and her long life was drawing to a 
 close. In 1834, her husband died ; and in 1837, she lost 
 Alexis de Noailles, the one surviving son of the " Celeste 
 Vicomtesse" then in the prime of his career. Two years 
 later, on her favourite Saint's day, that of St. Francois de 
 Sales, she herself passed away at seventy-three, amidst 
 children and grandchildren, as Madame Lafayette had 
 done. The evening before her death, like Adrienne again, 
 she slipped off her finger the crucifix ring which her 
 dying sister had set there, and put it on the hand of her 
 daughter, a symbol of the faith which was the heritage 
 she left to her children. 
 
 Lafayette had preceded her. He died calmly, without 
 much suffering, on May the 22nd, 1834, and was buried in 
 the Picpus, by the side of his wife. His loss was a general 
 one, for the public had always kept him in sight, and the 
 leader of a recent Revolution could hardly be looked 
 upon as aged. The New World mourned him as well as 
 the Old — the men of the dying generation, and the young 
 spirits rising on the horizon. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was man so appreciated in his lifetime. 
 The letter which Madame de Stael wrote to him in late 
 days, from her usual vantage-ground, the Capitol, only 
 expressed in hyperbole the conviction of every Liberal 
 Frenchman. " As long as you live," it ran, " I have hopes 
 
 344
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 for the human r.ice. I address this sentiment to you frum 
 the summit of the Capitol, and the benedictions of the 
 Shades are borne to you by my voice." 
 
 Indeed, the fame which he enjoyed was almost impos- 
 sible to live up to, and the men of a later time, who 
 could investigate its sources in cold blood, were bound to 
 be disappointed with the result. 
 
 In judging a personality, and in trying to sum it up 
 before our own minds, there are always two things to 
 consider — what he was, and what he did. What Lafayette 
 was, seems almost perfect. As a husband, a father, a 
 friend, he played his part nobly ; and though he was not a 
 passionate man, he was a faithful and tender one. Even 
 the tinge of coldness, which contrasted so strongly with his 
 intellectual enthusiasm, had a charm of its own, and came 
 of a big nature, too high to notice the lowly trifles which 
 make life warm and comfortable. He was constant in 
 kindness and generosity, and his singleness of heart is 
 almost unique in history. Though he insisted upon 
 Liberty, he never wooed her by force, and was always, 
 mentally and politically, a Liberal, not a libertine. To 
 the world outside his circle, especially the young world, he 
 became a beacon-light which death could not put out. 
 Carlyle says it is partly his creed that history is poetry, 
 could we tell it right. " There must be some oxygen yet, 
 and Lafayette is only just dead ! " cries Emerson ; and 
 his saying is but the due acknowledgment from the men 
 whf) came after Lafayette and entered the Promised Land, 
 VV'hethet consciously or not, they owed much to the Moses 
 who never reached it, but lay alone upon Pisgah. He 
 would have died happier, had he foreseen that the modern 
 F"rench Republic was so soon to embody the forms of 
 government he championed. 
 
 ;;45
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 But when we come to what he did, our task is a more 
 baffling one, and fills us with perplexity. It seems almost 
 incredible that the hero who, in his own day, was looked 
 upon as both the High Priest and the Deliverer of his 
 country, should have achieved so little that was effectual, 
 either in tactics or in policy. It was perhaps impossible 
 to check the on-rush of that ball of fire which we call the 
 French Revolution, but, in any case, Lafayette was not the 
 individual to accomplish it. He had not the personal 
 magnetism so essential to a leader oT men : the inexplic- 
 able genius of personality which has given power to 
 people of such varying ability — to a Mirabeau, a Glad- 
 stone, a Napoleon, a Parnell. Lafayette had the density 
 which belongs to all minds nourished on a fixed idea, 
 and it limited his knowledge of his fellows and deprived 
 him of ability to feel the pulse of affairs. The gay and 
 childlike vanity which made him so lovable a being — 
 which gave him pleasure in himself and the wish to please 
 others — was another hindrance to his career. It blinded 
 him to his errors, and prevented him from having a 
 strong or lucid policy. The view which he took from 
 his mountain-top was, indeed, so wide and distant, that it 
 often became indistinct and wanting in detail. 
 
 Had Lafayette possessed the gift of insight which makes 
 men know when to yield the less vital part of their ideals, 
 he would have gone nearer his goal. He did not possess 
 it. He was as much in love with abstractions as any 
 intellectual undergraduate at a Debating Society, and de- 
 manded the Absolute on all sides. But the Absolute is 
 the monopoly of the Immortals, and when mortals lay 
 claim to the gods' possessions, they have, from the days 
 of Prometheus, been punished with failure. Like Con- 
 dorcet, Lafayette could not have turned into a successful
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 politician. Politics are a practical science, and, to a large 
 degree, they must consist in the crystallization of ex- 
 pediency. Lafayette, the theorist, rejected expediency as 
 immoral, and it is therefore unfortunate that he should 
 have assumed the role of a statesman, and forced us to 
 judge him as such. The judgment is bound to bring 
 regret. Had Lafayette waived minor points and at- 
 tempted to unite with the Girondins, he might have 
 made his philosophic Liberals into a weightier party — or, 
 at least, into a finer and more forcible failure. As it was, 
 he defeated his own ends by allowing the Moderates to 
 split up into impotent groups ; and the Revolution of 
 1789 belied its golden promise and ended in smoke. 
 
 When all is said, we return to the fact that it was an 
 individual that Lafayette was best fitted to be ; and it is 
 as a generous individual that we like to think of him. No 
 life so high-souled could be devoid of some religi(jus in- 
 spiration. For the greater part of his existence, he found 
 it outside creed, and made a religion of Liberty. After 
 his wife's death, he changed his views and made Liberty 
 religious. All the latter part of his life he was a prac- 
 tical, if not an orthcxlox Christian, and it was from the 
 Gospels that he drew spiritual sustenance. ''Encore de 
 r Evangile !" he was wont to exclaim in his old age, when 
 he found himself flagging in good works. In man)- ways 
 his ideas resembled those of Lamenn<u's, whose career he 
 watched with interest, and whoso.'' Paroles d'un Croyant" 
 he read with admiration. "It is the apocal)pse of 17S9," 
 he said, "and it will make a scandal amongst the Crojants; 
 he goes beyond me, though, in Liberalism." But like all 
 big beliefs, that of Lafayette is hard to define. We can 
 only use his own words. " Independence of thought," he 
 says, " and the august fcling of pure Deism, raise them- 
 
 347
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD OF THE LAFAYETTES 
 
 selves high above dogma. It is none the less true that 
 no power in the world can put itself between the heart 
 of man and Divinity. The first duty of all who recognise 
 a separate revelation from that of conscience, is to follow 
 in peace the faith that it presents to them. The lie of the 
 soul is to conform to a cult which they consider sacrilege." 
 Lafayette's words summed up his nature, and we may well 
 accept them as his last farewell to us. 
 
 When we revisit a deserted house, once full of beloved 
 faces and familiar figures, that are now only to be found 
 in the dim corridors of memory, we are overpowered by 
 an almost wanton sense of mortality. The same feeling 
 seizes us when we part from the people we have nevet 
 seen, but have learned to know more closely than we could 
 have done, had the screen of the body stood between them 
 and us. For the love we give to these unseen friends is a 
 selfless love, demanding no return — a delicious intimacy 
 and tranquil possession, unbroken from without or within. 
 Day after day, like faithful comrades, we live at their side, 
 till the dead are more alive to us than the living. But 
 however great our longing, we cannot keep them with us, 
 even by the power of the imagination. They have to pass 
 away again, and leave us behind them sorrowing. And 
 yet, is this death that we are watching ? Are they not 
 ours in enduring companionship, and in the same breath 
 that we say " They have been," may we not also say, 
 " They are " — " They will be " ? For a large life is a life 
 everlasting, and the immortality of the noble begins upon 
 the earth. 
 
 348
 
 I ^ 
 
 iS 
 
 D V- X 
 
 Adair, 304. 
 
 Adelaide, Maclanie, 117. 
 Aguesscau, d', 32, 1 i J. 
 Aguesscau, Madame u', :~j. 
 Aiguillon, Due d', 6, 106. 
 Angivilliers, Madame d', 93. 
 Angoulcme, Dmhcsse d', 242, 
 
 334- 
 Angoulcme, Due d', 269. 
 Aiblay, Comte d', 2S3. 
 Arnold, 75. 
 Arnould, Sophie, 91. 
 Arlois, Comte d', 59, 137, 284, 
 
 333, 334- 
 Astorg, Madame d', 94. 
 Aut'roy, Mdlle. d', 33, 43, 46. 
 Austria, Emperor of, 237, 241, 
 
 244, 247. 
 Ayen, I-'amdy of, 31-52, 61, 64, 
 
 122, 206. 
 Ayen, Due d', 72, 169, 170, 232 
 
 234, ^53, -54. 3o<'. :->'~>7, 3}}, 33^- 
 Ayen, Duchesse d', 28, 72, 12S, 
 169-1 71 ; 181, 182, arrest ; 
 184, imprisonment : 205, 2(/j ; 
 208-214, fi'^I ''I'ltl death ; 222. 
 
 H 
 HaiUy. 90, ro7, 1 10, i 36, 142, 141'), 
 
 1 78. 
 Ilartiar iiix. 175. 
 r>arna\e, 85, 136. 
 llarras, 21'^''. 
 
 Iiartlv Inn , Atilji' de, ')o. 
 lieauchel, 169. 187. 
 IJeauhainais, Jo^t'phinc d< , <)i). 
 lleauharrais, M. dr, itX"), lu. 
 lieaumaichais, 2 1. 
 I'lfauuo, I yS. 
 
 I'.ciuvau, Mad.nin' de, 24. 
 I'.eaii\-au, I'l'.ni c dr, 24. 
 I'.e.lford, I);ike of, <)T„ 304. 
 I5i'ran;4ei , 3 ;(). 
 Hergeliiii, .M.id.iine de, '^4. 
 
 Hernadotte, 329. 
 
 Uerri, Due de, 2 '5. 
 
 Berthier, 1 1 5. 
 
 Blueher, 331. 
 
 Boisgelin, 1 12. 
 
 Boissy d'Anglas, 1 12, 220. 
 
 Bollmann, 23S-40. 
 
 Bonal, 122. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 194, 246- 
 
 48, 269-73, 277-98, 329, 330, 
 
 334-36. 
 lionap arte, Josephine, 2S2. 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, 281, 286, 291, 
 
 -95, -<A 30^ 335, 339- 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, 296, 335. 
 Bordelais, 139. 
 Bjoufllers, Chevalier de, 112. 
 Bouillc, 137. 
 Bourdon de I'Oise, 217. 
 Bourrienne, 280. 
 Boyer, 145. 
 
 lireteuil. Family of, 25. 
 I'lienne, Lomenie de, 98. 
 Bii.^sot, 114, 147, 149. 152, 162. 
 
 165, 167, 168, 175. 
 Bjroglie, Family of, 25, 112, 334. 
 Bro^^lie, Manchal de, 55, (>z. 
 Broglie, Madame de, 94. 
 Brousse. Mdlle., 143. 
 B.runswiek, Duke of, 152, 268. 
 Buffon, 10. 
 Burke, 244, 245. 
 raiiiiey, Fanny, 283. 
 Bu/ot, 148, 175. 
 
 Cahanis, 2S7. 
 
 (.'adouilal, 2>)C>. 
 
 C.ighobtro, I I. 
 
 ("alonne, 85, o(). 
 
 Carlyl-, 204, ;.}5. 
 
 Cai nut, 26(1, Jf.;-. 
 
 Caiiirinin, 181,208, 2II-I4. 219 
 
 Castries, de. 131. 
 
 ;;-;''
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chamfort, 91, 147. 
 Champonas, Madame de, 92. 
 Charles, 10. 
 Charles X., 340-42. 
 Chartres, Due de, 269, 
 Chartres, Duchesse de, 92. 
 Chastellux, de, 75. 
 Chateaubriand, 25, 334. 
 Chatelet, Du, 26, 112. 
 Chdnier, Marie-Joseph, 85, 91. 
 Chimay, Princesse de, 229. 
 Choiseul, 6, 25. 
 Clermont, 25. 
 Clermont-Tonnerre, 120. 
 Clinton, 64. 
 Coigny, de, 24. 
 Coigny, Madame de, 94. 
 Coitant, 203. 
 Colld, 90. 
 
 Condorcet, 25, 114, 139. 
 Condorcet, Madame de, 91. 
 Constant, Benjamin, 334. 
 Conti, 7, 17. 
 Corday, 147, i75- 
 Couthon, 195, 215, 216. 
 Cramer, 19. 
 Crebillon, 21, 90. 
 Custines, de, 112, 171. 
 Custines, Madame de, 25. 
 Cuvier, 10. 
 
 D 
 
 Damas, de, 75. 
 
 Danton, 139, 150, 152, 162, 175, 
 
 194, 195- 
 David, 84, 193. 
 Deane, Silas, 8, 62, 63. 
 Deffand, Madame du, 16. 
 Desmoulins, 139, 147, 162, 194, 
 
 195- 
 Devonshire, Duchess of, 245. 
 Dillon, Family of, 25, 59. 
 Doudeauville, 24. 
 Dugazon, Mdlle., 142. 
 Dumas, 287. 
 
 Dumouriez, 140, 155, 175, 176. 
 Duplessis-Mauduit, 75. 
 Dupont, 87, 112. 
 Duport, 87. 
 Duras, Madame do, 27, 49, 196- 
 
 203, 205,214, 216-19, 306. 
 Dnrforl:, 24. 
 
 Emerson, 345. 
 
 Enghien, Due d', 296. 
 
 Enville, Madame d', 25. 
 
 Erskine, 304. 
 
 Escars, Baronne d', 94, 228. 
 
 Fauchet, Ahh6, 128, 325. 
 Fersen, Comte de, 134. 
 Fish, Nicholas, 339. 
 Fitzpatrick, General, 244, 245, 
 
 246, 265, 304. 
 Flaliaut, Madame, 98, 120. 
 Fontanes, 281. 
 
 Fouche de Nantes, 266, 305, 336. 
 Foulon, 115. 
 
 Fouquier-Tiiiville, 179, 195, 203. 
 Fox, Charles, 245, 246, 265, 303, 
 
 304- 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 8, 63, 66, 73, 
 
 90, 107, 146. 
 Frederick the Great, 79, 169, 237, 
 
 244, 280. 
 Fresnes, M. de, 33. 
 Frestel, M. de, 77, 160, 167, 173, 
 
 180, 182, 183, 184, 186, 220. 
 
 G 
 
 Genlis, Madame de, 16, 20, 22, 23, 
 
 36, 58, 91, 109, 124, 144, 228. 
 Gensonne, 175. 
 George III., 55. 
 (Gloucester, Duke of, 55. 
 Gluck, 12, 19. 
 Golowskin, Princesse, 254. 
 Gouges, Olympe de, 91. 
 Gouvernet, Family of, 94. 
 Grammont, Madame de, 38, 171, 
 
 172,221, 223,232,233,234, 260, 
 
 263. 
 Grammont, M. de, jj, 99, 222, 
 
 263. 
 Grolet, 206, 209, 2ro, 211. 
 (ireuze, 91. 
 Guillotin, Dr., 103, 116. 
 
 H 
 
 Hebert, 146, 162, 194, 195. 
 Helvciins, 90. 
 
 Henin, Princesse d', 24, 171, 235, 
 246. 
 
 350
 
 INDEX 
 
 Henriot, 215, 216. 
 Ht'ricourt, Madame d', 32, 
 Hdhenzuilern, Princess of, 94, y- 
 Holland. Lord, 304, 305. 
 Hood, 194. 
 FIov\e, ^'9 
 
 Hii);er, .Major von, 67, 68. 
 I !ui;cr ,'s(in), 239. 
 
 I 
 
 I'liarl, I 52, 176. 
 
 J 
 
 jaucoHrt, lie, 24. 
 Jclferson. 80, 114, 265, 339. 
 Jo; es, Pa.il 74. 
 Joseph II., 146 
 
 K 
 
 Klopstock, 173. 
 
 Lacoste, 176. 
 
 Lafa.eite, (iuibeit Motier de — 
 Couilship and marriage, 4S, 52. 
 First hears of American Inde- 
 
 pend'-m:e, 55. 
 Character, 36, 57. 
 AnccNtry and education, 57, 58. 
 Life at Court and relations to 
 
 the .N'oailles, 58 62. 
 Xcj^otiations for departure, .^tay 
 
 in London, and departure for 
 
 America, 62 64. 
 Arrival and meeting; with 
 
 Wa'^iiiiv^ton, 67-69. 
 .Au.ei icm War, ^ 9-73. 
 Jii.riieys between Fran< e and 
 
 .\inerica, 73 78. 
 Visit li> Fredciick the Cre.it, 79. 
 F.tTorts for .Sl.ives and 1'im 
 
 testant^. 7';, So. 
 Sits am(.:i ^t .\ii;al)les, 84 
 Life in I'aiis, o v 
 Relations with .Morris, I'itt, 
 
 Talloyrand, (/> 98. 
 Ftforts for Kef )rm and for ron- 
 
 vokin;.; llie .States-( iener.il, 
 
 98 I tX). 
 
 Appointed C.oncral of the 
 Natiimal < iu.ird, 1 10. 
 
 October 5th, 116-1 18. 
 
 Relations with Mirabeavi, 118- 
 120. 
 
 Social position, 121, 122. 
 
 Attitude towards the Church, 
 1 30. 
 
 Relations with Louis XVI., 
 131-137. 
 
 Riot of July 17th, 136-137. 
 
 Retirement, 137-138. 
 
 Appointed (General— Declara- 
 tion of war, 140. 
 
 On the frontier, 148-155. 
 
 Arrest and imprisonment, 155, 
 156. 
 
 June 20th, 150-151. 
 
 August loth, 153-155. 
 
 Fortune sequestrated, 173. 
 
 Imprisonment, 236-247. 
 
 Release, 248. 
 
 At Wittmold, 256-264. 
 
 In Holland, 260-272. 
 
 Return to Paris, 273. 
 
 Relations with Napoleon, 277- 
 298. 
 
 Retirement, 302-311. 
 
 Description of wife's last ill- 
 ness, 311-323. 
 
 Orief after her death, 323-326. 
 
 Conduct at Napoleon's abdica- 
 tion, 332. 
 
 Relations with Louis XV 1 11., 
 
 33-1 }ijy 336, 337- 
 
 Conduct during the Hundred 
 Days ; goes as deputy to 
 Allies, 33-i-3i(>- 
 
 La:sMange, 337-339, 343-344- 
 
 .Stay in America, 339. 
 
 Revolution of 1830 and rela- 
 tions with Lotus Philippe, 
 
 34'->-;vr)- 
 The ( rnwn of r>elgium ofi'cretl 
 
 him, ].\-\. 
 De.ith, 344. 
 .Sinnmary of his character and 
 
 powers, 345 348. 
 .afi)ette, .Adnenne de — 
 Birth and education, 38-48, 
 
 50 52. 
 Svmpathv with husband's aims, 
 
 '61, 6j.' 
 1 ).iii-liter's lie.ith, 72. 
 
 :}") I
 
 INDEX 
 
 Her life with him in France 
 and work for him, 76-80. 
 
 Position in society, 93, 96, 
 121. 
 
 Attitude towards Revolution, 
 128, 129, 
 
 Interview with National Guards, 
 132. 
 
 Conduct during riot of July 
 17th, 136, 137. 
 
 Life at Chavaniac, arrest and 
 imprisonment, 159-88. 
 
 Prisons in Paris, 191-220. 
 
 Return to Chavanikc and jour- 
 neys to Paris, 221, 222. 
 
 Journey to Altona, 222. 
 
 Arrival, 236. 
 
 Progress to Olmiitz, admission 
 to husband's prison, and life 
 there, 240-48. 
 
 Life with Madame de Montagu 
 at Wittmold, 259. 
 
 Meeting of all three sisters in 
 Holland, 260-63. 
 
 Journey to Paris, and negotia- 
 tions for husband's return, 
 263, 267, 270-272. 
 
 Visit to Napoleon, 278. 
 
 Fox's opinion of her, 304. 
 
 Purchase of Picpus, 309. 
 
 Last illness and death, 309-23. 
 Lafayette, Anastasie de, 77, 138, 
 
 179, 182, 183, 185, 186, 312. 
 Lafayette, George de, 'JT, 138, 167, 
 
 220, 259, 263,264,304, 311,317, 
 
 319,320,325. 
 Lafayette, Virginie de, 138, 221, 
 
 236, 243, 281, 295, 302, 303, 
 307, 308, 309,312,319. 
 
 Lafayette, Henriette de, 68, 72. 
 Lafayette, Mdlle. de, 57. 
 Lafayette (Madame de), formerly 
 
 Mdlle. de la Vergne, 57. 
 Lagrange, 10. 
 La Harpe, 147, 2 S3. 
 Lally-ToUendal, 146, 244. 
 Laniballe, Princesse de, 20. 
 Lamennais, 347. 
 
 Lameths, The, 50, 94, 99, 106, 135. 
 Lameth, Alexandre de, 118, 155, 
 
 237, 297. 
 
 Lameth, Charles de, 131. 
 
 Lameth, Theodore de, 256, 257, 
 
 258. 
 Laplace, 10. 
 Lasource, 175, 
 Lasteyrie, de, 295,307, 311, 332, 
 
 333- 
 Lauderdale, Lord, 244, 304. 
 Lauragrais, 10, 146. 
 Lauzun, Madame de, 26, 96. 
 Laval, Madame de, 94. 
 Lavet, Madame, 210. 
 Lavoisier, 10. 
 Lebnm, Madame, 58, 124. 
 Lebrun, Consul, 272, 306. 
 Lee, Arthur, 8. 
 Legendre, 217,218, 220. 
 Lemercier, 85, 91. 
 Lesparre, Duchesse de, 35, 169. 
 Liancourt, Due de, 26, 27, 112, 
 
 264. 
 Louis XVL, 9, 74, 100, 132, 133, 
 
 134, 136, 148, 150, 152 ; August 
 
 loth, 154 ; trial and death, 169; 
 
 333- 
 Louis XVHL, 194, 269, 284, 332, 
 
 334, 336, 340. 
 Louis Philippe, 227,341-43. 
 Louvet, 176. 
 Liickner, 140, 155. 
 Luneville, Madame de, 20. 
 Luxembourg, Marechale de, 23. 
 Luzerne, M. de, 75, 112. 
 Luzerne, Archbishop de, 80. 
 
 M 
 Maf, 146. 
 Maillard, 1 16. 
 Malesherbes, M. de, 25. 
 Malouet, 112. 
 Marat, 147, 175. 
 Marie Antoinette, 58, 59, 74, 76, 
 
 84, 115, 117, 134, 136, 154; 
 
 death, 178, 334. 
 Marin, Mdlle., 42. 
 Marmont, 331, 340, 341. 
 Masclet, 244. 
 Massena, 270. 
 Maubourg, M. de, 112, 155,237, 
 
 248, 256, 279, 323. 
 Maubourg, Cliarles de, 259, 332. 
 Maurepas, 64, 65, 83. 
 Maury, Abbe, 112, 129. 
 
 352
 
 INDEX 
 
 M erode, M. de, 330. ' 
 
 Mesiner. 11, 12. 
 
 Miiaboau, 87, 09, 100, 103, ic6, 
 
 107, 112, 113, I 15, 1 iS-20, 133. 
 
 Mirabcau, \'iconue de, 92, 146, 
 
 147- 
 
 Mitchell, Colonel, 75. 
 
 Monroe, 219, 220. 
 
 Montagu,. Madame do, 38, 13S, 171, 
 223, 227, 22S, 229, 230, 231, 
 232-36, 246, 249. 254-58, 259, 
 26063. 306, 307, 309, 3I9. 3-0, 
 322, 330, 331, 333, 334, 33!^o39- 
 343, 344- 
 
 Montagu, M. de, 77, 263. 
 
 Montagu, MdUe. de, 330. 
 
 Montesquieu, 8, 21, 98. 
 
 Montesquieu, M. de, 75. 
 
 Montesson, Mdlle. de, 25. 
 
 Montfleury, 174, 1S4. 
 
 Montlosier, 112, 146. 
 
 Montmorency, Mathieu de, 112. 
 
 Montmorin, 100. 
 
 Moreau, 270, 272, 2S2, 296. 
 
 Moreau de Mc-ry, iio. 
 
 Morellet, Abbe', 87. 
 
 Morris, Gouverneur, 21, 88-90, 
 95, 96, 98, 100, 103, 106, 108, 
 no, III, 119, 120, 121, 134, 
 137, 154, 169, 172, 173, 185, 
 192, 219, 246, 308. 
 
 ^!ortier. 331. 
 
 Mouchy. Marechalde, 27, 49, 7^, 
 206, 207. 
 
 Mounier, I 16. 
 
 Mun, M. de, 231, 232, 234, 235, 
 254, ^55, -5^J, =57, 259, 273, 343. 
 
 Murat, Prince, 295. 
 
 Murat, Acliille, 339. 
 
 Murinet, Madame de, 94. 
 
 N 
 
 Naudet, 142. 
 
 Necker, 83. 98, 105, 107, 1 13, 307. 
 
 Necker, Madame, 88. 
 
 Nivcrnais, Due de, 24. 
 
 Is'oailles, fanuly of the, 26, 27, 
 
 33, 34, 60, 170, 172. 
 Noailles, .Mareehal and Due de, 
 
 37, 3^, 5^, '•">', '■'^4, 208-14, 235. 
 Noailles, \'iconite de, 48, 49, 62, 
 
 64, 75, 99, 'o^', "•^> 3">-"- 
 
 Noailles, \'iromtesse de, 3?, 49- 
 50, 159. 170, 172, iSi, 183, z<j6, 
 207, 208-214, 233. 
 
 Noailles, Alexis ue, 2j), 211, 233, 
 306, 330, ^^^j, 344. 
 
 Noailles, Alfred de, 209, 211, 234, 
 
 30.^', 33°- 
 Noailles, ICuphe'mie de, 209, 2 1 1, 
 
 =34- 334- 
 North, Lord, 76, 78. 
 
 O 
 
 Opie, Mrs., 338. 
 Or.uigc, I'rincess of, 172. 
 Orle-ans, Due d', 332. 
 Ork-ans, Duchesse d', 85. 
 Orleans, Dowager Duchesse d', 
 
 20, 208, 20';. 
 Orleans, .Mdlle. d', 228. 
 
 Paine, 176. 
 
 Paul (of Russia', 297. 
 
 Pelatan, .Madame, 1S2. 
 
 Petion, 85, 139. '49, '5°. ij'. '54. 
 
 Philippe, Kgalite, 92, 114, 118, 
 
 131, 178. 
 Phillips, Cieneral, 57. 
 Piccini, i 2. 
 Pichegru, 2S2, 296. 
 Pinkney, 167, 171. 
 Pitt. 97, 114, 244. 245,246, 264. 
 Puis \'I I , j^^o, 331. 
 Poix, Pi ince de, 4v. 
 I'oix, Priiuessc de, 24,302. 
 Polignac, Due de, 340. 
 I'oiignac, Duchesse do, 58. 
 Provence, Due de, altcrwards 
 
 I.ouis .Win., 61. 
 Prutihoinme, 147. 
 Pusy, P.. de, 152, 155, 237, 24S, 
 
 = 5'-', =79- 
 
 R 
 
 Rabaut, 175. 
 Kameau, 19. 
 Kaynal, \h\n-, 21. 
 Regnier, 146. 
 Resson, 151. 
 Rethon, 198. 
 
 oO.) 
 
 A A
 
 INDEX 
 
 Reynaud, Solon, 183. 
 Reyni^re, Madame de, 25. 
 Richardson, 36. 
 Richelieu, Mardchal de, 76. 
 Richelieu, Madame de, 202. 
 Rivarol, 92, 146. 
 Robert, 10. 
 
 Robespierre, Auguste, 215, 216. 
 Robespierre, Maximilien, 133, 139, 
 
 154, 162, 191, 192, 194-96, 214- 
 
 16, 228. 
 Rochambeau, 140. 
 Rochefoucauld, Due de la, 24, 112. 
 Roederer, 87, 139. 
 Roissy, Mdlle. de. 20. 
 Roland, 91, 148, 149, 162, 165, 166, 
 
 167, 168, 170, 172, 175, 176. 
 Roland, Madame, 148, 149, 175, 
 
 176, 178. 
 Rosemberg, 241. 
 Rulhieres, 146. 
 
 St. Germain, Lord, 63, 76. 
 
 St. Huruge, 150. 
 
 St. Jean d'Angely, 335. 
 
 St. Just, 148, 162, 195, 215, 220. 
 
 St. Martin, 143. 
 
 Sannier, 193. 
 
 Santerre, 131, 133. 
 
 Schcffer, Ary, 339. 
 
 Segur, Comte de, 9, 13, 25, 58, 
 
 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 83, 87, 99, 112, 
 
 124, 220, 312, 326. 
 Segur, Madame de, 220. 
 Sheffield, Lord, 124. 
 Shelburne, Lord, 64. 
 Sheridan, 244, 245. 
 Shippen, Mrs., 75. 
 Shippen, Miss, 75. 
 Sieyes, Abbd, 89, 91, 100, 107, 
 
 113, 114, 118, 139, 266-68, 270, 
 
 272, 277, 285, 286. 
 Simiane, Madamede. 93, 311, 320. 
 Stacl, Madame de, 88, 89, 90, 97, 
 
 145, 246, 249, 302, 307, 331, 332, 
 
 344- 
 Staiil, M, de, 121. 
 
 Stormont, Lord, 64, 76. 
 Suleau, 153. 
 
 Taillien, 215. 
 
 Talleyrand, 97, 98, 100, 103, ill, 
 
 113, 145, 147, 193, 248, 266, 
 
 277, 286, 287, 333. 
 Talleyrand, Marquis de, 112. 
 Talleyrand, Madame de, 228. 
 Talma, 91, 142. 
 Talma, Madame, 91. 
 Tesse, Madame de, 25, 35, 36, 62, 
 
 89, 94, 95, 171, 223, 227, 231, 
 
 232, 246, 249, 2S3, 305, 306, 307, 
 
 311, 314, 319, 331- 
 Tesse, M. de, 36, 330. 
 Theot, 195. 
 
 Theroigne, 116, 147, 153, 193. 
 Thesan, M. de, 'JT, 127. 
 Thouret, 112. 
 Thugut, 242. 
 Tilly, Comte de, 92. 
 Tracy, 302. 
 Turgot, 25. 
 
 V 
 Van Ryssel, 264. 
 Vauban, Madame de, 94. 
 Vergniaud, 154, 175. 
 Voltaire, 8, 19, 35, 79, 85. 
 
 W 
 Waldegrave, Countess of, 55. 
 Washington, George, 66, 69, 70, 
 
 76, 79, 109, 167, 220, 221, 246, 
 
 248, 265, 281. 
 Washington, Mrs., 96. 
 Wilberforce, 244, 245, 
 Wyndham, 245. 
 
 Y 
 York, Duke of, 79, 263. 
 Young, Arthur, 6, 20, 27, 86, 264. 
 
 Zoppe, 146. 
 
 Butler i Tanner, Ths Selwood riiiitinjf W.ir^s. Frome. »ni| Lon.-loa. 
 
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