Chapter XV (2)

When La Fayette had been proscribed in 1792, the National Convention confiscated all his property, and ordered his negroes at Cayenne to be sold, in spite of the remonstrances of La Fayette, who declared that the negroes had been purchased only to receive their liberty after they had been prepared to exercise it by proper education, and not to be again sold as slaves. At a later period all the negroes of the French colonies were declared free by a decree of the National Convention. It is interesting to note in connection with this effort of La Fayette to bring about the abolition of slavery, that during his last visit to America he visited a free school of young Africans in New York, which had been founded and instituted by the society for the emancipation of the negroes. This incident is related of his visit to this school. A young negro approached La Fayette and said to him, with much emotion: “You see, General, these hundreds of poor African children who appear before you; here they share the benefits of education with the children of the whites: like them, they learn to cherish the recollection of the services which you have rendered to America, and they also revere in you an ardent friend to the emancipation of their race.”

La Fayette was very desirous of instituting prison reforms in France, but he was no advocate for the complete seclusion of prisoners. “Solitary confinement,” said he, “is a punishment which to be judged of must have been endured.” Surely he spoke from a bitter experience, for he had suffered its terrible tortures for one year. Capital punishment was held in horror by La Fayette, and he constantly raised his voice against such penalty, especially in matters of political misdemeanors. And no wonder that he shrank in loathing abhorrence from the bloody guillotine, after his experience of the awful Reign of Terror.

M. Cloquet says in his recollections of La Fayette, regarding his opinions on different subjects:—

“He was familiar with all questions of morals, jurisprudence, policy, and public economy, and he could have treated them all _ex professo_. I have frequently heard him speak of the resources of France and other states; of the relations which people and governments should have to each other; of constitutions, legitimacy, property; of commerce, industry, agriculture; of the art of war, the progress of civilization, the happiness of nations and individuals; and other questions which he treated in the most lucid manner, and which he solved with his natural good sense and simplicity.”

The Encyclopædia Britannica thus sums up the characteristics of La Fayette:—

“His life was beset with inconceivable responsibility and perils, for he was ever the minister of humanity and order among a frenzied people who had come to regard order and humanity as phases of treason. He rescued the queen from the murderous hands of the populace, not to speak of multitudes of humbler victims who had been devoted to death. He risked his life in many unsuccessful attempts to rescue others. He was obliged to witness the butchery of Foulon, and the reeking heart of Berthier torn from his lifeless body and held up in triumph before him. Disgusted with enormities which he was powerless to prevent and could not countenance, he resigned his commission; but so impossible was it to replace him that he was induced to resume it.

“In the Constituent Assembly, of which he was a member, his influence was always felt in favor of republican principles, for the abolition of arbitrary imprisonment, for religious tolerance, for popular representation, for the establishment of trial by jury, for the gradual emancipation of slaves, for the freedom of the press, for the abolition of titles of nobility, and the suppression of privileged orders.

“Few men have owed more of their success and usefulness in the world to their family rank than La Fayette, and still fewer have abused it less. He never achieved distinction in the field, and his political career proved him to be incapable of ruling a great national movement; but he had strong convictions which always impelled him to study the interests of humanity, and a pertinacity in maintaining them, which, in all the marvellous vicissitudes of his singularly eventful life, secured him a very unusual measure of public respect.

“No citizen of a foreign country has ever had so many and such warm admirers in America, nor does any statesman in France appear to have ever possessed uninterruptedly for so many years so large a measure of popular influence and respect. He had what Jefferson called a ‘canine appetite’ for popularity and fame, but in him the appetite only seemed to make him more anxious to merit the fame which he enjoyed. He was brave even to rashness; his life was one of constant personal peril, and yet he never shrank from any danger or responsibility if he saw the way open to spare life or suffering, to protect the defenceless, to sustain the law and preserve order.”

Hon. Chauncey Depew thus concisely comments upon La Fayette’s influence in France:—

“While the principles of the American Devolution were fermenting in France, La Fayette, the hero and favorite of the hour, was an honored guest at royal tables and royal camps. The proud Spaniard and the Great Frederick of Germany alike welcomed him, and everywhere he announced his faith in government founded on the American idea. The financial crisis in the affairs of King Louis on the one hand, and the rising tide of the popular passion on the other, compelled the summons of the Assembly of Notables at Versailles. All the great officers of state, the aristocracy, the titled clergy, the royal princes, were there, but no representative of the people. La Fayette spoke for them, and, fearless of the efforts of the brother of the king to put him down, he demanded religious toleration, equal taxes, just and equal administration of the laws, and the reduction of royal expenditures to fixed and reasonable limits. This overturned the whole feudal fabric which had been in course of construction for a thousand years. To make effectual and permanent this tremendous stride toward the American experiment, he paralyzed the court and cabinet by the call for a national assembly—an assembly of the people. Through that assembly he carried a declaration of rights, founded upon the natural liberties of man, a concession of popular privilege never before secured in the modern history of Europe; and, going as far as he believed the times would admit toward his idea of an American republic, he builded upon the ruins of absolutism a constitutional monarchy.

“But French democracy had not been trained and educated in the schools of the Puritan or the colonist. Ages of tyranny, of suppression, repression, and torture had developed the tiger and dwarfed the man. Democracy had not learned the first rudiments of liberty,—self-restraint and self-government. It beheaded king and queen; it drenched the land with the blood of the noblest and best; in its indiscriminate frenzy and madness it spared neither age nor sex, virtue nor merit, and drove its benefactor, because he denounced its excesses and tried to stem them, into exile and the dungeon of Olmütz. Thus ended in the horrors of the French Revolution La Fayette’s first fight for liberty at home. After five years of untold sufferings, spurning release at the price of his allegiance to monarchy, holding with sublime faith, amidst the most disheartening and discouraging surroundings, to the principles of freedom for all, he was released by the sword of Napoleon Bonaparte, to find that the untamed ferocity of the Revolution had been trained to the service of the most brilliant, captivating, and resistless of military despotisms by the mighty genius of the great Dictator. He only was neither dazzled nor dismayed, and when he had rejected every offer of recognition and honor, Napoleon said: ‘La Fayette alone in France holds fast to his original ideas of liberty. Though tranquil now, he will reappear if occasion offers.’ Against the first consulate of Bonaparte he voted, ‘No, unless with guaranties of freedom.’ When Europe lay helpless at the feet of the conqueror, and, in the frenzy of military glory, France neither saw nor felt the chains he was forging upon her, La Fayette, from his retirement of La Grange, plead with the Emperor for republican principles, holding up to him the retributions always meted out to tyrants, and the pure, undying fame of the immortal few who patriotically decide, when upon them alone rests the awful verdict, whether they shall be the enslavers or the saviors of their country.

“The sun of Austerlitz set in blood at Waterloo. The swords of allied kings placed the Bourbon once more on the throne of France. In the popular tempest of July, the nation rose against the intolerable tyranny of the king, and, calling upon this unfaltering friend of liberty, said with one voice: ‘You alone can save France from despotism on the one hand, and the orgies of the Jacobin mob on the other; take absolute power; be marshal, general, dictator if you will.’ But in assuming command of the National Guard, the old soldier and patriot answered, amidst the hail of shot and shell, ‘Liberty shall triumph, or we all perish together.’ He dethroned and drove out Charles X., and France, contented with any destiny he might accord to her, with unquestioning faith left her future in his hands. He knew that the French people were not yet ready to take and faithfully keep American liberty. He believed that in the school of constitutional government they would rapidly learn, and, in the fulness of time adopt its principles, and he gave them a king who was the popular choice, and surrounded him with the restraints of charter and an assembly of the people.”

M. Francis Hervé, editor of Madame Tussaud’s “Memoirs of the French Revolution,” gives the following account of an interview with La Fayette:—

“During an interesting conversation which took place at the apartments of the editor at Paris, a few months prior to the death of La Fayette, respecting the different forms of government, he observed that the approaches of liberty ought always to be very gradual, and not conferred at once upon those who had lived in a state of slavery under an arbitrary power, and without the benefit of education; which opinion was founded upon the long experience of a life which had been ever devoted to that subject. Although bent with age, the same philanthropy and energetic love of freedom glowed within him as that which characterized his youth, but tempered with maturer judgment; hence, when the Revolution of the three days took place, and he was called upon as the arbiter of France respecting her government, he decided for monarchy, with liberal institutions; but observed that, although a pledge was given for the promotion of the latter, yet it had never been redeemed; and he sighed as he made that declaration.”

La Fayette passed his winters in Paris, and at all seasons of the year, when he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, he resided in the city during the sessions. He there occupied a suite of apartments in a large hotel No. 6 Rue d’Anjou, St. Honoré.

La Fayette’s occupations in Paris were extremely numerous. Besides his duties as a deputy, which he performed with scrupulous exactness, he was obliged to attend public meetings, committees, relief societies, boards of instruction, and constant social engagements. Notwithstanding his multifarious avocations he found time to devote to his domestic affairs and to his personal study. He was fond of society, and was a delightful and brilliant conversationalist.

A political duel which terminated in the death of M. Dulong, one of La Fayette’s fellow-deputies, was a severe blow to the marquis. Notwithstanding his age, La Fayette followed the body of his friend to the grave on foot, and when he returned home he was soon taken violently ill. Measures were taken which gave him partial relief, but he never entirely rallied from this attack. His health became so much improved, however, that he was allowed to receive the visits of his friends, who showed their sympathy and regard by the most constant attentions.

But having been exposed to a severe thunder-storm, La Fayette returned home wet and exhausted, and was obliged again to take to his bed. His symptoms from time to time became more alarming, but in every interval of comparative freedom from the severity of his sufferings he was cheerful and hopeful. One morning, upon the arrival of his physician, La Fayette greeted him with a smile, and exclaimed: “The _Swiss Gazette_ has just killed me, and yet you knew nothing of the matter! Nay, more: that I might die in due form, the celebrated Doctor ——, whom I hardly know, has been consulted.” He then handed the paper to the surgeon, saying, “After that, believe the public journals if you can.” The family of La Fayette were desirous of having a consultation of physicians about his case; but upon consulting him, he said: “To what purpose? Have I not entire confidence in you, and can any addition be made to the care which you take of me, and to the interest which you feel in my welfare?”

One of his physicians replied: “We think we have done what is best in your case; but were there only a single remedy that might escape us, it is our duty to seek it. We wish to restore you as soon as possible to health, for we are responsible for your situation towards your family, your friends, and the French nation, of whom you are the father.”

“Yes, their father,” answered La Fayette, with a meaning smile, “on condition that they never follow a syllable of my advice.”

But his days upon earth were numbered. The valiant Knight of Liberty must forever sheathe his brave sword, and the clarion tones of his faithful voice would never again be heard in defence of the rights of his fellow-men. His last years were passed in peace crowned with the undying lustre of well-merited fame, and his self-sacrificing devotion in the cause of truth and liberty received its just remuneration in the adoring love of the people of two continents, united by his patriotic zeal in a brotherhood sworn to defend the glorious rights of freedom and humanity. Few men have been so universally idolized and so universally respected. His glory did not blaze with the dazzling brilliancy of Napoleon’s fame, nor can it be said to have equalled that of Washington; but in some respects his career is unparalleled in history; and as the champion of human liberty, irrespective of any clime and any color, unbiassed by any influence of rank, or wealth, or power; true as the magnet to the pole, in his stanch adherence to his avowed principles, La Fayette stands alone in the annals of the world as the chivalrous Knight of Liberty, wearing the colors of the goddess of freedom and waving his sword in dauntless defiance against the despotisms of the nations.

On the 20th of May, 1834, as the first blush of dawn was seen in the east, and the black curtains of the night were lifted, and the promise of a new day glowed in the distant horizon; as the birds chanted their morning matins of praise, and the earth, thrilled by the touch of nature, awoke to renewed beauty,—the vail which shrouds the unknown beyond was parted by unseen fingers, and the soul of La Fayette was wafted by ministering spirits into the presence of the Almighty Monarch of heaven and earth, whose Word had gone forth to all the world, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

In the quiet Picpus Cemetery, in France, in a small enclosure, the green grass is growing over the headless trunks of more than one thousand illustrious victims guillotined at the Barrière du Trône, during the Reign of Terror, and thrown together in this common grave, called the _Cimetière des Guillotinés_. Near by this memorable spot is La Fayette’s tomb, and by his side sleeps his heroic wife. No grand monument rears its stately head over their remains; nor is it needed. In letters of gold are inscribed upon the black marble tablet, which marks the last resting-place of Liberty’s Knight, the appropriate motto: “REQUIESCAT IN PACE.”

As the blackness of the marble is illumined by the gleaming letters of golden light, pronouncing a benediction upon the illustrious sleeper beneath, they become the symbol of the shining example of his self-sacrificing life, consecrated to the holy endeavor of dispelling the black shadows of oppression, that Liberty’s luminous light might flood the world with refulgent splendor.

LA FAYETTE! LIBERTY! and LAW! are the three shining words written upon the page of history by this heroic life.

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Transcriber’s Note

French diacritical marks were largely absent, and, with a few
exceptions, noted below, have not been added.

On p. 379, the paragraph beginning “After other business...”,
appears in quotation marks, but it seems to be in the author’s
voice. The punctuation is, however, retained here.

Several words occur only once, with a non-standard spelling, by 21st
century standards: villany (p. 76), malecontents (p. 295), vail (p.
472). They are retained as printed.

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original. The following issues should be noted, along with the
resolutions.

24.6 and con[s]cious of their mistake Inserted.

120.30 the Cimmerian darkness which envel[l]oped the Removed.
people

154.17 in the H[o/ô]tel de Nôailles Replaced.

155.24 _le roi vous accord[s/e] les grandes entrees_ Replaced.

187.12 [“]Though placed within the same castle Removed.

189.32 to attempt at all risks to themselves his _sic_:
release missing word

195.25 [“]The constitution having been accepted Added.

202.14 could free her from the engag[e]ment Inserted.

284.1 you will give me your blessing[”/’] Replaced.

373.32 manage its own concerns[,] provide for Inserted.

378.10 your sincere and obliged friend,[”] Removed.

416.10 The general then went to[ to] the president Removed.

446.15 she presents a laurel branch to La Fayett[t]e. Removed.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Life of La Fayette, by Lydia Hoyt Farmer