Sword of liberty ; the story of two revolutions

Foreword

THIS book has been written to be interesting: if it proves to be so, its lesser purpose will have succeeded. It has been written to be historically accurate: if it proves not to be so, its greater purpose will have failed.

THE AUTHORS

Contents

CHAPTER PAG*

I AN OLD ENVOY FROM A YOUNG NATION . . 3

II FRENCH NOBLE AND ENGLISH KING .... 18

Chapter II

OUITE different from the Paris of to-day was the city that the American envoys entered that Saturday, December 21, 1776. Though even then a place of nearly a million inhabitants, with many fine buildings and some that were palaces, it had not on the whole an attractive appearance. Among its worst features were the narrow, dirty streets, with open gutters in the middle, and without sidewalks. The houses were high and narrow, of hewn stone. Most of them were weather-stained and dilapidated, but the newer ones white and beautiful. The streets were crowded with tangled traffic; and here, there, and everywhere went swarms of pedestrians. Had the envoys run over some of them, little notice would have been taken; street accidents were an accepted feature of Paris life. A city of hubbub : ceaseless screaming of water-carriers, venders of vegetables, milk, fruit, and what not; frenzied shouts of drivers; clangor of church and convent bells that were never still.

Deane had secured lodgings for Franklin and his 18 grandsons at the hotel where he himself lived. This carried them to the Latin Quarter, where they drew up almost across the Seine from the Tuileries, at the Hotel de Hambourg. Next day a rather tall, good-looking blue-eyed man made his appearance in the French capital, Mr. Arthur Lee, the third American envoy, just arrived from London. Here was a singular character. Probably both able and patriotic, he was yet narrow and malignant, and bound to be a thorn in Franklin's side for many a day to come.

As it became known that the great Franklin was in Paris, the city went wild with enthusiasm. His old friends flew to greet him; enthusiasts for the rights of man rallied about the famous signer of the Declaration of Independence; aristocrats and nobles rose to do him honor, and, more than all, the downtrodden common people, looking upon this white-haired American patriot as the breaker of shackles, thronged about his hotel and filled the streets with applause.

Now that the United States envoys were all together, they promptly took up the situation in France. Louis XVI had liberal ideas as to human rights, and shared in the sympathy his country felt for the cause of liberty in America. Besides, he and his ministers were not blind to the fact that the colonists were fighting the hereditary enemies of the French. Assistance extended to them would be a blow against a hated nation. But at the same time France was not prepared to risk any steps that might lead to war with Great Britain. Under these conflicting considerations the French Government had adopted a tentative policy of aiding the Americans in such ways and at such times as it could, secretly. According to this policy the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Comte de Vergennes, was now acting; and it was requiring all his consummate finesse to maintain an appearance of French neutrality. The assistance thus being given to the Americans was considerable, but not enough. The envoys knew that every effort must be made to get more help, and indeed to secure the open alliance of France with America.

On the day after Lee's arrival, Franklin drew up their first official communication to the French Government, including a request for an audience. The conveyance of the papers was entrusted to Temple, who now became secretary to his grandfather. And the boy's first mission turned out well. He was to go to M. Conrad Alexander Gerard, secretary to the Comte de Vergennes. Gerard was out of town. But the lad had no idea of allowing the business of the United States of America to be delayed by that. Buoyed up by a bursting sense of importance and brand-new Parisian clothes and wig, he proceeded to the great Vergennes himself. We can see the slender young figure moving away a fl

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

From a portrait by iHiplessis little perplexedly from the Foreign Office, along the Rue de la Surintendance, and at length standing before the imposing gates of the royal palace. There he must needs negotiate his way past the guards, across to the great south wing, and into the presence of the august minister of His Majesty, Louis XVI.

Not a presence to be lightly entered, that of the veteran French statesman, the Comte de Vergennes, a dignified, cold, calculating man with a manner gravely, chillingly polite. But it was in a very friendly way, likely with some amusement, that he received the youthful American diplomat. As this minister was unfamiliar with English, he appreciated Temple's ability to speak French. The answer that the boy brought to Paris was that Vergennes would receive the American envoys upon December 28.

The Americans were received with great respect, but the meeting was a disappointment. Even the astute Franklin could not alter French policy. Still, shortly after the interview, came, in the old secret way, two million francs, without interest, to be repaid when the United States should be settled in peace and prosperity.

Scant and depressing enough was the news these days from over the seas. Through English reports the envoys learned that the colonists had met defeats shortly after Franklin sailed from Marcus

Hook, and Washington had been forced to retreat straight toward the little capital, Philadelphia. The English gazettes were jubilant, exasperating. It seemed that the cause of liberty was failing. As a matter of fact there was another side to the story. But France and Franklin did not know then how Washington had turned, carried his army through floating ice across the Delaware, and struck back successfully at Trenton and at Princeton. France and Franklin knew only of defeat and retreat. But the brave smile of Franklin never failed. "£a ira," he would say; or, as we should put it, "It will be all right in the end." And "£a ira" went the round of Paris. And America's friends took heart again.

In their own troubles, the envoys did not forget Lafayette, and the efforts he was making to go to the aid of the colonists. After the unfavorable news from America they advised him to give up his chivalrous project. But Lafayette had no idea of abandoning the cause of liberty because its state was desperate. "Until now," he replied, "you have seen only my ardor in your cause, and that may not prove wholly useless. I shall purchase a ship. It is especially in the hour of danger that I wish to share your fortune." At once the marquis set out upon his new plan, and for some time the Americans knew little of his movements.

One of the first persons of importance that Franklin met after arriving in Paris was a large-faced

Frenchman, with a wide good-natured mouth, and an evident immediate liking for the Doctor. This was M. Donatien le Ray de Chaumont, a man of wealth and of marked devotion to the American cause. He had recently purchased a handsome home, the Hotel de Valentinois, in a suburb of Paris called Passy. There was a large and independent portion of it, furnished but unoccupied, and this he now offered to Franklin. The matter of rent was waived. Time enough to talk of that when American freedom was won.

M. de Chaumont's offer was accepted. The Franklins moved to their suburban home early in 1777. A half-hour's drive out along the road to Versailles brought them to Passy, a village crowning a wooded hill beside the Seine. It was one of the most beautiful and socially desirable of the Paris suburbs. A remarkable panorama greeted their eyes from that village height: Paris, the winding Seine, a country-side dotted with noblemen's villas, and scores of walled towns. There were many imposing homes in Passy, among them one of the king's chateaux, La Muette. Indeed, next to this royal chateau stood Franklin's new home, the Hotel de Valentinois. The way to this was now along a winding road, beneath a stone bridge, and through a gateway into the walled enclosure. Castellated and vine-embowered, with its great stone balustrades and Tuscan columns, its settings of terraces and gardens, it must have seemed to Franklin an incongruous home for an envoy of a little scarcefledged and already bankrupt republic.

So imbued are most of us with an idea of democratic simplicity in Franklin, that we naturally picture the establishment that he now set up as one of Spartan modesty. Not so. The fact is that there was no great simplicity about the Doctor in his later days. He was a man of the world, and with very different ideas from those of his Poor Richard. Many American travelers in France pronounced his style of living extravagant; his elegant French friends regarded it as charmingly modest. He had his maitre d'hotel with a considerable corps of servants, his carriages and horses, and maintained a rather luxurious table. His servants were not in livery, but were kept neatly and expensively dressed.

The envoys now held their conferences at this new home of their chief ; and as Congress failed to provide an assistant, Temple became virtually the secretary of the embassy. This brought him closely in touch with the men and events of those stirring times. Probably no other boy of his age ever had such intimate knowledge of pending international affairs. To-day it is with an odd sense of the incongruous that one reads the records of momentous and secret state papers, written in a boyish hand, and closing with the entry, "True Copy. Examined. W. T. Franklin."

While the American envoys were getting their affairs under way at Passy, the indefatigable Lafayette was secretly trying to purchase a ship. Through a trusted agent, he secured at Bordeaux a vessel called La Victoire. But it could not be delivered until the middle of March. In the meantime the new owner went to London upon a visit to his uncle, the Marquis de Noailles, then Ambassador from France to England.

Lafayette had never been in London. He was impressed by the marked difference in appearance between that city and Paris. In Paris were far finer palaces and gardens than he found here in London; the houses there, too, even when dingy, were more cheerful than the dark brick ones about him in the English capital. But here, instead of driving through narrow dirty streets, he was traversing clean spacious thoroughfares ; and, oddest of all, here were walk-ways at the side for pedestrians.

As a nobleman of France, and introduced by the French ambassador, Lafayette was handsomely received in English court circles. The young marquis gaily attended dinners, balls, routs, and the opera- He met England's most noted statesmen, courtiers, men of letters, ladies of rank, wits, belles, and beaux.

With the secret plans he had in his head, it was an odd experience when he was presented by his uncle to the King of England — the king he was going to fight. He found the ceremony of presentation at the English court different from that of the court of France. He was used to seeing his half-dressed sovereign giving audience in the royal bedchamber, scarcely speaking to most of those presented, and principally occupied with the process of being robed by a retinue of nobles. And such, a little earlier, had been the practice in England. But the custom of George III was to go over to St. James's Palace from Buckingham House, in his royal sedan-chair, and to hold a levee in which he walked about the room and spoke to all present. So this was the monarch who was trying to crush those struggling colonies in America! A well-appearing royal personage in the main ; a figure of good height, not much too stout as yet, and of dignified bearing. However, the whole kingly effect was rather spoiled by white eyebrows, and certain indications of too close association with Bacchus.

Lafayette's fine sense of honor alone saved him from making mistakes in London. He was a guest of England; and he was at the same time secretly an officer in the army of her enemy. Many times his English acquaintances puzzled over his refusal to see interesting things and places, — things and places that Lafayette felt might afford him military information to which he was not entitled. He especially refused to visit the seaports where expeditions were fitting out against the colonies.

While the marquis concealed his intentions, he openly avowed his sentiments, and often defended the Americans in this capital of their enemies. At length it was time for his ship to be ready. With a suddenness that almost excited the suspicions of his uncle he cut his visit short and returned to France.

Chapter III

IT was on March 12, 1777, that Lafayette arrived in Paris. He went to the house of an officer, Johann Kalb, who was to accompany him to America. There he remained concealed for several days, making final preparations for his voyage. The young noble felt that he could not go to take leave of his young wife and their baby girl, Henriette, for the Due d'Ayen would at once secure the king's order for his arrest. So, heavy-hearted, he left a letter to be delivered later, and then secretly set out upon his great adventure. It was on the evening of March 16 that he and Kalb took post to go to the waiting ship, and three days later they drove into Bordeaux. Through the narrow, crooked streets in the old part of town the two found their way to the waterfront, and to the vessel that the marquis had bought.

There she lay, such as she was, an awkward, heavy craft, armed with two old cannon and a few muskets. But what a wonderful ship she was to the boy adventurer ! His own ship, to bear him across the sea to fight for liberty !

However, the marquis was not at the end of his troubles. Evidently his parting letter had been delivered too soon ; for now he learned that the king's interdict had issued to prevent his sailing. Couriers to stop him were even now on the way. And La Victoire not ready for sea, and without her papers ! Lafayette plunged into the work of fitting his ship, hoping to escape before the royal order could be served. At last, except for her papers, La Victoire was ready, several young officers who were to go with the marquis were aboard, and the wind promised fair. It was resolved to sail at once, and to put in at the nearest Spanish port for the ship's papers.

So, on March 26, La Victoire weighed anchor and stood down the river toward the sea. It was a fit morning for a start upon so glorious an adventure, a morning of glorious weather. Along the river banks were beautiful country-seats, ancient convents, and picturesque villages, — la belle France looking her best at the hour of parting. Reaching the open sea, the voyagers turned southward and wearily beat their course against the strong shore current down the sand-waste coast of France. On March 28 they ran into the first Spanish port, the beautiful little landlocked harbor, Los Pasages.

But the little harbor did not long look beautiful to Lafayette. He found at Los Pasages what he had escaped at Bordeaux, — two officers of his king with a lettre de cachet commanding him to return to France, and to await further orders at Marseilles. Though now beyond the jurisdiction of France, such a command from his king could not well be defied. He left La Victoire in charge of his companions, and dejectedly started back with the officers, though still hoping for a way of escape.

Just after crossing the boundary line into France, they passed through a village. The perturbed Lafayette scarcely noticed this quaint little bathingplace, St. Jean de Luz. But St. Jean de Luz noticed him, or at least the daughter of the post-house keeper did. And soon to this girl he was to owe his getting to America.

Traveling on up the coast of France, Lafayette came again to Bordeaux, from which, with high hopes, he had so recently sailed. There he wrote many letters to ministers, family, and friends, trying to vindicate himself and get permission to sail. He soon saw that his efforts were useless, and resolved again upon flight. He planned the attempt with a young friend, the Vicomte de Mauroy, who now joined him at Bordeaux, and who also wished to go to America. Leaving the commandant at Bordeaux to suppose that he was going to Marseilles, in compliance with the king's order, Lafayette with his friend set out from the town in a post-chaise. Outside the town they changed their course, and took the road leading back toward the little Spanish port and La Victoire.

That was not all. In a little while, any government officers overtaking that post-chaise would have found but a single individual riding in it, the Vicomte de Mauroy, who was not the gentleman they might be looking for. As was the custom, the vicomte had a postboy on horseback far ahead to secure inn accommodations and fresh horses for the carriage. He was a rather long and not very graceful postboy, and his complexion and hair may have looked somewhat artificial; but the desperate hope was, anyway, that no one would recognize him as the Marquis de Lafayette.

On went postboy and post-chaise in their flight toward the Spanish border. Now they were almost there, the postboy galloping into the last of the French villages, St. Jean de Luz. An hour more and he would be aboard La Victoire! Then the thing happened. The postboy saw the girl of St. Jean de Luz; and the girl of St. Jean de Luz saw him. And there was recognition in her eyes ! And she the daughter of the keeper of the post!

In that tense moment, in that quick eye-play between the girl and the fugitive lay the to-be or the not-to-be of Lafayette's career in America. A signal from him, and his danger passed. The girl understood, and adroitly turned the matter aside. Out of the inn yard, and off upon his way again, galloped the postboy nobleman. Officers came dashing into the village close upon his trail. Again the Marquis de Lafayette and the United States of America were to owe much to the girl of St. Jean de Luz. Quick and resourceful, she misled the officers; the last precious moments of their pursuit were wasted; and Lafayette went joyfully over the border.

On Sunday, April 20, 1777, La Viet owe sailed out of the little Spanish harbor of Los Pasages, bound for the port of Charleston, capital of the colony (now bravely calling itself the state) of South Carolina, in the land of America. Quite promptly both seasickness and homesickness assailed Lafayette. In his suffering he wrote to his girl wife:

I am writing to you from a great distance, my dearest love. . . . How many fears and anxieties enhance the keen anguish I feel at being separated from all that I love most fondly in the world ! How have you borne my second departure? have you loved me less? have you pardoned me? ... I hope that for my sake you will become a good American, for that feeling is worthy of every noble heart.

Baffling winds, and heavy, plodding ship. The voyage seemed stretching out endlessly. Lafayette took up the study of the language he should soon have to use. A sick, lonely boy at sea, wrestling with that lawless monster, English speech. x At last the lookout sighted land. America! Yes, but where in America? No one could tell. Confused, they ran for several days along a low-lying coast, offering no harbor. The sea rolled in upon a continuous hard sandy beach, for the most part white as snow, behind it a green wall of palmetto and pine. At length, upon Friday, June 13, they came to an opening in the coast, apparently an inlet, but not even the captain had any knowledge of it. Here they cast anchor.

Lafayette and some of the officers set out in the ship's yawl to find a landing. They entered the inlet about the middle of the afternoon, and rowed up a little waterway for hours through an apparently uninhabited country. Long after nightfall they came upon a few negroes tonging for oysters. The negroes guided them to a little landing, and they made their way toward a light shining from a distant house. As they approached, dogs barked and a voice called out in the darkness. They responded in their best English, and soon found themselves the welcome guests of an American officer, Major Benjamin Huger. It proved that La Victoire had come to anchor off Winyah Bay, some fifty miles up the Carolina coast from her intended destination, Charleston. Sending a pilot to take her to that port, the marquis with his companions remained at Major Huger's.

How Lafayette, wherever he went, touched other lives with the romance of his own ! That night the eyes of young Francis Huger, the little son of the house, were wide and bright with the sense of adventure. The mysterious ship from across the sea, waiting in the night down the bay; the elegant French nobleman landing in the swamps and the darkness to fight for America! But wider and brighter would those young eyes have been if the boy could have known that one day, in a far land, he was to cross paths with this nobleman again, and was to risk his own life for him. Now, Lafayette, himself but a boy, was enjoying the success of his own adventure. The long struggle to reach America was over. He was safe in the land where he was to draw his sword for liberty.

He awakened next morning keenly alive to his new and strange surroundings : the unaccustomed room of a Southern plantation house, the bed oddly covered with mosquito netting, the turbaned black servants who came to wait upon him. He rose and looked from his window. It was a beautiful morning, and he looked out upon a strange and beautiful scene. It was a scene of luxuriant verdure, little of which was familiar to him. And the strange freshness of it all, and the ardor of his young soul for liberty in this new land, filled him with indescribable emotions.

Lafayette and his companions tarried at Major Huger's two or three days, and then went to Charleston. This was a small city numbering about fifteen thousand people. But it was the Paris of America. The governing1 class of the province lived there; it was the resort of the aristocracy of planters, and the center of slave-holding wealth and pride and power. As a result, it was a city of handsome buildings, notable refinement of life, and was much given to pleasure and display. As soon as the arrival of the travel-worn Frenchmen came to be known in the town, they were given the most hospitable reception. Lafayette thought Charleston one of the handsomest and most agreeable cities he had ever seen. But he was not so much taken up with the city as to overlook the beauty of its daughters, and his French gallantry struggled bravely with an unknown tongue.

One noonday La Victoire came tacking into the harbor. Lafayette supposed that the sale of her cargo would give him and his companions abundant funds. But to his dismay he found that, in haste to escape from France, he had unwittingly signed an agreement which precluded his realizing anything at present upon either cargo or ship. It was an embarrassing beginning in the new land, for he had to borrow money for the trip to Philadelphia, where he and his fellow-officers would obtain their army positions.

On June 25 the French company bade farewell to the metropolis of the South. The little procession made an odd appearance as it got under way. At the head rode one of the marquis's people in a huzzar's uniform. Next came an open carriage containing Lafayette and Kalb, one of Lafayette's servants riding alongside as his squire. Other carriages followed with officers or luggage; and (after the manner of the new land) the rear was brought up by a negro on horseback. The rather imposing character of this cavalcade did not last long. The rough roads wrecked the carriages, some of the horses went lame, some of the party fell ill, and some went afoot. But the travelers pressed on, supported by agreeable memories of their reception at Charleston, and by pleasant anticipations of a like greeting at Philadelphia, if they could hold out to get there.

On July 27, after some eight hundred miles of this weary travel, the little company entered Philadelphia. The Quaker City of that day contained thirty thousand inhabitants; and, as far as it went, was the same precise checker-board city that it is to-day. It was well paved; had wide, clean sidewalks ; was fairly lighted at night ; and was in many ways ahead of the times. All this was largely due to that prominent citizen Benjamin Franklin, through whose genius Philadelphians also had lightning-rods, Franklin stoves, and Poor Richard almanacs. And here in the capital of the American republic, the French officers learned more fully about the conflict they had come to enter.

For two years the war had gone on without anything approaching decisive results. In the present campaign, besides smaller forces at various points, each side had two main armies in the field. At New York was a British army under General Howe, and opposing it from points near by was an American army under General Washington ; while in the country of the upper Hudson was a British army under General Burgoyne, and, opposing it, an American army under General Schuyler at first, and later under General Gates.

The logical plan of the campaign clearly was for the English to seek and for the Americans to oppose a union of the two British armies. Such a union, once accomplished, would mean English control of New York State, and would cut the string of embryo states in two. In the attempt to prevent this the American commander-in-chief had to face a serious problem.

After sending to Schuyler some of his own best troops, Washington felt confident that that general would be able to keep Burgoyne from making much progress southward toward a junction with the forces of Howe; but a more difficult undertaking would fall to himself in preventing Howe from going to Burgoyne.

Promptly the struggle between Schuyler and Burgoyne began in the wilds of the upper Hudson ; but to Washington's amazement, as he held himself in readiness to dispute a northward march of Howe, that general made no move. At length, four days before the company of French officers arrived in Philadelphia, an inexplicable thing had happened. With all strategic conditions requiring his immediate advance up the Hudson, .Howe had suddenly embarked his army, and disappeared upon the ocean. Now all was excitement as to the purpose and the probable landing-place of the British ; and Washington, in his encampment near New York, was anxiously awaiting information.

The French officers were highly interested in this state of military affairs, and they lost no time in trying to enter the drama. Their way to the Congress led to a little-developed portion of Chestnut Street where there was an ill-kept park, — a walled park in those days, and a great gateway gave entrance. There stood the Pennsylvania State House, where the Declaration of Independence had been adopted and where Congress now sat. It was already beginning to be called Independence Hall. It appeared then virtually as it does to-day, a noble, beautiful building, well worthy the honor that came to it.

Lafayette, afire with enthusiasm, his heart beating high, approached this birthplace of American liberty. But it was there he was to meet the disappointment of his life. The little party reached the door of Independence Hall, and that was as far as they got. They were met by one or two members of Congress, and so coolly as to leave them stupified. They were given to understand that Mr. Deane had exceeded his authority in commissioning them, and that they were not needed, and were not wanted.

Amazed, and scarcely comprehending such treatment, they turned away. Unnecessarily brusque as their dismissal was, it was not wholly without reason. Numerous foreigners had already succeeded in getting commissions in the American Army, and most of them had proved worthless adventurers. It was, all unknowingly, upon the heels of such a rabble that Lafayette and his companions knocked at the door of Congress. To most of the French company that chill reception seemed final. Not so to Lafayette. He prepared an address to Congress, all of which would likely have been in vain but for one most surprising and felicitous passage. He declared that, after all the sacrifice he had made, he had a right to ask Congress to allow him to serve in the American army without pay, and at first as a volunteer. Such terms, so different from the bumptious demands of other foreign officers, and showing such disinterested zeal for the cause, were at once accepted. The young French officer was commissioned by Congress as a major-general in the American army on July 31, 1777, but was not promised an immediate command.