Lafayette (23 page)

Lafayette and Franklin’s grandson became fast friends, with the latter intent on serving as Lafayette’s aide in the invasion of Britain. Lafayette agreed, but, before young Franklin could even suit up for battle, the approach of the dangerous September storm season forced the exhausted French navy to abandon its hopeless, humiliating chase and put into safe harbor on the French coast. The French invasion ended without a single French soldier setting foot on British shores or firing a shot.

“To grieve in silence is the role that I have assigned myself,” Lafayette wrote to Vergennes, before sending a plaintiff letter to his hero in America. “How unhappy I am to find myself so far from you,” he wrote to Washington. He described his “sorrow” in not fulfilling “the hope I entertained of being here more useful to the United States. . . . Oh! my dear general, how happy I should be to embrace you again!” He signed the letter with “such affection as is above all expressions any language may furnish.”
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The channel campaign did not end without at least one success. To the humiliation of French naval commanders, however, it was the work of freebooter John Paul Jones, who had refitted a decrepit French ship, crammed forty-two guns on deck, and renamed it
Bonhomme Richard
, to honor Benjamin Franklin, the pseudonymous author of
Poor Richard’s Almanac
. Accompanied by another American ship and two French ships, he attacked the forty-four-gun
Serapis
off the east coast of England. After the British got the best of Jones in early exchanges, they demanded his surrender—to which he replied, “I have not yet begun to fight.”
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American marksmen in the rigging then strafed the deck of the
Serapis
, and, after a grenade touched off a powder explosion on the gun deck, the mainmast toppled and left her no choice but surrender. With the
Bonhomme Richard
in flames and about to sink, Jones transferred his 237-man crew, half of them casualties, onto the
Serapis
and sailed it to France, reaching port on October 6.

While Lafayette cheered and the French naval command pouted over Jones’s success, French admiral d’Estaing’s fleet returned to the American coast, determined to avenge his dismal performance at Newport the previous year. Over the summer, he had captured St. Vincent and St. Lucia from the British and sailed north to dislodge them from Savannah, Georgia, and open French trade routes to America. While 1,400 American troops under General Lincoln approached from the land, d’Estaing’s fleet besieged the city from the mouth of the Savannah River. D’Estaing grew impatient with the progress of the siege, however, and landed his marines prematurely. He lost 700 men, including the heroic Polish Patriot, Pulaski. After suffering a wound himself, he escaped to his ship and ordered the fleet to sail away, once again abandoning Americans on shore as he had done in Newport. His sally left British and loyalist forces more firmly in control of the South than before and made him the subject of satiric cartoons in the American and English press for months thereafter. Unlike Sullivan at Newport, General Lincoln rushed to d’Estaing’s defense, writing to Congress that the French leader had displayed “bravery in personally leading his men ashore, fearlessly leading them into the fray, and spilling his blood for us.”
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Upset by d’Estaing’s repeated failure to coordinate battle plans with American forces, Lafayette sought to counter growing anti-French feelings in America by bringing to fruition his original scheme to lead a huge French expeditionary force across the Atlantic the following spring. A letter from George Washington, written before the Savannah disaster, only served to increase his resolve. In one of his longest, most beautiful, and most emotional letters, Washington told Lafayette:

My dear friend, let me congratulate you on your new, honourable, and pleasing appointment in the army . . . which I shall accompany with an assurance that none can do it with more warmth of affection, or sincere
joy, than myself. Your forward zeal in the cause of liberty; your singular attachment to this infant world; your ardent and persevering efforts, not only in America, but since your return to France, to serve the United States; your polite attention to Americans, and your strict uniform friendship for me, have ripened first impressions of esteem and attachment which I imbibed for you into such perfect love and gratitude, as neither time nor absence can impair. This will warrant my assurance that, whether in the character of an officer at the head of a corps of gallant Frenchmen . . . whether as a major-general, commanding a division of the American army; or whether, after our swords and spears have given place to ploughshare and pruning-hook, I see you as a private gentleman, a friend and companion, I shall welcome you with all the warmth of friendship to Columbia’s shores; and, in the latter case, to my rural cottage, where homely fare and a cordial reception shall be substituted for delicacies and costly living. This, from past experience, I know you can submit to; and if the lovely partner of your happiness will consent to participate with us in such rural entertainment and amusements, I can undertake, in behalf of Mrs. Washington, that she will do everything in her power to make Virginia agreeable to the Marchioness. My inclination and endeavors to do this cannot be doubted, when I assure you that I love everybody that is dear to you, and, consequently, participate in the pleasure you feel in the prospect of again becoming a parent; and do most sincerely congratulate you and your lady on this fresh pledge she is about to give you of her love.
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Washington, who seldom wrote letters longer than a single page, went on and on, page after page, recounting every detail of the entire summer’s campaign. And then the usually restrained commander in chief unleashed a brand of humor and playfulness he seldom displayed:

But to conclude—you requested from me a long letter. I have given you one. But methinks, my dear Marquis, I hear you say there is reason in all things—and this is too long. I am clearly in sentiment with you & will have mercy on you in my next. But at present must pray your patience a while longer, till I can make a tender of my most respectful compliments to the Marchioness. Tell her (if you have not made a mistake, & offered your
own love
instead of
hers
to me) that I have a heart susceptible of the tenderest passion, & that it is already so strongly impressed with the most favourable ideas of her, that she must be cautious of putting love’s torch to it; as you must be in fanning the flame. But here again methinks I hear you say, I am not apprehensive of danger—my wife is young—you are growing old & the Atlantic is between you. All this is true, but you know my good friend that no distance can keep
anxious
lovers long asunder, and that the wonders of former ages may be revived in this. But alas! Will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young woman from
real inclination
has preferred an old man. This is much against me that I shall not be able
I fear
to contest the
prize with you. Yet, under the encouragement you have given me I shall enter the list for so inestimable a jewell.

I will not reverse the scene, & inform you, that Mrs. Washington . . . often in her letters to me, enquired if I had heard from you, and will be much pleased at hearing that you are well, & happy. In her name (as she is not here) I thank you for your polite attention to her—and shall speak her sense of honor conferred on her by the Marchioness.

When I look back to the length of this letter I am so much astonished & frightened at it myself, that I have not the courage to give it a careful reading for the purpose of correction. You must therefore receive it with all its imperfections—accompanied with this assurance that though there may be many incorrections in the letter, there is not a single defect in the friendship of my dear Marquis, Yr. most obedt. & affecte. servt.

G. Washington.
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As he gave his letter for Lafayette to the French ambassador to send to France, Washington said, “I do not know a nobler, finer soul, and I love him as my own son.”
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Washington’s loving letter arrived on Christmas Eve, as Adrienne was giving birth to their third child. To Lafayette’s joy—and that of both the Marquis de Noailles and the duc d’Ayen—the new arrival was a boy, the first of his generation to survive in either the Lafayette or Noailles families. “Accept my congratulations, Monsieur le Marquis,” Adrienne wrote rather icily to her husband at his army camp. “They are entirely sincere and heartfelt. America will put up illuminations, and I believe Paris should do the same. The number of those who resemble you is so rare that an increase in their number will be of public benefit.” She opined that, with the birth of her son, her grandfather, the maréchal de Noailles, could no longer complain that “we only give him daughters.” Although she offered sarcastic recognition of her husband’s many responsibilities in the military, she scolded him for not being with her and their newborn. “The [joys] of paternity are so sweet, surrender yourself to them, you will find only goodness in them.”
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Lafayette got the message and rushed to her side. They agreed to name their son George Washington. Excited and so flustered that he lost his command of English, he wrote to Franklin to send the news to America as quickly as possible.

Paris 24h. December at
two o’clock in the morning

Dear Sir

I don’t loose time in informing You that Mde. de Lafayette is happily deliver’d of a son, and too much depend on your friendship not to be certain that you will be pleas’d with the intelligence. The Boy shall be call’d
George
, and you will easely gess that he bears that Name as a tribute of Respect and love for my dear friend Gal. Washington.
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Although the baby’s full name at baptism grew to Georges-Louis-Gilbert-Washington du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, the younger Lafayette would always call himself and be called George-Washington Lafayette, and his American namesake happily became his caring godfather.

After the Christmas season, neither the love of his wife nor the joys of paternity could restrain Lafayette’s passion to do battle for his adopted country and adoptive father. He rained letters on the palace at Versailles, visited incessantly, alone, or with Franklin or Adams, offering plan after plan to send arms, ships, clothing, financial aid, and huge military expeditions to assure American victory and bring England to her knees. By late January, his ubiquitous presence, enthusiasm, confidence, and disinterested patriotism— his willingness to sacrifice his own fortune, if necessary—convinced Prime Minister Maurepas and other cabinet ministers that the expedition would succeed. By then, Lafayette had perfected his skills as a diplomat. He cited confidential reports from “Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, who, with the full confidence of his general, my prudent friend [Washington], has sent me his opinions, which he knew I would not misinterpret.” After reminding Maurepas of the recent French humiliations, he offered the prime minister a solution: “The miscarriage of our great preparations in Europe, the defeat at Savannah . . . are events that will affect the credibility of France and the credit of America. . . . Only by forcing the enemy to concentrate its forces in New York can we prevent total ruin of [American] trade, devastation of coastal cities by British squadrons, a
very dangerous expansion
of British control in the southern states.” Hinting at Maurepas’s worst fear—that the British would ultimately overrun the French West Indies—Lafayette proposed sending a fleet of “six ships of 64 and 50 guns, 8,000 tons of transport ships . . . four full-strength battalions [about 4,000 men] to which their grenadiers would be attached. . . . I will tell you frankly that we are losing precious time, and that military preparations should already have begun. They must arrive early in spring, and what would be effective in May will not have the same effect if we delay its execution. We have to count on a two months crossing and, therefore, we must be ready to leave at the end of February, we must write to America in two weeks, and I would like to see active preparations begin in four days.”
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To avoid conflicts between French and American commanders, he told Vergennes, “I think it would be best to give me the corps.” He said his commission “is not only a military and political, but also a social matter. . . . The corps must consider itself a division of [the American] army; its commander must abjure all pretensions [and] think of himself an American major-general, and execute, in all respects, the orders of General Washington.”
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Maurepas, Vergennes, and the other ministers approved Lafayette’s plan, even pledging 6,000 instead of 4,000 troops, and agreeing to send clothing
and 15,000 muskets to the American army. Maurepas and Vergennes opened discussions with Franklin for new loans to the United States. Only the proposal that Lafayette command the force himself met with rejection. Both ministers agreed that veteran French officers with higher ranks and more battle experience would resent the appointment, and they named the veteran Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, to lead the force. A major general for nineteen years, the fifty-five-year-old soldier had fought in the Seven Years’ War and was a brigadier general before Lafayette was born. To avoid misunderstandings between American and French forces, the ministers agreed to place Rochambeau under Washington’s orders, although they promoted him to lieutenant general, a rank that did not exist in the American army, and placed him above all American officers except Washington. Similarly, the minister of the navy agreed to place the French fleet under Washington’s orders. To exploit Lafayette’s popularity, the ministry ordered him to sail to America on March 5, in advance of the expedition. “M. le Marquis de la Fayette,” said his orders, “will hasten to join General Washington, to whom he will announce under the bond of secrecy that the king, who desires to give the United States a new proof of his affection and of his interest in their welfare, has decided to send . . . six ships of the line and six thousand infantrymen early in spring.”
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