Lafayette (78 page)

[A second letter, also in Adrienne’s handwriting, allegedly sent by Lafayette from San Sebastiàn on April 19, is equally inconsistent, maintaining that he had wanted to spend a fortnight with Adrienne before leaving and that an unknown “they” had refused. He goes on to whine (again, inconsistent with his personality and all his other letters to his wife) that the world had misunderstood him and “since they tear me away from you, since they force me not to see you for a year, since they only want to destroy my
pride. . . .” Again, no mention of this letter can be found in the mountains of manuscripts and letters of that period, including her own memoirs, which state categorically that her mother “informed me herself of his cruel departure” and that “the first news” she received from her husband about his trip “arrived on the first of August, a month after I had given birth.”]

22.
Doniol, II:395.

23.
“Lord Stormont to his government,” undated citation in Lasteyrie,
Vie de Madame
. . . , n. 197–198.

24.
Mémoires
, I:13–14.

25.
Kalb to Mme. Kalb, April 1, 1777, in Doniol, II:386.

26.
Ibid.

27.
Deane to Vergennes, April 5, 1777 (with two enclosures),
Deane papers
, II:38– 40, in Gottschalk,
Lafayette Comes
. . . , 111, 112 n.

28.
S. Deane to M. Gérard, April 2, 1777, Doniol, II:392.

29.
S. Deane “To His Excellency Count de Vergennes,” Paris, April 5, 1777, in Doniol, II:393.

30.
Marquis de Noailles to comte de Maurepas, April 8, 1777, in Doniol, II:396–397.

31.
Stormont to Weymouth, April 9, 1777, in Gottschalk,
Lafayette Comes
. . . , 117.

32.
Vergennes to Marquis de Noailles, April 15, 1777, in Doniol, II:400–401.

33.
Vergennes to Marquis de Noailles, April 11, 1777, in Doniol, II:402.

34.
Mémoires
, I:14. [Note: Historians continue to debate whether Maurepas—and more especially Vergennes, the author of the imperialistic
Réflexions
policy—did, indeed, give Lafayette tacit permission to join the Americans by
not
fulfilling the duc d’Ayen’s request that the king issue a lettre de cachet for Lafayette’s arrest. As with the original de Broglie scheme, there is no documentary evidence to link Vergennes directly to Lafayette’s “escape” from France, but there is much indirect evidence—primarily the virtual impossibility of such an escape in a totalitarian state if the head of government does not look the other way, as many historians contend. Once again, as in the de Broglie affair, Vergennes had nothing to lose by letting Lafayette leave France. If Lafayette’s adventure failed, Vergennes could produce a backdated lettre de cachet and claim to have done his best to prevent his escape from France; if Lafayette succeeded, he could (as he would) anoint Lafayette a national hero and claim partial credit for the young man’s success. Princeton University professor of politics Edward S. Corwin (
French Policy
, 92, op. cit.) concurred that it would have been “easy . . . to disavow LaFayette . . . ; if he succeeded, France would reap the fruits of success.”

35.
Duer, 13.

36.
Ibid., 85–92.

37.
Ibid, June 15, 1777, in Tower, I:171.

1.
Mémoires
, I:13.

2.
Sparks,
Writings
, V:450, cited in
Mémoires
, I:13, n. 1.

3.
Ibid.

4.
Lasteyrie, 57.

5.
Maurepas to the marquis de Noailles, May 2, 1777, Doniol, II:411.

6.
Questions sur les mesures à prendre pour se précautionner contre l’Angleterre
, Vergennes to the Ministerial Council, April 1777, in Doniol, II:409–410.

7.
“Franklin and Deane to Committee of Secret Correspondence, Paris, April 9, 1777,” Wharton, II:286–290.

8.
Washington to the President of Congress, February 20, 1777, Sparks,
Writings
, IV:327.

9.
Washington to Richard Henry Lee, May 17, 1777, Sparks,
Writings
, IV:423.

10.
“Franklin and Deane to Committee of Foreign Affairs, Paris, May 25, 1777,” Wharton, II:324.

11.
“Diary of the Chevalier Du Buysson
, one of the officers who had gone to America with the Marquis de La Fayette,” in Doniol, III:215–216.

12.
Ibid.

13.
John Rutledge (1739–1800) had been a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and to the first and second Continental Congress. He would later be elected governor of South Carolina and serve courageously against the British. After the Revolution, he served in the Constitutional Convention and was later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by George Washington.

14.
Mémoires
, I:13. [The clever William Moultrie (1730–1805) built an unconventional fort of sand and palmetto logs on Sullivan’s Island at the entrance to Charleston Bay. Instead of splintering, the soft, spongy logs and sand absorbed the British cannon balls, which actually strengthened the walls. After a full day’s bombardment on June 28, 1776, the British abandoned their attack and withdrew, delaying for about two years their plans to establish a foothold in the southern colonies. Moultrie would later become a two-term governor of the state, from 1785 to 1787 and from 1792 to 1794.]

15.
L to Adrienne de La Fayette, June 19, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:40–42.

16.
Mémoires
, I:40–42.

17.
Lasteyrie, 58.

18.
Diary of Chevalier Du Buysson
, in Doniol, III:215–216.

19.
L to Adrienne de La Fayette, Petersburg, July 17, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:42.

20.
Mémoires
, I:1.

21.
Diary of Chevalier Du Buysson
, in Doniol, III:215–216.

22.
L to Adrienne, Annapolis, July 23, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:42–43.

23.
Diary of Chevalier Du Buysson
, in Doniol, III:218.

24.
Ibid.

25.
Washington to Gouverneur Morris, July 24, 1778, John. C. Fitzpatrick,
The Writings of George Washington
(U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., 1931–1944, 39 vols.), XII:226–227.

26.
Greene to [Adams?], May 28, 1777, G. W. Greene,
The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General in the Army of the Revolution
(New York, 1871, 3 vols.), I:417.

27.
Diary of Chevalier Du Buysson
, in Doniol, III: 219.

28.
Ibid., 219–220.

29.
Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789
, iii, 303, cited in Tower, I:184.

30.
Padover, Saul K., ed.,
The Washington Papers
(Norwalk, Conn.: The Easton Press, 1955), 1.

31.
Ibid.

32.
Mémoires
, I:16.

33.
Padover, 11.

34.
Mémoires
, I:16n, citing Sparks,
Writings
, V: Appendix No. 1.

35.
L to The Honorable Mr. Hancock, president of Congress, Philadelphia, August 13, 1777, cited in Tower, I:184–185.

36.
Mémoires
, I:16.

37.
Ibid.

38.
William Alexander Lord Stirling (1726–1783) was one of the few generals in the American army who may have had a legitimate claim to a title—besides Lafayette, of course. A brilliant military engineer, he claimed direct descent from Sir William Alexander, a favorite of James I, who had given him an enormous land grant in Canada, including the whole of Nova Scotia and most of New Brunswick. The peerage became extinct with the death of the fifth earl in 1739. Lord Stirling’s father, James, came to America in 1715 and became a lawyer in New York City. William Alexander obtained a fine education, showed gifts in mathematics, and became a successful New York merchant. In 1762, he went to England to lay claim to his title, but the House of Lords rejected it. William returned to America the following year and, ignoring the House of Lords, assumed the title for the rest of his life. Perhaps the Continental army’s most skilled engineer, he built fortifications at Fort Lee, New Jersey; Washington Heights on New York Island; and in Brooklyn Heights, where his work still bears the name Fort Stirling.

39.
Tower, I:221, citing Saffell,
Records of the Revolutionary War
, 333–336.

40.
Mémoires
, I:16.

41.
Comte Guillaume-Matthieu Dumas to Committee of Foreign Affairs, August 22, 1777, Wharton, II:377–378.

42.
Kalb to John Hancock, August [?], 1777, cited in Tower, I:186–187.

43.
Journals of Congress, September 8, 1777, III:377, cited in Tower, I:187–188.

44.
Kapp, Kalb, 127, cited in Tower, I:190.

45.
Mémoires
, I:17.

46.
Ibid.

47.
L to Adrienne de Lafayette, October 1, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:44.

1.
Lasteyrie, 60.

2.
L to Madame de Lafayette, Philadelphia, September 12, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:43.

3.
Sparks,
Writings
, V:59.

4.
Ferling, John,
John Adams, A Life
(New York: Henry Holt, 1992), 126.

5.
Idzerda, II:111–112.

6.
Mémoires
, I:18.

7.
Ibid.

8.
L to Madame de Lafayette, October 1, 1777, in
Mémoires
, I:43–45.

9.
Ibid.

10.
Washington to R. H. Lee, October 17, 1777, Fitzpatrick,
Writings
, IX:388.

11.
Etienne Taillemite,
La Fayette
(Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1989), 46.

12.
De Ségur,
Mémoires
, I:110–111.

13.
L to George Washington, October 14, 1777, Idzerda, I:121–123.

14.
L to Madame de Lafayette, Whitemarsh, November 6, 1777,
Mémoires
, I:46–47. His beautifully poetic last line to his wife reads,
“Adieu, Adieu; qu’il me serait doux de vous
embrasser à présent, de vous dire moi-même: Je t’aime plus que je n’ai jamais aimé, et c’est pour toute ma vie.”

15.
Greene to Mrs. Greene, November 20, 1777, G. W. Greene, I:514.

16.
Greene to George Washington, November 26, 1777, ibid., I:528.

17.
L to George Washington, Haddonfield, November 26, 1777 [original, in English], Duer, 120–123.

18.
Sparks,
Writings
, V:170.

19.
Journals of Congress, 1st December, 1777, in Tower, 254.

20.
L to duc d’Ayen, Camp Gulph, Pennsylvania, December 16, 1777,
Mémoires
, I: 30–35.

21.
Ibid.

22.
Idzerda, I:457–458.

23.
L to John Adams, Headquarters [Valley Forge], January 9, 1778, Wharton, II:468.

24.
John Adams to L, Braintree, February 3, 1778, Wharton, II:486–487.

25.
Franklin, Deane, and Lee to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, Paris, December 18, 1777, Wharton, 2:452–455.

26.
Mémoires
, I:21; Duer, 34–36.

27.
Ibid.

28.
L to Madame de Lafayette, January 6, 1778,
Mémoires
, I:36–37.

29.
Ibid.

30.
L to Madame de Lafayette, January 6, 1778,
Mémoires
, I:56–57.

1.
Although the American dollar we know had not yet been coined or printed, the term
dollar
—derived from the Dutch coin the
daaler
and the German
taler
—had long been current in Dutch and German settlements in New York and Philadelphia—and it had acquired the generic meaning of virtually any common monetary unit. When Lafayette came to America, the coin, or “dollar,” with the widest circulation was the
peso de ocho
, or so-called Spanish dollar, which Americans misconstrued as meaning “piece of eight,” instead of “weight of eight.” The
peso de ocho
was divided into eight
reals
, which were minted in Spain, and which Americans called
bits
—again, misconstruing the word
peso
. The colloquial term
bit
carried over into the development of the dollar, which was first divided into “eight bits,” with the 25-cent coin, or quarter, called “two bits.”

2.
Mémoires
, I:22.

3.
L to Washington, January 5, 1778, cited in Louis Gottschalk,
Lafayette Joins the American Army
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), 110.

4.
L to George Washington, December 30, 1777, Valley Forge, Duer, 134–139.

5.
George Washington to L, December 31, 1777, Valley Forge, Duer, 139–140.

6.
Mémoires
, I:18.

7.
L to Robert Morris, January 9 [1778], in Gottschalk,
Lafayette Joins
. . . , 109.

8.
Kalb to Laurens, January 7, 1778, Kapp, 137.

9.
L to Madame de Lafayette, January 6, 1778,
Mémoires
, I:56–57.

10.
Mémoires
, I:33.

11.
Ibid.

12.
Pierre Charles l’Enfant (1754–1825) was later promoted to major, served in the southern army, and remained in the United States after the Revolution to become an
American citizen and start a career as an architect. In 1787, he planned and supervised the conversion of New York’s old city hall into Federal Hall, the temporary seat of the new federal government. In 1791, President George Washington invited l’Enfant to lay out plans for a new national capital along the Potomac. Although construction began almost immediately, he was dismissed for his imperious attitude in February 1791, and his plan was abandoned for more than a century. In 1901, when the city’s haphazard growth could no longer meet governmental needs, the l’Enfant plan, with its central system of parks, malls, and radiating avenues, was revived.