Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small]
[ocr errors]

Because of this, he, of all the leaders, was left almost alone.

He was forsaken by timid friends, who trembled at the frowns of the Terrorists, and was menaced by his violent political enemies. He dared to oppose the factions, of whatever creed, and for this he drew upon his head the anathemas of the Jacobins, the emigrants, and the royalists. Even his army, hitherto faithful, had become disaffected toward him, through the machinations of his enemies, and nothing remained for him but to flee. He left his army encamped at Sedan, and, in company with a few faithful friends, set off for Holland, to seek an asylum there or in the United States.

At the first Austrian post he and his friends were at first detained, and then made prisoners. Soon afterward they

were sent to the dungeons of Wesel and Magdeburg, and ultimately to those of Olmutz, by order of the allied monarchs of Austria and Prussia.

When information of this condition of his dear friend reached Washington at Philadelphia, he was deeply moved. The late venerable Richard Rush-intelligence of whose death is spreading upon electric pinions over the land while I write (August 1, 1859)-relates an interesting incident illustrative of the feelings of Washington on that occasion. Mr. Bradford, the attorney-general, was living directly opposite the President's house, and was spending an evening with Washington's family, when the conversation reverted to Lafayette. Washington spoke with great seriousness, contrasted the marquis's hitherto splendid career with his present forlorn and suffering condition, and at length became so deeply affected, that his eyes filled with tears, and his whole great soul was stirred to its very depths. "Magnanimous tears they were," says Mr. Rush, "fit for the first of heroes to shed-virtuous, honorable, sanctified!"

Mr. Bradford, who deeply sympathized with the feelings of Washington, was much affected at the spectacle, and returning to his own house, he "sat down," says Griswold, from whose Republican Court I quote, "and wrote the following simple, but touching verses, an impromptu effusion from the heart of a man of sensibility and genius:

"THE LAMENT OF WASHINGTON.

"As beside his cheerful fire,

'Midst his happy family,

Sat a venerable sire,

Tears were starting in his eye.

Selfish blessings were forgot,

Whilst he thought on Fayette's lot, Once so happy on our plains

Now in poverty and chains.

"Fayette,' cried he-'honored name!
Dear to these far distant shores-
Fayette, fired by freedom's flame,
Bled to make that freedom ours.
What, alas! for this remains-
What, but poverty and chains!

"Soldiers in our fields of death-

Was not Fayette foremost there!
Cold and shivering on the heath,
Did you not his bounty share?
What reward for this remains,

What, but poverty and chains!

Hapless Fayette! 'midst thine error, How my soul thy worth reveres! Son of freedom, tyrant's terror,

Hero of both hemispheres!

What reward for all remains,

What, but poverty and chains!

"Born to honors, ease, and wealth, See him sacrifice them all;

Sacrificing also health,

At his country's glorious call,

What for thee, my friend, remains,

What, but poverty and chains!

"Thus with laurels on his brow
Belisarius begged for bread;
Thus, from Carthage forced to go,
Hannibal an exile fled.

Alas! Fayette at once sustains

EXILE, POVERTY, and CHAINS!'

"Courage, child of Washington!

Though thy fate disastrous seems,
We have seen the setting sun

Rise and burn with brighter beams,

Thy country soon shall break thy chain,
And take thee to her arms again.

Thy country soon shall break thy chain,
And take thee to her arms again!"

In the horrid dungeon at Olmutz, in a cell three paces broad and five and a half long, containing no other ornament than two French verses which rhyme with the words to suffer and to die, the generous Lafayette was confined almost three. years, and yet his great soul was not bound by suffering, nor his zeal for liberty one whit abated. Deprived of pen, ink, and paper, except a sheet that "by a miracle" he possessed, he wrote a letter with a toothpick to a princess who sympathized with him, and said, in a postscript:

"I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation at Cayenne, but I hope Madame Lafayette will take care that the negroes who cultivate it shall preserve their liberty."

Lafayette's noble wife, as soon as she could get permission to leave France, hastened to Olmutz, with her daughters, to share the prison with the husband and father, while their son, George Washington, came to the United States, with his tutor, consigned to the fatherly care and protection of the great patriot whose name he bore. They arrived at Boston at the close of the summer of 1795, and immediately informed Washington of the fact. The President's first impulse was to take the young man to his bosom and cherish him as a son, but grave reasons of state denied him that pleasure. "To express all the sensibility," he said, in a letter to Senator Cabot, of

Boston, "which has been excited in my breast by the receipt of young Lafayette's letter, from the recollections of his father's merits, services, and sufferings, from my friendship for him, and from my wishes to become a friend and father to his son, is unnecessary." He then declared himself the young man's friend, but intimated that great caution in the manifestation of that friendship would be necessary, considering the light in which his father was then viewed by the French government, and Washington's own situation as the executive of the United States. He desired Mr. Cabot to make young Lafayette and M. Frestel, his tutor, understand why he could not receive them as he desired, but that his support and protection, until a more auspicious moment, might be relied on. He ordered them to be provided with every thing necessary, at his expense, and advised their entrance at Harvard University.

Young Lafayette assumed the name of Motier (a family name of his father); and in November Washington wrote to him with caution, telling him that the causes which rendered it necessary for them both to be circumspect were not yet removed, and desiring him to repair to Colonel Hamilton, in New York, who would see that he was well provided for.

"How long the causes which have withheld you from me may continue," Washington said, "I am not able at this moment to decide; but be assured of my wishes to embrace you so soon as they shall have ceased, and that, whenever the period arrives, I shall do it with fervency." He then, with fatherly solicitude, advised him to attend well to his studies, that he might "be found to be a deserving son of a meritorious father."

After leaving Boston, young Lafayette lived with his tutor

« ZurückWeiter »