Adopted Son

by David A Clary

  LET US UNITE IN PURCHASING A SMALL ESTATE

  British forces evacuated Charleston in mid-December 1782. In January 1783, Washington told Congress that he wanted to besiege New York, but the lawmakers objected. It was impossible, said Foreign Secretary Robert Livingston. Army officers had formed committees to demand back pay, and Congress had no money. If the war continued, Livingston told Lafayette, “we shall lean more upon France than we have done.” Rochambeau had left on December 24, while his army went to the West Indies.31

  The Americans did not know about the preliminary peace. Nor did they know that they faced a new threat from Spain, to which the British ceded Florida. Lafayette heard from Jay and from William Carmichael, American chargé in Madrid, in Jay’s absence. Not only did the court there still refuse to receive him, it was rattling its sabers about the boundaries of the new republic. Lafayette did what he had done before—sent letters that he knew the Spanish secret service would intercept, expressing confidence that the Iberians would see the light.32

  In February 1783, Vergennes asked Lafayette to go to Madrid. He agreed, saying he would “give the Spanish minister the opinion of a man who knows America and who, being French, will arouse his ill humor less.” He warned Livingston, “Among the Spaniards we have but few well wishers, and as they at the bottom hate cordially the french, our alliance tho’ a political, is not a sentimental consideration.” He thought settlement of the boundaries of the United States was of crucial importance to the new nation. He also asked formally to be part of the American delegation that would take the final peace treaty to London, “in the capacity of an extraordinary envoy from the United States.”33

  Then Lafayette wrote a remarkable letter to his adoptive father. Two paragraphs stood out. One was a further expression of his devotion. “Were you but such a man as Julius Caesar or the king of Prussia, I should almost be sorry for you at the end of the great tragedy where you are acting such a part,” he began. “But with my dear general I rejoice at the blessings of a peace where our noble ends have been secured.” After reminiscing about their struggles at Valley Forge, the marquis gushed, “What a sense of pride and satisfaction I feel when I think of the times that have determined my engaging in the American cause!” He envied his own grandchildren “when they will be about celebrating and worshipping your name—to have had one of their ancestors among your soldiers, to know he had the good fortune to be the friend of your heart, will be the eternal honour in which they shall glory.”

  Out of the blue Lafayette offered a proposal that sounded like something John Laurens had outlined at Valley Forge. “Now, my dear general, that you are going to enjoy some ease and quiet, permit me to propose a plan to you which might become greatly beneficial to the black part of mankind,” he said. “Let us unite in purchasing a small estate where we may try the experiment to free the Negroes, and use them only as tenants. Such an exemple as yours might render it a general practice, and if we succeed in America, I will chearfully devote a part of my time to render the method fascionable in the West Indias. If it be a wild scheme, I had rather be mad that way, than to be thought wise on the other tack.”

  Lafayette, French nobleman, had become a liberal republican who carried the ideas of liberty and equality further than most others were ready to go at that point. “Adieu, Adieu, my dear general,” he began a long closing. “Had the Spaniards got common sense I could have dispensed with that cursed trip to Madrid. But I am called upon by a sense of my duty to America.”34

  Still in his American uniform, Lafayette reached Madrid on February 15, 1783. He called on the French minister, the comte de Montmorin, who presented him to King Carlos III. The king handed him off to his prime minister, the conde de Floridablanca, with whom he argued for several days. Lafayette despised the Spanish and rightly concluded that their chief concern was that the American Revolution could spread to their colonies. He also realized that they could not challenge Britain’s agreement to fix the United States’ western border on the Mississippi. He made overtures to other countries at a banquet of all the ambassadors and effectively isolated Spain. He sweet-talked the Spanish government into dealing directly with the new republic. By the time he left Madrid at the end of the month, the threats of war on the Mississippi had ended, and the government had agreed to receive Carmichael. Floridablanca dragged his feet on that, however, not accepting the American’s credentials until August 23.35

  John Jay, by unidentified, after John Trumbull, ca. 1875. He and Lafayette had their differences during the peace negotiations with Britain, but Jay admitted that the marquis did something he had tried and failed to accomplish—win Spain’s recognition of the United States. They later shared an interest in the abolition of slavery. (INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK)

  It was an outstanding diplomatic performance. Carmichael was eternally grateful, and Montmorin was highly impressed. Lafayette was “your friend,” he told Jay, “your adopted compatriot, and will be counted by posterity among the numbers who contributed most to the great revolution in which you were one of the principal actors.” Lafayette boasted to Washington that he had “met with repugnances and prejudices.” He was “by turns pressing and haughty,” he “took care to engage them, and yet not to engage America,” and he had acted “in the most private capacity.” He had to go to Paris, and in about two months he would sail to America.36

  Lafayette had grown up a lot under his adoptive father’s guidance. No longer a self-centered teenager, he had learned to behave himself with tact and assurance in a delicate situation. Yet he was still a work in progress. His constant pleas for Washington’s approval sounded like childish insecurity. He also neglected his responsibilities as a husband and father, and his military or diplomatic missions did not excuse that entirely. His chasing after other women exceeded the norm even among the French nobility, and it was downright juvenile. On the other hand, his irresponsibility caused Adrienne to stand on her own feet.

  When he was in Madrid, the marquis received news that his aunt Madeleine had died, leaving his widowed aunt Charlotte alone. When he reached Paris, he learned that crop failures in Auvergne had produced famine throughout the province. Adrienne had ordered the steward at Chavaniac to open the Lafayette granaries to the peasants. She also told the district governor to establish a spinning and weaving mill and a school to teach the women how to make cloth from their husbands’ wool. Lafayette was amazed at her independent action, approved of it all, and promised to raise money for her projects.

  Then he set off for Chavaniac to see for himself. Adrienne had never visited the place, but Lafayette insisted on going alone. Aglaé had told him to leave Paris because she wanted to break off their affair. He was tired of their fights and her tantrums anyway, and there were always other women to conquer. He wrote her a long, self-pitying letter from Chavaniac, bowing to her wishes. At the same time he wrote Adrienne, describing things in Auvergne. The deprivation he saw around him was terrible. Although his stewards wanted to sell the remaining grain because the price was high, he ordered them to give it away. He learned that the reason for the high price was because the provincial Farmers General had pulled grain off the market to drive the cost up. His own people, he concluded, needed him as much as the Americans had. He withdrew his holdings from the monopoly, undermining it, and declared war on the Farmers General.37

  France was a mercantilist economy, a system created in the seventeenth century to control all economic activity and produce income for the government. It worked through the monopolies in each province, called Farmers General, or just la Ferme (the Farm). Each Farm controlled production, distribution, and sale of everything made or grown in its province. It protected itself with tariffs at provincial or national borders, so commodities were taxed repeatedly as they moved across the country. The Farm paid the king a stiff royalty, which supported both the government and the wretched excesses at Versailles.38

  Lafayette began his attack on the Farm as a way to help America, whose goo
ds were priced out of the French market. The tariff on tobacco was especially annoying, but it was a general problem for American products. The United States needed to sell its goods abroad to pay its debts to France, he told the finance minister, Jean-François Joly de Fleury. France could claim all of America’s trade or lose it to the Anglais. The marquis supported a petition by the merchants of Bayonne to make that town a free port, beyond the reach of the Farm. Joly de Fleury was looking for ways to reduce the national debt, but when he proposed to reduce the expenditures of the court and raise taxes, he lost his job. Lefèvre d’Ormesson replaced him.39

  Lafayette remained under Congress’ instructions to further American interests in Europe. He intervened in the cases of individual American merchants having difficulties in France, and he kept up his drumbeat on the ministers, haranguing them about anything that burdened American imports. He wanted a free-trade treaty between his two countries and urged both governments to move in that direction.40

  The state of the French economy, and the resistance of the Farmers General, made the post of controller of finances a risky one. Charles-Alexandre de Calonne succeeded d’Ormesson in November 1783. He liked Lafayette’s proposal and promised to take his ideas to the king. “The ideas upon commerce that are met with in this country are far from being allwaïs right,” the marquis told Robert Morris. “To persuade people into their own interest is some times as difficult a matter as it would be to obtain a sacrifice.” The Farm fought back fiercely, and “[t]hose opositions I have been every day combatting in the best manner I could.”41

  Opening a few seaports did not encourage more imports from America, because the Farm still controlled internal markets. It refused to carry American products, and priced French goods so high that Americans could not buy them. Lafayette published a manifesto exposing the way the Farm jacked up prices, condemning governmental protection of the system, and calling for open, competitive markets. “Here, then is a new source of wealth to revive our productions and our manufactures. It would be stupid to dry up this channel of commerce, since it is much easier to improve it,” his broadside declared.

  The marquis had gone over the Farm’s head to forge an alliance between common Americans and Frenchmen, and it worked. Early in 1784 Calonne pledged “absolute” duty-free entry and distribution of American goods and ordered the Farm to give preferential treatment to American tobacco. In effect, the United States achieved most-favored-nation trading status. Moreover, he cancelled export taxes on French products going to America. Four ports were duty-free to American merchants.42

  Morris told Congress that “the labors of that young nobleman” were of the utmost benefit to the United States. The marquis continued to battle the tangle of fees, regulations, and imposts hampering American trade, and jousted with the Farm. “The unexampled attention to every American interest,” Morris proclaimed, “which this gentleman has exhibited cannot fail to excite the strongest emotions in his favor.”43

  HE HAS GAINED MORE APPLAUSE THAN HUMAN NATURE AT 25 CAN BEAR

  Lafayette had received his country’s highest military honor in the spring of 1783. The war minister nominated him for the Cross of St. Louis, created by Louis XIV in 1693. The king approved. His father-in-law, d’Ayen, who also wore the Cross, inducted him into the order.44

  He enjoyed unexpected respect in military circles, especially when he bought the French army its first two batteries of horse artillery. His American experience contributed to other reforms. The army increased its light infantry to twelve regular battalions. The first light units were “legions” of infantry and cavalry, each including a dozen men with rifled carbines. Respect for light troops in both Washington’s and the British armies drove the reforms, but it was Lafayette’s experience that gave them their shape.

  The trend to light troops would accelerate after the French Revolution in 1789, again under Lafayette’s influence. One out of five infantry regiments became light, the rest line. They were organized alike, but the light troops quickly developed a tradition of dash and aggressiveness. They provided advance and flank guard service, rapid deployment, and expert skirmishing, and claimed the right to lead all attacks. Their mobile skirmishing tactics, worked out by Lafayette in America, helped make the Napoleonic army the terror of Europe.45

  Lafayette had never had any sense when it came to his own money, but he had become an expert on commerce during his battle to open France to American trade. Congress resolved that its members were satisfied with his reasons for staying in Europe “and have a high sense of the new proofs he has exhibited of his zeal in the cause of the said states.”46

  The United States could not fulfill all Lafayette’s wishes, however. When he received the marquis’ request to be an American delegate to the signing of the final peace, Washington told Foreign Secretary Robert Livingston that if there were no reasons against it, he hoped “that Congress would feel a pleasure in gratifying the wishes of a man who has been such a zealous labourer in the cause of this country.” Livingston advised against it because of distrust of the French in Congress. The “honor of the nation” required that it should be represented by a native. Washington withdrew his endorsement, adding that there was “no man upon Earth” he had “a greater inclination to serve” than Lafayette, but he had “no wish to do it in matters that interfere with, or are repugnant to, our national policy, dignity, or interest.” Livingston gave Lafayette the bad news, saying, “Real obstacles present themselves.” He thought the former American general deserved the honor, but factional politics stood in the way.47

  Lafayette was Franklin’s closest ally and his channel to Vergennes during negotiations with the British. But Franklin had enemies, and they resented his friend’s efforts to participate in the peace talks. There was only one issue that they listened to him on, and that was Laurens’ provision in the treaty draft that slaves behind British lines should be delivered to the Americans. Lafayette thought that that might result in their freedom. When the British commander at New York objected because the slaves had been granted their freedom, the marquis thought that was a ruse. “There is ten to one however,” he told Henry Laurens, “those men are sent to West India markets” to be sold. Otherwise, Lafayette felt himself held at arm’s length throughout the negotiations. He complained bitterly to his former aide James McHenry that he was even being denied credit for getting the loan of 6 million livres and for opening the markets.48

  Lafayette’s chief enemy in the American delegation was John Adams. The Massachusetts native was moody, felt homesick for his family, and detested Franklin and everyone associated with him. Lafayette was “an amiable nobleman,” Adams told a friend, “& has great merit. I enjoy his friendship, & wish a continuance of it. But I…see in that youth the seeds of mischief to our country, if we do not take care. He was taken early into our service & placed in an high command, in which he has behaved well; but he has gained more applause than human nature at 25 can bear. It has enkindled in him an unbounded ambition, which it concerns us much to watch.”

  Adams worried that Lafayette could rise to the top of the American army while he was also rising in France. “This mongrel character of French patriot & American patriot cannot exist long,” he declared, “and if hereafter it should be seriously the politicks of the French court to break our Union, imagination cannot conceive a more proper instrument for the purpose, than the marquis.” When Lafayette got wind of this, he was shocked and hurt. Franklin consoled him and told the American foreign secretary that Adams was too suspicious by far.49

  One issue that divided Lafayette from some of the Americans was the Society of the Cincinnati, organized at Washington’s headquarters early in 1783. The general had accepted its presidency before he read its charter. It was to include all officers who had served in the army at least three years, and he thought it was a charitable organization. However, membership was hereditary, to pass down to firstborn sons into perpetuity. Announcement of the society’s terms sparked an uproar among Am
ericans, who feared it would be a counterrevolutionary aristocracy. Washington asked the membership to change the hereditary provision.50

  The general also wanted Lafayette to organize a chapter in France, and sent an officer to Paris to give Lafayette the society’s charter and to order manufacture of its badge in France. The marquis had the charter published and asked Vergennes for a waiver of the king’s policy against membership in foreign orders. As he set out to recruit members, he kicked up a storm. Poor veterans could not afford to join, and liberals condemned it as a new military aristocracy. Lafayette sent Washington his proxy to vote against the hereditary provision.

  Adams wrote Lafayette a letter about the group that the marquis interpreted as “very violent.” The young man was hurt once again and called Adams an “honest man, because, altho’ your opinion some times has seemed to me wrong your principles have ever been right and I greatly valüe your esteem.” Adams denied that he had been “violent,” but he was opposed to hereditary orders on principle.51

  “A friendly letter I wrote you, and the one I receive is not so affectionate as usual,” Lafayette shot back at Adams. It was all becoming an embarrassment. Thomas Conway, whose name was forever attached to the “cabal” against Washington during the Valley Forge days, wanted to join. The marquis advised Washington that he ought to be accepted, to keep him quiet. Lafayette would have been embarrassed further if he knew that Franklin also thought the hereditary order abominable. He connected with the comte de Mirabeau, a renegade noble, who published a blistering attack called Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus.52

  As that controversy simmered, the Lafayettes moved in to their new home, where they watched the fireworks, bonfires, and other festivities that followed the official end of the war on September 3, 1783. The Americans and British signed the Peace of Paris that day, after which the British, French, and Spanish diplomats signed the Peace of Versailles. The whole city celebrated the victory.