Adopted Son

by David A Clary

  In America as in France, Lafayette was too popular to be ignored by those in power. He was also compulsively helpful. When he learned that Jefferson would become minister to France, he offered not only his congratulations but his and Adrienne’s hospitality when he reached Paris. He extended the same favors to Jefferson’s secretary, David Humphreys, and told Adrienne to look out for both of them.76

  Lafayette went on to Hartford, where he and his family became honorary citizens of Connecticut. In Boston he became an honorary citizen of Massachusetts and an honorary doctor of letters at Harvard. He continued to Providence and more celebrations. He returned to Boston, where the French frigate Nymphe awaited him, to cruise to Virginia for his reunion with Washington. He landed at Yorktown and went on to more celebrations in Williamsburg and Richmond, where his adoptive father awaited him.77

  The marquis reached Richmond on November 18 and had an unexpected reunion with a slave who called himself James Armistead Lafayette. His former spy had petitioned the Virginia Assembly for his freedom as reward for his service during the war. Lafayette advised the lawmakers that James had “perfectly acquitted himself with some important commissions I gave him and appears to me entitled to every reward his situation can admit of.” It was hard to say no to the Conqueror of Cornwallis. The Assembly eventually emancipated James and granted him a pension.78

  Washington and Lafayette left Richmond on November 22 and spent two days on the road talking about personal and political matters. After they reached home, Washington told Lafayette about his plans for a Potomac canal. Without that connection, he said, the western part of the country would sooner or later break away, whatever the Spanish did. In fact, opening the Mississippi to American shipping might accelerate the split in the country. Lafayette always agreed with his adoptive father and told Madison that he had changed his mind on opening the western river. “Many people think the navigation of the Mississippy is not an advantage,” he declared.79

  Washington gave him a packet of letters to take back to France. One was to Adrienne. The pleasure he had received “in once more embracing my friend could only have been increased by your presence,” the general told her. “The Marquis returns to you with all the warmth and ardour of a newly inspired lover. We restore him to you in good health crowned with wreaths of love and respect from every part of the Union.” He also answered Anastasie’s letter, sending the girl a kiss “which might be more agreeable from a pretty boy.”80

  The marquis had stops scheduled in Annapolis, Philadelphia, and New York, where his ship awaited him. The whole Washington household was in tears, and the general could not bear to part. He decided to accompany Lafayette and his party all the way, but the extended reception in Annapolis was too much for him. On December 1, 1784, they rode in their carriages side by side to Marlboro, where they hugged, tears rolled down their faces, and they separated.81

  Lafayette sadly proceeded to Philadelphia, then on to Trenton, the temporary national capital. Congress gave him an elaborate greeting, then loaded him down with flowery resolutions, commendations to Louis XVI, and letters, along with British colors taken at Yorktown. He addressed the lawmakers, roaring, “May this immense temple of freedom ever stand a lesson to oppressors, an exemple to the oppressed, a sanctuary for the rights of mankind!” He cancelled a planned side trip to Boston and headed to New York.82

  The state governor, the French consul, and a mob of dignitaries escorted their distinguished visitor on a decorated barge out to Nymphe. Lafayette hugged Greene, Hamilton, and Knox and climbed aboard. His party now included the orphaned son of a Continental Army officer, while the Indian boy had gone to Quebec, to follow him to France later. The French ship fired a thirteen-gun salute, answered by a fort on shore. She weighed anchor and promptly ran aground.

  Before the marquis boarded, he received a letter from Washington, written after their parting. It was a final farewell. “In the moment of our separation upon the road as I travelled, & every hour since—I felt all that love, respect & attachment for you, with which length of years, close connexion & your merits, have inspired me,” the general said. He had asked himself whether that was the last time they would see each other. “And tho’ I wished to say no—my fears answered yes.” His youth was long behind him, and he was “of a short lived family—and might soon expect to be entombed in the dreary mansions of my father’s. These things darkened the shades & gave a gloom to the picture, consequently to my prospects of seeing you again: but I will not repine. I have had my day.” He ended, “It is unnecessary, I persuade myself to repeat to you my dr. marqs. the sincerity of my regards & friendship—nor have I words which could express my affection for you, were I to attempt it.”83

  Lafayette refused to accept what Washington had said, and with the ship stuck in the mud, he argued back. “No, my beloved general,” he cried, “our late parting was not by any means a last interview. My whole soul revolts at the idea—and could I harbour it an instant, indeed my dear general, it would make me miserable.” He realized at last that he would never be able to welcome Washington to his own home in France. “But to you, I shall return, and in the walls of Mount Vernon we shall yet often speack of old times.”

  The marquis did not understand that his adoptive father spoke with the wisdom of years. The future was for the young, the general knew. Lafayette could imagine a future where the two of them were together again, but Washington knew better.

  “Adieu, adieu, my dear general,” the young man concluded, “it is with unexpressible pain that I feel I am going to be severed from you by the Atlantick—every thing that admiration, respect, gratitude, friendship, and filial love can inspire, is combined in my affectionate heart to devote me most tenderly to you—In your friendship I find a delight which words cannot express—Adieu, my dear general, it is not without emotion that I write this word—Altho’ I know I shall soon visit you again—Be attentive to your health—Let me hear from you every month—Adieu, Adieu. L.f.” He was too overcome even to sign his name.84

  His adoptive father was at the Maryland legislature, lobbying for his Potomac canal project. When the lawmakers made the marquis and his male heirs citizens of Maryland, he fired off a quick note to let him know about it. It was too late. Nymphe, freed from her trap, put out to sea on the twenty-third.85

  Once again, a seasick Lafayette sailed away, heartbroken over what his adoptive father had said. Back at Mount Vernon, George Washington wept openly at his dinner table whenever he talked about his love for Lafayette.86

  FOURTEEN

  Vive La Fayette!

  (JANUARY 1785–DECEMBER 1791)

  Our friend La Fayette has given in to measures as to the Constitution which he does not heartily approuve, and he heartily approuves many things which experience will demonstrate to be injurious. He left America, you know, when his education was but half-finished. What he learnt there he knows well, but he did not learn to be a government maker.

  —GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

  Lafayette was saddened by Washington’s belief that he would die before they could meet again, but he returned to France energized. He was called “le Vashington français” (the French Washington). His adoptive father was idolized in France. To conservatives, he was the valiant soldier who had fought the British enemy. To liberals, he was the leader of a struggle to establish a republican order. Conservatives feared, and liberals hoped, that Lafayette would transfer the American Revolution to Europe.1

  The former major general in Washington’s army was a powerful force to reckon with. Soldiers were more likely to follow him than any general sent against him, but the struggle ahead would not likely be a civil war. His adoptive father had taught him that an indirect approach was the better one. He had also explained that self-government could be messy, because the people would not always agree with one another. Moreover, the American Revolution had been less a military campaign than a struggle over an idea—“that all men are created equal.” The English royalists had misjudged the Ame
rican rebellion. They failed to understand the war of ideas, and treated it as a struggle for power. They lost. Lafayette’s challenge, like Washington’s, was to engineer an outcome in which power was subordinated to the idea.

  THE HERO OF AMERICA HAS BECOME MY HERO

  Lafayette landed at Brest on January 20, 1785, and reached home near the end of the month. John Edwards Caldwell, the orphan, was with him, and Peter and another Indian boy joined the household later. Over the next few years, the sons of other Americans enlarged the mix. Young George spent the week with his tutor, and the other boys attended boarding schools, but they were all home for the weekends. Lafayette and Adrienne also adopted two African children. The place was overrun. He had turned his home into another Mount Vernon, and his sudden indulgence of the children caused chatter among other nobles. It simply was not done.2

  The house was open to Americans, and Lafayette appointed himself guardian to any who were in Paris. He lent some money, found jobs for others, and bailed a few out of jail. They mixed with the children every Monday night. “He is returned fraught with affection to America and disposed to render every possible service,” Jefferson told Madison. “I thought I was in America instead of Paris,” another visitor said of the Hôtel de Lafayette.3

  The onetime boy general became steadily balder. After combing his hair forward, during the late 1780s he began wearing a toupee, in the tousled Alexander the Great style coming into fashion. He also appeared to be more domesticated than he had been, but he took up where he had left off with Adélaïde de Simiane. When her husband committed suicide, Jefferson did not know “whether to condole with or congratulate the marquis.”4

  A visiting American writer said of Lafayette that year, “He has planted a tree in America and sits under it at Versailles.” He meant Lafayette’s efforts to improve trade between France and the United States. The Farm had reasserted its tobacco monopoly, and Lafayette fought back. He won concessions for whale oil and fish products, and talked the government into buying naval stores and timber from the Carolinas. One by one, American products gained access to French markets. Jefferson called Lafayette his “most powerful auxiliary and advocate.” He was so effective that annual American exports to France increased by 1 million livres.5

  George Washington, by Robert Edge Pine, 1785–87. The effects of the war had told on Washington, making him more conscious of his own mortality. (INDEPENDENCE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK)

  Lafayette encouraged other European nations to open trade with the United States. Washington told him that his actions had “tended very much to endear you to your fellow citizens on this side of the Atlantic.” He had a question, however. “But let me ask you my dr. marquis, in such an enlightened in such a liberal age, how is it possible the great maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay an annual tribute to the little piratical states of Barbary?”6

  Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson inspired that question when they asked Congress for money to negotiate with the pirate states of North Africa and pay tribute. They also asked Lafayette if he could find out what other maritime powers paid to the Barbary pirates to protect their shipping. He gave them a list of what bribes were handed over, even by naval powers such as Britain and France. It was more than the United States expected or could afford to pay. They passed this on to Congress, wondering at Lafayette’s “means of access to the depositories of this species of information.”

  “There is between Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams a diversity of opinion respecting the Algerines,” Lafayette told Washington. Adams wanted to pay protection; Jefferson “finds it as cheap and more honourable to cruize against them.” The marquis agreed with Jefferson and proposed forming an alliance with all Mediterranean powers, to “distress the Algerines into any terms.” Congress dithered, and affairs between the United States and the Barbary pirates would not be settled until after the War of 1812.7

  Another American diplomatic interest was Spain. At first Lafayette bowed to Washington’s belief that opening the Mississippi to American navigation could make the West break away. General Washington thought it would “weaken America, and transform the back country people into Spaniards,” he told Carmichael. Lafayette changed his mind when the Spanish began to grumble about war again, and he leaned on the French government to pressure the other kingdom. In 1790 his adoptive father, with his canal plans going nowhere, asked him and the American chargé in Paris, William Short, to urge the French government to persuade Spain to open New Orleans to American vessels. Lafayette advised Jefferson to foment an independence movement in Louisiana.8

  These continuing services to American interests were noticed in the new nation. The Virginia Assembly ordered busts of Lafayette and Washington, for the statehouse and Paris, and Jefferson gave the commission to Jean-Antoine Houdon. The French set was ready in September 1786, for display in the Hôtel de Ville. At the dedication ceremony, Jefferson praised Lafayette’s war record and his assistance to the American delegates in France. “In truth,” he said, “I only held the nail; he drove it.” He was at the peak of his international glory.9

  Relations between France and the United States, and the need for a better American constitution, were two of Lafayette’s hobbyhorses. The third was slavery. Before he climbed on that, however, he added a fourth—religious liberty. When he enrolled the orphaned Caldwell boy in a Catholic boarding school, he had a battle with the Benedictine monks who ran the place. The youngster was Protestant, and the marquis wanted him excused from daily Catholic services, which the monks maintained were mandatory.10

  Lafayette decided to widen the fight for religious toleration. Protestants in France were “under intolerable despotism,” he told Washington. “Altho’ oppen persecution does not now exist, yet it depends upon the whim of king, queen, parliament, or any of the ministers. Marriages are not legal among them. Their wills have no force by law. The children are to be bastards. Their parsons to be hanged.” Lafayette had decided “to be a leader in that affair, and to have their situation changed.” He planned to tour Protestant congregations around the country, then appeal to the king to correct the injustice. “It is a work of time, and of some danger to me,” he said. “But I run my chance.”11

  Lafayette met Huguenot leaders, pledging to champion their cause. “The hero of America has become my hero,” one of them exclaimed. He promised that “with patience and care, just causes win.” It did take time. He told his adoptive father in February 1788, “The edit [edict] giving to the non catholic subjects of the king a civil estate has been registered.” He proudly boasted that he had introduced to the king’s ministers “the first Protestant clergyman who could appear at Versailles since the Revolution of 1685,” meaning the Nantes revocation.12

  That left slavery. Shortly after he returned to France, Lafayette heard from the Swiss-French abolitionist the marquis de Condorcet, author of a notorious refutation of all justifications for slavery. “No one on our continent has helped more than you,” he told Lafayette, “to break those chains with which Europe endowed America. Perhaps the glory of overthrowing the slavery that we have imposed on the unfortunate Africans is also demanded of you.” That would make him “the liberator of two of the four parts of the world.” Coming from the most famous and highly regarded abolitionist in the world, this was a flattering appeal.13

  Lafayette asked Hamilton about the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, but Hamilton never responded; to him it was just one of those things that a lawyer had to join. Thanks to the abolitionist John Jay, Lafayette became a member in 1788. He had tried to talk the ministers and the king into abolishing slavery in France and its colonies but failed. So in June 1785, he shelled out 125,000 livres to buy a sugarcane plantation in Cayenne (French Guyana). There, he told Washington, he would “free my Negroes in order to make that experiment which you know is my hobby horse.”14

  Once Lafayette had bought his plantation, he left its operation to Adrienne, as usual. She hired a manager and talked some priests
into serving as teachers. Washington applauded him. The goodness of his heart, he said, “displays itself in all circumstances, and I am never surprised when you give new proofs of it.” The Cayenne plantation was “a generous and noble proof of your humanity. God grant that a similar spirit will animate all the people of this country! But I despair of ever seeing that happen.”15

  Lafayette’s adoptive father had become an abolitionist, but a cautious one. There was “not a man living” who wished more sincerely than he did “to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it,” he told Robert Morris, “but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, & that is by legislative authority: and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.” He told another friend he would never again “possess another slave by purchase.” Moreover, the general would support any plan “by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.”16

  In May 1791 Lafayette backed a measure to grant the decision on emancipation to the French colonies, and he was afraid that British agents might try to prevent acceptance of the decree. He had voted according to conscience, “not to policy,” he told Washington. “Should the British take advantage of my honesty, I hope you will influence the colonies to submit to a decree so conformant to justice.”17

  KINGS ARE GOOD FOR NOTHING BUT TO SPOIL THE SPORT

  Lafayette wrote as often as he could to Washington. There was a change in his letters, however. He still professed his love and said how much he missed the elder man. “Adieu, my dear general, think often of your bosom friend, your adopted son, who loves you so tenderly,” he typically said. He usually called himself an adopted son, but there were no more childish pleas for approval. They sent each other gifts—hunting dogs, seeds and birds, breeding asses, and presents from the children sailed west, while seeds and birds, gifts from Martha and the children, and a barrel of Virginia hams went the other way. The elder man did give advice to the younger one. He offered his best wishes for his undertakings, he told him, but he should remember that “it is a part of the military art to reconnoitre and feel your way, before you engage too deeply.”18