by S. P. Grogan
This evening’s event would be a highlight to the so far drab fall season, as so she had been told at Madame Helvétius's salon soiree earlier in the week. For it was the whispered news that the duc de Choiseul, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, trying to rebuild his political fortunes from the debacle of the war with Great Britain, where France lost all possessions in North America, would seek to introduce to the King a distraction, the famed Parisian courtesan, Mademoiselle Lange. To catch a glimpse of this presumed beauty, current mistress to the brothel-casino owner, Jean-Baptiste du Barry, would be tasty gossip to those young ladies who gathered as perfumed, sparkling baubles in the court’s hierarchy, and who attended to the Royal Family for their 10 pm ritual of public dining, after which the king in passing by would offer the more worthy lovelies his courteous, sometimes flirtive acknowledgment.
Part of this life meant that her son, Gilbert, would become part of the Court of Louis the XV, and for that she must prepare him, to be a gentleman and a courtier of manners.
Smiling to the boy, but still shaking her head, she sought to give orders to the servants to begin this unimaginable if not impossible task of turning country corn silk into fashionable courtier silk and lace.
9.
1768-69
In the four years he would spend as a student at the Collège du Plessis, a part of the Sorbonne University educational system, he would look back and remember certain highlights that would always stay with him, the first of these, not the best in his recollection. In the first week of his enrollment Gilbert was picking himself off the ground in the school’s courtyard.
He had been pushed back and forth between older classmates, and finally shoved to the ground by one student, Francois Jacques Barras, himself a boy two years older, born in the coastal region of Bordeaux, but raised the last five years in Paris where he came to speak proper city French. The boy’s family, brother and father were not noble with title, but had military and naval lineages, serving well in the battles of past kings. For slight reasons, who knew, Barras did not like little La Fayette. Perhaps in the face he saw his own provincial heritage, or perhaps a threat to school yard popularity.
It is my accent, Gilbert accepted as the immediate cause of the taunts, since the teasing called him ‘country’ this and that with several farmyard animals implied and brayed at him. His mother or rather servant Blasse had seen to his école clothing, young gentleman style, very current to the eye: embroidered golden waistcoat, his powdered and pompade red hair pulled in a ribbon queue. One might accept him on that regard but another, students and teachers, could not help but to notice was that he spoke with a decidedly brogue of southern France. To the Parisian ear his language was strong in nasal vowels, nearly an entirely separate language. The Auvergnat dialect from the Puy region had more tinge of ancient foundations in Italian-Spanish romance languages, of the Occitan linguistic branch. His mother and his grand-mére both were regional in their upbringing, not childhoods in Paris, and spoke with Breton and mid-France dialects of their own. His tutor-priest Fayon was a provincial local and spoke Latin in such an accent which he passed onto the child.
The bully boys, some whose parents held titles loftier than his du Motier lineage were ignorant, not accepting his Auvergne words in truth spoke the long ago language of the minstrel troubadours, singsong voices meant to convey romantic lyricism. These boys being boys were just mean to the new arrival and any excuse for taunts need not have validity.
Gilbert picked himself up, faced Barras and his crowd. He could not speak back with biting stings as his odd voice would leave him to further ridicule. He was not a coward but not yet a fighter with skill. In the first year, he would carry no sword nor gain any fencing skill to wield one. He would have to bear up against his schoolmates’ ridicules. He decided to act the stoic like Roman Seneca until he could speak and write as well as the famed statesman. In these first few weeks of such constant torment, Gilbert’s only defense was not to speak at all. Silence was his armor, but education his sword. I must overcome this fault, he said knowingly to himself, shaking the dust off his coat, and walking away, his back to the laughter.
Within the next few weeks what quickly gained him stature among his new classmates, came from his early childhood eagerness to learn the history of classic adventure, so in his school work and recitations, he could read and speak Latin, nearly the best among them all. His instructors, in entry testing, found Abbé Fayon’s instruction had imparted in Gilbert enough knowledge that they advanced him into the fourth year level. Yet, he understood it was to be more than that. He had to learn two new languages, that of the Parisian street, to be conversant with servants and shopkeepers, and the flowery langues d'oïl, the royal court style of conversation and mannerisms, a world totally apart from the entirety of the general public.
Antique map of Paris 18th Century
10.
1770
On March 5th, in Boston, eleven Americans are shot, five fatally by British troops, the event to be called the Boston Massacre, and turned into major propaganda to start colonists thinking of separation instead of reconciliation from Great Britain. The American Revolutionary War will begin in five years.
To cement alliances against Great Britain and Prussia, French King Louis XV had negotiated a marriage with the Emperor of Austria between the Emperor’s youngest daughter and the king’s grandson, the heir apparent of France. On May 7th, fourteen year old Archduchess Marie Antoinette arrives at the French court. On May 16th, she will marry sixteen year old Louis-Auguste (who is to become King Louis XVI of France).
Lafayette entered this year with gained confidence at 13 years of age assured he was achieving what his relatives and mother wanted of him. Although he boarded at the Collége du Plessis during the week, he could walk the one kilometer to his mother’s residence in the Luxembourg Palace, where she, though not usually present, had him learning the diligent lessons in court etiquette. When she was in his life, usually hosting her own small salons of favored friends he stood in a corner, or wandered to the windows, acting silent, statue like, not statuesque. People gossiped on his muted behavior, failing to understand that he was not expressing boredom but his eyes were alert, watching. Learning how one must seek to be witty in speech; how the men must be always complimentary to women, even those of most matronly stuffiness.
His mother Julia was grooming him to be presented to the king, a formality of step-by-step obeisance for better establishing La Rivière and La Fayette titles among the court records of genealogy for those with country estates in the provinces. Gilbert definitely wanted to please her though she was somewhat distracted in these days. The event of the court season was to be the marriage of the king’s grandson, the Dauphin, to a child duchess of Austria, the girl only one year older than Gilbert. He too was caught up in the excitement, what with his mother’s gossip and her bustling between various balls. She had hinted that after his court presentation, he might then join his mother as a guest at the wedding, among the 6,000 to be invited, more so because she was a Rivière and not from any recognition La Fayette nor du Motier heraldry offered, neither of which name was in the court book of registered heraldry, and would not be so until 1778.
At school in time his circumstances had improved. As he had with village children of Chavinac, he had created not a circle of friends, but an association of the younger school mates who looked up to him. His personality lay on his face, friendly and open. He could give reasoned thought and direction and most times he would be followed. He sensed they knew when he was out of sorts. He played at sports badly. And in times, not so much a short temper as feisty stubbornness incensed when he felt he was in the right and everyone else wrong. If flawed in personality, the trait that vexed many was that Lafayette did not take in all possible circumstances when he made a decision, and hardly wished to compromise to better solutions. His lapses into silence became defense against slights; with questionable decisions he stayed entrenched and cared nothing about ramifica
tions.
Gilbert, both as youth and student, trudged through these school days, focused on his narrow world, seeing but not seeing the city of Paris building into a new metropolis. From the Luxembourg to his Plessis School, he skirted the construction of a new Sorbonne university building by the architect Jacques Soufflot. Across the street from his studies or as he sought reading comfort in the coffee cafés he would view workers on the final phase in finishing the Église Sainte-Geneviève, to later become the Pantheon, as at the Seine River the Church of Notre Dame received new stone work. Around him cultural change was in motion yet youth looked inward to personal self satisfactions and his goals remain limited, glory upon the field of battle, revenge against the hated Anglais, hero to all, acceptance by all. Outward, the silent rube; inward, passion seeking outlet and needing only a spark to the match to the powder to explosive accomplishments.
Rounding off this period of happiness at the beginning of the year, he knew he would return to Chavaniac for the summer and to see his cousin Marie. They had been exchanging short letters, he of Paris news, she of weather and health of the family. From his great-grandfather he had insurances that in a year he would be enrolled in the Black Musketeers, if just on the service lists, an entry level low commission of lieutenant, not for active duty but to his joy his school outfit could henceforth, as circumstances dictated, be interchangeable into a military uniform. And finally, he and his mother had grown close, if she only in giving a little more attention to his bearing for his upcoming presentation to the king, concern to her son’s dress as a courtier at Versailles during the anticipated royal wedding and all the days and nights of happy festivities. Lafayette was growing up to take his rightful place, coiffed and powdered, ensconced in the world of hereditary pedigrees, wearing the outward cloak of nobility yet uneducated to any sense of noblisse oblige, that towards kindness to those less fortunate beyond the gilt palace walls.
11.
1770
Through his tears he sobbed, “Pulvis et umbra sumus” [“We are dust and shadow”] and called many times his mother’s name but received no answer. She lay silent upon her bed. Death had stilled her vibrancy, too young at 32 years.
Gilbert, as the rest of the family Rivière, had been shocked to the core at this heart-torn tragedy. Only ten days earlier, while taking a stroll with her maid in the Jardin du Luxembourg and feeding the fish in the Medici Fountain, a spring shower had caught them, and a sniffling cold soon followed. It became more than that and ten days later on April 3rd she was gone. A day later the funeral found him at the Church of St. Sulpice, a short distance from the Palais. Only two family members attended to the service and Gilbert sat alone, grief numb and disconsolate.
Does tragedy fly upon two wings? Before the month ended the news of Julie’s death had reached her father and like Gilbert, the man was smitten with grief but worse as it stopped his heart. As the month of May opened to warmth and budding flowers and the anticipated wedding ceremony of the Dauphin and his Austrian bride, Gilbert found himself an orphan.
A very rich orphan.
12.
30 MAY 1770
His great grandfather’s servant Giles Blasse shook him awake from his doldrums.
“The night is young and the street singers are out.”
“I find myself in no mood these days,” Gilbert mumbled, sitting in a chair, thumbing, glancing, but not reading some large folio. What was it? He read the leather cover: Dictionnaire Raisonne des Science, des Arts et des Metiers, the second revised volume of the 28 volume Encyclopedie by Diderot. The Dictionary was previously repressed by the regime’s printers to avoid offending the king and aristocracy, with its wild thoughts of limitations to divine right. Gilbert only cared for the drawings not absorbing any philosophical observations.
“Sire,” said Blasse, his man servant, “It is right to mourn those we still love, but if the dead could speak, they would remind us to not to waste the time we have that they wished they could still possess. Our good living will stand testament to those who gave us breath and protect their memory.” Gilbert looked up. “Do not forget how many times you have told us of your destiny. One cannot find greatness making this library a tomb when the world out there is where you shall write new volumes.”
Clawing out through his maudlin self-imposed haze, clarity again came to him, to once more seek the blazing battlefield as his goal. With little effort the servant had sparked a touch hole of that internal cannon thought empty and ash cold.
Awakening his mind, yet still morose in tone, the boy asked, “What would you have me do?”
“Let us take a walk, seek out the night. You have probably heard of the fireworks display at the Place de Louis XV. Seems they are still celebrating the dauphin’s wedding and Paris wants to out explode the night with lights, better than they did at Versailles upon the wedding date. And to that, I am sorry that you did not attend.”
“Mourning does not allow for jollity. Besides my ‘aunt’, Comtesse de Lusignem, thought it unseemly if people saw me among the crowd as an awed spectator two weeks after ma mere’s death. I would have liked to have gone, with my mother. I wonder if the Austrian duchess is as beautiful as they say.” He did not add that his grandfather’s death on the 24th of April, five days after the royal wedding, laid him further low in spirit.
Said Blasse, “I have no opinion of future queens, sire. How God exalts one soul over others and sets their crowns is beyond us mere mortals.”
Gilbert eyed him, as Blasse handed him a hat and cape. The servant gave one of his looks of more unsaid: ‘Maybe my look says I’m an idiot, or do I speak of deeper meaning?’
Upon the cobblestones, they followed torchbearers and others in gaiety looking for the grand fête, a growing crowd as it streamed towards the large open air park which was Place Louis XV [Place de la Concorde today] where the Avenue des Champs-Élysées began.
As they passed they saw, standing under one lighted lamp, two women of the night, soiled doves, sing-songing out the fancies they offered.
Lafayette stared briefly but thought it more proper to, with indignant stuffiness, to ignore the doxies though Blasse tipped his own hat in courteous regard and gave off a lecherous smile.
“Have you yet tried the wares of the street? A young man’s education is not complete without understanding how flesh can salve or enslave a man’s base desires.”
“A true knight gains paradise by seeking out that which is holy and untouchable, that is pure love.”
“Pardon me, sire, but your tutor-priest stuffed your brain with thoughts that are far from being enjoyable, hell and purgatory to any man against a fine dalliance.” He gave Gilbert a devilish eye. “So, you have not therefore partaken in Eve’s moist garden?”
“When I marry I shall do so as my ordained duty. But don’t call me a knave. I have faced temptation and resisted. You may not know of it, but the lemonade seller Duitilloy in front of the Collége is a procurer for Madame Dubuisson’s brothel on the Rue de la Harpe. He entices older students to her house and they in turn have sought me to stray within but have not succeeded.”
“If I recall Madame Dubuisson tempts you students with fair prices to gain you all as future customers and she offers young girls your age, daughters of shopkeepers, who smell of lilacs and innocence.”
“Monsieur Blasse, you may not have purpose of it, but one must be wary of sullying one’s reputation. It is all I have and it shall not be blemished. Believe me, I know what the debauchery and sin of Paris is about. It is common knowledge that our headmaster Abbé de la Fare at the College is the illegitimate son of the Duc D’Orleans. And all know our good King has found a new ‘friend’ in the name of Madame Du Barry, so my mother once said. Every great man must have a mistress for their social betterment,” he paused, “as so I have been told.” He gave a pensive thought to that memory of his mother’s voice. “When it is time for my pleasures, I shall know it, and come with ardor not as a gutter animal.”
“I s
alute you, sire, for your forbearance,” deadpanned Blasse, “one who can restrain from earthly pleasures is truly a saint beyond the pale.” Before Gilbert sought to give a witty rejoinder they turned the corner and found themselves caught up in a surging crowd. He could not estimate the numbers, perhaps as many as 10,000 people—all seeking the best location to see aerial bombardments of powder and flares to celebrate royalty’s matrimonial consummation by church and bed.
The time was 9:00 pm. Designed by the Ruggieri brothers, members of a famous family of fireworks specialists, their spectacle was soon launched from a large temple dedicated to Hymen and surrounded by statues of dolphins, all rigged to emit sparks.
Gilbert, jostled, climbed a low wall for a better perspective. The child in him widened his eyes to the first bursts of color against the sky’s blackness, and it was with this unobstructed view only a few minutes later that allowed him to see the errant rocket that found the temporary building that housed all the fireworks for the finale pièce de résistance. At first, all thought this part of the performance, then subsequent multiple explosions, and whizzing rockets zigzagging along the ground gave the loud and terrifying impression of a rolling artillery barrage. The crowd panicked.