Lafayette_Courtier to Crown Fugitive, 1757-1777

by S. P. Grogan

  Adrienne would have said nothing and listened, but the calling and the serious in her mother’s tone gave rise to worry.

  “Mama, what do you mean?”

  “I mean, and I shall be forthright, your father has decided it is time for you to be married.”

  “Oh, no.” Her response held both fear and wonder. Over the last several years she had gained knowledge enough to know that marriage to a stranger was part of the duty of a daughter.

  “And your father has made a match that is favorable to us, as well as I feel you might not be so alarmed.”

  “Oh, I do not want to be married. I am so happy here.”

  “Adrienne, you are to be betrothed to the Marquis de La Fayette. We are to see another wedding in the spring of next year.”

  Adrienne’s eyes opened wide and her mother feared some sort of seizure outburst of crying consternation, but again, she should not have had concern, for her guiding hand behind the scenes had created the correct effect.

  “To Gilbert? I am to be married to Gilbert.” She jumped up, clapped her hands, twirled with glee, and then caught the surprise of her mother, and regaining the self control she had been taught, grabbed her mother’s hand. “I am so honored and blessed by God.”

  “He seems to be a fine young man.”

  “Oh yes, he is. He wants to be a great soldier.” She paused, trying to recall Gilbert’s most recent conversation with her. “He has told me so, many times.”

  Her mother still had less opinion of the military and their feckless wars.

  “One cannot achieve fame as a soldier if there is no war, and besides your father wants to keep the Marquis close at hand, perhaps find for him employment within the court, and that would keep him close to you.” She took in her daughter’s exuberance and joy, and continued,

  “But with marriage comes responsibilities not only to your husband but to your mother and father, and to the heritage of this family. I have made certain requests that are to be honored by all, primarily because I still see your youth as fragile against a harsh world.” The mother meant without saying, the fears of childbirth that killed so many mothers, making no distinction between those of wealth and those without means.

  “First, said the Duchess, “early next year you and Gilbert shall be introduced to the king and court. Your marriage, you must come to see, is of major importance, a sacred duty, not only to family, but to the monarchy. Second, you and your husband are to reside here within the Hôtel de Noailles in Paris, until such time your father and I feel it proper for your own residence and servants to be established. Third, and I shall speak of this to you only, I fear you are too young to bear a child. In a year or two perhaps, but as long as you and Gilbert are under one roof, I wish that separate bedrooms to be maintained, and your husband cannot visit you for the consummation of the wedding vows. This will be hard, but it is my edict.”

  Adrienne tried to understand this Edict Number Three. Her newly married sister had hinted with great tease and laughter what was expected from the bed where two people, male and female, lay next to each other. And Adrienne knew the beauty of the human form, the difference of such, from the statues within the gardens and palaces, the naked forms of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, though nervousness at those images who looked to be violently taken. And she had, with blushing, of late been wondering what Gilbert’s sublime chiseled form might be also be to correct dimensions under his clothes. She had some idea of what she must do, lying without protest in bed, lifting her night shirt until the man covered her and made strange noises. This confusion at the mystery she knew little about was overthrown back to the original surprise that Gilbert de La Fayette would be her husband. She begged to run and tell her sisters, and off she scampered.

  The Duchess had done her duty, had protected her daughter as best a Christian mother might accomplish, setting the right set of circumstances, but nevertheless was somewhat shocked at her success.

  Adrienne, the Duchess thought, seems indeed in love with the man she is required to marry. A rarity these days. Only if Gilbert might have the same emotions, such a marriage might be blessed. But then men are men.

  1774

  In England: In response to the Boston Tea Party the British Parliament passes a series of punitive laws against the American Colonies to be known as “The Intolerable Acts” or “Coercive Acts”. These acts remove Massachusetts' rights to self-government and imposed military law.

  In America: Angered at the Acts, The First Continental Congress is called with twelve of the thirteen colonies attending, September 5 to October 26, 1774. Two accomplishments of the Congress: sending a ‘Petition to the King’, George III, demonstrating at this date that the colonists were still loyal to the British monarchy, yet opposed to the Parliament’s actions. The second result of this Congress was to pass a compact among the colonies to boycott British goods beginning on December 1, 1774. On the first action, the ‘Petition’ was ignored by King and Parliament; on the second, the boycott was felt in England, causing further tensions.

  In France: On May 10, Louis XVI, age nineteen, ascends to the throne. During the summer, the second year of poor grain harvests will cause higher bread prices in the coming winter leading to the Flour War in 1775. On August 24, 1774, the King will dismiss the late king’s minister Maurepas who had tried to reform the provincial parlements (appeal courts); this was a political battle between the Crown seeking to concentrate itself with absolute power, ‘enlightened despotism’, while the nobility sought to maintain regional power bases. In the end, the central government, the monarchy, will be weakened. The new king appoints Charles Gravier, Count of Vergennes, as Foreign Minister. Vergennes has a deep hatred of the British and seeks ways to reverse the losses from the Seven Years War.

  25.

  THE YEAR 1774 INTO the spring of 1775 could be seen as when Gilbert, the Marquis de La Fayette, attempted to be the young noble all expected him to be as a courtier, and he strove to gain such acceptance. Mostly in these attempts he found failure by his actions which further defined his character. Such life style led to a slow maturity gained by embarrassment and self-loathing. It took time, a process of direct experience, self-enlightenment enough to realize he was making mistakes against his own vaulted ambitions. By the end of 1775, unknown to him, this would become the year of Gilbert’s Awakening of Purpose evolving through 1776 as a committed Action towards Purpose.

  1774-1775 nevertheless found the young marquis living life to the full measure of courtier enjoyment, if not in later years to be seen as the historic epicenter of monarchial dissipation.

  April 24, 1774

  I am now on the ladder to my destiny. With this affirmed happy thought Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette took in the scene of his wedding reception where string music floated through the large hall festooned with thousands of candles, where servants rushed in to serve the hundreds of richly attired guests, including the King himself. A month earlier, Gilbert and his bride-to-be, Adrienne Noailles, had been presented at court, a part of the ritual where the nobility paid homage to the monarchy. Approving the union, and the wedding contract finally negotiated, King Louis XV affixed his signature as witness as did the King’s three grandsons, unknown to those present, but in time of consequences to become the royal kings—Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X.

  Gilbert caught his new wife looking at him, her eyes bright as a child with a room full of new toys but shy to her surroundings, dipping her head to her plate when she saw his tight smile. His smile was not for her, but again a self-smugness to his newly elevated position. For the moment being the honored center of such attention and overwhelmed in the whirl of festivities, so who could not become heady in self-importance?

  Gilbert held no massive ego yet knew that he had certainly joined the highest ranks of the great nobility of France, not by his daring deeds as he sought but by his inherited wealth, followed now with this favorable marital bonding. The La Fayette name held little importance, obscured
by the power and brilliance of the Noailles heraldry. He could boast only nine relatives on his family side in attendance tonight, where the Noailles blooded line brought out thirty one relatives of Adrienne, most of importance. Her uncles were Marshals of the realm, the highest rank within the military; her father soon to become a Marshal himself; one Noailles relative would soon be appointed Ambassador to England, another retained a tenuous position as Mistress of Etiquette to the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette.

  To his own goal of upward achievement, which still nestled strong in his breast, Gilbert felt mixed satisfaction for as part of his wedding presents, his father-in-law, the Duc D’Ayen, after great quibbling within the government bureaucracy, had affirmed that Gilbert would be appointed a Captain to the Noailles Regiment, but only when he had turned 18. To him, this was one of the best gifts of the day, where everything else was mere icing on the cake. Unfortunately, by evening end, the reality of his true position came slowly upon him, when the Duchess D’Ayen took back her daughter and escorted her away. There would be no passion of the night, no consummation of the wedding vows. Separate bedrooms perhaps for more than a year! Gilbert had to try to understand and accept the mother’s protective edict for her fourteen year old daughter yet still found himself disappointed to a mild fugue that no fragrant skin warm and damp would lay against him in the early morning hours. His feelings were mixed even more so when on the next day he was ordered, along with the Vicomte Louis, his newly minted brother-in-law, to summer maneuvers in Metz. He would not see his new wife again for three months!

  During this time new realizations were forming within, noticed and accepted in silence. He had obtained rank and achievement, but not by his own hand, and yet he did not disavow their importance. He had acquaintances, those people to which he could find revelry with, but were not close to share his innermost thoughts. Within a frenzy of social activities which he accepted and enjoyed, in certain quiet times, he found himself alone, and questioned if his steps to destiny tread upon the right road.

  Louis XV, King of France 1773, a year before his death

  Painting by François-Hubert Drouais

  26.

  IF HE WERE TO LOOK back, Gilbert would admit that he bore not only witness to the grand pinnacle of the life of the French Court, but that he was a direct participant in the heady flamboyance and spectacle.

  At one such event, he a courtier in the Noailles camp was among an audience of nobles waiting formally as required in protocol as the King dined. Upon this occasion the King suddenly was taken ill, with Lafayette among others assisted in conveying the king to his bedchamber as physicians were summoned.

  Lafayette who had said nothing of the incident soon bore the wrath of his father-in-law.

  “You were there when the king took ill and felt no responsibility to bring me such news.”

  Lafayette stood still in the library and said nothing. In his current status of being new to the intrigues of court life he had yet not gained insight that he was now eyes and ears for the betterment of the Noailles situation.

  “I am disappointed in you, son. Such early warning of His Majesty’s attack might have allowed us some flexibility to be of service. As it is, they are bleeding him for a third time, and we are praying for his speedy recovery. You may go now, but think next time, everything, every scrap of news is up to me to decide its value, not you. Remember, I have seen to your rank as a provisional captain, with full title still a year away, but you can carry the new rank privileges with you to Metz.”

  “Yes, I understand. Thank you very much, sir.” That military position was more important to him than a king’s tummy ache. Upon dismissal, Gilbert began to realize that the Duc d’Ayen was too severe, many of his comments over the months since the wedding seemed to be tart and biting to Lafayette and not warranted. Feeling such snipes and disappointments from his father-in-law this was only one example which led to an awkward conclusion: he still sought approval but this was not the adoptive father he had sought so eagerly to please only one year earlier.

  King Louis XV, known to the masses as The Beloved, had not just fallen ill as Lafayette made light of. The King had fallen ill to no stomach malady but had contracted the scourge small-pox after a mistress-arranged tryst with a casual tart, and in a week’s time in agony he died on 10 May, 1774.

  An empty feeling of missing great events, the Marquis de La Fayette, a newly minted provisional Captain with the Noailles Regiment, was on his way to military summer maneuvers and would be granted no pass to attend the various fetes celebrating the coming ascendency of the new king, Louis XVI and his new Queen, Marie Antoinette. By tradition, the actual coronation would not take place until 19 June, 1775 in the cathedral at Reims. Again, Gilbert would be on summer field maneuvers.

  Still, the three months of drills and parades being his first training session with a dragoon regiment brought to Gilbert a sense of his being where he wanted, the bearing of authority, and the first step in the basic education to how to command troops. Only if there was a war where he might lead them was his constant mantra.

  The summer brought him into a stronger bond with his brother-in-law, Viacomte de Noailles, also a captain in the same regiment, and only four months his senior. Gilbert with ease and pleasure accepted the role of an admiring younger brother, eager to join in all the hard living antics of the Vicomte’s crowd, the same close clique of nobles, who would return to the new court, now openly motivated by the extravagant and fun-seeking life style by the new queen, Marie Antoinette.

  Coronation of Louis XVI

  27.

  THE MARQUIS DE RUFFEC, Charles-François de Broglie, felt diminished to his great talents. He had served faithfully Louis XV as head diplomat of the king’s secret diplomacy ring, known as the Secret du Roi, even being exiled from court twice instigated by various intrigues of his enemies. This did not stop his belief in his political acumen that he was the best suited to someday be a prime minister, but at this point, after the May death of the King, and the new monarch’s feelings towards him, it was plain for de Broglie to notice, the king and his ministers had shied away from calling him to greater service and to avoid public embarrassment to keep the keeper of secrets at arms’ length. So he sat, stalled and frustrated, as commandant of military operations at Metz, and governor of the region.

  It was during these summer months that de Broglie took notice of the young officer de La Fayette. Who could not notice how the boy seemed to be buoyant at all military training, like an eager dolphin skipping across the waves. And how he hung at the heels of his relatives by marriage who were also within the Noailles Regiment: Phillipe de Mouchy, the Prince de Poix, and Louis Marie, Vicomte de Noailles. Without harsh regulation, since the days were languid and sweltering, de Broglie issued no restraining commands and let the young officers in their leisure time have their wild ways of gambling and drinking. He even gave them the specific task of assisting the gendarmes of Metz in doing an annual round-up of the town whores, a vain attempt to keep the common soldiers under better order and prevent disease. He of course had turned his administrative eye away when word came back to him that the officers were culling out the best-looking of the street women and striking personal deals of ‘forgiveness and pardon’ for their alleged crimes of paid passion.

  It was in this review of the actions of the Noailles Dragoon Regiment that an idea struck de Broglie, a subtle way to ingratiate himself back into political favoritism at court. The new king was young and here at Metz were those nobles of the king’s age, certainly in time, to be favorites, if they were not already. His strategy was simple: he would begin to cultivate their friendship. From what he saw, of those who had potential at being of value, he decided, among others, he would cast his outward charm at Captain de La Fayette.

  The Comte de Broglie, the Marquis de Ruffec in command at Metz, now General de Broglie, had known de La Fayette’s father at the Battle of Minden, witness to the man’s death and certainly that would be a strong bond of emo
tion to nurture with the son.

  Outside the formal mess dinners and local governmental soirees he might arrange, an idea came to him on how one might best cement loyalty: fraternité.

  Gilbert blindfolded lay upon a carpet within the pavilion campaign tent. In a moment of uncertainty of what came next he felt pinpricks against his prone body. Those are sword points, he concluded, as the Worshipful Master continued the incantation:

  “It is my duty to inform you our Order is free, and requires freedom of inclination in every candidate for its mysteries. It is founded on the purest principles of piety and virtue. It possesses great and invaluable privileges, and in order to secure those privileges to worthy men, and we trust to worthy men, and we thrust to worthy men alone, vows of fidelity are required. Are you therefore willing to take a Solemn Obligation founded on the principles I have stated, to keep inviolate the secrets and mysteries of the Order?

  Gilbert responded to his cue: “I am.”

  The Vicomte de Noailles who had gone through the Free Mason ritual several days earlier had prepared Gilbert to what was required so there would not be any misstatements, or worse, stumbling embarrassments. So far, Gilbert had accurately spoken all the prompts with strong responses. Gilbert internally was pleased with his entering the Free Masonry ranks. It was indeed an elite club for he was aware the main Masonic Lodge in Paris, Grande Loge de France, known since 1773 as the Grand Orient de France was highly exclusive, overseen by the Duc d’Orleans as Grandmaster.

  In Metz, in his initiation, Gilbert recognized the voice of De Broglie, the General himself, as the Worshipful Master. Soon, after more reverent commands, he was brought to his feet. The blindfold was removed and he saw he had lain upon a gilded rug with a double-headed eagle design. A roped noose taken from his neck signified punishment of death for revealing the Order’s secrets as had been the sword point pricks. Gilbert ended his part pledging upon a Holy Bible his desire for knowledge, then further instructed about the three lesser lights of East, South and West, representing the Sun, Moon, and Lodge Master. Into his hands were thrust a gavel, the ‘Hiram’, and a chisel and told of their significance. Tapestries on the walls bore deep meanings: the square and compass of the architect of Solomon’s Temple, and the All Seeing Eye looking down upon the candle-lit proceedings.