by S. P. Grogan
What concerned many in the policy making offices of the French government had been the arrival of Dr. Benjamin Franklin in Paris of December last year, two and half months earlier, who had taken Paris, Versailles and country by a storm of populism. It was unheard of. From snuff boxes to bedpans his caricature was to be found on all sorts of ‘selling products’ and a wave of profit for vendors had been rising with crazy alarm. And Franklin’s unassuming costume of American cotton-spun garb and a bear-skin round cap made him a recognizable celebre to all. Grand-fatherly and a benign fat-cherub he was not. It was such popularity that had driven a wedge between the fragile ‘peace’ of France and England, where the French government sought to retain a public face of neutrality, while secretly negotiating to assist the Americans. All this while keeping in subterfuge their other plans, such as million louis financial hand-outs attempting to deceive the English. Franklin meanwhile did all his actions public. Even his prolonged silences caused chatty debates within the salons. Such indirect public relations favoring the Americans frustrated the French government. They needed no more public heroes who would tear asunder their treaties, until they themselves were ready to create their own champions.
“What about De Broglie’s plan?” asked Montbarrey. “Vergennes gave his tacit approval. How can that still go forward?” There was the General’s plan still out there, not a priority, but a diversion, to gain control over where all the under-the-table money and arms shipments were going and how being spent.
“With the defeats the Americans have suffered in New York,” explained Maurepas, seeing Montbarrey slow to their strategy, “The aid we have given the Insurgents to date is credit to us and will favor De Broglie arriving on the scene as theirs and our choice for commander-in-chief. I have heard from our sources that Commissioner Deane has written such a letter to Congress suggesting De Broglie’s ascension to the military command. We shall see. And I have heard through Vergennes that De Broglie’s aide, Baron de Kalb, is still planning on sneaking off to make the way easy for the General’s triumphant entry.”
“How will he do that with the King’s embargo so public?”
Maurepas was ready now to turn to other issues of real importance.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Minister, dismissively, “steal or buy a ship. The goal is to sail for America and let our plans take root.”
Comte du Montbarrey blinked with surprise. He recalled the Marquis’s similar words of acquiring a ship. No, that was only idle talk. Perhaps, but he shrugged it off. Oh well, he had delivered his message. All parties had been put on notice. His task completed.
Part Four
Évasion Confuse
[Muddled Escape]
FEBRUARY 16 – APRIL 21, 1777
London—3rd March, the Parliament debates and then passes a bill allowing British ships to apply for ‘letters of Marque’, to act as privateers against American commerce vessels in Rebellion against England; that American privateers captured are deemed ‘treasonous pirates’.
8th April, Tuesday– London Public Advertiser, Page 3
An American Woman, in the Habit of a Man, killed feven of our Troops in the late Skirmifhes in the Jerfeys. Her Sex was not difcovered till fhe was fhot by an Englifh Serjeant; after which fome of the Troops taking off her Regimentals, to their great Surprize, difcovered the fuppofed Provincial Solider to be a Woman. A Soldier lately arrived from New-York was wounded in the Leg by the above Heroine, after which it was obliged to be cut off.
France – 18 April, The Emperor Joseph II, Queen Marie Antoinette’s brother, arrives at Versailles under the alias of ‘Count Falkenstein’. His goal is to save the royal couple’s marriage by pushing them to consummate their marriage and hoping the Queen will become pregnant. He bluntly explains copulation to the King, to ‘do his royal duty’. She will become pregnant in 1778, and unfortunately for the Crown, she will bear a daughter in December.
America – 6 January to 28 May The beleaguered army of General Washington winters in Morristown, New Jersey. Despite his January victory at Prince-town, he writes to John Hancock in March, saying his army size has been reduced to 3,000 troops, 900 of them undependable militia. He does not know how he can launch a summer campaign. He will be 45 years old on February 22 this year.
57.
I WILL BE GOING TO America, at last. But to England first as misdirection.
His obsession to find glory, to be favored, overwhelmed all his private opinions prior to and while across the Channel and his behavior would be seen in later days by his hosts as being that of a duplicitous scoundrel.
His letters written are evidence to a falseness that he imposed upon all who meant much to him.
Just before his departure with the Prince de Poix to London on February 16, he was deep in plotting his running off to Bordeaux, to his new ship and to sea.
“I would be delighted to receive you at my home,” Gilbert wrote to William Carmichael on the eve of his departure, “if you have the time. I shall be there tomorrow at five o’clock in the afternoon. If you give me the pleasure of coming to see me, we shall talk about our affairs. I wish very much that you would be persuaded, Sir, of the tender attachment with which I beg you to believe me your very humble servant.”
Carmichael did not respond except cordially in writing saying he was caught up in much assisting in the Commissioners’ affairs.
Gilbert, soon after, on the 11th, then wrote, in part:
“...I announce to you with great pleasure, Sir, that I have just purchased my ship, and that, in a month at the latest, I hope to be able to take to your country the zeal that animates me for their happiness, their glory, and their liberty. All your fellow citizens are dear to me, but I shall never find any of them to whom I can be more affectionately attached than to you.”
—The Marquis de Lafayette.*
Carmichael came quickly as a carriage might allow.
The Commissioner’s secretary, merely an unpaid voluntary position to this point, was moving beyond his instructions as just the go-between of Commissioner Deane and the DeBroglie cabal. His original instructions were to keep this on-off again conspiracy away from the Commissioners direct talks with the Government and their more important task of sending requests for aid, recognition of the Colonies independence as a new government and thereby sign a commerce treaty with France. Carmichael would now find himself the conduit in oversight on the operation, his personal goal to make sure this particular cargo of French officers sailed away, a plan now resurrected with their new ship, Gilbert’s new ship, La Victoire.
In the last two months, Carmichael’s and Gilbert’s friendship had blossomed, again as in Gilbert’s past relationships, an idealistic youth’s enthusiasm to an older man’s intellect, this time brought close by this mutual conspiracy. Gilbert, in all this, that is De Broglie’s plans, felt himself with more authority, yet still an outsider to the older military men. He sensed what De Broglie’s plot might be about, and with the Colonial army’s losses in the field, such a request had validity but Gilbert knew little of the details, that was in De Kalb’s purvey, and he had no curiosity to know more. His eyes, intensely and solely, lay on the prize: to America and service in arms. Everything else fit best as a self-enforced vagueness.
*[He was starting to sign his name in two fashions, the still formal de La Fayette, or more the scribble in rushed correspondence, Lafayette]
In their final meeting before the London trip, came in the final draft from De Broglie to de La Fayette to Carmichael the names of those De Broglie had chosen for the trip, those loyal and aware of what the General wanted when they arrived in America, ones who would pledge to the General alone to keep an eye upon their other fellow travelers, to keep them in line to his wishes. Herein, was the document agreed upon:
A List of Officers of Infantry and Light Troops destined to serve in the Armies of the States General of North America:
Name Contracted Rank
Le M. de la Fayette Major General
Le Baro d
e Kalb Major General
Delesser Colonel
de Valfort Lieutenant Colonel
de Franval Lieutenant Colonel
de Boismartin Major [de Kalb’s aide]
de Gimat Major
de Vrigny Captain
de Bedqaulx Captain
Captaine Captain
de la Colombe Lieutenant
Candon Lieutenant
The document then stated:
The mentioned Ranks and the Pay which the most honorable Congress shall affix to them to commence at the periods marked in the present. List have been agreed to by us the undersigned. Silas Deane in Quality of Deputy of the American States General on the one part, the Marquis de la Fayette and the Baron de Kalb on the other part. Signed double at Paris this 7th, of December, 1776.
De Kalb and de la Fayette had signed. Carmichael would take this final document [including the revised new travelers as different from the aborted December travel manifest] for Deane’s signature. Again, the sleight of hand on Deane’s part as all the commissions and the document ratifying such were backdated from February, 1777 to December, 1776, most commissions except Gilbert’s actually approved in November or December.
Deane wanted to have it seen that all French officers with their new ranks were put forth long before Dr. Franklin and now newly arrived Commissioner Arthur Lee had come on the scene. For there had descended coolness among the new Commissioners, specifically Lee against Deane. The new Commissioner had been surprised on the great number of French officer appointments into American service with high rank Deane had signed...without Congress’s direction or approval. This new list, with its December date protected those going as it fell in line with the King’s recent edict forbidding as of this present date any French officers from serving in the American Army.
Of the document, the fact that Gilbert’s wealth had stepped into buying a ship with his own funds, as well as his recognized position at court, a fact that set a American provincial republican like Deane in awe, had seen Gilbert’s name at the head of the list, and made equal to De Kalb, who as a Prussian in the French army, on leave, had to defer to the ranking French aristocracy, thus giving Gilbert even further self-assuredness. The trip before them was his to command.
Baron de Kalb—will become a Major General in the Continental Army and will be killed fighting troops of Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, 1781
58.
TO LONDON, AND FOUR days absence from his wife, Gilbert wrote to her on February 20th, his port of embarkation:
“We have arrived at Calais without mishap, dear heart, ready to embark tomorrow, and see the famous city of London. It will be painful for me to leave the shore; I leave behind all the people I love, I leave you, dear heart, and in truth without knowing why...”
A lie. He knew why. He was in a plot wrapped in secrecy, swimming in a boiling cauldron of gossips and spies. This trip would throw off the mounting suspicions even from his wife. She had said nothing at his departure but where he held her gentle in fond farewell, on her part, she clung to him as if it was their last embrace, a face of falling tears. Sobs. She forced their child Henrietta into his arms for a parting kiss, or as a protective warding spell.
He wrote: “I shall write to you from London the moment I arrive, and I hope I shall soon receive a letter from you. I shall be very happy if you write to me punctually...”
As it was from his military summer camps in Metz he was always chiding her to send more correspondence, the guilt was hers if she did not write often, for it would leave him miserable. And he would sprinkle guilt in subtle sentences trying to match who out loved the other, believing he always held the higher ground as the noble warrior.
“Farewell, dear heart. Wherever I go, I shall always love you very tenderly. I wish you could know how sincere that assurance is, and how important your love is to my happiness.”
He did love her, in his way, and of his times. He would write to her in all his correspondence with such profuse sentiment, and was dutiful to show his personal passion as time permitted. But at this moment, his quest took precedence over his heart.
For him, there was purpose in this marriage. Adrienne had become an anchor to his free flowing and wandering mind; she was and waited as the secure home life he never seemed to have, the snug harbor in the storm. He played games of the pen and could be cruel in trying to show that he could survive independently, accepting loneliness as he had done in his early years. He could be on his own, have fun on his own. But he would return to her again and again, duplicity in passion. How to abandon yet hold a relationship?
Thus, hidden within his own letters were the childish boasts with egotistical pomp at the party activities he would be immersed in, then in the next sentence, his words were laced with insecurities about his home life and those who loved him.
London, Feb. 26 to Adrienne de Noailles de Lafayette
At the ball tonight we shall see all the ladies...I am very impatient to see all the young women, and the famous Duchess of Devonshire...
London, Feb. 28
The post arrived today; I hoped to have news from you, and saw with chagrin that there wasn’t any. I hope to have better luck with the next post...I have time to write only a few lines to you. I have a thousand things to do this evening, concluding with a ball, for we never retire here before 5 a.m.
London, March 3
I was quite distressed, dear heart, not to receive any news from you for two posts. Fortunately, I know that you are not sick but only lazy...
Gilbert found himself, as expected, comparing the grandeur of Parisian aristocracy versus London society, more so, how would his wife match up if he had her on his arm in such settings. Adrienne’s (his) wedding was a major social and political event within the court life of Versailles and it happened the same year as the marriage of seventeen year old Lady Georgiana Spencer, the same age as Gilbert, who married the most eligible bachelor in England, the twenty five year old Duke of Devonshire, who could match in similar wealth to the la Fayette fortune. In London four hundred newspapers made such a wedding a cause de célèbre while Paris, under monarchial control with no public newspaper, left Lafayette and Adrienne recognized only within their own social strata. Gilbert rankled at the fame this young woman, quite beautiful all say, had achieved and he wanted to see firsthand if such acclaim was merited.
At one of the many soirees he attended, he was not disappointed and danced one dance with her. Perfectly charming, his own height, and she did not complain of his steps and matched his own. As other men, he was smitten, realizing if he sought out a woman outside his marriage, as he had sought and failed back in Paris, he had then set his sights on an extramarital companion too low. Somehow he felt dashed and accepted a quick sting of jealousy when with grace if not a speck of eye flirtation the Duchess of Devonshire turned her back and accepted another dance partner, the more handsome Prince de Poix.
Gilbert was tugged several directions in this mental turmoil. Here he was in the country of his enemy, sworn against since a toddler, indoctrinated in youth by war stories from his grandmérè. He had not before seen these Anglais in any light of kindness. Yet he wandered in the palatial palaces and mighty town houses of the elite of England’s society. He was kin, by marriage, to the Ambassador, of the most powerful private family of France. And when the salon whispers and dinner banter went to work, he was said to be the wealthiest man in France and such juicy gossip made him a featured celebrity as much as the Prince de Poix, a leader in the Anglophile craze back in Paris, who gained his notoriety as a tourist in shopping for expensive clothes and buying and shipping back several high bred blood-stock racehorses.
Still the young man, and now trained courtier in the best traditions, Gilbert bore a great deal of curiosity on who these island people were, who he would be shortly fighting.
GILBERT HAD BEEN CORRECT to his own opinion. Paris was the better of the cities, but for debatable reasons. What Gilbert saw in the
London of 1777 was a crowded populace of close to one million souls moving towards being the largest city in the world, and with surrounding suburbs moving irresolutely into the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine had just been invented and water mills were beginning to be used to spin cotton into cloth. London city stayed warm by coal burning, over 800,000 pounds of coal in this year, and a black pall hung over the city until breezes from the sea blew in to create clear patches. Any new buildings soon browned and gathered cloaks of carbon tinge.
Gilbert for the most part, in the two weeks of his visit, stayed insulated from meeting the general public. To avoid the sewage still dumped into the streets, he rode in closed carriages, his valet Blasse, now by design, called Camus, sat with the driver and kept his eyes peeled for bad people. Highwaymen were known to stop carriages where the wealthy traveled out to their summer estates.
On the 25th of February he wrote to his wife, in part:
I still think Paris is preferable to London, even though we have been received very agreeably here. By the 28th, his tone had changed: London is a delightful city. I am overwhelmed with kindness, and I only have time for pleasure here. All the men are polite and obliging. To us, all the women are pretty, and good company. Amusements are more lively than in Paris. We dance all night, and, perhaps because my dancing is more on a par with everyone else’s, I like the ball here, for there are some fine figures in my new country.
59.
ANOTHER ASPECT IN DISCOMFORT to his trip was that he only spoke French and few of the educated he met spoke fluent French. His ability to make his opinions known remained only for the ears of a few unless he had nearby one of the Ambassador’s associates as a translator
In that was the unspoken attitude of the English that kept him aloof, their superiority in their political nature, resulting from the recent victories of their armies in New York and their dominance of the oceans.