The Marquis

by Laura Auricchio

  The attack on England was just one of many projects Lafayette and Franklin hatched together. The men made for an unlikely pair: one young, plainspoken, and painfully earnest, the other an aging wordsmith renowned for his urbanity. But both were good-natured, and although Lafayette tried not to take sides in the increasingly public feud that set Franklin against his fellow American ministers, Lafayette was drawn more to the Francophile Philadelphian than he was to John Adams, a stolid New Englander, or to the Eton-educated Virginian Arthur Lee. Franklin listened patiently to even the smallest of Lafayette’s concerns; when Congress asked Franklin to procure uniforms with decorative layers of white fabric, or “facing,” sewn onto the cuffs, lapels, and other parts of the coat, Lafayette objected that yellow facing would be more suitable. Lafayette, in turn, appreciated the humor when Franklin poked fun at his outsized devotion to all things American. On September 17, 1782, when Franklin learned that Lafayette intended to name his newborn daughter Virginie, “as an offering to My Western Country,” Franklin jested that Lafayette did “well to begin with the most ancient State” and wished that the Lafayettes would “go thro’ the Thirteen.” Enjoying the conceit, Franklin added that “Miss Virginia, Miss Carolina, & Miss Georgiana will sound prettily enough for the Girls; but Massachusetts & Connecticut are too harsh even for the Boys.”

  All kidding aside, Franklin fully understood Lafayette’s motivation for naming a daughter Virginie and a son George Washington. Franklin knew well, and Lafayette was coming to learn, that words and images could shape public opinion. In the spring of 1779, they collaborated on a telling project: an illustrated children’s book to be used in schools—or so they wrote—depicting selected horrors inflicted by the British upon the Americans during the Revolutionary War. As Franklin quipped to a pro-American correspondent in England, the goal of the book’s thirty-five prints was “to impress the minds of Children and Posterity with a deep sense of your bloody and insatiable Malice and Wickedness.” Lafayette’s tone was a bit less jocular when he wrote to Franklin, “I great deal love our project, and want to be Concern’d in it as much as possible.” Although Lafayette expressed some reluctance about portraying the English as less human than other nationalities, he concluded that such a book was necessary because British atrocities “must be known By the future American posterity.” Together, Franklin and Lafayette compiled a list of twenty-six possible images before abandoning the project. Those in Lafayette’s handwriting include the very questionable No. 18, “Prisoners killed and roasted for a great festival where the Lenape Indians are eating American flesh; Colonel Butler, and English officers, sitting at table,” and the more historically accurate No. 21, “A dusty prison ship where American officers are confined without being at liberty to take the air and so crowded that they can live but a few days—British officers come to laugh at ’em and to insult at their miseries.”

  Lafayette had only recently begun thinking about the power of images. In August, he had seen John Hancock give a copy of a 1776 portrait of Washington by the prominent Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale to the Comte d’Estaing. Writing to Washington about the scene, Lafayette testified, “I never saw a man so glad of possessing his sweet heart’s picture, as the admiral was to Receive yours.” Lafayette was so struck by the event that he acquired a small copy from Peale for himself and arranged for the army engineer Pierre Charles L’Enfant (who would later become known as the city planner of Washington, D.C.), to sketch Washington from life. Lafayette’s sudden interest in pictures took Washington by surprise; in a letter of September 25, Washington, who found portrait sittings rather disagreeable, explained to Lafayette that “when you requested me to set for Msr. Lanfang [sic] I thought it was only to obtain the outlines and a few shades of my features, to have some Prints struck from.” Washington noted, “Could I have conceived that my Picture had been an object of your Wishes, or in the smallest degree worthy of your attention, I should, while Mr. Peale was in the Camp at Valley Forge, have got him to have taken the best Portrait of me he could, and presented it to you.”

  There was nothing out of the ordinary about Lafayette’s request for a picture of Washington. In the eighteenth century, many prominent men decorated their homes with portraits of historical figures they hoped to emulate, absent friends they wished to remember, and influential contemporaries deserving of respect. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, filled Monticello with sculptures, paintings, drawings, and engravings of dignitaries. Marble busts of Voltaire, Alexander Hamilton, and others greeted guests in Jefferson’s entry hall; paintings of John Locke and Isaac Newton and engravings of Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte mingled with biblical scenes on the walls of the parlor; and, thanks to plaster casts of busts by Jean-Antoine Houdon, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, and Lafayette were always among the company in the tearoom.

  Lafayette would later amass his own, more focused collection of prints, paintings, and sculptures commemorating important friends and significant events, but his portraits of Washington played a unique role in 1779 and 1780. In those months, Lafayette was lobbying to be placed at the helm of a French detachment headed for America, and his close friendship with Washington was the most powerful argument at his disposal. Shortly after returning to Paris in 1779, Lafayette arranged for a French artist to paint a more didactic version of Peale’s portrait of Washington. While the version that Hancock owned offers a three-quarter-length view of the standing Washington towering over a distant landscape, the new image created for Lafayette emphasizes the demise of Great Britain and highlights the role of France as America’s closest ally. As Lafayette described it, his painting shows Washington “with the French treaty and the Declaration of Independence in his hand and the edicts and proclamations of His Britannic Majesty under his feet.” “Beneath,” wrote Lafayette, “one reads the famous lines ‘Manus haec inimica tyrannis, etc.’—‘This hand is hostile only to tyrants and draws the sword only to obtain tranquil peace under liberty.’ ”

  Portrait of Washington. Print commissioned by Lafayette, linking his name to Washington’s in 1780. (illustration credit 7.1)

  Lafayette took every opportunity to call attention to his intimate knowledge of Washington and of all things American. In a letter to Vergennes on July 1, 1779, Lafayette wrote, “If you are curious … to see a portrait resembling my friend, I beg you to send to my home for it.” Lafayette added that he planned to bring the portrait with him to Benjamin Franklin’s house in Passy, where it would be displayed for Franklin’s Fourth of July celebration. “Things like that go over very well with our new allies,” Lafayette explained to France’s most senior diplomat. Soon, Lafayette commissioned yet another version—an engraving published in 1780 by Noël Le Mire after a composition by the battle painter Jean-Baptiste Le Paon. This more decorative scene places Washington at a camp in the woods and adds a decidedly exotic flavor by introducing a turbaned African servant and a Persian rug, edged with fringe, draped across the tabletop. The most significant addition to the work, though, might be its pairing of the names of Lafayette and Washington—the text beneath announces that it was “engraved after the original painting in the collection of Monsieur the Marquis de la Fayette.”

  As plans for a new French expedition to America got under way, Lafayette was as direct as could be about his desire to command the French detachment. In a letter to Vergennes dated February 2, 1780, he laid out his argument: in light of his friendship with Washington and so many Americans, he believed that naming him commander would be “much more advantageous to the public good and to the interests of France vis-à-vis her allies” than any other option. “If I am in command,” he wrote, “you can proceed in complete confidence because the Americans know me too well for me to ignite any false rumors.” So strong were his feelings on the matter that he was willing to accept a purely temporary appointment and to relinquish all claims to rank or seniority. But if he were not chosen, he warned, immediate actions would have to be taken “to prevent t
he ill effects that the arrival of another commander would have in America.” He insisted that “the notion that I would be unable to lead this detachment is the last that would present itself over there.” A cover story would have to be agreed upon; for instance, Lafayette might simply say that he “preferred an American division,” implying that he had declined a French post. Whatever decision was made, Lafayette believed that he had to be kept fully apprised because “a secret that I would not know about would be regarded with great suspicion in Philadelphia.”

  We have no record of how Lafayette responded when he was told that the command would be given to the Comte de Rochambeau, but he must have been devastated. Rochambeau had certainly earned the position: he had been an officer since before Lafayette was born and had suffered multiple wounds in the Seven Years’ War. Still, Lafayette demanded at least a face-saving role. “If [the command] is not given to me,” he wrote, “I must leave immediately with the resources I request.” Moreover, he would have to be the one to “instruct General Washington.” The ministry was happy to grant him this much. According to Vergennes’s orders of March 5, 1780, Lafayette would sail to America in advance of the French expeditionary force. Once arrived, he would “hasten to join General Washington” and “inform him confidentially that the king … has resolved to send to their aid six ships of the line and 6,000 regular infantry troops at the onset of spring.” On March 11, Lafayette set sail from Rochefort on the Hermione, bearing the good news and ample provisions for the army.

  Before departing, Lafayette quietly signaled his displeasure at having been passed over. As John Adams reported it, Lafayette bid adieu to his monarch “in the Uniform of an American Major General.” Adams averred that when Lafayette appeared before Louis XVI in American attire, the costume “attracted the Eyes of the whole Court.” And Adams had no doubt that the sword Lafayette carried that day was the one commissioned by Congress. It “is indeed a Beauty,” Adams conceded, “which [Lafayette] shews with great Pleasure.” Without saying a word, Lafayette let it be known that he was returning to the only nation that appreciated his merit.

  Americans, in fact, did more than simply appreciate Lafayette—they celebrated him at every turn. In a letter of May 1, 1780, Abigail Adams notified her husband that “last week arrived at Boston the Marquis de la Fayette to the universal joy of all who know the Merit and Worth of that Nobleman. He was received with the ringing of Bells, fireing [sic] of cannon, bon fires, etc.” Similar festivities erupted in every town he passed through on the 250-mile journey from Boston Harbor to Washington’s headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey. “It’s to the roar of cannon that I arrive or depart; the principal residents mount their horses to accompany me,” Lafayette told Adrienne. “In short, my love, my reception here is greater than anything that I could describe to you.”

  Lafayette’s return was a bright spot in a season that had been unrelentingly bleak for the American army. Privations that had plagued the war effort from the start were worsening as officers and soldiers alike faced lethal shortages of food, clothing, and blankets. With military salaries going unpaid and inflation rendering American currency next to worthless, desertion rates skyrocketed and recruitment plunged. Although Lafayette did not come with any quick fixes—even the four thousand uniforms that he had hoped to bring with him did not reach Rochefort before he sailed—his news of imminent French aid injected a note of hope into the atmosphere of despair, and the mere fact of his return had a cheering effect.

  Lafayette wasted no time in proving that he merited the accolades he received. As soon as he understood the gravity of the situation, he began peppering state leaders from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania with urgent pleas for assistance. Lacing his military arguments with personal requests, Lafayette wrote to Samuel Adams in Massachusetts, George Clinton in New York, and others up and down the eastern seaboard, asking them to consider the awkward position in which he now stood. Having taken “particular delight in praising the Patriotic spirit of the United States” to his countrymen, Lafayette confessed to Adams, “I would feel most unhappy and distress’d was I to tell the people that are Coming over full of ardour and Sanguine hopes, that we have no army to Cooperate with them, No provisions to feed the few soldiers who are left.” Lafayette sent similar requests to members of Congress, who, in the end, wrested control of recruitment and supply from the states’ disorganized authorities.

  Alarmed though Lafayette was by the depleted state of the army, nearly two years had passed since he had last seen action, and his most urgent wish was to return to the field of battle. Washington, Lafayette, and the other generals had long agreed that taking New York should be their primary objective, and shortly after he rejoined Washington’s “family” (as Washington’s closest circle was known) Lafayette began agitating for an immediate attack. With England’s attention temporarily diverted to the war’s southern front, Lafayette believed that the time to act was now. General Clinton’s forces had been mercilessly bombarding Charleston, South Carolina, since mid-April, and after the devastating Siege of Charleston ended with the Americans’ capitulation on May 12, the British began pouring resources into raids in North Carolina and Virginia. Lafayette understood that any action against New York would have to wait the arrival of Rochambeau’s French forces, but he did not want to delay a moment longer than necessary. As he promised Vergennes in a letter of May 20, “If the French troops arrive in time, chances are good that New York is ours.” But he warned that “if the English have time to regroup,” the project might have to be abandoned.

  So eager was Lafayette to move forward with the attack on New York that he laid out the plans in a detailed letter to Rochambeau dated July 9—one day before the French squadron had even landed at Newport, Rhode Island. But Rochambeau had more immediate concerns. He had arrived with only 5,100 men, rather than the anticipated 7,500, and he believed that many of them would require a month or so to recover from illnesses contracted during the crossing. Arms and matériel badly needed by the depleted American military were also lacking; John Paul Jones’s frigate bearing 15,000 muskets and 100,000 pounds of gunpowder had been delayed. Meanwhile, with the English reinforcing their position in New York and Rochambeau expecting an assault on Newport any day, all able-bodied French troops were fully occupied in strengthening their fortifications in Rhode Island. Perhaps, Rochambeau suggested, an assault on New York could be planned for some time after August 15, with the details to be worked out in a face-to-face meeting with Washington, who served as the supreme commander of all French and American forces.

  Understanding that New York would have to wait, Washington did his best to temper Lafayette’s impatience. On July 22, Washington wrote, “I am persuaded, my D[ea]r Marquis that however ardent your wishes to undertake the reduction of a certain place, you will not fail to give a candid and full overview of the difficulties” to Rochambeau. “We owe it to our allies,” he added. “We owe it to ourselves.” As Washington feared, Lafayette would not be dissuaded. At a July 30 meeting with Rochambeau and the Chevalier de Ternay, the commander of France’s naval forces in America, Lafayette listened to their concerns and dutifully reported Washington’s opinion that they could not strike New York until they had naval superiority. But he chose not to mention that the Americans had almost no arms, and as he later informed Washington, he “added in my own name that however we must … act Before the winter, and get Rid of a shamefull defensive.”

  On August 9, Lafayette committed these and other thoughts to paper in a twelve-page letter, which he sent to Rochambeau and Ternay with a copy to the Chevalier de la Luzerne, who had replaced Gérard as the French ambassador to the United States. While purporting to offer a factual account of the July 30 conversation, Lafayette’s letter made bold claims that neither Rochambeau nor Ternay could support. Although the group had reached no such decision, Lafayette asserted that “it is very clearly settled that as soon as the French attain naval superiority, they must not lose a single day in beginning the j
oint effort.” And the chastising tone with which Lafayette concluded his missive did nothing to render his opinions more palatable. “Based on an intimate understanding of our situation,” he wrote, “I assure you … that it is important to act during this campaign.” Nothing that might happen in the future, Lafayette warned, would be sufficient to “make up for the fatal harm of our inaction.” Finally, alluding to his greater knowledge of all things American—knowledge that he’d once hoped would win him the command that Rochambeau now occupied—Lafayette added, “I believe it is very important to take advantage of the moments when you find an opportunity for cooperation … without which you can do nothing in America for the common cause.”

  Rochambeau was livid. Writing his own letter to Luzerne, Rochambeau lambasted Lafayette. “He proposes Extravagant things to us,” fumed Rochambeau, “like taking Long Island and New York without a navy.” And although Lafayette assures us, Rochambeau added, that he can protect our right flank, “he forgets that there is still a left flank in a landing, which the whole English navy will exterminate, if it doesn’t prefer to go at the same time and do the same thing to the Chevalier de Ternay, who will be left to his own devices here” in Newport. Lafayette’s letter, Rochambeau complained, included “not a word, nor an order, nor even an opinion from Mr. Washington,” with whose dispatches Rochambeau was “infinitely satisfied.” Unfamiliar as he was with Lafayette, Rochambeau could only assume that the letter had been written “at the instigation of some hotheads,” but Luzerne disabused him of the notion that any conspiracy might be afoot. In a letter of August 24, Luzerne indicated that he was “inclined to believe that what M. de Lafayette has written to you is purely a result of his zeal and of a courage that experience will moderate.” Luzerne concurred that, henceforth, Rochambeau should correspond with Washington directly; such a move, Luzerne wrote, “will prevent all the inconveniences of this premature ardor.”