The Marquis
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quietly sympathetic: Aulagnier comes off poorly in the story as told by Maurois, Adrienne, 231–33. However, judging from his willingness to disobey orders at a moment when doing so could well have been fatal, he could not have been the “fanatical Jacobin” that Maurois describes.
Princesse de Lamballe: The most recent account of the murder of the Princesse de Lamballe and the September massacres is given by David Andress, The Terror, 93–115. Andress puts the number killed between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred.
shuttled from city to city: Spalding, Lafayette: Prisoner of State, 14–25.
“after all debts have been settled”: Grattepain-Morizot to Adrienne, January 5, 1793, as quoted and translated in Maurois, Adrienne, 244.
“deliberate in secret”: AP, 61:378.
September 5, 1793: My understanding of the events of September 5 is indebted to the classic text on the subject, R. R. Palmer, Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution (1941; repr., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 44–55, and to Andress, The Terror, 205–9.
“the traitors within”: AP, 73:419.
“revolutionary army”: Ibid., 73:420.
National Convention began to make good: Ibid., 74:303.
“fatal decree”: Adrienne uses the term in her account of the life of the Duchesse d’Ayen, as published in Lasteyrie, Vie de Madame de Lafayette, 136. The law is published in AP, 74:303–4.
arrested in early October: Lasteyrie, Vie de Madame de Lafayette, 305. Adrienne’s father had fled to Switzerland where he remained safe.
house arrest: Ibid., 300.
Adrienne was imprisoned: Ibid., 294–96, 305.
sixty people per day: Ibid., 319.
“I have given up trying”: Ibid., 150.
“the Comité de Surveillance”: Morris, Diary, 2:52.
“as a citizen”: Morris to Washington, July 25, 1794, Morris, Diary, 2:64.
preferred to credit: Mémoires, 4:372. Monroe’s papers testify that Adrienne wrote to him repeatedly in the last six months of 1794.
wrote to the emperor: John C. Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1749, 39 vols. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931–44), 35:45–46.
Captivity of Lafayette: Philippe Charles d’Agrain, Captivité de Lafayette. Héroïde, avec figures et des notes historiques, non encore connues du public, sur les illustres prisonniers d’Olmutz, en Moravie (Paris: Chocheris, 1797). An English poem, The Castle of Olmutz: A poem, inscribed to La Fayette (London, 1797), seems to be a rough translation of d’Agrain. On d’Agrain’s arrest and liberation in 1792, see Spalding, Prisoner of State, 41.
“enduring a series of most dreadful”: Quotes in this paragraph are from The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, 36 vols. (London: Hansard, 1818), 32:1109. I was directed to Fox’s speech by Spalding, Lafayette: Prisoner of State, 151.
“what a scene”: Parliamentary History, 32:1353. Upon his release from prison, Lafayette wrote a letter thanking FitzPatrick and Fox for their support. Lafayette to FitzPatrick, October 8, 1797, Mémoires, 4:378–80.
“It is a torment to her conscience”: Parliamentary History, 32:1355.
“that a more striking and pathetic”: Ibid., 32:1358.
most popular men in the nation: David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Empire and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 195–207.
“to end their captivity”: Mémoires, 4:293.
“had the happiness of embracing”: Samuel Williams to Washington, October 5, 1797, PGWR.
“ordered their release”: William Vans Murray to Washington, August 26, 1797, PGWR.
expressed his dismay: Mémoires, 4:377. Francis Huger had been one of the conspirators in the failed plot to free Lafayette from prison.
“retailing abuse against Lafayette”: “Mr. Noah Webster’s Attack on Porcupine,” Porcupine’s Political Censor (March 1797): 75.
“that a desire to ingratiate yourself”: “Letter II. To Mr. Noah Webster of New-York,” Porcupine’s Political Censor (March 1779): 81.
“cured me of my good will”: Hamilton to Lafayette, April 28, 1798, Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 26 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 21:451.
“no one in the United States”: Washington to Lafayette, December 25, 1798, PGWR. Washington acknowledged having received, but not replied to, six letters from Lafayette written between October 6, 1797, and September 5, 1798. Even in an era of difficult communication, a delay of this length was extremely rare. Washington explained his silence by pointing out that, since the first four of Lafayette’s letters had mentioned an imminent departure for America, he had reason to believe that a response would not find Lafayette in Europe.
“how ardently”: Lafayette to Washington, May 9, 1799, PGWR, 4:54.
Murray reported: Worthingon Chauncey Ford, ed., “Letters of William Vans Murray to John Quincy Adams, 1797–1803,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1912 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1914).
“I am glad you have seen”: Ford, “Letters,” 396.
in a hot air balloon: Lafayette to Adrienne, July 4, 1799, Mémoires, 5:61.
“could I not … be useful”: William Vans Murray to George Washington, August 17, 1799, PGWR, 4:259.
addressing his mail to the United States: Secretary of State Timothy Pickering wrote to Washington on October 24, 1799: “I suspect Lafayette is coming to America: I saw lately a letter from an Emigrant in Germany, addressed to him in the United States.” PGWR, 4:363.
speculating that Talleyrand: The quotations below are from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to George Washington, June 25, 1799, PGWR, 4:155.
“explicit federalism”: William Vans Murray to John Quincy Adams, August 19, 1799, Ford, “Letters,” 585.
initially dismissed allegations: Washington to Timothy Pickering, July 14, 1799, PGWR, 4:187.
“to consolidate, guarantee”: F.-A. Aulard, Registre des délibérations du Consulat provisoire, 20 brumaire–3 nîvose an VIII (11 novembre–24 décembre 1799) (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de la Révolution Française, 1894), 3–4. On Napoleon’s repeated invocation of the original intent of the 1789 revolutionaries as the basis for his consolidation of power, see Isser Woloch, Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship (New York: Norton, 2002).
“obligations”: Lafayette to Bonaparte, n.d., Mémoires, 5:154.
laying the groundwork: Lafayette to Adrienne, October 28, 1799, Mémoires, 5:141.
uncharacteristically succinct letter: Lafayette to Bonaparte, October 30, 1799, Mémoires, 5:146–47.
“talent for making friends”: As quoted in Constance Wright, Madame de Lafayette (New York: Henry Holt, 1959), 250.
“they surely knew me well enough”: Quotes in this paragraph are from Mémoires, 5:155. This section of the memoirs was begun at some point before 1805 and completed in July 1807, as discussed in Mémoires, 5:148, note 1.
“éclat”: Mémoires, 5:156.
CHAPTER 19: HOMAGES
“warrior … legislator”: Louis de Fontanes, Éloge funèbre de Washington; Prononcé dans le temple de Mars, le 20 pluviôse, an 8 (Paris: Henri Agasse, 1800), 29.
“to build a cradle”: Ibid., 19.
permitted to attend: Mémoires, 5:157.
“within the four walls of a prison”: “Livre de compte sommaire de mon exploitation de La Grange pour l’année 1828,” Cornell, box 130, folder 6, xv.
“retirement on a small farm”: Lafayette to Washington, May 9, 1799, PGWR, 4:55.
Virginia, New England, or New York: Lafayette mentions New England and Virgina to Adrienne in a letter of August 5, 1799, Mémoires, 5:71. In an undated letter possibly written around the same time, the Marquis de La Tour du Pin offers Lafayette advice on purchasing and running an American farm and recommends the area near Albany w
here he had settled during the French Revolution. Marquis de La Tour du Pin to Lafayette, n.d., “Description d’une ferme américaine … ,” Cornell, box 3, folder 31.
rerouted miles of roads: Cornell, box 130, folder 11.
203 pear trees and 165 apple trees: Bill of sale, November 26, 1806; LOC, reel 44, folder 823.
determined to make his lands: Lafayette explains these goals in the preface to “Livre de compte sommaire de mon exploitation de La Grange pour l’année 1828,” Cornell, box 130, folder 6.
“Before breakfast”: William Taylor to John Dyson, May 15, 1802, reprinted in J. W. Robberds, ed., A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich (London: John Murray, 1843), 406–7.
Lafayette hired Hubert Robert: LOC, reel 44, folder 822. On Robert’s work at La Grange, see Jean de Cayeux, Hubert Robert et les jardins (Paris: Herscher, 1987), 112–13.
“is in part filled up”: Robberds, Taylor, 404.
“learnt to perceive”: Ibid., 406.
“portrait of the young Lafayette”: Ibid., 405.
“works on agricultural and political topics”: Inventories of Lafayette’s books bear out Taylor’s observation: a list of works compiled by Lafayette’s secretary in 1816 includes some seventy-six books, in both French and En- glish, under the heading “Agriculture,” ranging from essays on picturesque gardens, to treatises on cultivation and livestock—such as R. W. Dickson, Practical Agriculture; Or, A Complete System of Modern Husbandry (London, 1805)—to a French translation of Virgil’s Georgics, the writings of Arthur Young, and periodicals published on both sides of the Atlantic, including Annales d’agriculture, Mémoires d’agriculture, and the American Farmer; LOC, reel 9, folders 1116 and 1116 bis.
forty-five habitable rooms: “La Grange, Château. [List of rooms and occupants] [before 1834?],” Cornell, box 130, folder 8.
“elegant and well chosen”: Published in at least two newspapers: “General La Fayette,” Essex Patriot [Haverhill, MA] (November 29, 1817): 1, and “From Lady Morgan’s ‘France,’ ” American Advocate [Hallowell, ME] (November 22, 1817): 4.
“command a view”: This account was published in at least two newspapers: “Lafayette at Home,” American Mercury [Hartford, CT] (August 22, 1826): 2, and “Travels: Letters from Europe—No. LXXIII,” Torch Light [Hagers-town, MD] (February 15, 1827): 1.
worked closely with Vaudoyer: Vaudoyer made his first trip to La Grange on January 28, 1800. This journey and all of the work and expenses for which Vaudoyer charged Lafayette in 1800 and 1801 are itemized in “Relève des honoraires du Citoyen Vaudoyer, architecte des Travaux Publics …” LOC, reel 44, folder 822.
letter to the deceased Van Ryssel: Mémoires, 5:148–240.
“your memory”: Ibid., 5:240.
lured out of retirement: Lafayette’s intellectual and political life in this period have been studied most extensively by Lloyd Kramer, Lafayette in Two Worlds: Public Cultures and Personal Identities in an Age of Revolutions (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), and Sylvia Neely, Lafayette and the Liberal Ideal, 1814–1824: Politics and Conspiracy in an Age of Reaction (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991). My understanding of the topic is indebted to both of them. In many cases, their citations directed me to primary sources quoted in my text.
“the protégé, the humble follower”: Lafayette, Mémoires, 6:24. Lafayette’s assault on the character of Louis XVIII comes in an 1816 letter to Madame de Simiane in which Lafayette defends his actions in favor of Napoleon, and against the restored Bourbon, during the so-called one hundred days when Napoleon returned to power before being definitively removed in 1815.
voted into public office: On Lafayette’s political affairs in the department of the Sarthe, which also elected his friend and ally Benjamin Constant, see Kramer, Lafayette in Two Worlds, 69–73.
“The great, good La Fayette”: Charles Guyot, “On the Elections” (1819), as quoted and translated in Kramer, Lafayette in Two Worlds, 70.
“curiosity”: La Minerve française (1818), 4:296.
ultraroyalist journal: Le conservateur (1818), 1:389.
“the friends with whom”: Lafayette to Monroe, November 25, 1823, Mémoires, 6:160–61.
“Congress had passed a resolution”: Monroe to Lafayette, February 7, 1824, Mémoires, 6:162.
each of the twenty-four states of the union: Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825; or, Journal of a Voyage to the United States, trans. John D. Goodman (Philadelphia: 1829; rpt. New York: Research Reprints, 1970), 243–306.
“Hail! Lafayette!”: Hail! Lafayette! (Philadelphia: 1824), 1.
fiftieth anniversary: Andrew Burstein, America’s Jubilee: How in 1826 a Generation Remembered Fifty Years of Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), 8–33.
spectacular dinner: Edgar Ewing Brandon, ed., Lafayette, Guest of the Nation: A Contemporary Account of the Triumphal Tour of General Lafayette Through the United States in 1824–1825, as Reported by the Local Newspapers, 3 vols. (Oxford, OH: Oxford Historical Press, 1950–57), 1:199–201.
Gouverneur Morris had rhapsodized: Jared Sparks, Life of Governeur Morris, 3:143–44.
“could constitute a museum”: See Jules Cloquet, Souvenirs sur la vie privée du général Lafayette (Paris: Galignani, 1836), 195.
La Grange today: Today, La Grange is owned and operated by the Josée and René de Chambrun Foundation and is open only to scholars and visiting dignitaries.
“at length we approached”: Mrs. Caleb Cushing, “Visit to La Grange,” The Literary Journal and Weekly Register of Science and the Arts 1, no. 13 (August 31, 1833): 97. I discuss Lafayette’s Americanization of La Grange in Laura Auricchio, “Transplanting Liberty: Lafayette’s American Garden,” in Dan O’Brien, ed., Gardening: Philosophy for Everyone—Cultivating Wisdom (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 93–105.
CHAPTER 20: PICPUS
“an old name of ’89”: Mémoires, 6:388–89.
“moral affections”: Cloquet, Recollections, 262.
“uninterrupted thunder”: Isaiah Townsend, Jr., to Mary Bennett Townsend, May 30, 1834, Townsend Family Papers, box 15, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
“A month has scarcely elapsed”: Isaiah Townsend, Jr., to Mary Bennett Townsend, June 6, 1834, Townsend Family Papers, box 15, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Picpus Cemetery: See Les dernières victimes de la Terreur: 26 prairial–9 thermidor an II (14 juin–27 juillet 1794), exhibit catalog (Paris: Association du Souvenir de Picpus, 1994).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MANUSCRIPT SOURCES
UNITED STATES
Dean Lafayette Collection, $4611. Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Ithaca, NY
George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
James Monroe Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
John Quincy Adams Papers, Benjamin Thomas Hill Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Louis Gottschalk Papers, Special Collections Resource Center, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Marquis de Lafayette Collections, Special Collections and College Archives, Skillman and Kirby Libraries, Lafayette College, Easton, PA
Marquis de Lafayette Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Robert R. Livingston Papers, The New-York Historical Society, New York, NY
Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Townsend Family Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, New York, NY
FRANCE
Archives de la Seine, Paris
Archives Nationales de France, Paris
Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence
PERIODICALS—UNITED STATES
The American Advocate
The American Herald
/>
The American Mercury
The American Museum; or, Universal Magazine
The Boston Chronicle
The Boston Evening Post
The Boston Gazette
The Connecticut Courant
The Connecticut Journal
The Cumberland Gazette
The Essex Patriot
Evening Post
The Gazette of the United States
The Hampshire Chronicle
The Independent Chronicle and the Universal Advertiser
The Maryland Gazette
The Massachusetts Centinel
The Massachusetts Spy
The Newport Mercury
The New York American
The New York Journal
The New York Times
The Norwich Packet
The Pennsylvania Gazette
The Pennsylvania Mercury
The Pennsylvania Packet; or, The General Advertiser
Porcupine’s Political Censor
The Richmond Enquirer
The Torch Light
The Virginia Gazette
PERIODICALS—FRANCE
Affiches, annonces, et avis divers
L’ami du peuple
L’ami du roi
L’année littéraire
Chronique de Paris
Le conservateur
Le constitutionnel
Courrier de Versailles à Paris et de Paris à Versailles
Feuille du jour
Journal de Paris
Journal des débats
Journal général de France
Lettre bougrement patriotique du véritable père Duchêne
Mercure de France
La Minerve française
Le moniteur universel
Nouvelles de la république des lettres et des arts
Le Patriote français
Révolutions de France et de Brabant
Révolutions de Paris