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Your looks bespeak your answer! Friends, I ask you to drink to Monsieur le Marquis de Lafayette and to Messieurs de Beaufort and d'Azay!" Amid the enthusiastic applause which followed, Lafayette was seen to rise and lift his hand for silence. "Since the first day we set foot upon this great country," he said, "we have received naught but kindness, aid, honors.
When Lafayette heard that the troops had sailed up the Chesapeake, instead of to New York, which he had very correctly supposed to be their destination, he thought Cornwallis was going to strike at Baltimore, and that he must "cut across" to Fredericksburg. That way he marched with his light infantry. His amazement hardly concealed itself when he found the enemy stopped at Yorktown.
In return Lafayette dispatched by request some special breeds of wolf hounds and a pair of jackasses; also, strange trees and plants, together with varied gifts such as Paris only could devise. The visitor to Mount Vernon finds in the family dining room Lafayette's ornamental clock and rose jars, and his mahogany chair in Mrs. Washington's sitting room.
Lafayette commanded what was called the northern army, that is to say, a handful of men; his head-quarters were at Albany. The enemy made a few incursions, but of slight importance; and by the exercise of great vigilance, and a judicious choice of stations, the winter passed away tranquilly.
After Lafayette departed, a constant correspondence was maintained; and when the Bastille fell, it was to Washington that Lafayette sent its key, which still hangs on the wall of Mt. Vernon. As Lafayette rose rapidly to the dangerous heights of revolutionary leadership, he had at every step Washington's advice and sympathy.
"We are worse off than you think," he said. "I might scrape together money enough for half the journey, but no more. Lafayette and his aide must go with us to say nothing of the escort. Think of the innkeepers' bills, for ourselves and horses. What to do I confess I do not know, for I should confer with this Frenchman at once."
If, however, they are still satisfied with their solid objection that some men are dull, I can only gravely agree with them, that some men are very dull. But a few years after Lafayette had returned from helping to found a republic in America he was flung over his own frontiers for resisting the foundation of a republic in France.
Lafayette and his officers rode hither and thither, trying to open a way: the driver whipped, the horses scrambled and reared; and the people pressed closer and closer, so that the great coach rocked more and more; all in vain, it did not get on one inch. All this, amidst tremendous noise and confusion, went on for an hour and three-quarters.
As I neared the brick-house opposite the lower corner of Lafayette Square, some one asked me to notice Mr. Seward, who, still feeble and bandaged for his wounds, had been removed there that he might behold the troops. I moved in that direction and took off my hat to Mr. Seward, who sat at an upper window.
He sank into a stupor that outwardly was not unlike heavy slumber. Mrs. Gantry had been gone several minutes when the other door swung open. Dolores skipped in, closely followed by Lafayette Ashton. The young man's face was flushed, and there was a slight uncertainty in his step; but as he closed the door and followed the girl across the room, he spoke with rather more distinctness than usual.
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