Lafayette (36 page)

Emboldened by months of high-level policy negotiations for the United States, Lafayette went on to broach his many political and social concerns. He proposed a new constitution, asking Washington to induce the people of America “to strengthen their federal union. . . . I look upon it as a necessary measure. Depend upon it, my dear general, that European politics will be apt to create divisions among the states. Now is the time when the powers of Congress must be fixed, the boundaries determined—and Articles of Confederation revised . . . it is the finishing stroke that is wanting to the perfection of the temple of liberty.”

Turning to military affairs, he asked, “As to the Army, my dear General, what will be its fate? Will part of the Army be kept together . . . so that in case of danger, we may be called upon from every quarter, and reunite in defense of a country which the army has so effectually, so heroically served.”

Lafayette also broached the question of slavery, which he found incompatible with the Masonic beliefs he knew Washington shared:

Permit me to propose a plan to you which might become greatly beneficial to the black part of mankind. Let us unite in purchasing a small estate where we may try the experiment to free the Negroes, and use them only as tenants. Such an example as yours might render it a general practice, and if we succeed in America, I will chearfully devote a part of my time to render the method fashionable in the West Indies. If it be a wild scheme, I had rather be mad that way, than to be thought wise on the other tack.

Adieu, adieu my dear General. . . . My best, most affectionate respects wait upon Mrs. Washington. Now we are going to quarrell, for I must urge your returning with me to France. Her accompanying you there, is the best way I know of to compromise the matter, and so she will make Mde. de Lafayette and me perfectly happy. Adieu, once more, my dear general. With every sentiment of love and respect I am for ever your most devoted and affectionate friend.
⁴²

When Lafayette’s letters arrived in Philadelphia with the first news of peace and independence, Congress and the rest of America hailed him— more than Franklin, Jay, or Adams—as the great peacemaker. Calling Lafayette “a zealous labourer in the cause of this country,” Washington sent an eloquent letter addressing his protégé’s concerns—and his own plans to retire from public life:

We now stand an Independent People, and have yet to learn political tactics. We are placed among the Nations of the Earth, and have a character to establish: but how we shall acquit ourselves time must discover . . . we shall be guilty of many blunders . . . experience which is purchased at the price of difficulties and distress will alone convince us that the honor, power, & true interest of this country must be measured by a Continental Scale; & and that every departure therefrom weakens the Union, & may ultimately break the band, which holds us together. To avert these evils— to form a Constitution that will give consistency, stability & dignity to the Union; and sufficient powers to the great Council of the Nation . . . is a duty which is incumbent upon every man who wishes well to his country— and will meet with my aid as far as it can be rendered in private walks of life; for hence forward my mind shall be unbent; & I will endeavor to glide gently down the stream of life till I come to that abyss, from whence no traveller is permitted to return.
⁴³

Washington thanked Lafayette for his role in bringing victory, saying “the peace is to be ascribed . . . [to] the armada wch. was preparing at Cadiz, and in which you were to have acted a distinguished part.” Lafayette’s concerns about slavery evidently pleased the general. “The scheme, my dear Marqs. which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work; but will defer going into detail of the business, till I have the pleasure of seeing you.”
⁴⁴

Lafayette arrived in Madrid on February 15, 1783, dressed conspicuously—and defiantly—in his American major general’s uniform, his magnificent ceremonial sword at his side. He knew that no one at the Spanish court would dare ignore or insult him as they had Jay and Carmichael. Even if they were inclined to refuse an audience to an American major general, they would not do so to an intimate of Versailles ministers, whom the French monarch, a nephew of the Spanish king, had personally appointed maréchal de camp. He prepared his visit carefully, sending letters to Carmichael in Madrid and to Vergennes in Paris, which he knew the Spanish secret police would intercept. “I expect Spain is going to act by you with propriety,” he wrote to Carmichael, “but should they hesitate to treat you as a public servant of the United States, then, however, disagreeable is the taste
. . . France may stand a mediator & thro’ that generous & common friend, we may come to the wished for connection with the Court of Spain.”
⁴⁵

After reporting to the French ambassador in Madrid, Lafayette conferred with Carmichael before presenting himself to King Charles III, who peppered him with questions about Yorktown and Cornwallis, and about America generally. “They fear the loss of their colonies,” Lafayette wrote to Secretary Livingston, “and the success of our Revolution appears to be an encouragement to this fear. Upon this subject their King has odd notions, as he has indeed upon everything. I gave a description of America and of each of the States, of which [Spanish Foreign Minister] Count de Florida Blanca appeared to know very little.” Lafayette assured King Charles that America wanted nothing but prosperous commercial ties to Spain, and that Spain would benefit with long-lasting peace in her American colonies. Then, with Carmichael and the French ambassador ever-present at his side, he visited key members of the Spanish cabinet, introducing Carmichael “in the most public manner as the representative of the country which he serves”
⁴⁶
and threatening to embarrass Spain by asking France to mediate the growing antipathy—and the several territorial disputes—between Spain and the United States.

After two weeks of intense pressure and thinly veiled threats, Lafayette convinced the Spanish foreign minister to accept Carmichael’s credentials and present him to the king. “I have now the pleasure to inform you,” Carmichael finally wrote to Livingston, “that the court of Spain has at length thought proper to receive me formally as the chargé d’affaires of the United States.” He attributed his success to Lafayette’s “zeal and ardor which ever influenced him when the interests of the United States were in question. . . . It is the happiest circumstance of my life that the man whose services I was instrumental in procuring to my country should be the one to whom I owe my first public appearance at the court of Spain.”
⁴⁷
Recognition of American independence removed all immediate threat of a Spanish invasion and forced Spain to negotiate fishing and navigation rights and fix formal boundaries between the United States and Spanish territories in Florida and along the Mississippi.

Ironically, John Adams exploded with rage when he learned of Lafayette’s diplomatic triumph and sent a bitter letter to James Warren, the new president of Congress and an old political ally from Massachusetts: “It is my duty to unbosom myself to someone whose discretion I can rely. . . . We are at peace, but not out of danger. That there have been dangerous designs against our real Independence if not against our Union and Confederation, is past a doubt in my Mind—and we have cause to fear that such designs may be revived in various shapes.” Referring to the de Broglie plot, Adams asked, “If the Maréchal had been that Commander-in-Chief, as was
proposed, what would have been the Situation of your Army & Country? In whose power should we have been?” Then Adams turned to his real concern:

The Marquis de la Fayette is an amiable nobleman, & has great merit. I enjoy his friendship, & wish continuance of it. But I will conceal nothing from you. . . . The instruction of Congress to their foreign ministers to consult with him was very ill judged. It was lowering themselves & their servants. There is no American minister, who would not have been always ready & willing to consult with him; but to enjoin it & make it a duty was an Humiliation, that would astonish all the World, if it was known. Your ministers will never be respected, never have any influence, while you depress them in this manner. . . . It may be said that he is a convenient go-between. I say this for this very reason, it should have been avoided. There ought to be no go-between. Your ministers should confer directly with the Ministers of other powers; and if they chuse at any time to make use of a third person, they ought to chuse him. . . .

He is connected with a family of great influence in France. He rises fast in the French army. He may be soon in the Ministry. This mongrel character of French Patriot & American Patriot cannot exist long—And if hereafter it should be seriously the politicks of the French Court to break our Union, imagination cannot conceive a more proper instrument for the purpose than the Marquis. . . .

I know the Confederation of our States to be a brittle vessel. I know it will be an object of jealousy to France. Severe strokes will be aimed at it, & if we are not upon our guard to ward them off, it will be broken.
⁴⁸

The Adams attack shocked and hurt Lafayette, who had shown Adams nothing but the deepest respect and courtesies. Lafayette’s wife and her family had offered Adams the warmest hospitality from the moment he arrived in Paris five years earlier. Lafayette had given him personal letters of introduction to the most influential men in the realm; Adrienne had invited him to dine at her father’s home on the rue Saint-Honoré and meet her entire family and other prominent noblemen and ladies; and he had always expressed nothing but warmth in his correspondence with Lafayette. Franklin and his grandson tried to console the sensitive Lafayette. Franklin even sent Foreign Affairs Secretary Livingston a warning that Adams’s suspicions bordered on delusion: “The instances he supposes of their [French] ill will to us . . . I take to be as imaginary as I know his fancies to be that Count de Vergennes and myself are continually plotting against him. . . . I am persuaded, however, that he means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things absolutely out of his senses.”
⁴⁹

There is nothing to explain Adams’s unwarranted attacks except his well-known moodiness and his loneliness for his family and his beloved New
England. “The first wish of my soul is to go home,”
⁵⁰
he admitted, deploring the “laughers, weepers, cursers and flatterers” of Europe’s gilded palaces. He even fell out with Franklin; he charged the Pennsylvanian with collusion with French foreign affairs minister Vergennes and called him “obsequious . . . selfish . . . and eaten with all the passions which prey upon old age unprincipled.”
⁵¹

Lafayette was quick to recover from wounds—emotional as well as physical—and he not only forgave Adams, he ensured that Adrienne was first to welcome Abigail Adams and the Adams children to Paris when they arrived the following year.

When Lafayette returned to Paris from Spain, he learned that crop failures in his native Auvergne had produced widespread famine in that province. Acting on the authority granted by her husband, Adrienne ordered the Lafayette granaries in Chavaniac to release enough grain for the peasants to survive the winter. In addition, she acted to reduce long-term impoverishment by instructing the district governor to establish a spinning and weaving mill, and a school to teach local women to spin raw wool from their husbands’ flocks and weave it into cloth. Adrienne reasoned that sheepherders would reap more profits from finished goods than from raw commodities.

Lafayette was astonished at her acumen. “You have rendered the country an enormous service, sweetheart,” he wrote, after arriving at Chavaniac, “and I have to tell you that I consult the memorandum with your proposal every day. I hope to raise thirty thousand francs [then a synonym for livres, and, therefore, the equivalent of $300,000 in today’s currency] for your manufactury, which promises to be of enormous benefit.”
⁵²

Lafayette’s return to Chavaniac marked the first time he had set foot in his boyhood home in the ten years since he began training for knighthood. One of the two aunts who had raised him had died, as had his grandmother and his beloved cousin Marie—the little girl who had been a sister to him. Only his aunt Charlotte, alone and aging, survived—and she all but collapsed from emotion at their reunion. “I got here just before nightfall,” he wrote to Adrienne. “The first moment was terrible for my aunt, her cries, her anguish were terrifying. Finally, little by little, she pulled herself together and, despite abundant tears, she has cheered up immensely since my arrival. She has changed and aged terribly, but she has regained a little strength now and spends the day out of her bedroom and comes to the table to eat. Since my arrival, the house is full of people, and she keeps busy receiving them and doing the honors.”
⁵³

The sight and sounds of starving peasants at the château gates stunned him. Some were the boyhood friends he had led through the forest on imaginary quests; they had learned of their seigneur’s return—their lord and still master, under French feudal laws. When he appeared, many fell to their
knees; some pleaded for food, others for clothing, still others for money; many begged for his intercession to prevent their eviction from their hovels for nonpayment of rents and taxes during the famine. He pledged to help and returned into the château, where obsequious vassals and local officials crowded the reception rooms to pay homage to the Conqueror of Cornwallis. But the constant wailing of peasants grew too much to bear. Learning that his own granaries were stocked to overflowing with wheat and rye, he ordered the overseers of his estates to distribute their contents to the peasants. When they advised him to sell his grain to distributors—that high prices had made it
the best time to sell
his grain—he retorted sternly, “No! Now is the best time to give it away!”
⁵⁴
Amid cries of
“Vive Lafayette!”
he opened his granaries and distributed more than twelve hundred bushels of rye and eighteen hundred bushels of wheat to the poor, free of charge. He then called together local officials from the communities within his domain to determine the causes of the crop failures and the subsequent famine.