Lafayette (8 page)

After two weeks, he grew impatient with bowing and smiling repeatedly to people he did not understand and believed he should hate. Consumed by fantasies of his quest, he invented an excuse to return to Paris, leaving his embarrassed uncle to explain why his nephew would not appear at the galas that London society had prepared for him. But instead of returning to his wife and child at the Noailles mansion, Lafayette went into hiding at Kalb’s house in Chaillot, outside Paris, because he feared that if he returned home, his powerful father-in-law—a brigadier general—would order him to rejoin his military regiment at Metz and make departure for America nothing less than desertion from the French military. Lafayette assured both Kalb and de Broglie, however, that he had received his father-in-law’s and his wife’s blessings for the expedition and was simply avoiding public embarrassment for the Noailles family. Kalb ordered officers from the original Le Havre expedition to leave surreptitiously for Bordeaux by night, and on the evening of March 16, Kalb and Lafayette rode out to join them, with Lafayette abandoning his pregnant wife and infant child without a word, let alone an embrace. He was, after all, still an adolescent in an arranged marriage to a child-wife living in the bosom of her family. Like many young soldiers, he had yet to develop intimate emotional ties to his wife after so many long periods away from her during his military training at Metz.

The following morning, Lafayette’s father-in-law, the duc d’Ayen, received this letter:

You will be astonished, my dear papa, at what I have to say to you. . . . I have found a unique opportunity to distinguish myself and learn my [soldier’s] trade; I am a general officer in the army of the United States of America. My zeal for their cause and my sincerity have won their
confidence. I shall embark in a vessel that I have myself purchased and chartered. My traveling companions are the Baron de Kalb, a very distinguished officer, brigadier in the [French] King’s service, and, like me, a major-general in the United States army; and some excellent officers who want to share in my daring enterprise. I am overjoyed at having found such a glorious opportunity . . . this will not be a long trip, every day people take far longer trips just for pleasure, and, besides, I hope to return more worthy of all those who are kind enough to miss me.

Your affectionate son, Lafayette.
²⁰

The duc d’Ayen was furious, his wife heartbroken. “She was worried about the effect it would have on me,” Adrienne de Lafayette recalled in her memoirs, “and alarmed about the . . . dangers the son [in-law] she cherished so much would have to face so far away from home. She brought the painful news of his cruel departure to me herself and tried to console me, while shedding the best possible light on Monsieur de Lafayette—his affection for me, his superior mind and character. . . . She had no knowledge of great quests or glory, but predicted two years before everyone else that Lafayette would achieve both.”
²¹

While his wife consoled their daughter, the raging duc d’Ayen rode to Versailles to urge the king to track down the rebellious adolescent runaway and prevent his leaving for America. Word of Lafayette’s flight reached the palace—and the British embassy—before the duc d’Ayen. Vergennes was as furious as the duke. Even if it did not provoke war, Lafayette’s departure would embarrass the government and compromise the French ambassador in London, a Noailles who had introduced Lafayette to King George only a few days earlier. By facing the British king, knowing he was about to battle the king’s men, Lafayette had directly insulted a monarch with whom His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVI was at peace. King Louis issued a statement expressing shock and forbidding all French officers from serving in English colonies. He ordered all who arrive in the Americas to battle the English, “notably Monsieur le marquis de la Fayette, to leave immediately and return to France.”
²²
Vergennes announced that the king had issued a lettre de cachet, or peremptory arrest order, for Lafayette, but whether he did or not remains one of the mysteries of eighteenth-century court intrigue.

Lafayette and Kalb rode three days to Bordeaux, with the king’s soldiers in hot pursuit, bearing the mysterious lettre de cachet—and an order to report to barracks in Marseilles and await further instructions from the king. As word of Lafayette’s flight spread across France, young people hailed the intrepid young knight and his reckless disregard of danger. In Paris, his friends—especially the ladies—cheered for him, cried for him, prayed for him, adored him. Young knights longed to ride beside him; although he had not yet unsheathed his saber or fired a shot, his quest evolved into a
popular melodrama, with audiences cheering the hero Lafayette and spewing catcalls at his antagonists. English ambassador Lord Stormont reported to his government, “The ladies reproach the parents [in-law] of M. de Lafayette for having tried to stop such a noble enterprise. One of the ladies even declared, ‘If the duc d’Ayen thwarts his son-in-law in such a project, he should not expect to marry the rest of his daughters.’”
²³

When Lafayette and Kalb reached Bordeaux, word of his adventure— and the arrest order—had not yet arrived. The soldiers had apparently lost his trail. One by one, de Broglie’s officers registered on the
Victoire
, with Lafayette disguising his identity by using his patronymic name, Gilbert du Motier, to which he added “Chevalier de Chavaillac,
”
“knight of Chavaillac,” an older spelling of Chavaniac. As the ship prepared for departure, however, a surge of guilt provoked his sending an urgent note to a cousin in Paris to learn how Adrienne and her family had reacted. A week later, his cousin’s reply described the emotional turmoil his departure had caused his family and the political turmoil it had caused at court. He enclosed messages from the family.

“The letters from my family were terrible,” Lafayette recalled. “They forbade my going to America, warned of the lettre de cachet and of the consequences of the anathema, the laws of the realm and the authority and anger of the government. They reminded me of the grief I was causing my pregnant, loving wife.”
²⁴
With favorable winds blowing, however, Lafayette decided to ignore his family’s pleas and follow his life’s dream by ordering the
Victoire
to set sail.

As the ship slipped away from shore, the boy soldier grew increasingly agitated and confessed to Kalb that he had not had his family’s approval to go to America—that he had not even told his wife he was leaving. Kalb was furious at him for jeopardizing the venture. “If he had not been aboard the ship and under way,” Kalb wrote to his wife, “I think he would have gone home and, in my opinion, it would have been the right thing to do.”
²⁵

By noon the next day, the ship crossed into Spanish waters, beyond the reach of French soldiers and arrest warrants, and anchored at Los Passajes, a small port near San Sebastiàn. At dinner that evening in San Sebastiàn, Lafayette could no longer contain his agitation. Kalb demanded that he make a decision either to follow his family’s wishes and cancel the expedition or carry it out and accept the consequences.

“I have just had dinner with the marquis in Saint-Sebastiàn,” Kalb wrote his wife later that evening. “At this moment, he has abandoned his trip to America and recanted his lust for war. He has left for Bordeaux and from there he wants to go to Paris. . . . I do not think he will return, and I advised him to sell the ship . . . for certainly neither M. Maurepas nor the duc d’Ayen will permit him to rejoin us. It is certain that this folly will cost
him dearly. But if it be said that he has done a foolish thing, it may be answered that he acted from the most honorable motives and that he can hold up his head before all high-minded men.”
²⁶
Kalb wanted to sail to America with the other officers, but the ship belonged to Lafayette and they had no choice but to await the young man’s further orders.

After riding up the Spanish and French coasts, with only a brief rest at Saint-Jean de Luz—and a flirtation with an innkeeper’s daughter—Lafayette arrived in Bordeaux on April 3. No troops awaited to arrest him; no lettre de cachet. The local military commander ordered Lafayette to report to Marseilles military headquarters and await further orders. The young knight wrote to Prime Minister Maurepas at Versailles pleading for a revocation of the king’s order not to go to America.

In Paris, Lafayette’s father-in-law demanded that Deane write to General George Washington to revoke Lafayette’s commission and send him home to France. Eager to restore good relations with his French hosts, Deane agreed, writing to Washington that Lafayette’s trip to America was “without the approbation or knowledge of the king, is disagreeable and that His Majesty expects that you will not permit him to take any command under you.”
²⁷
Deane tried to repair the ruptured pipeline of French aid to America by justifying his enlistment of Lafayette in a letter to Vergennes: “To gain a most gallant and amiable young Nobleman to espouse our cause,” he pleaded, “and to give to the world a specimen of his native and hereditary bravery, surely cannot be deemed criminal. I have nothing to add . . . except that I rely on the Comte de Broglio [
sic]
to explain any and every part of my conduct in this affair.”
²⁸
A few days later, he wrote to Vergennes again: “I have felt much . . . for the delicate honor of the Marquis, least some report injurious to him should be spread, in either country; no country need be ashamed of him, and I am sure he will one day justify to the world, that my early prejudice in his favor were well founded.”
²⁹

As agitated as Deane may have been, the marquis de Noailles in London was more so, fearing his nephew’s action would provoke a premature end to his illustrious diplomatic career and a century of Noailles family influence at Versailles. He sent a letter of apology to French prime minister Maurepas. “I was extremely shocked,” he wrote, “to learn . . . that M. de la Fayette had left for America. Fortunately, his age may excuse his thoughtlessness. This is the only consolation left to me in the chagrin I feel for so inconsiderate an action. . . . He concealed his intentions from his traveling companion, from me, and from everybody. . . . Why, Monsieur le Comte, should incidents that are independent of political affairs, damage my reputation?” The distraught marquis begged the prime minister, as well as foreign minister Vergennes, to inform King George of “my zeal in the foreign service.”
³⁰

When word of Lafayette’s return to France reached Paris, the British ambassador exulted that “Lafayette’s expedition has been a short one indeed.”
³¹
Deane was equally pleased—especially when the duc d’Ayen asked him not to send his embarrassing letter to Washington recalling Lafayette. Vergennes and Maurepas were both relieved, as was the marquis de Noailles in London. “You must know by now,” Vergennes wrote to Noailles, “that . . . by the greatest good luck, the project has not been completed. No one would ever suspect you of being either an accomplice or of having any confidential information about the project, and I am certain you will be judged in that light in [England] as you are judged here.”
³²

A few days later, a British naval vessel stopped a French cargo ship and captured three French officers and two sergeants on their way to America. When they asked for repatriation, Vergennes tried to heal relations with Britain with this public reply: “Having left France without permission to serve the Americans, the representative of the [French] king cannot involve himself in their situation.”
³³

Only the scheming comte de Broglie fumed over Lafayette’s return to France and the delay in sending his officers to America to prepare his ascension to generalissimo. De Broglie dispatched a young officer to steer Lafayette back to his ship by convincing him that the king had never actually issued a lettre de cachet—that the government had publicly remonstrated against him to appease the duc d’Ayen. The officer insisted that every one in Paris—except the duc d’Ayen—had cheered Lafayette’s grand adventure. Lafayette desperately wanted to believe de Broglie’s envoy—and finally did, after the officer reminded him of de Broglie’s close ties to Vergennes and suggested that Prime Minister Maurepas’s failure to answer Lafayette’s earlier letter was an obvious indication of government approval for his expedition. Lafayette embraced the idea in a second letter to the prime minister, saying he concluded that Maurepas’s “silence was a tacit order” to proceed to America.
³⁴

The Bordeaux commandant, however, was having none of it, and threatened to arrest Lafayette if he did not report to Marseilles. Lafayette pretended to comply and rode off in an eastbound coach, with Bordeaux officers following. While the coachman stopped to change horses at a post house, Lafayette disguised himself as a courier, took a horse, and galloped off toward the Spanish border. The officers soon noticed his absence and picked up his trail. When he reached Saint-Jean de Luz, the innkeeper’s daughter saw through his disguise, “but at a signal from me, and, out of loyalty, she sent my pursuers in the wrong direction.”
³⁵

On April 20, 1777, the
Victoire
sailed from Las Passajes for America with the nineteen-year-old Major General de la Fayette aboard, in quest of glory and honor but unwittingly leading an expedition to replace the American military high command with a French military junta and just as unwittingly
undermining French government policy of avoiding war with Britain. On board with him were Kalb, in quest of colonial power for de Broglie, and the twelve French officers in de Broglie’s high command.

Far from the glamorous adventure Lafayette had anticipated, the voyage proved a personal horror for the young French knight—as it was for many ocean travelers. Even the finest, calmest day at sea confined passengers to never-ending boredom in tiny wooden cubbies below decks, with little to eat but hard biscuits, salt pork, and fish—and nothing to do but ponder the possibility that if the trip lasted too long, the ship would run out of food and fresh water. On most crossings, passengers and crew went on short rations before the ship was midway to its destination. Still other dangers awaited over the horizon: privateers and pirates, ready to attack, maim, enslave, imprison, or kill innocents. And waves—the ever-present waves—clawing at the boat, toying with it sadistically, tossing, turning, and dropping it fiercely, so that it pitched and rolled and sickened almost every passenger on board. Sometimes the capricious craft slammed a passenger into oblivion against a bulkhead or sent him sliding along the deck into the sea, but always, it made everyone sick; terribly sick—and most especially Lafayette, who suffered relentlessly for more than a week, until he gradually acquired his sea legs and enough equilibrium for his life aboard ship to settle into a routine. He relieved the ensuing boredom by learning some English from Kalb and studying military tactics from books he had brought.