Lafayette (81 page)

11.
Noailles to Molly Robinson, December 14, 1781, Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 343.

12.
L to Washington,
Alliance
, off Boston, December 21, 1781, Duer, 448–449.

13.
Although the British government gave Arnold a small pension, the English scorned him as a traitor. He died in London on June 14, 1801, deeply embittered, at the age of sixty.

14.
L to Washington,
Mémoires
, I:168–169.

15.
Lasteyrie, 203.

16.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 349, from an entry on January 22, 1782, in an “unpublished journal of the book dealer Hardy,” entitled “Mes loisirs,” in the
Bibliothèque Nationale
, Paris.

17.
Lasteyrie, 203–204, 425.

18.
L to Washington, Versailles, January 30, 1782, Idzerda, V:8–10.

19.
Franklin to Livingston, Passy, March 4, 1782, Wharton, V:214–217.

20.
Washington to L, Philadelphia, January 4, 1782, Idzerda, V:2.

21.
L to Livingston, St. Germain, June 25, 1782, Idzerda, V:45.

22.
L to Vergennes, undated citation in Taillemite, 98.

23.
L to Franklin, February 25, 1782, Idzerda, V:15.

24.
Comte de Ségur to L, Rochefort, July 7, 1782, Idzerda, V:367.

25.
L to Livingston, Paris, March 30, 1782, Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 357–358.

26.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 364.

27.
L to Livingston, Paris, March 30, 1782, Idzerda, V:20–21.

28.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 358.

29.
Ibid., 363.

30.
L to Livingston, Paris, March 30, 1782, Idzerda, V:20–21.

31.
L to Vergennes, Paris, March 20, 1782, Wharton, V:266–267.

32.
L to Adams, Paris, May 7, 1782, Idzerda, V:36–37.

33.
L to Washington, Paris, June 29, 1782, Idzerda, V:49–51.

34.
Now the seat of the Assemblée nationale—the French equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives—the Palais Bourbon was built in 1722 for Louis XIV’s illegitimate daughter, the duchesse de Bourbon. Napoléon added a neo-Grecian portico with twelve Corinthian columns and a massive frieze to mirror the Madeleine (now a church) at the end of the rue Royale, across the Seine and the place de la Concorde. In 1830, the interior was altered to accommodate the amphitheater for the legislature.

35.
L to Washington, October 24, 1782, Idzerda, V:64–65.

36.
Mémoires
, I:163.

37.
Washington to L., Verplanks, New York, October, 1782, Idzerda, V:62–64.

38.
Jay to Robert Livingston, November 17, 1782, Wharton, VI, 48.

39.
L. H. Butterfield, ed.,
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams
(Cambridge, Mass., 1961, 4 vols.), III:303.

40.
L to Washington, March 2, 1783, Gottschalk,
Lafayette and the Close
. . . , 407.

41.
L to Washington, Cadiz, February 5, 1783, Idzerda, V:90–93.

42.
Ibid.

43.
Washington to L, Newburgh, April 5, 1783, Idzerda, V:119–121.

44.
Ibid.

45.
L to William Carmichael, Cadiz, January 20, 1783, Wharton, VI:222–223.

46.
L to Livingston, Bordeaux, March 2, 1783, Wharton, 6:268–270.

47.
Carmichael to Livingston, Madrid, February 21, 1783, Wharton, 6:259–260.

48.
Adams to James Warren, Paris, April 16, 1783, Idzerda, V:121–124.

49.
Franklin to Livingston, Passy, July 22, 1783, Wharton, 6:582.

50.
From a letter without addressee and apparently never sent, dated April 9, 1784, in The Hague, and cited in Page Smith,
John Adams
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962, 2 vols.), I:570.

51.
Smith, I:569.

52.
L to Adrienne, Chavaniac, March 27, 1783, Idzerda, V:377–378.

53.
Ibid.

54.
Charavay, 97, from Doniol,
Une correspondence administrative sous Louis XVI, épisode de la jeunesse de La Fayette, dans les Séances et travaux de l’Académie des Sciences morales et politiques
(1875), CIV:49.

55.
Ibid., letter from Gueyffier, sub-governor of Brioude, to the intendant of Auvergne, March 27, 1783.

56.
L to Adrienne, Chavaniac, March 27, 1783, ut supra.

57.
Literally,
striker of the ferme
.

58.
Ironically, French legend elevated Louis IX (1214–1270)—“Saint-Louis”—to undeserved status—indeed, sainthood—for his role as leader of the Seventh Crusade. At best, he was a military blunderer, who arrogantly underestimated the strength and intelligence of his foes. In Egypt, he confidently charged ashore and raced toward Cairo, only to have Egyptian defenders open their swollen irrigation canals. Thousands of French Crusaders drowned, while the rest of the force found itself trapped with their king on an isolated sandbar, far from their ships. After plague killed thousands more, the French king paid a huge ransom for his and his decimated army’s release. He sailed off to Palestine, where, after four years, he had to show something for his costly adventure and claimed to have recovered the Crown of Thorns, which now lies in the treasury of the
Cathedral of Nôtre-Dame, in Paris, and is displayed to the public each year on Good Friday in the Sainte-Chapelle, Saint-Louis’s own private chapel on the Ile de la Cité. Determined to crush the Moslem infidel, he returned with his armies to North Africa toward the end of his life but died of the plague in Tunis. His army returned home in defeat with his body, whose remains were placed with those of previous French kings in the royal crypt at Saint-Denis Basilica (now cathedral), on the northern outskirts of Paris.

59.
L’année littéraire
(1783), IV, 278, cited in Louis Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between the American and the French Revolution (1783–1789
) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 14.

60.
Ibid., II, 66–68.

61.
Metra, XIV, 296, cited in Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 21.

62.
L to Vergennes, Paris, March 19, 1783,
Mémoires
, I:183.

63.
L to Fleury, Paris, March 19, 1783, Idzerda, V:375–376.

64.
Pronounced
Jeel-bear
.

65.
L to Washington, Chavaniac in the province of Auvergne, July 22, 1783, Idzerda, V:145–147.

1.
What was once the Hôtel d’York still stands, albeit renovated out of all recognition, at 56 rue Jacob, on the Left Bank in Paris, where a marble plaque to the left of the entrance reads:

EN CE BATIMENT

JADIS HOTEL D’YORK

LE 3 SEPTEMBRE 1783

DAVID HARTLEY,

AU NOM DU ROI D’ANGLETERRE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

JOHN JAY, JOHN ADAMS

AU NOM DES ETATS-UNIS D’AMERIQUE

ONT SIGNE LE TRAITE DEFINITIF DE PAIX

RECONNAISSANT L’INDEPENDENCE

DES ETATS-UNIS

(“In this building, once the Hôtel d’York, on 3 September 1783, David Hartley, in the name of the king of England Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Adams in the name of the United States of America signed the final treaty of peace recognizing the independence of the United States”).

2.
Washington to L, Newburgh, June 15, 1783, Idzerda, V:135–136.

3.
L to William Temple Franklin, Paris, November 19, 1783, Idzerda, V:165.

4.
Unsigned manuscript—no addressee and dated only “Paris, Tuesday morning,” Idzerda, V:382.

5.
L to Jeremiah Wadsworth, September 28, 1783, Idzerda, V:154–155.

6.
Bottle coasters.

7.
Washington to L, Princeton, October 30, 1783, Idzerda, V:159–162.

8.
The original French mint—the Hôtel de la Monnaie—was built from 1768 to 1774, on the quai de Conti, on the Paris Left Bank. It is now one of the world’s finest
currency museums, with specimens dating back to Charlemagne, and, though too inefficient to produce coins, it continues to produce commemorative medals, many for sale to the public.

9.
Knox to L, Westpoint, June 16, 1783, Idzerda, V:137.

10.
Adams to L, The Hague, March 28, 1784, Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 64.

11.
L to John Adams, Lorient, June 25, 1784, Idzerda, V:227.

12.
Washington to L, February 1, 1784.

13.
Ibid.

14.
L to Washington, March 9, 1784, Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 65.

15.
Washington to Adrienne, Mount Vernon, April 4, 1784, Padover, 84–85.

16.
“Observations on the Commerce between France and the United States,” Idzerda, V:382–389.

17.
Ibid.

18.
Calonne to L, Versailles, January 9, 1784.

19.
Ford,
ed., Journals
. . . , 26:332–333.

20.
Calonne to L, Paris, June 16, 1784, Idzerda, V:396–397.

21.
John Marshall,
Life of Washington
(Philadelphia, 1804–1807, 5 vols.), II:57.

22.
Henry Knox to L, Westpoint, June 16, 1783, Idzerda, V:137.

23.
L to Washington, Paris, January 10, 1784, Idzerda, V:191–193.

24.
L to Washington, May 14, 1784, Idzerda, V:216–218.

25.
Although both the Washingtons had invited Adrienne to visit Mount Vernon with her husband, there was no question of both Lafayette parents risking their lives on the North Atlantic passage while their children were so young. Virginie was not yet two, George-Washington was only four and a half, and Anastasie was seven.

26.
L to Adrienne, June 20, 1784, La Flêche, Idzerda, V:398.

27.
L to Adrienne, June 28, 1784, aboard the
Courrier de New York
, Idzerda, V:400.

28.
J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur,
Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America
(London, Davies and Davis, 1782), rewritten, expanded, and republished in Paris (1784) as
Lettres d’un cultivateur américain
. . . , in three volumes, from which this quote, in III:317–318.
See also
n. 58.

29.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 85.

30.
L to Adrienne, Philadelphia, August 13, 1784, Idzerda, V:401–403.

31.
Maryland Gazette
, August 26, 1784.

32.
“Address of the Committee of Officers of the Late Pennsylvania Line, with Lafayette’s Reply,”
Pennsylvania Journal
, August 14, 1784.

33.
Ibid.

34.
L to Adrienne, Philadelphia, August 13, 1784, Idzerda, V:401–403.

35.
Author’s note: Although there is no dispute over Adrienne de Lafayette’s having embroidered a Masonic apron for George Washington, who did treasure it, Gottschalk maintains that “the chances . . . are nil that it was presented to Washington by Lafayette in 1784.” His basis for this argument is that he could find “no supporting primary testimony.” However, he offers no supporting primary testimony that it was
not
presented at that time nor any evidence that it was presented at any time other than in 1784, by Lafayette, as most nineteenth-century sources—including some who knew Lafayette—insist.

36.
L to Adrienne, Mount Vernon, August 20, 1784, Idzerda, V:403–404.

37.
Ibid.

38.
L to Adrienne, Church’s Tavern, October 10, 1784, Maurois, 123.

39.
E. P. Chase, ed.,
Our Revolutionary forefathers: the letters of François, marquis Barbé de Marbois
(New York, 1929), 185–193.

40.
Ibid.

41.
Ibid.

42.
L to Adrienne, October 4, 1784, Idzerda, V:416–417.

43.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 112.

44.
Barbé de Marbois, op. cit.

45.
A signer of the Declaration of Independence who had commanded the Connecticut militia, Wolcott (1726–1797) was a delegate to Congress from Connecticut and would later become governor of that state.

46.
Ibid.

47.
Mémoires
, I:193.

48.
Ibid.

49.
Madison to Thomas Jefferson, Philadelphia, October 17, 1784, Idzerda, V:271–274.

50.
Madison to Jefferson, Philadelphia, October 17, 1784, Idzerda, V:273–274.

51.
L to Jefferson, Hartford, October 11, 1784, Idzerda, V:266–267.

52.
L to Adrienne, undated, Maurois, 122.

53.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 120–121.

54.
Recommendation for James
, “Done Under My Hand, Richmond, November 21st 1784,” in Idzerda, V:278–279.

55.
Padover, 11.

56.
Gottschalk,
Lafayette Between
. . . , 145.

57.
Maurois, 124.

58.
L’s “Address to the Continental Congress,” Trenton, December 11, 1784, Ford, XXVII, 684 (December 13, 1784).

59.
Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecoeur (1735–1813) was born in Caen, in Normandy, France, and emigrated to Canada as a mapmaker in the French and Indian War. He settled on a farm in Orange Country, New York, in 1769, but conflicting loyalties at the beginning of the Revolution sent him fleeing to London, where he wrote the immensely popular
Letters from an American Farmer
, signed “J. Hector St. Jean.” His vivid descriptions of farming on the American frontier remain a classic. The French government appointed him consul to three American states in 1783; he returned to his farm, found his house burned, his wife dead, and his children missing. He recovered his children and became a popular figure in America, becoming friends with Franklin and Jefferson and maintaining a regular correspondence with Washington.