The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861

After General Lafayette's visit to the United States, in 1824, every American who went to France went with a firm conviction that he had a right to take as much as he chose of the old gentleman's time and hospitality, at his own estimate of their value. Fortunately, the number of travellers was not great in those days, although a week seldom passed without bringing two or three new faces to the Rue d'Anjou or La Grange. It was well both for the purse and the patience of the kind-hearted old man that ocean steamers were still a doubtful problem, and first-class packets rarely over five hundred tons.

It could hardly be expected that a boy of sixteen should have more discretion than his elders; and following the universal example of my countrymen, the first use that I made of a Parisian cabriolet was to drive to No. 6, Rue d'Anjou. The porte cochère was open, and the porter in his lodge,—a brisk little Frenchman, somewhat past middle age, with just bows enough to prove his nationality, and very expressive gestures, which I understood much better than I did his words; for they said, or seemed to say,—"The General is out, and I will take charge of your letter and card." There was nothing else for me to do, and so, handing over my credentials, I gave the rest of the morning to sightseeing, and, being a novice at it and alone, soon got tired and returned to my hotel.

I don't know how that hotel would look to me now; but to my untrained eyes of that day it looked wonderfully fine. I liked the name,—the Petit Hôtel Montmorenci,—for I knew enough of French history to know that Montmorenci had always been a great name in France. Then it was the favorite resort of Americans; and although I was learning the phrases in Blagdon as fast as I could, I still found English by far the most agreeable means of communication for everything beyond an appeal to the waiter for more wood or a clean towel. Table d'Hôte, too, brought us all together, with an abundant, if not a rich, harvest of personal experiences gathered during the day from every quarter of the teeming city. Bradford was there with his handsome face and fine figure,—an old resident, as it then seemed to me; for he had been abroad two years, and could speak what sounded to my ears as French-like as any French I had ever heard. Poor fellow! scarce three years had passed when he laid him down to his last sleep in a convent of Jerusalem, without a friend to smooth his pillow or listen to his last wishes. Of most of the others the names have escaped me; but I shall never forget how wide I opened my eyes, one evening, at the assertion of a new-comer, that he had done more for the enlightenment of France than any man living or dead. The incomparable gravity with which the assertion was made drew every eye to the speaker, who, after enjoying our astonishment for a while, told us that he had been the first to send out a whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade. Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field. But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not wait for the change. Its broad court was never enlivened by gas. Its tables and mantels were decked to the last hour with the alabaster whiteness of those pure wax tapers which shed such a soft light upon your book, and grew up into such formidable items in your bills. A long passage—one of those luxuries of rainy, muddy Paris, lined with stores that you cannot help lingering over, if for nothing else, to wonder at the fertility of the human brain when it makes itself the willing minister of human caprice—covers the whole space which the hotel stood on, and unites the Neuve St. Marc with the once distant Boulevard.

As I passed the porter's lodge, he handed me a letter. The hand was one that I had never seen before; the address was in French; and the seal, red wax thinly spread, but something which had been put on it before it was cool had entirely effaced the impress: as I afterwards learned, it was the profile of Washington. I opened it, and judge my surprise and delight on reading the following words:—

"Paris, Thursday.

"I am very sorry not to have had the pleasure to see you when you have called this morning, my dear Sir. My stay in town will be short. But you will find me to-morrow from nine in the morning until twelve. I hope we shall see you soon at La Grange, which I beg of you to consider as your home, being that of your grandfather's most intimate friend and brother-in-arms.

"LAFAYETTE."

It was nearly eleven when I reached the Rue d'Anjou and began for the first time to mount the broad stairway of a Parisian palace. The General's apartments were on the entresol, with a separate staircase from the first landing of the principal one; for his lameness made it difficult for him to go up-stairs, and the entresol, a half-story between the ground floor and the first story, when, as was the case here, high enough in the ceiling, is one of the freest and pleasantest parts of a French house. His apartments comprised five rooms on a line,—an antechamber, a dining-room, two parlors, and a bed-room, with windows on the street,—and the same number of smaller rooms on a parallel line, with their windows on the court-yard, which served for his secretary and servants. The furniture throughout was neat and plain: the usual comfortable arm-chairs and sofas, the indispensable clock and mirror over the mantelpiece, and in each fireplace a cheerful wood-fire. There were two or three servants in the antechamber, well-dressed, but not in livery; and in the parlor, into which I was shown on handing my card, two or three persons waiting for an audience. Fortunately for me, they were there on business, and the business was soon despatched; and passing, in turn, into the reception parlor, I found myself in the presence of the friend of Washington and my grandfather.

He received me so cordially, with such kind inquiries into the object and cause of my journey, such a fatherly interest in my plans and aims, such an earnest repetition of the invitation he had given me in his note to look upon La Grange as my home, that I felt at once that I was no longer without a guide and protector in a foreign land. It was some time before I could observe him closely enough to get a just idea of his appearance; for I had never before been consciously in the presence of a man who had filled so many pages of real history, and of the history which above all others I was most interested in. I felt as if a veil had been suddenly lifted, and the great men I had read of and dreamed of were passing before me. There were the features which, though changed, had so often called up a smile of welcome to the lips of Washington; there was the man who had shared with my grandfather the perils of the Brandywine and Monmouth, the long winter encampment, and the wearisome summer march; the man whom Napoleon had tried all the fascinations of his art upon, and failed to lure him from his devotion to the cause of freedom; whom Marat and Robespierre had marked out for destruction, and kings and emperors leagued against in hatred and fear. It was more like a dream than a reality, and for the first twenty minutes I was almost afraid to stir for fear I might wake up and find the vision gone. But when I began to look at him as a being of real flesh and blood, I found that Ary Scheffer's portrait had not deceived me. Features, expression, carriage, all were just as it had taught me to expect them, and it seemed to me as if I had always known him. The moment I felt this I began to feel at my ease; and though I never entirely lost the feeling that I had a living chapter of history before me, I soon learned to look upon him as a father.

As I was rising to go, a lady entered the room, and, without waiting for an introduction, held out her hand so cordially that I knew it must be one of his daughters. It was Madame de Lasteyrie, who, like her mother and sister, had shared his dungeon at Olmütz. Her English, though perfectly intelligible, was not as fluent as her father's, but she had no difficulty in saying some pleasant things about family friendship which made me very happy. She lived in the same street, though not in the same house with the General, and that morning my good-fortune had brought the whole family together at No. 6.

The occasion was a singular one. One of those heartless speculators to whom our Government has too often given free scope among the Indian tribes of our borders had brought to France a party of Osages, on an embassy, as he gave them to understand, but in reality with the intention of exhibiting them, very much as Van Amburgh exhibits his wild beasts. General Lafayette was determined, if possible, to counteract this abominable scheme; but as, unfortunately, there was no one who could interpret for him but the speculator himself, he found it difficult to make the poor Indians understand their real position. He had already seen and talked with them, and was feeling very badly at not being able to do more. This morning he was to receive them at his house, and his own family, with one or two personal friends, had been invited to witness the interview.

Madame de Lasteyrie was soon followed by her daughters, and in a few moments I found myself shaking some very pretty hands, and smiled upon by some very pretty faces. It was something of a trial for one who had never been in a full drawing-room in his life, and whom Nature had predestined to mauvaise honte to the end of his days. Still I made the best of it, and as there is nothing so dreadful, after all, in a bright eye and rosy lip, and the General's invitation to look upon his house as my home was so evidently to be taken in its literal interpretation, I soon began to feel at my ease.

The rooms gradually filled. Madame de Maubourg came in soon after her sister, and, as I was talking to one of the young ladies, a gentleman with a countenance not altogether unlike the General's, though nearly bald, and with what was left of his hair perfectly gray, came up and introduced himself to me as George Lafayette. It was the last link in the chain. The last letter that my grandfather ever wrote to General Lafayette had been about a project which they had formed at the close of the war, to bring up their sons—"the two George Washingtons" —together; and as soon after General Greene's death as the necessary arrangement could be made, my poor uncle was sent to France and placed under the General's care. It was of him that General Washington had written to Colonel Wadsworth, "But should it turn out differently, and Mrs. Greene, yourself, and Mr. Rutledge" (General Greene's executors) "should think proper to intrust my namesake, G.W. Greene, to my care, I will give him as good an education as this country (I mean North America) will afford, and will bring him up to either of the genteel professions that his friends may choose or his own inclination shall lead him to pursue, at my own cost and charge." "He is a lively boy," wrote General Knox to Washington, on returning from putting him on board the French packet, "and, with a good education, will probably be an honor to the name of his father and the pride of his friends."

I may be pardoned for dwelling a moment on the scanty memorials of one whose name is often mentioned in the letters of Washington, and whose early promise awakened the fondest expectations. He was a beautiful boy, if the exquisite little miniature before me may be trusted, blending sweetly the more characteristic traits of his father and mother in his face, in a way that must have made him very dear to both. With the officers and soldiers he was a great favorite, and it cost his father a hard effort to deny himself the gratification of having him always with him at camp during the winter. But the sense of paternal duty prevailed, and as soon as he was thought old enough to profit by it, he was put under the charge of Dr. Witherspoon at Princeton. "I cannot omit informing you," writes General Washington, in 1783, "that I let no opportunity slip to inquire after your son George at Princeton, and that it is with pleasure I hear he enjoys good health, and is a fine, promising boy." He remained in France till 1792, when his mother's anxiety for his safety overcame her desire for the completion of his studies, and she wrote to Gouverneur Morris, who was then in France, to send him home. "Mr. Jefferson," reads the autograph before me, "presents his most respectful compliments to Mrs. Greene, and will with great pleasure write to Mr. Morris on the subject of her son's return, forwarding her letter at the same time. He thinks Mrs. Greene concluded that he should return by the way of London. If he is mistaken, she will be so good as to correct him, as his letter to Mr. Morris will otherwise be on that supposition." He returned a large, vigorous, athletic man, full of the scenes he had witnessed, and ready to engage in active life with the ardor of his age and the high hopes which his name authorized; for it was in the days of Washington and Hamilton and Knox, men who extended to the son the love they had borne to the father. But his first winter was to be given to his home, to his mother and sisters; and there, while pursuing too eagerly his favorite sport of duck-shooting from a canoe on the Savannah, his boat was overset, and, though his companion escaped by clinging to the canoe, he was borne down by the weight of his accoutrements and drowned. The next day the body was recovered, and the vault which but six years before had prematurely opened its doors to receive the remains of the father was opened again for the son. Not long after, his family removed to Cumberland Island and ceased to look upon Savannah as their burial-place; and when, for the first time, after the lapse of more than thirty years, and at the approach of Lafayette on his last memorable visit to the United States, a people awoke from their lethargy and asked where the bones of the hero of the South had been laid, there was no one to point out their resting-place. Happy, if what the poet tells us be true, and "still in our ashes live their wonted fires," that they have long since mingled irrevocably with the soil of the land that he saved, and can never become associated with a movement that has been disgraced by the vile flag of Secession!

But to return to the Rue d'Anjou. A loud noise in the street announced the approach of the Indians, whose appearance in an open carriage had drawn together a dense crowd of sight-loving Parisians; and in a few moments they entered, decked out in characteristic finery, but without any of that natural grace and dignity which I had been taught to look for in the natives of the forest. The General received them with the dignified affability which was the distinctive characteristic of his manner under all circumstances; and although there was nothing in the occasion to justify it, I could not help recalling Madame de Staël's comment upon his appearance at Versailles, on the fearful fifth of October:—"M. de la Fayette was perfectly calm; nobody ever saw him otherwise." Withdrawing with them into an inner room, he did his best, as he afterwards told me, to prevail upon them to return home, though not without serious doubts of the honesty of their interpreter. It was while this private conference was going on that I got my first sight of Cooper,—completing my morning's experience by exchanging a few words with the man, of all others among my countrymen, whom I had most wished to know. Meanwhile the table in the dining-room was spread with cakes and preserves, and before the company withdrew, they had a good opportunity of convincing themselves, that, if the American Indian had made but little progress in the other arts of civilization, he had attained to a full appreciation of the virtues of sweetmeats and pastry.

I cannot close this portion of my story without relating my second interview with my aboriginal countrymen, not quite so satisfactory as the first, but at least with its amusing, or rather its laughable side. I was living in Siena, a quiet old Tuscan town, with barely fifteen thousand inhabitants to occupy a circuit of wall that had once held fifty,—but with all the remains of its former greatness about it, noble palaces, a cathedral second in beauty to that of Milan alone, churches filled with fine pictures, an excellent public library, (God's blessing be upon it, for it was in one of its dreamy alcoves that I first read Dante,) a good opera in the summer, and good society all the year round. Month was gliding after month in happy succession. I had dropped readily into the tranquil round of the daily life, had formed many acquaintances and two or three intimate ones, and, though reminded from time to time of the General by a paternal letter, had altogether forgotten the specimens of the children of the forest whom I had seen under his roof. One evening—I do not remember the month, though I think it was late in the autumn—I had made up my mind to stay at home and study, and was just sitting down to my books, when a friend came in with the air of a man who had something very interesting to say.

"Quick, quick! shut your book, and come with me to the theatre."

"Impossible! I'm tired, and, moreover, have something to do which I must do to-night."

"To-morrow night will do just as well for that, but not for the theatre."

"Why?"

"Because there are some of your countrymen here who are going to be exhibited on the stage, and the Countess P– and all your friends want you to come and interpret for them."

"Infinitely obliged. And pray, what do you mean by saying that some of my countrymen are to be exhibited on the stage? Do you take Americans for mountebanks?"

"No, I don't mean that; but it is just as I tell you. Some Americans will appear on the stage to-night and make a speech in American, and you must come and explain it to us."

I must confess, that, at first, my dignity was a little hurt at the idea of an exhibition of Americans; but a moment's reflection convinced me that I had no grounds for offence, and all of a sudden it occurred to me that the "Americans" might be my friends of the Rue d'Anjou, whose "guide and interpreter," though hardly their "friend," had got them down as far as Siena on the general embassy. I was resolved to see, and accordingly exchanging my dressing-gown and slippers for a dress-box costume, I accompanied my friend to the theatre. My appearance at the pit-door was the signal for nods and beckonings from a dozen boxes; but as no one could dispute the superior claims of the Countess P–, I soon found myself seated in the front of her Ladyship's box, and the chief object of attention till the curtain rose.

"And now, my dear G–, tell us all about these strange countrymen of yours,—how they live,—whether it is true that they eat one another,—what kind of houses they have,—how they treat their women,—and everything else that we ought to know."

Two or three years later, when Cooper began to be translated, they would have known better; but now nothing could convince them that I was not perfectly qualified to answer all their questions and stand interpreter between my countrymen and the audience. Fortunately, I had read Irving's beautiful paper in the "Sketch-Book," and knew "The Last of the Mohicans" by heart; and putting together, as well as I could, the ideas of Indian life I had gained from these sources, I accomplished my task to the entire satisfaction of my interrogators. At last the curtain rose, and, though reduced in number, and evidently much the worse for their protracted stay in the land of civilization and brandy, there they were, the very Osages I had seen at the good old General's. The interpreter came forward and told his story, making them chiefs of rank on a tour of pleasure. And a burly-looking fellow, walking up and down the stage with an air that gave the lie to every assertion of the interpreter, made a speech in deep gutturals to the great delight of the listeners. Fortunately for me, the Italian love of sound kept my companions still till the speech was ended, and then, just as they were turning to me for a translation, the interpreter announced his intention of translating it for them himself. Nothing else, I verily believe, could have saved my reputation, and enabled me to retain my place as a native-born American. When the exhibition was over,—and even with the ludicrousness of my part of it, to me it was a sad one,—I went behind the scenes to take a nearer view of these poor victims of avarice. They were sitting round a warming-pan, looking jaded and worn, brutalized beyond even what I had first imagined. It was my last sight of them, and I was glad of it; how far they went, and how many of them found their way back to their native land, I never was able to learn.

Before I left the Rue d'Anjou, it was arranged, that, as soon as I had seen a little more of Paris, I should go to La Grange. "One of the young ladies will teach you French," said the General, "and you can make your plans for the winter at your leisure."

LA GRANGE

It was on a bright autumn morning that I started for the little village of Rosay,—some two leagues from Paris, and the nearest point by diligence to La Grange. A railroad passes almost equally near to it now, and the French diligence, like its English and American counterpart, the stage-coach, has long since been shorn of its honors. Yet it was a pleasant mode of travelling, taking you from place to place in a way to give you a good general idea of the country you were passing through, and bringing you into much closer relations with your fellow-travellers than you can form in a rail-car. There was the crowd at the door of the post-house where you stopped to change horses, and the little troop of wooden-shoed children that followed you up the hill, drawling out in unison, "Un peu de charité, s'il vous plaît," gradually quickening their pace as the horses began to trot, and breaking all off together and tumbling in a heap as they scrambled for the sous that were thrown out to them.

For a light, airy people, the French have a wonderful facility in making clumsy-looking vehicles. To look at a diligence, you would say that it was impossible to guide it through a narrow street, or turn it into a gate. The only thing an American would think of likening it to would be three carriages of different shapes fastened together. First came the Coupé, in shape like an old-fashioned chariot, with a seat for three persons, and glass windows in front and at the sides that gave you a full view of everything on the road. This was the post of honor, higher in price, and, on long journeys, always secured a day or two beforehand. Not the least of its advantages was the amusement it afforded you in watching the postilion and his horses,—a never-failing source of merriment; and what to those who know how important it is, in a set of hungry travellers, to secure a good seat at table, the important fact that the coupé-door was the first door opened, and the coupé-passengers received as the most distinguished personages of the party. The Intérieur came next: somewhat larger than our common coach, with seats for six, face to face, two good windows at the sides, and netting above for parcels of every kind and size: a comfortable place, less exposed to jolts than the coupé even, and much to be desired, if you could but make sure of a back-corner and an accommodating companion opposite to you. Last of all was the Rotonde, with its entrance from the rear, its seats length-wise, room for six, and compensating in part for its comparative inferiority in other respects by leaving you free to get in and out as you chose, without consulting the conductor. This, however, was but the first story, or the rooms of state of this castle on wheels. On a covered dicky, directly above the coupé, and thus on the very top of the whole machine, was another row of passengers, with the conductor in front, looking down through the dust upon the world beneath them, not very comfortable when the sun was hot, still less comfortable of a rainy day, but just in the place which of all others a real traveller would wish to be in at morning or evening or of a moonlight night. The remainder of the top was reserved for the baggage, carefully packed and covered up securely from dust and rain.