Hero Tales from History — Lafayette, The Boy Hero of Two Worlds

“_I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

_” LAFAYETTE, THE BOY HERO OF TWO WORLDS

In a great stone building among the tree-covered hills in the south of France there lived a little boy who at birth received fourteen names and titles.

He belonged to the noble French family of the Lafayettes, who had been knights for at least seven hundred years.

The boy never saw his father, for shortly before the child was born, his brave young soldier father was killed in a battle with the English.

The home in which this fatherless boy lived was a castle, but it looked like a great prison or a modern storage warehouse with a huge, round tower at each end.

Across its few small windows were iron bars.

Out of all the Lafayette boy’s names, the family called him Gilbert.

When he was eleven years old Gilbert was sent to a school in Paris where sons from French gentlemen’s families were taught the things it was thought proper for young nobles to know.

First of all, they studied heraldry, which explained the coats-of-arms of their royal and noble relations and was really a sort of family history of France.

The boys also learned to ride and to fence and to talk politely--even wittily, if they happened to be bright enough.

Besides their own French language they learned Latin so that they could write and even speak it.

Then the youths who had a taste for history were instructed in that study, not the history of the whole French people, but the records of the royal and great families, and the battles and schemes of the kings and princes.

In this boys’ college the rooms were very small, dark, and narrow, like prison cells, and the pupils were locked in at night.

Gilbert was never allowed a holiday.

If his mother came to see him she was permitted to talk with him in the presence of a tutor, almost as if he were a prisoner.

The masters feared that a good, motherly chat with her son would distract the boy’s mind from his studies.

Madame de Lafayette wished to do all she could to help her son in his future life.

So she moved to Paris and was presented at court; that is, she was introduced to the king and queen and the highest nobles of France.

When Gilbert was thirteen his mother died, leaving her son almost alone in the world.

He had a rich uncle who might have been his guardian, but he also died, leaving young Lafayette another fortune and making him a very wealthy marquis.

Boys and girls in French noble families were often betrothed in infancy and brought up expecting to marry each other when old enough.

Marriage seemed to be rather a question of the family fortunes than of the young people’s real love for each other.

When young Marquis de Lafayette was left without parents to plan a proper marriage for him, a rich duke who was a great favorite with King Louis decided to arrange for the orphan boy to marry his own daughter Adrienne.

In order to bring this about, Adrienne’s parents invited Gilbert de Lafayette to come and live in their palace, where they all could care for him as a son until it was proper for him to marry their daughter.

There was a wonderful wedding when Lafayette was sixteen and Adrienne fourteen years old.

From that time, besides all the wealth of the Lafayettes, the riches of his father-in-law, the duke, gave the young marquis a splendid position at the court of France.

If the boy bridegroom only had enjoyed that sort of high life he might have been very happy.

But the things which interested the young nobleman were of quite a different sort.

While he was at a dinner, in honor of a younger brother of George the Third, king of England, he heard that the American people had started their fight for independence.

Lafayette’s sympathies for the unhappy people across the sea were so aroused that he began at once to plan to leave his palace home, his lovely young wife, and his baby daughter, in order to help the American people in their struggle.

To find out how best to do this, he went to see Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, the agents for the United States in France.

Knowing how much the American people needed Lafayette’s money and influence, these statesmen encouraged him in every way.

The young marquis fitted out a ship and made ready to start, taking with him several Frenchmen of high rank who also expected to be made officers in the American Army.

But Lafayette’s father-in-law did not relish the youth’s idea of fighting for the common people against kings and nobles, so he persuaded the king to order the marquis not to leave the country.

In spite of King Louis’s command, Lafayette walked on board his own ship, under the detectives’ noses, disguised as the bodyservant of a stranger from another country who also was going to fight for American liberty.

The Marquis de Lafayette reached the American army, near Philadelphia, after many dangers and hardships.

General Washington could not help smiling at the earnestness of “Major-General” Lafayette, aged nineteen, who could command only as much of the English language as he had learned while crossing the Atlantic.

Though “the Marquis,” as everyone learned to call him, volunteered to serve anywhere without pay, Washington offered him a place on his staff.

Once when the commander-in-chief asked Lafayette how to improve the discipline of the American troops, the noble youth replied, “I am here, General, to learn, not to teach.

” [Illustration: GENERAL LAFAYETTE WOUNDED AT THE BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE.

] General Lafayette received his first wound in the Battle of Brandywine, where he fought hard to keep the British back from Philadelphia.

While riding his horse at the head of his men he was shot in the leg.

He recovered from this wound in time to come to Valley Forge and suffer with Washington the hardships of the long, bitter winter there.

While at Valley Forge the young general was sent to keep the British from coming out from Philadelphia and attacking the American camp.

Lafayette took his station at Barren Hill near the Schuylkill River.

When the British commander had word of this he sent out three companies to surround the boy general from three directions, and make him their prisoner.

So sure were they of making this capture that they planned a dinner in honor of their noble French prisoner, and invited their friends in Philadelphia to be present and meet the Marquis de Lafayette.

But the boy general was too shrewd for them all.

Quick as a flash he saw a way out of the trap they had set for him.

Ordering the heads of his columns to stand in the edge of a grove where they could be seen as if in battle array, he ordered a retreat by a secret path.

When the three British lines marched up the hill, even the Americans in the edge of the woods had disappeared, and the companies only met one another and looked sheepish as they marched down again.

Their game had gotten away, and they had to eat that dinner without their prisoner-guest.

Howe and his men soon heard that the French were sending ships and men to help their American friends, so they went away from Philadelphia as quickly as possible.

On the way to New York, Washington met them and gave battle at Monmouth, New Jersey.

He appointed General Lafayette second in command; but General Charles Lee was offended because “that French boy” was placed above him.

To relieve his chief, Lafayette gave up the command.

This was the battle in which Lee disobeyed Washington’s command and prevented the American army from winning a real victory.

It was Lafayette who saw that something was going wrong and helped to save the day for the Americans.

Hearing of his wife’s illness and his little daughter’s death, Lafayette asked leave of absence to go home to France.

He returned to America as soon as he could, after persuading the French government to send more money, more men, and more ships to help bring the long war with England to an end.

Soon after his return, “the Marquis” was sent with his regiment to meet Cornwallis and defend Virginia.

Cornwallis laughed when he saw that “the Boy” had been sent against him.

But “the Boy” was more than a match for the British commander in the south.

He kept retreating and advancing up and down the James River.

One day Cornwallis would think he was trapping Lafayette, but the next day he found himself only moving farther from his base of supplies.

“The Boy” did this just to gain time, for he had learned that the expected fleet was in American waters with a French army on board, and that Washington was on his way down from near New York to meet the French ships and men and surround Cornwallis.

It was now the British general’s turn to retreat.

He retired to Yorktown, where he was surrounded by the Americans and French and was soon forced to surrender.

As soon as the fighting was ended, General Washington gave a dinner to the French officers and their English prisoner, Lord Cornwallis.

The defeated general was so well treated by Washington and his men that the two commanders became good friends.

When the Americans had gained their independence, General Lafayette returned to France, where he was received as a hero, even by the king whose command he had disobeyed by running away to help America.

The people were so fond of the brave young marquis, that King Louis appointed him a marshal of France, though he was only twenty-four.

The French Revolution soon broke out, but it was very different from the American Revolution, because the people of France had the wrong idea of liberty.

They killed the king, the queen, and many of the nobles in a savage and cruel way.

They even imprisoned and put to death some of their early leaders, who loved liberty, but who were not willing to do such savage deeds to obtain it.

Lafayette was one of the lovers of liberty who suffered much from the French people during the Revolution, because he did not believe in going to extremes.

Washington and Lafayette did not forget each other.

They wrote devoted letters to each other as if they were father and son.

The French nobleman named his son for Washington, who, during the troublous years in France, received and cared for the boy as if he were a grandson.

Nearly fifty years after Lafayette’s first coming to America, he made his fourth voyage to our country, bringing with him his son, George Washington de Lafayette.

He came, at the invitation of President Monroe and Congress, as the guest of the United States.

Because of the enthusiasm with which he was welcomed all over the country, his visit was remembered as one of the brightest times in the history of the United States.

One hundred and forty years after the Marquis de Lafayette’s first coming to help America, four millions of American young men were enrolled to rescue republican France from her brutal enemy.

A million soldiers had crossed the ocean, and another million were on their way when a company of Americans visited the last resting-place of Lafayette.

As they laid a wreath upon the tomb of the “Friend of America,” General Pershing, the commander of the American forces, exclaimed, “Lafayette, we are here!

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