Back Aa

Historic Boyhoods

<h2>X</h2> <h3>Lafayette</h3> <h4>The Boy of Versailles: 1757-1834</h4> Marie Antoinette, the little Queen of France, was giving a fête at the royal palace of Versailles, outside of Paris, and the beautiful gardens of the palace, world famous for their wonderful statues and fountains, flowers and groves, presented an amazing sight on that midsummer night. A hundred elves and fairies, hobgoblins and wood-nymphs danced in and out about groups of strangely dressed grown-up people, who were neither in court costume nor in real masquerade. The older lords and ladies of the court were trying to humor their young Queen's whim without parting with any of their dignity, and the result of their attempt was this very curious sight—tall, stiff goblins, wearing elaborate, powdered wigs and jeweled swords, stout wood-nymphs with bare arms and shoulders, and glittering with jewels. Never had the court of France thought itself so absolutely absurd, and never had the children of that famous court enjoyed themselves so much. They played all sorts of games about the dignified people scattered over the grounds, until the latter were quite ready to believe that the days of elves and fairies had really returned. The boy Marquis de Lafayette led the revels. It was he to whom the little Queen had appealed for help when she first planned her garden party. Her boy husband, Louis XVI, was more interested in machinery than in anything else. He was fond of taking clocks to pieces and putting them together again, and in working over old locks and keys, and so had left his young Queen very much to herself ever since he had brought her from Austria to France. Marie Antoinette was passionately fond of fun, and the stiff lords and ladies of her husband's court bored her extremely. They were anxious above everything else to keep up their old ceremonies, and to make life simply a matter of rules. So it was that the girl turned to the young boy Marquis, who was almost as fond of sports as she was, and with his help gathered a band of boys and girls of her own age about her. Then one summer day, while Louis was busy in his workshop, Marie Antoinette plotted with Lafayette to hold a fête champêtre in the gardens which should be very different from anything the court of France had seen before. She said that all her guests should appear either as goblins or as nymphs. They would not dance the quadrille nor any other stately measure, but would be free to romp and play such jokes as might occur to them. When he heard these plans Lafayette shook his head doubtfully. "What will the lords in waiting say to this?" he asked, "and your Majesty's own ladies of the court?" The Queen laughed and shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Who cares?" she said. "As long as Louis is king I shall do what pleases me." Then she clapped her hands as a new idea occurred to her. "I shall go to Louis," she added, "and have him issue an order commanding every one who attends the fête to dress either as a goblin or a nymph. He will do it for me, I know." When the King heard her request he good-humoredly agreed, for he found it hard to deny his pretty young wife anything, and so the order was issued. Imagine the horror of the grown-up courtiers when they heard the command! Unbend sufficiently to dress as goblins and nymphs? Never! The saucy young Queen and her friends must be taught a lesson. As soon as she knew of their disapproval she would of course give up her scheme. On the contrary, the Queen did nothing of the sort. She made Lafayette master of ceremonies, and gave strict orders that no one should be admitted to the gardens on the night of the fête unless they were dressed as commanded. In the meantime the boys and girls were planning the costumes they would wear and rehearsing the play they were to act. But the court party was not to be beaten so easily, and the Royal Chamberlain and the Queen's Mistress of the Robes hunted up the King in his workshop and told him that such a performance as was planned would shame the French court in the eyes of the whole world. Louis listened to them patiently and said he would consider the matter. Then he sent for his wife and Lafayette and the other ringleaders. Between them they described how absurd the courtiers would look with such good effect that Louis laughed until he cried. Then he dismissed the whole matter from his mind and went back to the tools on his work-table, which were the only things that seriously concerned him. Now that the garden party was at its height, Lafayette was the undisputed leader of the youths. It was he who swooped down upon the stately Mistress of the Robes and ordered his band of hobgoblins to carry her off to the summer-house on the edge of the woods, and keep her a prisoner there, while they sang her the latest ballads of the Paris streets. It was he who had a ring of fairies dance about the Lord Chamberlain until that haughty person was so dizzy that he had to put his hands to his eyes and run as rapidly as dignity would let him to a place of safety. The boy took his orders from the beautiful Queen of the Fairies, Marie Antoinette, who, more radiant and lovely than ever, sat on the rustic throne and sent her messengers to the different groups in the gardens. Beside her stood the young King Louis, laughing and admiring the ingenuity of her plans. Next day, however, came the retribution. The courtiers were up in arms. They had managed to go through one such evening, but they did not propose to stand another. The most important people in France went to the King and placed their grievances before him. Louis loved peace, so that now he was willing to take the side of the courtiers, and as a result the day of the children was over. Marie Antoinette, fond of pleasure above everything else, tried to have her way for a short time, but before a month had passed, the weight of its old time formal dignity had fallen on Versailles, and the children were again made to pattern after their elders. Fond as the young Marquis had been of the good times with playmates of his own age at Versailles, he could not endure the stiff court nor look with any satisfaction to the formal life which most of the young men of the time led. He was naturally too independent to bow and scrape as was required. In spite of his careful training he found that he had not acquired the endless flow of frivolous talk which was popular at court. He was usually silent in company, and more and more given to going away by himself, in order to escape the affectations of the life about him. His only chance seemed to lie in the army, and therefore he spent a great deal of his time with his regiment of Black Musketeers, and began to plan for a military career. He had been made a cadet of the old French regiment called the Black Musketeers when he was only twelve years old. Then he was a slight little chap with bright reddish hair and very fair complexion, and much too small to carry a man's arms; but he was so fond of the splendid-looking set of men that whenever they paraded he was sure to be somewhere near at hand to watch them. The boy's name had been placed on the Musketeers' rolls, though not as a regular cadet, very soon after his birth, because his great-uncle had been a member of the regiment and was eager to have his family name connected with it. It happened that this twelve-year-old cadet was already a very important person in the kingdom of France. He had been baptized by the names of Marie Paul Joseph Roche Ives Gilbert de Mottier, and held the title of Marquis of Lafayette. His father had been killed at the battle of Minden when he was only twenty-four years old, but had already won a great name for bravery. His mother died soon afterward, and so the young Marquis was left almost alone in his great castle of Chavaniac in the Auvergne Mountains of southern France. He must have been very lonely with no playmates of his own age and only masters and governesses about him. He was what people called "land poor," which meant that although he owned a large part of French territory, it brought him in but small profit, and he had little money to spend. To make up for his lack of playmates, his masters spent much time drilling the boy Marquis in the etiquette of the French nobility. High-born French youths at that time had many things to learn, but they were such things as would make the boy an ornamental piece of furniture at court. He must be able to enter a drawing-room with perfect dignity, to compliment a lady, to pick up a fan, to offer his arm with an air of gallantry, to take part in the formal dances of the period, to draw his sword in case his honor should require it. The little boys and girls of Louis XVI's reign were dressed in stiff court clothes almost as soon as they were old enough to talk, and were taught bows and curtsies, gallant words and dancing steps when other children would have been playing out-of-doors. As a result they grew up much alike, most of them merely fashion plates to decorate the royal palace at Versailles. Fortunately for the boy his lonely life in the mountains ended when he was twelve years old. Then his great uncle sent for him to come to Paris, and placed him at the College du Plessis, where a great many other young courtiers were being educated. The school taught him very little of history, of foreign languages, or sciences, but a great deal about riding and fencing and dancing, and how to write a letter which should be full of worldly wisdom. At about the same time his grandfather died, and he inherited a very large fortune, so that the small boy bore not only one of the oldest titles in the kingdom but possessed enough money to do exactly as he pleased. There was only one course open to him—the life of a courtier at Versailles. In that age of ceremony marriage was quite as much a formal matter as other affairs of life. The young Marquis's guardians, according to the custom of the time, immediately looked about for a girl of equal rank who might marry their boy. They decided on little Marie Adrienne de Noailles, daughter of a great peer of France. The girl was only twelve years old, and her mother was very unwilling to have her married to a boy whose character was unformed, and whose fortune would allow him to become as wild as he chose. Her father, however, liked the match, and her mother finally agreed, insisting, however, that the children should wait two years before their wedding. When these arrangements had all been made and the engagement was formally announced, the boy Marquis was taken to call at the house of his future wife, and was presented to her in the garden. Formal paths wound under a row of chestnut-trees, carefully tended flower-beds were arranged with mathematical precision, a few peacocks strutted across the lawn, and here and there a marble statue or a great stone jar from Italy gave a classic touch to the scene. The small boy, dressed in court clothes of velvet, his fair hair in long curls, his three-cornered hat held beneath his arm, his court rapier hanging at his side, bright silver buckles at knees and on shoes, advanced down the walk to the little lady who was waiting for him. She was in flowered satin, her long, yellow hair falling to her shoulders, her light-blue eyes looking timidly at the boy, and her pale cheeks flushing as he approached. As he stood before her, she held out her hand, and he delicately lifted it with his and touched his lips to her fingers. She blushed redder, then he paid her a few stately compliments, and they walked down the path laughing shyly at this new intimacy. She had seen few boys before, and he had known few girls, and yet their guardians had destined them for man and wife. It was a curious, old-world picture that the two children made, but the scene was quite characteristic of the age. At the time he lived at Versailles and made one of the group about the little King and Queen, the guardians of the young Marquis expected to find him growing more and more popular with the royal court, and they were very much surprised when they learned how reserved he was becoming and how little he seemed interested in the pursuits of his age. When they heard of his being one of the ringleaders at the Queen's party, they were horrified. They determined to try and make him more like themselves, and so sought to get him a place in the household of one of the royal family, the Duc de Provence. Lafayette was very much disturbed at the thought, and secretly determined to defeat the plan. Before the position was finally offered him he went to a masked ball, and learning which was the Duc de Provence in disguise, went up to him and spoke republican sentiments which were not at all to the nobleman's liking. Then the boy allowed the masked man to recognize him. The Duc said sharply that he should remember the interview. Thereupon young Lafayette made him a profound bow and replied calmly that memory was often called the wit of fools. This, of course, ended the chance of his preferment in the royal household, and the boy was freed from what he considered an irksome task. As a result however he was no longer popular at court, and soon asked that he might be allowed to go back to his distant castle in Auvergne until he was old enough to take his place in the army. His guardians were glad to have him safely out of the way for a time, and granted his request. So for a year the little Marie Jean Paul de Lafayette went back to his mountain home and browsed in his father's library and rode over his estates. He liked the peasants in the country. They were a brighter race, not so sullen and discontented as the people in the streets of Paris, but even here, far from Versailles, the boy heard much of the frightful poverty of the people and the gross extravagance of the court. It made him think, and the more he considered the matter the more he thought the people's claims were just. At the end of a year the boy went back to Paris and married the girl to whom he had been betrothed. He was sixteen, she fourteen, but the Duchess considered that the boy had shown that he was neither a spendthrift nor a fool, and that her daughter could be trusted to him. So the two, scarcely more than school children, opened their residence in Paris, and took their place in that gay world which was riding so rapidly to its downfall. Meanwhile news was constantly coming to France concerning the glorious stand which the American colonists were making against England. The love of liberty was strong in the boy's heart, and the desire to help the colonists soon came to be his greatest wish. Beneath his reserved manner and his silent habits there lay the greatest enthusiasm, and the most determined character. He soon had concluded that there was little hope of winning laurels in the regiment of Black Musketeers, and he cast his eyes longingly across the seas to where real fighting was taking place; but when he told his wish to his friends they all opposed him. He went to an old general who had long been a friend of his family, and urged him to help him in his plan to go to America. "Ah, my boy!" said the general, "I have seen your uncle die in the Italian wars. I saw your father killed at Minden. I will not help in the ruin of the last member of your family. You would only risk life and fortune over there without any chance of reward." That was exactly what Lafayette was anxious to do, and he would not give up his plan. He crossed the Channel to London, and there met some of the men who were interested in the colonial cause. He went to a secret meeting, and heard them discuss plans to help the Americans. They, on their part, at first looked askance at the tall, slender, reddish-haired young Frenchman, who had so little to say himself, and who seemed so easily embarrassed. But when they learned that he had a great fortune, and that if he should aid their cause other young noblemen would follow him, they did their best to win his help. They little knew how invaluable his rare spirit would prove in winning freedom for their land. As he was an officer in the French army, the young Marquis found it very difficult to leave France without the consent of the government, and this he could not gain. He and a friend, named Baron de Kalb, made their plans to escape secretly from Paris to Bordeaux. When he reached the port he found that his ship was not ready, and before he could sail two officers arrived from court, bearing peremptory orders forbidding him to go to America or to assist the colonists. <ANTIMG src="images/illus08.png" alt="lafayette" /> Lafayette Tells of His Wish to Aid America He would not give up his great desire, and so although he pretended that he was willing to obey the command, he planned secretly to escape across the Spanish border and sail from a Spanish port. He and a friend left Bordeaux in a post-chaise, announcing that they were on their way to the French city of Marseilles. As soon as their carriage reached the open country the young Marquis stepped out, and, now disguised as a courier, mounted one of the horses and rode on ahead, ordering the relays. When they reached the road which led toward Spain they changed their course. The officers who had been set to spy upon him, however, now were giving chase, and at the next inn Lafayette was obliged to hide in the straw of a stable until the pursuers should pass. It so happened that he had ridden over that road a little time before, and the innkeeper's daughter knew him by sight. When he rode into the courtyard she exclaimed, "There comes the Marquis de Lafayette!" and he was much alarmed, lest some of the bystanders should give away his secret. He made them understand, however, that he was traveling in disguise, so that when the pursuers arrived and asked questions, the people of the inn all agreed that no such gentleman as Lafayette had been seen in the neighborhood. By means of alternate hiding and sudden rapid riding, the Marquis finally crossed the Spanish border, and reached the little town of Passage. There, on April 20, 1777, he set sail in a boat happily named La Victoire, heading for North America. America owes a great deal to this gallant young Frenchman who crossed the seas to aid the colonies. He was among the first of those foreigners who showed the colonists that the love of liberty was as wide as the world. He came when hope was low, and his coming meant much to the brave men who had to undergo the long, discouraging winter at Valley Forge, and the days when it seemed as though time would prove them only rebels and not patriots. He brought ships, and men, and money to aid in the great cause, but more than all these were his own magnetic personality and the buoyant spirit that refused to be cast down. The War of Independence came to an end, and Lafayette returned home. Trouble was brewing there. The old nobility had grown too overbearing; the men and women who tilled the soil were considered hardly better than mere beasts of burden. Such a state could not last, and so the time came when the mobs of Paris broke into the beautiful gardens of Versailles, stormed the Palace of the Tuilleries, scattered some of the vain and foolish old courtiers, but imprisoned many more, and brought to trial the hapless King Louis and the charming Marie Antoinette. Lafayette, friend of their early days, stood by them through the height of the storm, but there was little he could do against the people's fury. The Revolution rolled over King and Queen, crushing them and their resplendent court, and when it had passed a different type of men and women governed France. Only a few of the old nobility were left, and they had learned their lesson. Lafayette and his wife were of that number. Lover of liberty as he was, these great events could scarcely have surprised him. The people had done much the same as had he when, a boy at Versailles, he rebelled against the selfish court that trod down all opposition with a heel of iron. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.