Nothing better puts in its true light the dominant characteristic of the French sentiment throughout the war than what happened on this solemn occasion, and more shows how, with their new-born enthusiasm for philanthropy and liberty, the French were pro-Americans much more than anti-English. No trace of a triumphant attitude toward a vanquished enemy appeared in anything they did or said. Even in the surrendering, the fact remained apparent that this was not a war of hatred. "The English," writes Abbé Robin, "laid down their arms at the place selected. Care was taken not to admit sightseers, so as to diminish their humiliation." Henry Lee (Light-horse Harry), who was present, describes in the same spirit the march past: "Universal silence was observed amidst the vast concourse, and the utmost decency prevailed, exhibiting in demeanor an awful sense of the vicissitudes of human life, mingled with commiseration for the unhappy."[50]
The victors pitied Cornwallis and showed him every consideration; Rochambeau, learning that he was without money, lent him all he wanted. He invited him to dine with him and his officers on the 2d of November. "Lord Cornwallis," writes Closen, "especially distinguished himself by his reflective turn of mind, his noble and gentle manners. He spoke freely of his campaigns in the Carolinas, and, though he had won several victories, he acknowledged, nevertheless, that they were the cause of the present misfortunes. All, with the exception of Tarleton, spoke French, O'Hara in particular to perfection, but he seemed to us something of a brag."[51]A friendly correspondence began between the English general and some of the French officers, Viscount de Noailles, the one who had walked all the way, lending him, the week after the capitulation, his copy of the beforementioned famous work of Count de Guibert onTactics, which was at that time the talk of Europe, and of which Napoleonsaid later that "it was such as to form great men," the same Guibert who expected lasting repute from that work and from his military services, and who—irony of fate—general and Academician though he was, is chiefly remembered as the hero of the letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse.
Cornwallis realized quite well that the French had fought for a cause dear to their hearts more than from any desire to humble him or his nation. He publicly rendered full justice to the enemy, acknowledging that the fairest treatment had been awarded him by them. In the final report in which he gives his own account of the catastrophe, and which he caused to be printed when he reached England, he said: "The kindness and attention that has been shown us by the French officers ... their delicate sensibility of our situation, their generous and pressing offers of money, both public and private, to any amount, has really gone beyond what I can possibly describe and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every British officer whenever the fortunes of war should put any of them in our power."
The French attitude in the New World was in perfect accord with the French sentiments in the Old. On receiving from Lauzun and Count de Deux-Ponts, who for fear of capture had sailed in two different frigates, the news of the taking of Cornwallis, of his 8,000 men (of whom 2,000were in hospitals), 800 sailors, 214 guns, and 22 flags, the King wrote to Rochambeau: "Monsieur le Comte de Rochambeau, the success of my arms flatters me only as being conducive to peace." And, thanking the "Author of all prosperity," he announced the sending of letters to the archbishops and bishops of his kingdom for aTe Deumto be sung in all the churches of their dioceses.
It was a long time since the old cocks of the French churches had quivered at the points of the steeples to the chant of aTe Deumfor a victory leading to a glorious peace. The victory was over those enemies who, not so very long before, had bereft us of Canada. Nothing more significant than the pastoral letter of "Louis Apollinaire de la Tour du Pin Montauban, by the grace of God first Bishop of Nancy, Primate of Lorraine," appointing the date for the thanksgiving ceremonies, and adding: "This so important advantage has been the result of the wisest measures. Reason and humanity have gauged it and have placed it far above those memorable but bloody victories whose lustre has been tarnished by almost universal mourning. Here the blood of our allies and of our generous compatriots has been spared, and why should we not note with satisfaction that the forces of our enemies have been considerably weakened, their efforts baffled, the fruits of their immense expense lost, without ourhaving caused rivers of their blood to be spilt, without our having filled their country with unfortunate widows and mothers?" For this, too, as well as for the victory, thanks must be offered; and for this, too, for such a rare and such a humane feeling, the name of Bishop de la Tour du Pin Montauban deserves to be remembered.
The nation at large felt like the bishop. One of the most typical of the publications inspired in France by the war and its outcome was theFragment of Xenophon, newly found in the ruins of Palmyra ... translated from the Greek, anonymously printed, in 1783,[52]in which under the names of Greeks and Carthaginians, the story of the campaign is told; the chief actors being easily recognized, most of them, under anagrams: Tusingonas is Washington; Cherambos, Rochambeau; the illustrious Filaatete, Lafayette; Tangides, d'Estaing, and the wise Thales of Milet, Franklin.
Critical minds, the author observes, will perhaps think they discover anachronisms, but such mean nothing; he will soon give an edition of the Greek original, splendidly printed, "so the wealthy amateurs will buy it, without being able to read it; the learned, who could read it, will be unable to buy it, and everybody will be pleased."
The author gives a detailed description of the Greeks and of the Carthaginians, that is, the French and their former enemies, the English: "Greece, owing to her intellectual and artistic predominance, seemed to lead the rest of the world, and Athens led Greece. The Athenians were, truth to say, accused of inconstancy; they were reproached for the mobility of their character, their fondness for new things, their leaning toward raillery; but there was something pleasing in their defects. Justice was, moreover, rendered to their rare qualities: gentle as they were and softened by their fondness for enjoyment, they nonetheless were attracted by danger and prodigal of their blood. They felt as much passion for glory as for pleasure; arbiters in matters of taste, they played the same rôle in questions of honor, an idol with them; somewhat light-minded, they were withal frank and generous.... This brilliant and famous nation was such that those among her enemies that cast most reproaches at her envied the fate of the citizens living within her borders."
Whether succeeding events have cured or not some of that light-mindedness, any one can see to-day and form his judgment.
As to Carthaginians (the English), no animosity, no hatred, but, on the contrary, greater praise than was accorded to his own compatriots by many an English writer: "It mustbe acknowledged that they never made a finer defense.... They faced everywhere all their enemies, and, disastrous as the result may have proved for them, this part of their annals will remain one of the most glorious. Why should we hesitate to render them justice? Yes, if the intrepid defender of the columns of Hercules[53]were present in person at our celebration, he would receive the tribute of praise and applause that Greeks know how to pay to any brave and generous enemy."
This way of thinking had nothing exceptional. One of the most authoritative publicists of the day, Lacretelle, in 1785, considering, in theMercure de France, the future of the new-born United States, praised the favorable influence exercised on them by the so much admired British Constitution—"the most wonderful government in Europe. For it will be England's glory to have created peoples worthy of throwing off her yoke, even though she must endure the reproach of having forced them to independence by forgetfulness of her own maxims."
As to the members of the French army who had started for the new crusade two years before, they had at once the conviction that, in accordance with their anticipation, they had witnessed something great which would leave a profound trace in the history of the world. They brought home the seed of liberty and equality, the "virus," as it was called by Pontgibaud, who, friend as he was of Lafayette, resisted the current to the last and remained a royalist. "The young French nobility," says Talleyrand in his memoirs, "having enlisted for the cause of independence, clung ever after to the principle which it had gone to defend."[54]Youthful Saint-Simon, the future Saint-Simonian, thus summed up his impressions of the campaign: "I felt that the American Revolution marked the beginning of anew political era; that this revolution would necessarily set moving an important progress in general civilization, and that it would, before long, occasion great changes in the social order then existing in Europe."[55]Many experienced the feeling described in the last lines of his journal by Count Guillaume de Deux-Ponts, wounded at the storming of the redoubts: "With troops as good and brave and well-disciplined as those which I have had the honor to lead against the enemy, one can undertake anything.... I owe them the greatest day in my life, the souvenir of which will never die out.... Man's life is mixed with trials, but one can no longer complain when having enjoyed the delightful moments which are their counterpart; a single instant effaces such troubles, and that instant, well resented, causes one to desire new trials so as to once more enjoy their recompense."
VIII
For one year more Rochambeau remained in America. Peace was a possibility, not a certainty. In London, where so late as November 20, the most encouraging news continued to be received, but where that of the catastrophe, brought by theRattlesnake, arrived on the 25th, George III and his ministers refused to yield to evidence, Lord Germain especially, for whom the shock had been great, and who was beseeching Parliament "to proceed with vigor in the prosecution of the war and not leave it in the power of the French to tell the Americans that they had procured their independence, and were consequently entitled to a preference, if not an exclusive right, in their trade." This was not to know us well; our treaty of commerce had been signed three years before, at a time when anything would have been granted to propitiate France, but there was not in it, as we saw, one single advantage that was not equally accessible to any one who chose, the English included.
As for King George, he decided that the 8th of February, 1782, would be a day of national fasting, to ask pardon for past sins, and imploreHeaven's assistance in the prosecution of the war. Franklin was still beseeching his compatriots to be on their guard: "It seems the [English] nation is sick of [the war] ... but the King is obstinate.... The ministry, you will see, declare that the war in America is for the future to be onlydefensive. I hope we shall be too prudent to have the least dependence on this declaration. It is only thrown out to lull us; for, depend upon it, the King hates us cordially, and will be content with nothing short of our extirpation."[56]
With his Frenchadmiratricesthe sage exchanged merry, picturesque letters. Madame Brillon writes, in French, from Nice on the 11th of December, 1781: "My dear Papa, I am sulky with you ... yes, Mr. Papa, I am sulky. What! You capture whole armies in America, you burgoynize Cornwallis, you capture guns, ships, ammunition, men, horses, etc., etc., you capture everything and of everything, and only the gazette informs your friends, who go off their heads drinking your health, that of Washington, of independence, of the King of France, of the Marquis de Lafayette, of Mr. de Rochambeau, Mr. de Chastellux, etc., and you give them no sign of life!..."
With his valiant pen, which feared nothing, not even French grammar, Franklin answered:"Passy, 25 Décembre 1781.—Vous me boudés, ma chère amie, que je n'avois pas vous envoyé tout de suite l'histoire de notre grande victoire. Je suis bien sensible de la magnitude de notre avantage et de ses possibles bonnes conséquences, mais je ne triomphe pas. Sçachant que la guerre est pleine de variétés et d'incertitudes, dans la mauvaise fortune j'espère la bonne, et dans la bonne je crains la mauvaise."
The future continued doubtful. In June Washington was still writing: "In vain is it to expect that our aim is to be accomplished by fond wishes for peace, and equally ungenerous and fruitless will it be for one State to depend upon another to bring this to pass."[57]French and American regiments remained, therefore, under arms and waited, but scarcely did anything on the continent but wait. For if George III was still for war, the mass of his people were not. Rochambeau availed himself of his leisure to visit the accessible parts of the country, give calls and dinners to his neighbors, study the manners and resources of the inhabitants, go fox-hunting "through the woods, accompanied by some twenty sportsmen. We have forced more than thirty foxes; the packs of hounds of the local gentlemen are perfect," states Closen. The different usages of the French and the Americans are for each other a cause of merriment. "On New Year's Day the custom of the French to embrace, even in the street, caused much American laughter," but, the young aide observes with some spite, "theirshake hands, on the other side, those more or less prolonged and sometimes very hard-pressed twitchings of the hands are certainly on a par with European embracings."
Rochambeau had established himself at Williamsburg, the quiet and dignified capital of the then immense State of Virginia, noted for its "Bruton church," its old College of William and Mary, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and the birthplace of the far-famed Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, its statue of the former English governor, Lord Botetourt,[58]in conspicuous marble wig and court mantle. "America, behold your friend," the inscription on the pedestal reads.
That other friend of America, Rochambeau, took up his quarters in the college, one of the buildings of which, used as a hospital for our troops, accidentally took fire, but was at once paid for by the French commander. Seeing more of the population, Rochambeau was noting a number of traits which were to be taken up again by Tocqueville, the diffusion of the ideas of religious tolerance, the absence of privileges, equality put into practise. "The husbandman in his habitation is neither a castellated lord nor a tenant,but a landowner." It takes him thirty to forty years to rise from "the house made of logs and posts," with the house "of well-joined boards" as an intermediary stage, to the "house in bricks, which is the acme of their architecture." Labor is expensive and is paid a dollar a day. The country has three million inhabitants, but will easily support a little more than thirty, which was not such a bad guess since the thirteen States of Rochambeau's day have now thirty-seven. Men are fond of English furniture, and women "have a great liking for French fashions." In every part where the ravages of the war have not been felt people live at their ease, "and the little negro is ever busy clearing and laying the table."
Faithful Closen, who had been proposed for promotion on account of his gallant conduct at the siege, accompanied the general everywhere, and also explored separately, on his own account, led sometimes by his fondness for animals, of which he was making "a small collection, some living and some stuffed ones, only too glad if they can please the persons for whom I destine them." He takes notes on raccoons, investigates opossums, and visits a marsh "full of subterranean habitations of beavers," and he sees them at work. He is also present at one of those cock-fights so popular then in the region, "but the sight is a little too cruel to allow one to derive enjoyment from it."
Sent to Portsmouth with letters for Mr. deVaudreuil, in command of our fleet, Closen becomes acquainted "with a very curious animal which the people of the region call a musk-cat, but which I believe to be thepuant" (the stinking one), and a careful description shows that, in any case, the name well fitted the animal. He also studies groundhogs on the same occasion. The charm and picturesqueness of wild life in American forests is a trait which French officers noted with amused curiosity in their journals. Describing his long journey on foot from the Chesapeake, where he had been shipwrecked, to Valley Forge, where he was to become aide to his Auvergnat compatriot, Lafayette, youthful Pontgibaud, with no luggage nor money left, sleeping in the open, writes of the beauty of birds, and the delightful liveliness of innumerable little squirrels, "who jumped from branch to branch, from tree to tree, around me. They seemed to accompany the triumphal march of a young warrior toward glory.... It is a fact that, with their jumps, their gambols, that quantity of little dancers, so nimble, so clever, retarded my walk.... Such is the way with people of eighteen; the present moment makes them forget all the rest."[59]
Rochambeau, his son, and two aides, one ofwhom was Closen, journey to visit at Monticello the already famous Jefferson; they take with them fourteen horses, sleep in the houses where they chance to be at nightfall, a surprise party which may, at times, have caused embarrassment, but this accorded with the customs of the day. The hospitality is, according to occasions, brilliant or wretched, "with a bed for the general, as ornamented as the canopy for a procession," and elsewhere "with rats which come and tickle our ears." They reach the handsome house of the "philosopher," adorned with a colonnade, "the platform of which is very prettily fitted with all sorts of mythological scenes."
The lord of the place dazzles his visitors by his encyclopædic knowledge. Closen describes him as "very learned in belles-lettres, in history, in geography, etc., etc., being better versed than any in the statistics of America in general, and the interests of each particular province, trade, agriculture, soil, products, in a word, all that is of greatest use to know. The least detail of the wars here since the beginning of the troubles is familiar to him. He speaks all the chief languages to perfection, and his library is well chosen, and even rather large in spite of a visit paid to the place by a detachment of Tarleton's legion, which has proved costly and has greatly frightened his family."
Numerous addresses expressing fervent gratitude were received by Rochambeau, from Congress, from the legislatures of the various States, from the universities, from the mayor and inhabitants of Williamsburg, the latter offering their thanks not only for the services rendered by the general in his "military capacity," but, they said, "for your conduct in the more private walks of life, and the happiness we have derived from the social, polite, and very friendly intercourse we have been honored with by yourself and the officers of the French army in general, during the whole time of your residence among us." The favorable impression left by an army permeated with the growing humanitarian spirit, is especially mentioned in several of those addresses: "May Heaven," wrote "the Governor, council and representatives of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in General Assembly convened," "reward your exertions in the cause of humanity and the particular regard you have paid to the rights of the citizens."
Writing at the moment when departure was imminent, the Maryland Assembly recalled in its address the extraordinary prejudices prevailing shortly before in America against all that was French: "To preserve in troops far removed from their own country the strictest discipline andto convert into esteem and affection deep and ancientprejudiceswas reserved for you.... We view with regret the departure of troops which have so conducted, so endeared, and so distinguished themselves, and we pray that the laurels they have gathered before Yorktown may never fade, and that victory, to whatever quarter of the globe they direct their arms, may follow their standard."
The important result of a change in American sentiment toward the French, apart from the military service rendered by them, was confirmed to Rochambeau by La Luzerne, who wrote him: "Your well-behaved and brave army has not only contributed to put an end to the success of the English in this country, but has destroyed in three years prejudices deep-rooted for three centuries."[60]
The "President and professors of the University of William and Mary," using a style which was to become habitual in France but a few years later, desired to address Rochambeau, "not in the prostituted language of fashionable flattery, but with the voice of truth and republican sincerity," and, after thanks for the services rendered and the payment made for the building destroyed "by an accident that often eludes all possible precaution," they adverted to the future intellectual intercourse between the two nations, saying:"Among the many substantial advantages which this country hath already derived, and which must ever continue to flow from its connection with France, we are persuaded that the improvement of useful knowledge will not be the least. A number of distinguished characters in your army afford us the happiest presage that science as well as liberty will acquire vigor from the fostering hand of your nation."
They concluded: "You have reaped the noblest laurels that victory can bestow, and it is, perhaps, not an inferior triumph to have obtained the sincere affection of a grateful people."
In order to "foster," as the authors of the address said, such sentiments as to a possible intellectual intercourse, the French King sent to this university, as the college was then called, "two hundred volumes of the greatest and best French works," but, La Rochefoucauld adds after having seen them in 1796, they arrived greatly damaged, "because the Richmond merchant who had undertaken to convey them to the college forgot them for a pretty long time in his cellar in the midst of his oil and sugar barrels." Fire has since completed the havoc, so that of the two hundred only two are now left, exhibited under glass in the library-museum of the college. They are parts of the works of Bailly, then of European fame as an astronomer and scientist, who was,however, to count in history for something else than hisTraité sur l'Atlantide de Platon, for he was the same Bailly who a few years later presided over the National Assembly, sending to the royal purchaser of his works the famous reply: "The nation assembled can receive no orders," and who, two days after the fall of the Bastille, was acclaimed by the crowd mayor of Paris, while Lafayette was acclaimed commander-in-chief of the National Guard.
Another gift of books was sent, with the same intent, by the King of France to the University of Pennsylvania, and, though many have disappeared, the fate of this collection has been happier. A number of those volumes are still in use at Philadelphia, works which had been selected as being likely to prove of greatest advantage, on science, surgery, history, voyages, and bearing the honored names of Buffon, of Darwin's forerunner, Lamarck, of Joinville, Bougainville, the Bénédictins (Art de vérifier les Dates), and the same Bailly.
Rochambeau, who had begun learning English, set himself the task of translating the addresses received by him, and several such versions in his handwriting figure among his papers.
Closen, intrusted with the care of taking to Congress the general's answer to its congratulations, rode at the rate of over one hundred milesa day, slept "a few hours in a bed not meant to let any one oversleep himself, thanks either to its comfort or to the biting and abundant company in it," met by chance at Alexandria "the young, charming, and lovely daughter-in-law of General Washington," Mrs. Custis, and the praise of her is, from now on, ceaseless: "I had already heard pompous praise of her, but I confess people had not exaggerated. This lady is of such a gay disposition, so prepossessing, with such perfect education, that she cannot fail to please everybody." He hands his despatches to Congress, some to Washington, returns at the same rate of speed, having as guide a weaver, so anxious to be through with his job (two couriers had just been killed), that he rode at the maddest pace. He reached Williamsburg on the 11th of May, having covered, deduction made of the indispensable stoppings, "nine hundred and eighty miles in less than nine times twenty-four hours."
As the summer of 1782 was drawing near, the French army, which had wintered in Virginia, moved northward in view of possible operations. This was for Closen an occasion to visit Mount Vernon, where Rochambeau had stopped with Washington the year before when on their way to Yorktown. "The house," says the aide, "is quite vast and perfectly distributed, with handsome furniture, and is admirably kept, withoutluxury. There are two pavilions connected with it, and a number of farm buildings.... Behind the pavilion on the right is an immense garden, with the most exquisite fruit in the country."
Mrs. Washington gracefully entertains the visitor, as well as Colonel de Custine, the same who was to win and lose battles and die beheaded in the French Revolution. Some ten officers of the Saintonge regiment, which was in the neighborhood, are also received. "Mr. de Bellegarde came ahead of Mr. de Custine, and brought, on his behalf, a porcelain service, from his own manufacture, at Niderviller, near Phalsbourg, of great beauty and in the newest taste, with the arms of General Washington, and his monogram surmounted by a wreath of laurel.[61]Mrs. Washington was delighted with Mr. de Custine's attention, and most gracefully expressed her gratitude."
All leave that same evening except Closen, who had again found there the incomparable Mrs. Custis (whose silhouette he took and inserted in his journal), and who remained "one day more, being treated with the utmost affability by these ladies, whose society," he notes, "was most sweet and pleasant to me." He leaves at last, "rather sad."
Moving northward by night marches, the troops again start not later than two o'clock in the morning, as in the previous summer; the French officers notice the extraordinary progress realized since their first visit. At Wilmington, says Closen, "some fifty brick houses have been built, very fine and large, since we first passed, which gives a charming appearance to the main street." At Philadelphia La Luzerne is ready with another magnificent entertainment; a Dauphin has been born to France, and a beautiful hall has been built on purpose for the intended banquet by "a French officer serving in the American corps of Engineers," Major L'Enfant, the future designer of the future "federal city."
On the 14th of August Washington and Rochambeau were again together, in the vicinity of the North River, and the American troops were again reviewed by the French general. They are no longer in tatters, but well dressed, and have a fine appearance; their bearing, their manœuvres are perfect; the commander-in-chief, "who causes his drums," Rochambeau relates, "to beat the French March," is delighted to show his soldiers to advantage; everybody compliments him.
During his stay at Providence, in the course of his journey north, Rochambeau gave numerous fêtes, a charming picture of which, as well as of the American society attending them, is furnishedus by Ségur: "Mr. de Rochambeau, desirous to the very last of proving by the details of his conduct, as well as by the great services he had rendered, how much he wished to keep the affection of the Americans and to carry away their regrets, gave in the city of Providence frequent assemblies and numerous balls, to which people flocked from ten leagues around.
"I do not remember to have seen gathered together in any other spot more gayety and less confusion, more pretty women and more happily married couples, more grace and less coquetry, a more complete mingling of persons of all classes, between whom an equal decency allowed no untoward difference to be seen. That decency, that order, that wise liberty, that felicity of the new Republic, so ripe from its very cradle, were the continual subject of my surprise and the object of my frequent talks with the Chevalier de Chastellux."[62]
IX
In the autumn of 1782 a general parting took place, Rochambeau returning to France[63]and the army being sent to the Isles, believed now to be threatened by the English; for if the war was practically at an end for the Americans on the continent, it was not yet the same elsewhere for us, and Suffren especially was prosecuting in the Indies his famous naval campaign, which, owing to the lack of means of communication, was to be continued long after peace had been signed.
So many friendships had been formed that there was much emotion when the last days arrived.[64]On the 19th of October, being the anniversary ofYorktown, Washington offered a dinner to the French officers, who on the same day took leave of him, never to see him again. "On that evening," says Closen, "we took leave of General Washington and of the other officers of our acquaintance, our troops being to sail on the 22d. There is no sort of kindness and tokens of good will we have not received from General Washington; the idea of parting from the French army, probably forever, seemed to cause him real sorrow, having, as he had, received the most convincing proofs of the respect, the veneration, the esteem, and even the attachment which every individual in the army felt for him."
After having taken leave, "in tenderest fashion," of the American commander, who promised "an enduring fraternal friendship," Rochambeau, carrying with him two bronze field-pieces taken at Yorktown, presented by Congress, and adorned with inscriptions, the engraving of which had been supervised by Washington,[65]sailed for France on theEmeraude, early in January, 1783. An English warship which had been cruising at the entrance of the Chesapeake nearly captured him, and it was only by throwing overboard her spare masts and part of her artillery that theEmeraude, thus become lighter and faster, could escape. The general learned, on landing, of the peace which Vergennes had considered, from the first, as a certain, though not immediate, consequence of the taking of Yorktown. "The homages of all Frenchmen go to you," he had written to Rochambeau, adding: "You have restored to our arms all their lustre, and you have laid the cornerstone for the raising, which we expect, of an honorable peace." The hour for it had now struck, and while Suffren had yet to win the naval battle of Goudelour, the preliminaries had been signed at Versailles on the 20th of January, 1783.
The King, the ministers, the whole country gave Rochambeau the welcome he deserved. At his first audience on his return he had asked Louis XVI, as being his chief request, permission to divide the praise bestowed on him with the unfortunate de Grasse, now a prisoner of the English after the battle of the Saintes, where, fighting 30 against 37, he had lost seven ships, including theVille de Paris(which had 400 dead and 500 wounded), all so damaged by the most furious resistance that, owing to grounding, to sinking, or to fire, not one reached the English waters.[66]Rochambeau received the blue ribbon of the Holy Ghost, was appointed governor of Picardy, and a few years later became a marshal of France. Owing to the proximity of his new post, he was able twice to visit England, where he met again his dear La Luzerne, now French ambassador in London, and his former foe, Admiral Hood, who received him with open arms. But the tokens of friendship which touched him most came from officers of Cornwallis's army: "They manifested," he writes, "in the most public manner their gratitude for the humanity with which they had been treated by the French army after their surrender."
Rochambeau was keeping up with Washington a most affectionate correspondence, still partly unpublished, the great American often reminding him of his "friendship and love" for his "companions in war," discussing a possible visit to France, and describing his life now spent "in rural employments and in contemplation of those friendships which the Revolution enabled me to form with so many worthy characters of your nation, through whose assistance I can now sit down in my calm retreat." Dreaming of a humanity less agitated than that he had known, dreaming dreams which were not to be soon realized, he was writing to Rochambeau, from Mount Vernon, on September 7, 1785: "Although it is against the profession of arms, I wish to see all the world at peace."
"Much as he may wish to conceal himself and lead the life of a plain man, he will ever be the first citizen of the United States," La Luzerne had written to Vergennes, and the truth of the statement was shown when a unanimous election made of the former commander-in-chief the first President of the new republic, in the year when the States General met in France and our own Revolution began.
Knowing the friendly dispositions preserved by Rochambeau toward Americans,[67]Washingtonoften gave those going abroad letters of introduction to him; one day the man was Gouverneur Morris, so well known afterward; another day it was a poet of great fame then, of not so great now. Less sure of his ground when the question was of Parnassus than when it was of battle-fields, Washington had described this traveller to Lafayette as being "considered by those who are good judges to be a genius of the first magnitude." To Rochambeau he introduced him as "the author of an admirable poem in which he has worthily celebrated the glory of your nation in general, and of yourself in particular."[68]The poet was that Joel Barlow, of Hartford, who, having become later minister of the United States to France, died in a Polish village in the course of a journey undertaken to present his credentials to the chief of the state, who, for important reasons, had been unable to grant him an audience elsewhere than in Russia, the year being 1812, and the sovereign Emperor Napoleon.[69]
The poem alluded to by Washington was anepic one, called theVision of Columbus, in which an angel appears to the navigator in his legendary prison and reveals to him, in Virgilian fashion, the future of America. Washington, Wayne, Greene are thus shown him, as well as
Brave Rochambeau in gleamy steel array'd,
Brave Rochambeau in gleamy steel array'd,
a description which, if brave Rochambeau ever saw it, must have made him smile.
Rochambeau's letters are in such English as we have seen he had been able, with commendable zeal, to learn late in life. The French general keeps the American leader informed of what goes on in France, in England, and Europe, bestows the highest praise on Pitt, "a wise man who sets finances (of the English) in good order," and gives an account of a visit paid him by Cornwallis at Calais: "I have seen Cornwallis last summer at Calais.... I gave him a supper in little committee;[70]he was very polite, but, as you may believe, I could not drink with him your health in toast."[71]
He tells Washington of Franklin's departure from France, very old, very ill, greatly admired, "having the courage to undertake so long a voyage to go and die in the bosom of his native country. It will be impossible for him, at hiscoming back [to] America, to go and visit you, but I told him that you would certainly go and see him, and that I had always heard you speaking of him in the best terms and having a great consideration for his respectable character. He will have a great joy to see you again, and I should be very happy if I could enjoy the same pleasure."[72]
An affectionate interest for one another and one another's families appears in all these letters, as well as a cherishing of common souvenirs. Rochambeau asks to be remembered to his former American comrades: "A thousand kindness[es] and compliments to Mr. Jefferson, to Mr. Knox, and to all myanciens camaradesand friends which are near you."[73]
The Countess de Rochambeau sometimes takes up the pen, and in one of her letters appeals to Washington in favor of dear Closen who, though he had every right to be included in it, had been forgotten when the list of the original Cincinnati had been drawn up.[74]The request was at once granted.
Twogouacheshad been painted by the famous miniaturist Van Blarenberghe, one representing the storming of the redoubts at Yorktown, the other the surrender of the garrison. They were for the King, and are well known nowadays to every one familiar with the Versailles Museum. Their topographical accuracy is so remarkable that it had always been believed the painter had had the help of some French officer present at the siege. Rochambeau writes to Washington about those pictures and gives us the name of the officer who had actually helped the miniaturist, a well-known name, that of Berthier: "[There have] been presented yesterday to the King, my dear general, two pictures to put in his closet (study), which have been done by an excellent painter, one representing the siege of York, and the other the defile of the British army between the American and the French armies.
"Mr. le Marshal de Ségur promised me copies of them which I will place in my closet on the right and left sides of your picture. Besides that they are excellent paintings, they have beendrawn both by the truth and by an excellent design by the young Berthier, who was deputed quartermaster at the said siege."[75]
Washington having alluded, as he was fond of doing, to the rest he had at last secured for the remnant of his life, as he thought, under the shadow of his own vine and fig-tree, Rochambeau in his answer courteously and sincerely compliments him on the "philosophical" but not definitive quiet he now enjoys under the shadow—"of hislaurel-tree."[76]
The War of the Austrian Succession had found Rochambeau already an officer in the French army; the Revolution found him still an officer in the French army, defending the frontier as a marshal of France and commander-in-chief of the northern troops. In 1792 he definitively withdrew to Rochambeau, barely escaping with his life during the Terror. A striking and touching thing it is to note that, when a prisoner in that "horrible sepulchre," the Conciergerie, he appealed to the"Citizen President of the Revolutionary Tribunal," and invoked as a safeguard the great name of Washington, "my colleague and my friend in the war we made together for the liberty of America."
Luckier than many of his companions in arms of the American war, than Lauzun, Custine, d'Estaing, Broglie, Dillon, and others, Rochambeau escaped the scaffold. He lived long enough to see rise to glory that young man who was teaching the world better military tactics than even the book of Count de Guibert, Bonaparte, now First Consul of the French Republic. Bonaparte had great respect for the old marshal, who was presented to him by the minister of war in 1803; he received him surrounded by his generals, and as the soldier of Klostercamp and Yorktown entered he said, "Monsieur le Maréchal, here are your pupils"; and the old man answered: "They have surpassed their master."
After having been very near death from his wounds in 1747, Rochambeau died only in 1807, being then in his castle of Rochambeau, in Vendomois, and aged eighty-two. He was buried in the neighboring village of Thoré, in a tomb of black and white marble, in the classical style then in vogue. An inscription devised by his wife at the evening of a very long life, draws a touching picture of those qualities which had wonher heart more than half a century before: "A model as admirable in his family as in his armies, an enlightened mind, indulgent, ever thinking of the interests of others ... a happy and honored old age has been for him the crowning of a spotless life. Those who had been his vassals had become his children.... His tomb awaits me; before descending to it I have desired to engrave upon it the memory of so many merits and virtues, as a token of gratitude for fifty years of happiness." On a parallel slab one reads: "Here lies Jeanne Thérèse Telles d'Acosta, who died at Rochambeau, aged ninety-four, May 19, 1824."
In the castle are still to be seen the exquisite portrait, by Latour, of her who in her old age had written the inscription, several portraits of the marshal, and of his ancestors from the first Vimeur, who had become, in the sixteenth century, lord of Rochambeau, the portrait in the white uniform of Auvergne of the old soldier's son, who died at Leipzig, the sword worn at Yorktown, the eagle of the Cincinnati side by side with the star of the Holy Ghost, the before-mentionedgouachesby Van Blarenberghe, a portrait of Washington, given by him to his French friend and also mentioned in their correspondence, and many other historical relics. But the two bronze field-pieces offered by Congress are no longer there, having been commandeered during the Revolution. In front of the simple and noble façade of the slate-roofed castle, at the foot of the terrace, the Loir flows, brimful, between woods and meadows, the same river that fills such a great place in French literature, because of a distant relative of the Rochambeaus of old, Pierre de Ronsard.
Visiting some years ago the place and the tomb, and standing beside the grave of the marshal, it occurred to me that it would be appropriate if some day trees from Mount Vernon could spread their shade over the remains of that friend of Washington and the American cause. With the assent of the family and of the mayor of Thoré, and thanks to the good will of the ladies of the Mount Vernon Association, this idea was realized, and half a dozen seedlings from trees planted by Washington were sent to be placed around Rochambeau's monument: two elms, two maples, two redbuds, and six plants of ivy from Washington's tomb. The last news received about them showed that they had taken root and were growing.
X
Some will, perhaps, desire to know what became of Closen. Sent to the Islands (the West Indies) with the rest of the army, he felt, like all his comrades, greatly disappointed, more even than the others, on account of his bride, whom American beauties had not caused him to forget. He had inserted in his journal a page of silhouettes representing a dozen of the latter, with the name inscribed on each; but he had taken care to write underneath: "Honni soit qui mal y pense." When about to go on board he writes: "I scarcely dare say what I experienced and which was the dominating sentiment, whether my attachment to all that I love or ambition added to sensitiveness on the principles of honor. Reason, however, soon took the lead and decided in favor of the latter.... Let me be patient and do my duty."
To leave Rochambeau was for him one more cause of pain: "I shall never insist enough, nor sufficiently describe the sorrow I felt when separated from my worthy and respectable general; I lose more than any one else in the army.... Attentive as I was to all he had to say about battles, marches, the selection of positions, sieges,in a word, to all that pertains to the profession, I have always tried to profit by his so instructive talks.... I must be resigned."
Once again, therefore, life begins on those detested "sabots," a large-sizedsabot, this time, namely theBrave, of seventy-four guns, "quite recently lined with copper," a sad place of abode, however, in bad weather, or even in any weather: "One can scarcely imagine the bigness of the sea, the noise, the height of the waves, such pitching and rolling that it was impossible to stand; the ships disappearing at times as if they had been swallowed by the sea, to touch it the instant after only with a tiny bit of the keel. What a nasty element, and how sincerely we hate it, all of us of the land troops! The lugubrious noise of the masts, thecrics-cracsof the vessel, the terrible movements which on the sudden raise you, and to which we were not at all accustomed, the perpetual encumbrance that forty-five officers are for each other, forty having no other place of refuge than a single room for them all, the sad faces of those who are sick ... the dirt, the boredom, the feeling that one is shut up in asabotas in a state prison ... all this is only part of what goes to make life unpleasant for a land officer on a vessel, even a naval one.... Let us take courage."[77]
Few diversions. They meet a slave-ship under the Austrian flag, an "abominable and cruel sight," with "that iron chain running from one end of the ship to the other, the negroes being tied there, two and two," stark naked and harshly beaten if they make any movement which displeases the captain. The latter, who is from Bordeaux, salutes his country's war flag with three "Vive le Roi!" They signal to him an answer which cannot be transcribed. No one knows where they go. "Sail on," philosophically writes Closen.
They touch at Porto Rico, at Curaçao, where the fleet is saddened by the loss of theBourgogne, at Porto Cabello (Venezuela), where they make some stay, and where Closen loses no time in resuming his observations on natives, men and beasts, tatous, monkeys, caimans, "enormous lizards quite different from ours," houses which consist in one ground floor divided into three rooms. The "company of the Caracque" (Caracas) keeps the people in a state of restraint and slavery. "Taxation is enormous." Religious intolerance is very troublesome: "Though the Inquisition is not as rigorous in its searches as in Europe, for there is but one commissioner at Caracque, there is, however, too much fanaticism, too many absurd superstitions, in a word, too much ignorance among the inhabitants, who cannever say a word or walk a step without saying anAve, crossing themselves twenty times, or kissing a chaplet which they ever have dangling from their neck with a somewhat considerable accompaniment of relics and crosses. One gentleman, in order to play a trick on me, in the private houses where I had gained access so as to satisfy my curiosity and desire of instruction, told a few people that I was a Protestant. What signs of the cross at the news! And they would ceaselessly repeat:Malacco Christiano—a bad Christian!"
On the 24th of March (1783) great news reached them: the French vesselAndromaquearrived, "with the grand white flag on her foremast, as a signal of peace. The minute after all our men-of-war were decked with flags." There were a few more incidents, like the capture of some French officers, who were quietly rowing in open boats, by "theAlbemarle, of twenty-four guns, commanded by Captain Nelson, of whom these gentlemen speak in the highest terms." As soon as the news of the peace was given him they were released by the future enemy of Napoleon.
The hour for the return home had struck at last. It was delayed by brief stays in some parts of the French West Indies, notably Cap Français, Santo Domingo (now Cap Haïtien). "A few days before our arrival at the Cape Prince William,Duke of Lancaster, third son of the King of England, had come and spent there two days, while the English squadron was cruising in the roads. Great festivities had been arranged in his honor,"—for there was really no hatred against the enemy of the day before.
Some calms and some storms also delayed the return, with the usual "criiiiicks craaaaaks" of the masts, the journey being occupied in transcribing the "notes and journals on the two Americas," and enlivened by the saving of the parrakeet of a Spanish lady who had been admitted with her family on board theBrave. "Frightened by something, the little parrakeet flies off and falls into the sea. The lady's negro, luckily happening to be on the same side, jumps just as he is, with no time to think, dives, reappears, cries, 'Cato! Cato!' joins the parrakeet, puts her on his woolly head, and returns to the ship." Delighted, the lady "allows this black saviour to kiss her hand, a unique distinction for a slave, and bestows on him a life pension of one hundred francs. Many sailors would have liked to do the same, had they known."
Land is now descried; they see again the sights noted when sailing for America: these "coasts thick-decked with live people, fruit-trees and other delightful objects." All is delightful; the joy is universal; they make arrangements to reachParis, which Closen did in magnificent style. "And I," we read in his journal, "after having bought a fine coach where I could place, before, behind, on the top, my servants, consisting of a white man and of my faithful and superb black Peter, and with them three monkeys, four parrots, and six parrakeets, posted to Paris in this company, a noisy one and difficult to maintain clean and in good order.... The next day (June 22) I was at Saint-Pol-de-Léon, my last quarters before sailing for America, and saw again with hearty rejoicings the respectable Kersabiec family which had so well tended me throughout my convalescence after a deadly disease." He thought he could do no less than present them with one of his parrakeets as a token of "gratitude and friendship."
At Guingamp he finds the Du Dresnays, other friends of his, and reaches Paris, he writes, on the 30th of June, with "all my live beings of all colors, myself looking an Indian so tanned and sun-burnt was my face, exception made for my forehead, which my hat had preserved quite white."
The Rochambeau family made him leave his inn and stay with them in their beautiful house of the Rue du Cherche-Midi. The general ("my kind and respectable military father," says Closen) presented him to the minister of war, Marshal de Ségur, who granted the young officer a flatteringwelcome, and the journal closes as novels used to end in olden days, and as the first part of well-ordered, happy lives will ever continue to end. Leaving Paris with the promise of a colonelcyen second—"a very eventual ministerial bouquet"—he went home to Deux-Ponts: "There I found my beautiful fiancée, my dear, my divine Doris, who had had the constancy to keep for me her heart and her hand during the four years of my absence in America, in spite of several proposals received by her, even from men much better endowed with worldly goods, my share consisting only in the before mentioned ministerial promise and in the reputation of an honest man and a good soldier."
I shall only add that the ministerial promise was kept, and that it was as a colonel and a knight of Saint Louis that Closen found himself aide-de-camp again to his old chief, Rochambeau, charged with the defense of the northern frontier at the beginning of the Revolution.[78]
Faded inks, hushed voices. The remembrance of the work remains, however, and cannot fade;for its grandeur becomes, from year to year, more apparent. In less than a century and a half New York has passed from the ten thousand inhabitants it possessed under Clinton to the five million and more of to-day. Philadelphia, once the chief city, "an immense town," Closen had called it, has now ten times more houses than it had citizens. Partly owing again to France, ceding, unasked, the whole territory of Louisiana in 1803, the frontier of this country, which the upper Hudson formerly divided in its centre, has been pushed back to the Pacific; the three million Americans of Washington and Rochambeau have become the one hundred million of to-day. From the time when the flags of the two countries floated on the ruins of Yorktown the equilibrium of the world has been altered.
There is, perhaps, no case in which, with the unavoidable mixture of human interests, a war has been more undoubtedly waged for an idea. The fact was made obvious at the peace, when victorious France, being offered Canada for a separate settlement, refused,[79]and kept her word not to accept any material advantage, the wholenation being in accord, and the people illuminating for joy.
The cause was a just one; even the adversary, many among whom had been from the first of that opinion, was not long to acknowledge it. Little by little, and in spite of some fitful re-awakening of former animosities, as was seen in the second War of Independence, hostile dispositions vanished. The three nations who had met in arms in Yorktown, the three whose ancestors had known a Hundred Years' War, have now known a hundred years' peace. "I wish to see all the world at peace," Washington had written to Rochambeau. For over a century now the three nations which fought at Yorktown have become friends, and in this measure at least the wish of the great American has been fulfilled.