BY this time Lafayette was a tall, slender young fellow, of commanding height, and with a look of piercing and imperative sincerity in his clear, hazel eyes. His hair was red—some one in the family used to call him "the big boy with red hair"; but hero worshipers need have no misgivings about this characteristic, nor feel that they must apologize for it as a defect. Lafayette said of himself that he was an awkward boy. It may be that the youth who was rapidly growing to a height of "five feet eleven" may have felt, as most boys do at that age, as if he were all hands and feet. But that Lafayette was really awkward—it is unthinkable! Not one single lady of all the beauties in France and America, who handed it down to her descendants that she "once danced with Lafayette," ever mentioned the fact that her partner lacked any element of grace, while many speak of the ease of manner and address of the distinguished man. One friend of Lafayette's early days reports that he was too tall to make a distinguished appearance on horseback or to dance with special grace; but this was said in a period when the dancing-master's art was the ideal of social conduct. Those who did not know Lafayette very well at this time thought him cold and serious and stiff. Perhaps he was shy; yet beneath that calm exterior seethed a volcano of emotion of which no casual onlooker dreamed.

Lafayette was fortunate in having a cousin, the Count de SÉgur, who understood him and who realized that under that surface of gravity was hidden, as he said, "a spirit the most active, a character the most firm, a soul the most burning with passionate fervor."

After his marriage Lafayette continued his studies at the CollÈge du Plessis, and later he spent a year at the military academy at Versailles, that his education as an officer might be complete.

In the summer his inclinations led him to make various journeys to the fortified city of Metz, where the regiment "de Noailles" was in garrison under the charge of the Prince de Poix who was a brother-in-law of Adrienne, Lafayette's wife. On his way back from one of these visits he stayed at Chaillot for a time and there was inoculated for smallpox. This preventive method was a medical novelty at that time. To submit to the experiment showed a great freedom from prejudice on the part of the youth. The Duchess d'Ayen had once suffered from the ravages of this disease, so she could safely stay with the now adored son-in-law through this disagreeable period of seclusion.

Soon after this the youthful Marquis de Lafayette and his shy girl bride were presented at court. The benevolent king, Louis XVI, was then reigning. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was the head of a social life that was elaborately formal and splendid. Marie Antoinette herself was young and light-hearted, and was at this time without fears from misadventure at the hands of the state or from any personal enemies. The king had thousands of servants and attendants in his military and personal households. A court scene was a display of knots of ribbon, lace ruffles, yellow and pink and sky-blue satin coats, shoes with glittering buckles, red-painted heels, and jeweled trimmings. Fountains threw their spray aloft, and thousands of candles flung radiance broadcast. Said Chateaubriand, "No one has seen anything who has not seen the pomp of Versailles." And no one dreamed that the end was nearing, or realized that no nation can live when the great mass of the people are made to toil, suffer, and die, in order that a favored few may have luxuries and amusement.

Into this Vanity Fair the young Marquis de Lafayette was now plunged. The grand world flowed to the feet of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette. More than that, the queen at once took the tall, distinguished-looking young chevalier into the circle of her special friends. The circle included some who were to follow Lafayette in his adventure to the New World in aid of American independence, and some who were to follow in another long procession equally adventurous and as likely to be fatal—the Revolution in their own country. During the Terror some of them, including their beautiful and well-meaning queen, were to lose their lives. Of any such danger as this, these young nobles, in the present state of seemingly joyous and abundant prosperity, were farthest from dreaming.

On the whole, however, court life did not have much charm for Lafayette. It was a part of the duty of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette to take part in the plays and merrymakings that centered about a queen who loved amusement only too well. But Lafayette could not throw his whole heart into the frivolity of the social sphere in which he was now moving. There were features of life at court that he could not tolerate. His knee would not crook; he already knew, as Everett said, that he was not born "to loiter in an antechamber."

It was liberty itself—the revolt against tyranny in every realm of life—that interested him from the first. Lafayette was against whatever stood for tyranny, against whatever appeared to be an institution that could foster despotism. He believed that the well-being of society would be advanced by giving the utmost freedom to all, high and low, educated and uneducated. He saw a world in chains only waiting for some hero to come along and strike off the fetters.

Where did Lafayette, a born aristocrat, get these ideas? Certainly not from the peasants as they knelt beside the road when he, their prospective liege lord, rode by. He was brought up to believe that it was the sacred privilege of the ruling class to throw largesse to the poor, who stood aside, waiting and expectant, to receive the gifts.

It is hard to say where Lafayette imbibed his love of freedom. One might as well ask where that "wild yeast in the air" comes from that used to make the bread rise without "emptins." There was a "wild yeast in the air" in the France of 1760 and 1770, and all the young people of that country, whether highborn or lowborn, were feeling the ferment.

If Lafayette had pursued the course that his circumstances urged, he would soon have crystallized into a narrow, subservient character, without purpose or ideals. By all the standards of his time, he would be thought to be throwing away his life if he should take steps to alienate himself from the glittering, laughing, sympathetic friends who stood about him at court. All advancement for him appeared to be in line with the influences there. But if he had done this, if he had followed the star of court preferment, he would have remained only one of many highly polished nonentities—and would have lost his head at last. By throwing away his life, by choosing the way of self-sacrifice, he won the whole world; by throwing away his world, the natural world of compliance and ease about him, he won a world, nay, two worlds. He became what Mirabeau named him, the "hero of two worlds."