Martha Foote Crow

MORE than a year had passed after the attempt at rescue when one day Lafayette heard the big keys turning in the several locks, one after another, that barred his cell, and in a moment his wife and two daughters stood before his amazed eyes! Could this be true, or was it a vision?

It will be remembered that shortly after Lafayette's arrest he had heard that Madame de Lafayette was imprisoned and was in danger of perishing on the scaffold. A year later the news was smuggled to him that she was still alive. But what had been happening to her and to his three children during all these dismal years?

Through the instrumentality of James Monroe, the ambassador to France from the United States,—the only foreign power that in the days of the French Revolution would send its representative,—Madame de Lafayette was liberated from an imprisonment that tried her soul, even as OlmÜtz had proved and tested the spirit of her husband. Through all those tragic months Adrienne showed herself a woman of high and unswerving courage.

Now, indeed, was the American citizenship of her husband—and it had included his family also—of value to her. Madame de Lafayette's first letter to Mr. Monroe shows this. This dignified letter is preserved in the manuscript department of the New York Public Library and is here printed for the first time:

"Having learned that a minister of the United States has recently arrived in France, who has been sent by his government and invested with powers representing a people in whose interests I have some rights that are dear to my heart, I have felt that such misfortunes as I have not already suffered were no longer to be feared for me, that the most unjust of captivities was about to be at an end, and that my sufferings accompanied by irreproachable conduct towards the principles and towards the laws of my country, cause me to have confidence in the name of this protecting nation at a moment when the voice of justice is once more heard, and when the National Convention is undertaking to deliver such patriots as have been unjustly imprisoned. I have begun to hope that the wishes of my heart shall be fulfilled—that I may be returned to my children. For ten months I have been taken away from them. From the very moment of their birth they have heard that they have a second country, and they have the right to hope that they will be protected by it."

Through the official authority of Mr. Monroe, Madame de Lafayette was given money and passports. When Washington first heard of her plight, he sent her a reverent letter inclosing a thousand dollars, and he was unceasing in his correspondence with representatives in France and England for herself as well as for Lafayette. She sent her son, George Washington de Lafayette, to his illustrious namesake in America, and as "Madame Motier, of Hartford, Connecticut," she, with her two young daughters, made her way to Hamburg where, instead of taking ship for America, she took carriage across the wide spaces of Germany and Austria. Here she gained an audience with the emperor, and bowing at his feet asked permission to go to the fortress of OlmÜtz and stay with her husband until he was set free.

"Your request is granted," he said; "but as for Lafayette—I cannot free him; my hands are tied." Exactly what it was that had "tied the hands" of the great potentate has never been revealed.

Her petition being granted, Madame de Lafayette continued her journey. Two days more and she and her daughters were with her husband.

The day of their meeting was spent in trying to bear the joy of the reunion. Not until the daughters were sent to their cell did she tell Lafayette of the sad things that had happened. Her mother, her grandmother, and her sister had, with many friends and relatives, been led to the scaffold. These and many other facts of tragic interest to the man so long deprived of any word from outside his prison were shared with Lafayette.

It may go without saying that Lafayette's prison days were now far easier to bear, except that to see Madame de Lafayette grow more and more broken in health as days went on, in their close, unlighted, and malodorous cells, must have caused an added sorrow. After a time she was obliged to ask the emperor to allow her to go to Vienna for medical attendance. He granted the request, but with the proviso that she should never return. Then she decided to remain with her husband, even at the risk of her life.

Shall the miseries of their prison life be dwelt upon? Their jailers were the coarsest of human beings. They surpassed in brutality the slave drivers of Constantinople. The food, which the family bought for themselves, was coarse and miserably cooked. Tobacco floated in the coffee. Lafayette's clothes were in tatters. When his shoes had been soled fifteen times and resented the indignity any further, his daughter Anastasie took it upon herself to make shoes for him out of an old coat.

Lafayette's dingy cell was, however, now brightened by companionship and by inspiring conversation. Even work was going on, for Madame de Lafayette prepared a life of her mother while she was at OlmÜtz. It was written with a toothpick and a little lampblack on the margins of a copy of Buffon which she succeeded in obtaining. One of the daughters amused the family by making pencil sketches; one of the burly old turnkey, with his sword, candle, and keys, and his hair in a comical queue behind, amused the family very much and was carried with them when they left their dismal abode.

Before the desolate prison of OlmÜtz fades from our view, let one laurel wreath be placed upon the head of young Felix Pontonnier, sixteen years old when he became the servant of Lafayette, whom he faithfully followed into prison. He was with Lafayette when he was arrested and was bidden to look after his master's belongings; so he was separated from him for several days. This gave him an excellent opportunity to escape, but he refused to take advantage of it. Of his own accord he joined Lafayette once more, and during the whole long season of his captivity he gave ample proof of his devotion. He possessed a rare inventive genius and was constantly on the alert to devise means for making the prisoners comfortable and to find out ways for carrying on secret correspondence. He invented a special language known only to himself and to the prisoners, and also a unique gesture-language. He whistled notes like a captive bird; with varied modulations he conveyed to the prisoners whatever news he could ferret out. Prison life proved to be bad for him, and his health was several times endangered. For a fancied offense he was once confined in total darkness for three months. But none of his sufferings dashed his gay spirits. He was constantly sustained by a buoyant cheer, and his wonderful devotion should win him a place among heroes. After the five years of captivity were over, Lafayette made Felix the manager of his farm at La Grange. He filled this position with success and probity.

It was through the fiat of Napoleon Bonaparte that the removal of Lafayette from OlmÜtz was made possible. Bonaparte was influenced by a long-sighted policy; he desired to win to himself the man of so unique a personality. He was also spurred on by various writers and diplomats, by representatives of the French Directory, and by Brigadier General Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke, who was for a time governor of Vienna and who won the title of "the incorruptible" from Napoleon. President Washington's dignified and effective letter to the Emperor of Austria is believed to have left its mark; and in a thousand ways public opinion had awakened to the ignominy of leaving such a man as Lafayette in prison. Lafayette disliked to be indebted to anybody but himself for an escape from his dungeon; but he willingly admitted that he owed much to his devoted wife whose many letters imploring help for her husband were among the causes that unlocked the double-barred doors of OlmÜtz.

When finally released, Lafayette was taken in a carriage from OlmÜtz to Dresden, thence by way of Dresden, Leipzig, and Halle to Hamburg, where the American consul received him. So wearied was Madame de Lafayette that she made the journey with the greatest difficulty, and a voyage to America at that time was out of the question. The family, therefore, took refuge in an obscure town in Holland, since there was no other European country where the monarchy would be safe if it conferred the right of residence upon any man who bore the name of Lafayette.