All Lafayette's company had been looking forward to their reception by Congress as full recompense for sufferings by the way. Knowing that they had come to offer help, and having already experienced the hospitality of Charleston, they dreamed of a similar welcome increased and made more effective by official authority. They hastened to present their letters of introduction and their credentials; and it was a great blow to find that they were met, not with enthusiasm, but with coldness. Lafayette said their reception was "more like a dismissal." We are indebted to the Chevalier du Buisson for an account of this unexpected rebuff. "After having brushed ourselves up a little we went to see the President of Congress, to whom we presented our letters of recommendation and also our contracts. He sent us to Mr. Moose [Morris?], a member of Congress, who made an appointment to meet us on the following day at the door of Congress, and in the mean time our papers were to be read and examined." Next day they were very punctual, but were made to wait a long time before "Mr. Moose" appeared with a Mr. Lovell and told them all communication must be made through him. Still standing in the street, Mr. Lovell talked with them and finally walked away and left them, "after having treated us in excellent French, like a set of adventurers.... This was our first reception by Congress, and it would have been impossible for any one to be more stupefied than we were. Would it have been possible for M. de Lafayette, M. de Kalb, and M. de Mauroy with ten officers recommended as we had been, and secretly approved, if not openly avowed by the government of France, to expect such a reception as this?"

One can imagine the varying degrees of resentment and disgust with which they watched Mr. Lovell disappear. If La Victoire had been there, ready provisioned for a voyage, very likely not one of them would have remained an hour longer in America. But La Victoire was not at hand and Lafayette's sunny optimism was on the spot to serve them well. "We determined," says Du Buisson, "to wait and to discover the cause of this affront, if possible, before making any complaint."

They discovered that they had come at the worst possible time. A number of foreign adventurers had hurried from the West Indies and Europe and offered their services at the beginning of the war. Being desperately in need of trained officers, Congress had given some of them commissions, though their demands for rank and privilege were beyond all reason. This, coupled with their bad behavior after entering the army, had incensed officers of American birth, who threatened to resign if any more Europeans were taken into the army with rank superior to their own. The protest had reached almost the proportions of a strike. At that very moment a French artillery officer named De Coudray was giving Congress no end of trouble, and indeed continued to do so until, "by a happy accident," as Franklin cynically put it, he was drowned in the Schuylkill River a few weeks later.

There was nothing to prove that Lafayette and his friends differed from the rest. Like them they were foreigners with high-sounding titles in front of their names and requests for major-generalships tripping speedily after their offers of help. As for Silas Deane's contracts—Deane had commissioned some of the very worst of these men. Congress had reached the point where it proposed to end the trouble by refusing to honor any more of his agreements. Mr. Lovell told Lafayette and his companions smartly that French officers had a great fancy for entering the American army uninvited, that America no longer needed them, having plenty of experienced men of her own now; and walked away, leaving them standing there in the street.

Lafayette, not being like the others, determined to make Congress aware of the fact. He wrote a letter to that august body, stating why and how he had come to America, and adding: "After the sacrifices that I have made in this cause I have the right to ask two favors at your hands. The one is to serve without pay, and the other that I be allowed to serve first as a volunteer." Congress immediately sat up and took notice of the young man, the more readily because of two letters which arrived from Paris showing that he was of importance in his own country. The first was signed by Silas Deane and by Benjamin Franklin, and read:

"The Marquis de Lafayette, a young nobleman of great family connection here and great wealth, is gone to America on a ship of his own, accompanied by some officers of distinction, in order to serve in our armies. He is exceedingly beloved, and everybody's good wishes attend him. We cannot but hope he may meet with such a reception as will make the country and his expedition agreeable to him. Those who censure it as imprudent in him do, nevertheless, applaud his spirit; and we are satisfied that the civilities and respect that may be shown him will be serviceable to our affairs here, as pleasing not only to his powerful relations, and to the court, but to the whole French nation. He leaves a beautiful young wife ... and for her sake particularly we hope that his bravery and ardent desire to distinguish himself will be a little restrained by the general's prudence, so as not to permit his being hazarded much, but on some important occasion." The other was a communication from the French government requesting the Congress of the United States not to give employment to the Marquis de Lafayette. But Congress took the hint contained in Franklin's letter and regarded this for just what it was—a bit of official routine.

Mr. Lovell hastened to call upon Lafayette in company with another gentleman who had better manners, and made an attempt at apology. This interview led to a more private talk in which he was offered a commission of major-general without pay and without promise of a command, to date from that time, and to have no connection whatever with Silas Deane's former promises. To this Lafayette agreed.

Some of his friends did not fare so well, but even these felt that he did everything in his power to further their interests. "If he had had his way," says Du Buisson, "De Kalb would have been a major-general, and we should all have had places." The situation was particularly trying to De Kalb, who was so much older and had seen so much actual military service. On board La Victoire he had been only Lafayette's guest, though the guest of honor and, next to the owner, the most important person aboard. Under such conditions, good manners forced him to play a subordinate part; and if it be true that he and De Broglie were using Lafayette's generosity to further their own ends, that was another reason for circumspect behavior. But after landing it must have been galling to see this young captain of twenty made a major-general "on demand," while his thirty-four years of experience were completely ignored. On the day after Lafayette's appointment De Kalb wrote Congress a letter in his turn, complaining bitterly and asking either that he be made a major-general, "with the seniority I have a right to expect," or that he and the other officers who had come with Lafayette be refunded the money they had spent on the journey. He said he was very glad Congress had granted Lafayette's wishes. "He is a worthy young man, and no one will outdo him in enthusiasm in your cause of liberty and independence. My wish will always be that his success as a major-general will equal his zeal and your expectation." But De Kalb plainly had his doubts; and he did not hesitate to "confess, sir, that this distinction between him and myself is painful and very displeasing to me. We came on the same errand, with the same promises, and as military men and for military purposes. I flatter myself that if there was to be any preference, it would be due to me." He hinted that he might sue Mr. Deane for damages, and he added: "I do not think that either my name, my services, or my person are proper objects to be trifled with or laughed at. I cannot tell you, sir, how deeply I feel the injury done to me, or how ridiculous it seems to me to make people leave their homes, families, and affairs, to cross the sea under a thousand different dangers, to be received and to be looked at with contempt by those from whom you were to expect but warm welcome."

Congress could have answered with perfect justice that it had not "made" these gentlemen travel one foot toward America or brave a single danger. But on the basis of Deane's contract it was clearly in the wrong and it had no wish to insult France, though it could not afford to anger the American generals. It therefore decided to thank the French officers for their zeal in coming to America and to pay their expenses home again. Most of them did return, some by way of Boston, others from Southern ports. De Kalb meant to accompany the latter group, but a fever detained him for several weeks in Philadelphia; and just as he was leaving a messenger brought him word that he had been made major-general through the influence of several members of Congress who had made his personal acquaintance and were more impressed by the man himself than by his petulant letter. At first he was inclined to refuse, fearing the other French officers might feel he had deserted them, but on reflection he accepted, and, as every one knows, rendered great service to the United States.

Lafayette wrote Congress a letter of thanks in English—an excellent letter, considering the short time he had been using the language, but neither in wording nor in spelling exactly as a native would have written it. In this letter he expressed the hope that he might be allowed to "serve near the person of General Washington till such time as he may think proper to intrust me with a division of the army."

General Washington's previous experience with the French had been unfortunate. He had met them as enemies in the neighborhood of Fort Duquesne before Lafayette was born. They had taken part in the defeat of General Braddock, and during the present war their actions had not been of a kind to endear them to him. Probably even after reading Franklin's letter he did not look forward with the least pleasure to meeting this young sprig of the French nobility. Still, Washington was a just man and the first to admit that every man has the right to be judged on his own merits.

It was at a dinner, one of the lucky dinners in Lafayette's career, that the two met for the first time. The company was a large one, made up of the most distinguished men in Philadelphia; but from the moment Washington entered the room Lafayette was sure he was the greatest in the company. "The majesty of his countenance and his figure made it impossible not to recognize him," while his manners seemed to Lafayette as affable and kindly as they were dignified. Washington on his part observed the slim young Frenchman throughout the evening, and was also favorably impressed. Before the party broke up he drew him aside for a short conversation and invited him to become a member of his military family, saying with a smile that he could not offer the luxuries of a court or even the conveniences to which Lafayette had been accustomed, but that he was now an American soldier and would of course accommodate himself to the privations of a republican camp.

Pleased and elated as a boy, Lafayette accepted, sent his horses and luggage to camp, and took up his residence at Washington's headquarters. "Thus simply," he wrote in his Memoirs, "came about the union of two friends whose attachment and confidence were cemented by the greatest of interests." In truth this sudden flowering of friendship between the middle-aged Washington, who appeared so cool, though in fact he had an ardent nature, and the enthusiastic Frenchman twenty-five years his junior, is one of the pleasantest glimpses we have into the kindly human heart of each. It took neither of them one instant to recognize the worth of the other, and the mutual regard thus established lasted as long as life itself.