CHAPTER 3
On a dark December night in 1775, the sixty-nine-year-old Benjamin Franklin and two other members of the Committee of Congress for Secret Correspondence set out for a meeting at Carpenters’ Hall—the elegant Georgian building that had hosted theContinental Congress in 1774. Although the men shared a destination, they traced separate paths through the streets of Philadelphia to avoid being followed. Reaching Carpenters’ Hall, Franklin climbed the stairs to the second-floor headquarters of the Library Company of Philadelphia where, surrounded by books that he had helped amass, he sat down with his colleagues to begin a series of talks with an emissary from the French court. The topic? Joining forces against Great Britain, France’s traditional enemy, in a war that was already under way.
Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, the French secret agent who visited Carpenters’ Hall that night, had been sent by Louis XVI to assess the likelihood of American success and the wisdom of forging a covert Franco-American alliance against King George III. Following explicit orders given by France’s foreign minister, Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, Bonvouloir was to leave no evidence of collusion that might fall into the hands of British spies. And although overt French support would have been invaluable for the Americans, they too kept the discussions quiet—Franklin’s committee sent no official notification to Congress—in order to avoid public embarrassment in case of failure, which probably seemed like a distinct possibility to many rational observers. A French-American alliance was not a natural fit; not only were the two peoples divided by distinctions of language, manners, and mores but they harbored deep-seated mutual suspicions grounded in religious and political differences. In the recent past, long-standing animosities between the nominally Catholic French and the predominantly Protestant Americans had been compounded by fierce fighting in the French and Indian War, which had left lingering resentments on both sides. Yet the men who met at Carpenters’ Hall during Christmas week in 1775 were somehow able to bridge the divide well enough to agree on a tentative plan that was designed to be disavowed if the need ever arose.
On July 6, 1776, Connecticut lawyer-turned-businessman Silas Deane arrived in Paris to pick up where the Philadelphia discussions left off. Deane had instructions to keep his presence and purpose under wraps; if anyone asked, he was to identify himself as an American merchant “engaged in the business of providing goods for the Indian trade.” Meanwhile, a handful of trustworthy allies would work behind the scenes to arrange an audience with Vergennes. Once the introduction was made, Deane was to ask Vergennes to supply the Continental Army with four military engineers, “clothing and arms for twenty-five thousand men with a suitable quantity of ammunition, and one hundred field pieces,” all to be acquired on credit. Deane had little to offer in return, but he was to suggest that, if France would help free the colonies, “it is likely [that a] great part of our commerce will naturally fall to the share of France.” That part of the plan worked smoothly: by July 20, Deane and Vergennes had agreed that the crown would send clothing, guns, and ammunition—all the while denying any involvement in American affairs. Deane’s cover story, however, was short-lived.
Barely had Deane settled into his Left Bank lodgings in the Hôtel du Grand Villars than the Parisian elite began flocking to his rooms. By December, when Arthur Lee and Benjamin Franklin arrived as the first official American emissaries to France, “les insurgents,” as the patriots were called, were all the rage. In the fashionable salons of Paris and the halls of Versailles, a new card game dubbed Le Boston supplanted the English whist as a favorite pastime. By the following spring, a ditty celebrating Washington, his mission, and the American continent was raising smiles. Stressing the first syllable of “continent” in every verse, singers found themselves mischievously uttering a word barred from polite company. Even Marie Antoinette embraced the fad for the New World, pressing Deane for Narragansett horses that might add an American touch to her stables.
Schooled in the Roman classics, the men of Lafayette’s generation heard echoes of antiquity in the foreigners’ voices. As Ségur put it, the visitors appeared to his circle of friends like “some wise contemporaries of Plato, or republicans from the time of Cato and Fabius.” Ségur observed that “nothing was more surprising than the contrast between the luxury of our capital, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of Versailles,” and the manner of the Americans, who arrived with their “almost rustic dress, simple but proud bearing, free and direct language, hair without preparation or powder, in short, with this antique air that seemed to have carried itself suddenly inside our walls.” So taken was France with these men and their cause that “opinions from every quarter pressed the royal government to declare itself on the side of republican liberty.” Perceptive as always, Ségur noted the irony of a world where the court “applauded the republican maxims” of Brutus—Voltaire’s theatrical sensation—and where “the monarchs were inclined to embrace the cause of a people in revolt against their king; in short, independence was spoken of in the camps, democracy among the nobles, philosophy at the balls, morality in the boudoirs.”
Military men were particularly smitten with America, especially those who, like Lafayette, had been “reformed.” On December 2, 1776, an astonished Deane wrote to John Jay, “I have a levee of officers and others every morning.… I have had occasionally dukes, generals and marqueses and even bishops, and comtes and chevaliers without number.” These high-ranking noblemen, Deane explained, “being out of employ here, or having friends they wish to advance in the cause of liberty,” were eager to learn what assistance the American army might need. Spurring these officers on were the Comte de Broglie and his ally the “Baron” Johann de Kalb—a Bavarian peasant who, thanks to his wife’s fortune, was able to enjoy an extravagant lifestyle suited to his self-invented title. Both hoped to play important roles in the American war, and they were actively recruiting anyone who might wish to join their transatlantic ventures. In their elegantly appointed town houses, Broglie and de Kalb hosted soirées in honor of the ever-popular Deane, who, they imagined, might provide their tickets to America.
At first, Deane was pleased with the offers of assistance. In August, he reported to the Secret Committee that “several young gentlemen of fortune, whose families are nearly connected with the Court, are preparing to embark for America.” By November, the offers had multiplied, and Deane’s excitement had cooled. “I am well nigh harrassed to death with applications of officers to go out to America,” he complained. And before the year was out, he would write with growing alarm, “Had I ten ships here I could fill them all with passengers for America.” Although nothing in his instructions suggested that he should recruit French officers, Deane was soon appointing major generals at a rapid clip. Perhaps he believed that a bit of European expertise would help the struggling Continental Army, and he may well have been so daunted by the intricate webs of influence that defined the French aristocracy that he feared displeasing even people whose titles were spurious, like de Kalb.
This was the opportunity Lafayette had been waiting for, but he continued to bide his time before joining the fray. Although he often described himself as a man of action, Lafayette was more deliberative than he let on, and he habitually watched and waited before determining the best way to proceed; once he chose his course, however, it was almost impossible to steer him away. In an early version of his memoirs, drafted in 1779, before his legend as a firebrand had fully developed, Lafayette wrote that “we were afraid to visit” Deane, the rebel, whose “voice was muffled by the cries of Lord Stormont,” England’s ambassador to the court of Louis XVI. By way of warning his French hosts not to back the wrong horse in the American conflict, Stormont was blustering about the halls of Versailles predicting the colonists’ imminent defeat at every turn. If Deane’s reports are accurate, Lafayette must have been one of the few men in Paris to let the Englishman’s barrage of words delay his approach.
As summer turned to autumn, Lafayette could wait no longer. Compelled by “the desire to right the wrongs of the last war, to fight the English and to fly to the aid of the Americans,” Lafayette, Ségur, and Noailles made a pact in October, pledging to join General Washington’s army together. Noailles advocated seeking permission from the Duc d’Ayen, but Lafayette thought it safer to keep the news secret. As he recalled, “circumstances … had taught me to expect nothing but obstacles … from my family; therefore I counted on myself.” Rather than turn to his father-in-law, Lafayette asked the Comte de Broglie—the man who had first whetted his interest in the American cause—for an introduction to Silas Deane. Broglie directed Lafayette to de Kalb, who spoke English and was already negotiating with Deane for transportation to America. Like Broglie, de Kalb saw in Lafayette a path to the New World, and was therefore happy to oblige.
Noailles joined Lafayette for his first meeting with de Kalb but, still convinced of the need for official approval, took it upon himself to write to the Comte de Maurepas, adviser to the king. By then, it was clear that the king had no objections to French officers sailing to the aid of America—scores of Frenchmen had departed in recent months, all but waving their papers from Deane as they left—but the crown was not ready to drop the façade of neutrality by granting permission in writing. Receiving no reply from Maurepas, Noailles asked d’Ayen to intercede. According to some accounts, d’Ayen considered the request and may well have been tempted to join his cousin-turned-son-in-law on an American venture. But, upon hearing that Lafayette was involved in the scheme, d’Ayen soured on it. He told Noailles to inform de Kalb that the plan was off.
Noailles dutifully withdrew from the conversation, but Lafayette refused to turn back and, in fact, redoubled his efforts, meeting regularly with Deane and de Kalb throughout the month of November, continually impressing upon them how much he could help their cause. Lafayette, who was barely nineteen years old, recalled speaking “more of my zeal than of my experience” in presenting himself to Deane. Desperate for a chance to prove his mettle, Lafayette insisted that he could offer more than just passion—he could also generate publicity, a valuable skill in eighteenth-century Paris, where public opinion was beginning to wield political clout. As the men talked, the young marquis “dwelt upon the minor sensation my departure would raise.” Sweetening the pot, he made it clear that he expected no remuneration for his services. Instead, he asked for something that he cherished more than money: a high military rank and the respect that came with it.
Deane had his own reasons for awarding the incongruously elevated rank of major general to a man who had never seen battlefield action. Avoiding matters of skill or experience altogether, the letter of agreement signed by Deane and Lafayette on December 7, 1776, observed that Lafayette’s “high Birth, his Alliances, the great Dignities which his Family holds at this Court, his considerable Estates in this Realm, his personal merit, his Reputation, his disinterestedness, and above all his Zeal for the Liberty of our Provinces” rendered him worthy of the appointment. Noting that Lafayette believed he could not “obtain leave of his Family to pass the seas and serve in a foreign Country till he can go as a General Officer,” Deane explained, “I have thought that I could not better serve my Country … than by granting to him in the name of the very honorable Congress the Rank of Major General.” Evidently he didn’t consider that seasoned American officers might see the matter of Lafayette’s rank in a rather different light.
Only one detail remained unsettled: Lafayette and de Kalb needed a way across the ocean. Here, at last, was a problem that Lafayette’s wealth could solve. He proudly announced to Deane that “hitherto … you saw only my zeal”; now Lafayette would prove himself useful by “purchasing a ship that will transport your officers.” With the help of Broglie’s secretary and friends, Lafayette spent 112,000 livres, approximately one year’s income, on a vessel known as La Victoire—“Victory.” A slow and ungainly merchant ship weighing in at 220 tons, the Victoire was hardly the ideal craft. Even after being outfitted with six cannons, it could scarcely have mounted a defense in the event of attack. But eager to distinguish himself in the New World, Lafayette was delighted to call the ship his own.
Who was aware of these preparations? With deniability serving as the overriding principle in those early days of the French-American alliance, it’s difficult to say. The story that Lafayette related in his 1779 memoir protected both his family and the French government by marveling at “the secrecy” of his conversations with de Kalb and Deane and insisting that “family, friends, ministers, French spies, English spies, all were blind to them.” But in 1777, de Kalb told a different story. Finding himself shouldering the blame for Lafayette’s unapproved departure, de Kalb insisted that no secrecy whatsoever had surrounded their meetings. “We saw each other every day,” de Kalb wrote to the French Department of War. “He came to my house openly and without the least mystery … and I did the same visiting him at the hôtel de Noailles.” De Kalb was “always admitted without any difficulty,” even when Madame de Lafayette was with her husband. De Kalb had no idea, he claimed, that d’Ayen and the rest of the family were not aware of Lafayette’s imminent departure. In fact, Lafayette had always told him that d’Ayen “desired it and consented.” Lafayette must surely have been spotted going in and out of Deane’s lodgings, which were placed under surveillance by the Paris chief of police the moment of the American’s arrival. And even if all this traffic had somehow gone unnoticed, someone had to have signed off on the formal leaves of absence from the French army that had been acquired by thirteen of the fourteen men under de Kalb’s command. Those who later claimed to have been unaware of the planning may simply have been looking the other way or, perhaps, hoping that no one would be able to prove their complicity.
A great clamor nonetheless arose in mid-March when two letters from Lafayette—one to Adrienne and one to d’Ayen—reached the Hôtel de Noailles. Informing the family that Lafayette was en route to Bordeaux and about to set sail, the letters made conspicuous mention of the fact that their recipients were ignorant of his plans. In his letter to Adrienne, Lafayette acknowledged that he was leaving at a difficult moment (Adrienne was expecting their second child), but he asked her not to be unhappy with him. As he explained, he was already “too cruelly punished” by sorrow. “Had I believed that I would feel my sacrifices in such a frightful manner,” he wrote, “I would not now be the most unhappy of men.” He simply “had never understood how much I loved you.” Lafayette crafted a more high-minded letter to his father-in-law. “I have found a unique opportunity to distinguish myself, and to learn my craft,” he wrote to d’Ayen. “I am a general officer in the army of the United States of America. My zeal for their cause and my frankness won their confidence.… I have done all I could for them, and their interest will always be more dear to me than my own.”
Lafayette was sincere, but d’Ayen was outraged, his pique exacerbated by a specific circumstance. Just a few weeks earlier, Lafayette had traveled to London, where he had visited d’Ayen’s brother, who was then serving as France’s ambassador to England, and the ambassador had gone so far as to present Lafayette to King George III. In light of Lafayette’s decision to take up arms with the Americans, that ill-timed introduction could now be perceived as a provocation on the part of the ambassador, if not the French crown. At the very least, it threatened to jeopardize the standing of the Noailleses at court.
D’Ayen could not stand idly by. Hoping to stop Lafayette from leaving the country, he wrote to Louis XVI, who, in turn, issued orders forbidding Lafayette’s departure. The message reached Bordeaux too late—the Victoire had already sailed—but d’Ayen would have another chance. Rather than steering due west for America, Lafayette headed for the Bay of Biscay, at the foothills of the Pyrenees in northern Spain. Evidently, Lafayette believed that d’Ayen would bless the American adventure at the eleventh hour, if only to save face, and he was happy to delay the transatlantic crossing for a few days while awaiting the good news. But the message that reached Lafayette was not what he had hoped for. Containing harsh words of remonstrance from both d’Ayen and Louis XVI, it instructed the wayward marquis to retrace his steps and hasten to Marseilles. There, the message said, Lafayette was to meet his in-laws, who would accompany him on an educational tour of Italy.
Lafayette was undeterred. Surely, he thought, d’Ayen would eventually grant permission; the case only had to be presented in the right light. Leaving ship and comrades at the harbor in Spain, Lafayette rode three days by coach back to Bordeaux, took a public carriage that was heading for Marseilles, and then returned to the Victoire on horseback. Conflicting rumors proliferated in Paris and London—and eventually in America, as well. For every report that Lafayette had given up on his “folly,” as Stormont called it, there was another asserting that the Victoire was already in the middle of the ocean. Some whispered that the court had secretly permitted the departure, while others contended that Louis XVI had ordered Lafayette clapped in irons and was readying a cell in the Bastille. Adding to the confusion, Lafayette dispatched a peculiar and contradictory series of letters that can only have been designed for self-protection. Two were sent in quick succession to the king’s minister: the first requested permission to sail, and the second, noting that no reply had been received, declared silence tantamount to approval and announced that Lafayette was on his way. This line of defense might not have held up in a court of law, but it was received well by the tribunal of public opinion.
On April 17, Lafayette arrived for the second and last time at Puerto de Pasajes, on the Bay of Biscay, and on April 20 his ship set sail for the New World. As Lafayette had promised Deane, his departure caused a bit of a “stir,” with his comings and goings from various ports only agitating matters further. In the midst of the hullabaloo, Stormont had reported on April 2 that Lafayette’s “Relations seem to be much displeased with his Conduct” and that “his friends and the Public at Large” deemed Lafayette’s actions “imprudent and Irregular.” Yet even the British ambassador had to admit that the general consensus was favorable. Those who heard of Lafayette’s great escape held that “it shews a spirit of Enterprize, and strong Enthusiasm for a good cause.” Few people thought Lafayette had it in him, but the boldness of his actions in the New World would surprise his detractors and his defenders alike.