South Branch intelligencer. [volume] (Romney, Va. [W. Va.]) 1830-1896, 1835-02-21
Adams's Grafton on Lafayette.

! OraLion on the Life and Character o
GILBERT MoTIER DE LAFAYETTE
delivered at the request Of both Hou
ses Of the Congress of the U. States
I before them, in the House OF Represen
tatives at Washington, on the 2lst De
K cember, 1884. BY JOHN QUINCY AD
4 AIMS, a member ofthe House.
y GcoNcLUDED.l
SFellow Citizens of the Senate and
House of Representatives ofthe U. s
Lafayette and his fellow-suferers
were still under the sentence of pro-
scription issued by the faction which
had destroyed the Constitution Of 1871,
and murdered the ilfated Louis and his
Queen. But revolution had followed
upon revolution since the downfall Of
the Monarchy, on the 10Th of August,
1872. The Federative Republicans
of the Gironde had been butchered by
the Jacobin Republicans Of the Moun-
tain. The Mountain had been subju-
gated by the Municipality ofParis, and
the sections of Paris, by a reorganiza-
ton of Parties in the National Conven-
ton, and with aid from the armies.
Brissot and his federal associates, Dam
ton and his party, Robespierre and his
subaltern demons, had successfully
persisted, each by the measure applied
TO themselves which they had meted out
to others and as no experiment OF pc.
iilical empiricism was to be omitted in
the medley Of the French Revolutions,
the hereditary Executive, with single
Legislative Assembly, was succeeded
by Constitution with Legislature in
two branches, and FIVE headed Exec
utive, eligible, annually one-ffth, by
their concurrent votes, and bearing the
name Of Directory. This was the
Government at whose instance Lafay>
cite was finally liberated from the dun.
geon Of Olmutz.
But, while this Directory we're shak-
ing to their deepest foundations all the
Monarchies Of Europe; while they
were stripping Austria, the most po-
tent Of them all, piecemeal Of her TERRI
tories while they were imposing up
on her the most humiiiating conditions
Of peace, and bursting open her dun>
geons TO restore their illustrious coun-
tryman to the light Of day and the
blessing Of personal freedom, they were
themselves exploding by Internal com.
bustion, divided into two factions, each
conspiring the destruction ofthe other.
Lafayette received his freedom, only
10 see the two members ofthe Directo-
ry who had taken the waymest interest
in effectihg his liberation, outlawed and
prescribed by their colleagues; one of
them, Carnot; fugitive from bis coun-
,r.', lurking in Punishment to escape
pursuit; and the other, Barthelemy,
deported, with fifty members Of the
Legislative Assembly, without form Of
trial, or even of legal process, to the
pestilential climate Of Guiana. All
this was done with the appreciation, ex-
pressed ia the most unqualified terms,
Of Napoleon, and with cooperation Of
his army. Upon being informed ofthe
success Of this Pride's purge, he wrote
to the Directory that he had with him
one hundred thousand men, upon whom
they might rely to cause TO be respect.
ed all the measures that they should
take to establish liberty upon solid
foundations.
Two years afterwards, another re.
volu,ion, directly accomplished by Ma.
poleon himself, demolished the Direc.
tory, the Constitution Of the two Coun.
ellis, and the solid liberty, to the sup.
port of which the hundred thousand
men had been pledged, and introduced
another Constitution, with Bonaparte
himself for its Executive Head, as the
first of three Consuls, for FIVE years.
In the interval between these two
revolutions, Lafayette resided for a.
bout two years, first in the Danish Ter.
ritory of Holstein, and, afterwards, al
Utrecht, in the Balavian Republic
Neither of them had been effected by
means or in manner which could pos
sibly meet his appreciation. Blu, th'
Consular Government commenced will
broad professions of republican princi
ples, on the faith of which he returned
10 France, and for series of years re
sided in privacy and retirement upor
his estate of La Grange. Here, 10 tn
cultivation of his farm, and the enjey
ment of domestic felicity, embitteret
)nly by the loss, in 1907, of that ange
upon earth, the partner of all the vicis
STUDIES of his life, he employed his time
and witnessed the upward flight an
downward fall of the soldier and spor