Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1844-03-29
FAYETTE.
From Marston; or, The Memoirs Of a
state an.

by DIR. WARNER.
My entrance but slightly deranged the
symposium, and | was soon furnished with
all the freemasonry of the feast, by being
called on to do honor 10 the toast of !" His
Majesty the King of Grea, Britain" My
duty was now done, my initiation was COM
pete, and while my eyes were fixed on the
portrait which, still in its unharned beauty,
looked beaming on the wild rcve below,
heard, in the broken queries, and interjec-
tional panegyrics of these hyperborean he
roes, more of the history of Lafayette than l
had ever expected to reach my ears.
His life bad been the strangest contrast TO
the calm countenance which saw so tram
guilty listen to its own tale. II was Quixo-
tic, and two hundred years ago could scarce
" have escaped the pen of some French
Cervantes. He had begun life as an officer
in the French household troops in absolute
boyhood. Al sixteen he had married at
eighteen he had formed his political prnc-
pies, and begun his military career by cross
ing the Atlantic, and Offering his sword to
the Republic. To meet the thousand won
behring's at his conduct, he exchanged the an
> cient motto Of the Lafnye,tes for new one
of his own. The words, why not 7" we're
5 his answer to all, and they were sufficient
On reaching America, he asked but two ia
vors, to be suffered to serve, and 10 serve
without pay.
In America he was more republic than
the Republicans. He toiled, travelled, and
bled, with an interchangeable zeal for the indie
pcndence of the coloniss; his zeal was
passion, his love of liberty romance, his
hostility to the dominion of England an uni
versal scorn of established power. Blu, if
fantastic, he was bold and if too hot for the
frieidi,y of America, he was but preparing to
touch France with kindred fire. He refused
rank in the French army coupled with the
condition of leaving the service of the Re-
= public; and il was only on the rench ALI
e ance in 1858, that he returned TO Paris, to
C be received with feigned displeasure by the
s King, and even put under arrest by the min
n lister, but to be welcomed by the true sover-
n eign, the Queen, ftted by the court, the SOW.
,f ereign OF that sovereign, and huAZaed by the
- mob of Paris, already the sovereign of then
= all: from his military prison he emerged
- colonel of the Kings regiment Of dragons.
~ While this narrative was going on, min
= ged with bumpers, and bursts of Slavoni'
" good fellowship, could not help asking my
to self whether Levater was not "A qnack, ano
e, physlognomy a folly! Could this be th'
tie dashing Revolu,onisl? No plodder owe
nc the desk ever wore more broadcloth cOun
a. ,cnance; an occasional smile was the onl
he indication of his interest in what was passn
NJ around hun. He evidently avoided taking
:, share in the discussion of his TRANSPLANT
49, career, probably from delicacy to his Eng
~ lsh auditor. But when the conversatio
~ turned upon France, the man came forth, an
''' he vindicatcd his conduct with spirit an
rs iulncss that told me what he might have bee
Is when the blood of youth was added to tn
in glow of the imagination. He was now evi
nd IDENTITY exhausted by toll, and disappoin,
TO- menl. No man could be more thorough
rs- ruined baflled in theory, undone in prac
AN tice-an exile from his country, fugitiv
en- from his ,roops-overwhelmed by the hope
hat lessncsS of giving constitution TO France
70. and with nothing but the dungeon betor
nc him, and the crash of the guillo'ne behind.
"What was to be done :" said Lafay EFT
800 "France was bankrupt-lhe treasury W.
' 49, empty - the pronigate reign of Louis Ky
[''e had at once wasted the wealth, dried up I'll
ese revenues, and corrupted the energies
is France. Ministers wrung their hands, I'll
he king sent for his confcssor, the queen wei
cts but me nation groaned. There was b.
bic one sxpedient, to call on the people.
Gu 1877 the assembly of the Noables was sun
), is moned. Ii was the first since the reign
ec, Henry w. France had been direct au
,iu formal despotIsm for almost two hundre
he, years. She had seen England spread fro
no, an island into an empire she had SEE
;ah America spread from colony into an en-
"" pre. What had been the worker of II
y, ', miracle Liberty.