La Fayette
La Fayette. By Brand Whitlock. 2 VoLs. (London and Now York : Appleton and Co. 42s.) BRITISH readers, almost as much as Belgian, must approach a book by Mr. Whitlock with prejudice in its favour : they owe the author so great a debt of gratitude for his conduct as the representative of the United States at Brussels from August, 1914, to May, 1917. If they only know his own modest account of those years, they can make a guess at the measure of that debt.
Now, in his leisure, he has taken up history at a point where Europe and America touched each other closely by writing an exhaustive life of the Marquis de la Fayette. The scene changes from France to America in 1777, and again passes to the United States in 1824, when La Fayette was feted by a nation as perhaps no hero was ever feted before or since. Mr. Whitlock writes with an infectious zest for his subject, and if we remember- that La Fayette was not always and everywhere the most important man in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, there could be no pleasanter way of reading the history of those tremendous events. The perspective of the enthusiastic biographer cannot be stiffly correct, and we must admit that there is much excuse here because La Fayette generally dominated the scenes in which he took part, in America by the romance of his appearance there as much as by the military aid that he gave, and in France by the influence and command that he exercised from the day of his return from America to the day when he refused his chance of being President of a French Republic and set Louis-Philippe upon the throne. Against that, we grant that Mr. Whitlock in the earlier chapters shows a very proper inclination to make Washington a kind of super-hero above his hero. He has attempted with success the new style of bio- graphy in which he makes the characters tell portions of the story in conversations which are partly imaginary, but he has studied an immense amount of pertinent literature and corre- spondence that survives in France and the United States. (La Fayette himself was an unrestrained letter-writer.) This makes it less easy to check the accuracy of the facts, but Mr. Whitlock is a careful historian and only rarely do we sus- pect his accuracy. He scarcely does justice to the liberal principles which the otherwise abominable " Egalite " imbibed in England.
Mr. Whitlock is now such a good European that he writes like one, scarcely ever yielding to that tendency to bathos which we sometimes dread in the comments of American writers. Indeed, he shows a pleasant, sly humour in quoting from a few of the more preposterous speeches fired at La Fayette in the United States in 1824, and in hinting at the boredom that Frenchmen must have suffered from his perpetual up- holding of America as the example of perfection. The trans- lation of the numerous letters from the French is not perfect, being often too literal. The illustrations, mostly portraits, are a generous addition to the story.
So much for the book : as for the hero, where could a more dazzling one be found than La Fayette, the Hero of Two Worlds''? A lad of nineteen, he brought a new hope to the American revolutionaries and undoubtedly helped thereby to turn the scales in their favour. As a grown man he fre- quently rode the storm in Paris. As a prisoner he had the romantic sympathy of nations. For nearly sixty years he was famous. It is astonishing that fame did not spoil him in youth. Certainly he was egotistic then and loved applause and limelight. Who could wonder ? The popularis aura fanned him very pleasantly, but it never swayed him. He was not brilliantly clever. No one can say ilow clearly he understood the philosophy of the physiocrats which in- fluenced him as a boy, nor how far cold reason affected the strife within him between republican sentiment and that loyalty to the Royal House of France which never died in his heart. But he had great abilities and intel- ligence above the average combined with insatiable physi- cal and mental energy, and his character above all gave him influence everywhere. This was due to his breed- ing. He represented the fine j/eur of the French noblesse. Ilence his self-respect and self-control, his chivalry and sense of humour which tended to be romantic and even sentimental, his sense of duty to his family, his country, and to mankind. These were in his blood and were drawn forth by events, These made Washington, a stern critic, love him as a son : these enabled him to meet Cornwallis with friendly respect on both sides. It was his breeding that made him utterly fearless of physical danger and of any man alive, including Bonaparte, whom he withstood to his face as no other man could. The best of the beSt French blood comes out clearly in the relations with his wife, herself a Noailles. They were aged sixteen and fourteen when they were married. He had to slip away secretly to America in 1777, and did not tell even her. She was expecting their second child and it seemed heartless for all the obvious excuses. He wrote to her constantly and his letters were full of warm affection, but of egotism, too. When she was a grown woman and faced the officers of the Revolution and even death with magnificent courage and love for her children, her devotion to him increased. On learning that she was to escape the guillotine she insisted on seeking out his solitary cell at Ohnutz, braving the hostile Emperor of Austria, and demanding to share the horrors of his imprisonment. From the moment of their reunion there his egotism vanished and he realized her character and devotion : to the end of her life they were entirely dependent on each other in their united love.
La Fayette'spassion for liberty was consistent. Thetyranny of an autocrat, Bourbon or Bonaparte, the tyranny of a fickle mob, alike drew out his passionate resentment. He withstood their malevolence, whether stupidity or cunning dictated it He kept his honour bright through the convulsions in two hemi- spheres, and is rightly remembered in both as a hero. No wonder that his name arose again in 1914 and even more in 1917. Had he been alive, what fire would have been added by his unspeakable joy in seeing two great republics that he had helped to birth fighting side by side for the liberty that he prized above all things !
Previous page
