With Americans of Past and Present Days - Jusserand Jean Jules - Страница 23

[63] On which occasion the Marquis de Vaudreuil, in command of the fleet, wrote him from Boston, November 18, 1782: "Je suis vraiment touche, Monsieur, de ne pouvoir pas avoir l'honneur de vous voir ici; je m'estimais heureux de renouveler la connaissance que j'avais faite avec vous a Brest chez M. d'Orvilliers. Mais je ne puis qu'applaudir au parti que vous prenez d'eviter la tristesse des adieux et les temoignages de la sensibilite de tous vos officiers en se voyant separes de leur chef qu'ils respectent et cherissent sincerement." (Rochambeau papers.)

[64] An anecdote in the Autobiography of John Trumbull, the painter, well shows how lasting were the feelings for the land and the people taken home with them by the French. The artist tells of his reaching Mulhouse in 1795, finding it "full of troops," with no accommodation of any sort. He is taken to the old general in command:

"The veteran looked at me keenly and asked bluntly: 'Who are you, an Englishman?'

"'No, general, I am an American of the United States.'

"'Ah! do you know Connecticut?'

"'Yes, sir, it is my native State.'

"'You know, then, the good Governor Trumbull?'

"'Yes, general, he is my father.'

"'Oh! mon Dieu, que je suis charme.... Entrez, entrez!'"

And all that is best is placed at the disposal of the newcomer by the soldier, who turns out to be a former member of the Lauzun legion. The artist adds: "The old general kept me up almost all night, inquiring of everybody and of everything in America." Some papers are brought for him to sign, which he does with his left hand, and, Trumbull noticing it, "'Yes,' said he, 'last year, in Belgium, the Austrians cut me to pieces and left me for dead, but I recovered, and, finding my right hand ruined, I have learned to use my left, and I can write and fence with it tolerably.'

"'But, sir,' said I, 'why did you not retire from service?'

"'Retire!' exclaimed he. 'Ha! I was born in a camp, have passed all my life in the service, and will die in a camp, or on the field.'

"This is," Trumbull concludes, "a faithful picture of the military enthusiasm of the time—1795."

[65] "... An inscription engraved on them, expressive of the occasion. I find a difficulty in getting the engraving properly executed. When it will be finished, I shall with peculiar pleasure put the cannon into your possession." Washington to Rochambeau, February 2, 1782.

[66] De Grasse died in January, 1788. "The Cincinnati in some of the States have gone into mourning for him." Washington to Rochambeau, April 28, 1788.

[67] Jefferson seems to have feared that the souvenir of Rochambeau might soon fade. He wrote to Madison, February 8, 1786: "Count Rochambeau, too, has deserved more attention than he has received. Why not set up his bust, that of Gates, Greene, Franklin in your new Capitol?" No bust was placed in the Capitol, but the raising of the statue in Lafayette Square, Washington, in 1902, has proved that, after so many years, Rochambeau was not forgotten in America.

[68] May 28, 1788.

[69] In a letter of July 31, 1789, Rochambeau informs Washington of Barlow's arrival, "and I made him all the good reception that he deserves by himself and by the honorable commendation that you give to him." In Rochambeau's English; Washington papers.

[70] Fr., "en petit comite"—a small party of friends.

[71] January 7, 1786. Washington papers.

[72] Paris, June, 1785 (ibid.)

[73] "Rochambeau near Vendome, April 11, 1790."

[74] Here is this letter in full:

Paris the 18th November, 1790.

Sir:

I hope that your Excellency will give me the leave to beg a favor of your justice. I think it just to intercede for the Baron de Closen who was an aide-de-camp to Mr. Rochambeau during the American war. He longs with the desire to be a member of the association of the Cincinnati. The officers who were employed in the French army and younger than him in the military service have been decorated with this emblem of liberty, and such a reward given by your Excellency's hand shall increase its value.

I flatter myself that you will receive the assurances of the respect and veneration I have for your talents and your virtue, well known in the whole world.

I have (etc.),

La Comtesse de Rochambeau.

[75] June, 1785. Two of the Berthier brothers had taken part, as we saw, in the expedition. The one alluded to here is the younger, Cesar-Gabriel, not the older, Louis-Alexandre, who became Prince de Wagram. Both are described in their "etats de service," preserved among the Rochambeau papers, as expert draftsmen. The notice concerning the younger, who was a captain of dragoons, reads: "Il s'est fait remarquer ainsi que son frere par son talent a dessiner et lever des plans."

[76] Concerning this correspondence, as continued during the French Revolution, see below, pp. 245 ff.

[77] December 29, 1782.

[78] A lithographed portrait mentions the later-day titles and dignities of: "I.C. Louis, Baron de Closen, Marechal de Camp, chambellan et chevalier des ordres francais pour le Merite et de la Legion d'honneur, ainsi que de celui de Cincinnatus des Etats Unis de l'Amerique Septentrionale." Reproduced by C.W. Bowen, who first drew attention to this journal, Century Magazine, February, 1907. Closen died in 1830, aged seventy-five.

[79] Which was done in a letter giving as a reason "that, whenever the two crowns should come to treat, his Most Christian Majesty would show how much the engagements he might enter into were to be relied on, by his exact observance of those he had already had with his present allies." Quoted, as "a sentence which I much liked," by Franklin, writing to John Adams, April 13, 1782.

II

MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY

I

Little more than a century ago the hill on which rises the Capitol of the federal city and the ground around it were covered with woods and underbrush; a few scattered farms had been built here and there, with one or two exceptions mere wooden structures whose low roofs scarcely emerged from their leafy surroundings. Not very long before, Indians had used to gather on that eminence and hold their council-fires.

As far now as the eye can reach the picturesque outline of one of the finest cities that exist is discovered; steeples and pinnacles rise above the verdure of the trees lining the avenues within the unaltered frame supplied by the blue hills of Maryland and Virginia.

The will of Congress, the choice made by the great man whose name the city was to bear, the talents of a French officer, caused this change.

Debates and competitions had been very keen; more than one city of the North and of the South had put forth pleas to be the one selected and become the capital: Boston, where the first shot had been fired; Philadelphia, where independence had been proclaimed; Yorktown, where it had been won—Yorktown, modest as a city, but glorious by the events its name recalled, now an out-of-the-way borough, rarely visited, and where fifty white inhabitants are all that people the would-be capital of the new-born Union. New York also had been in the ranks, as well as Kingston, Newport, Wilmington, Trenton, Reading, Lancaster, Annapolis, Williamsburg, and several others. Passions were stirred to such an extent that the worst was feared, and that, incredible as it may now seem, Jefferson could speak of the "necessity of a compromise to save the Union."