Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 50, December, 1861

As I was rising to go, a lady entered the room, and, without waiting for an introduction, held out her hand so cordially that I knew it must be one of his daughters. It was Madame de Lasteyrie, who, like her mother and sister, had shared his dungeon at Olmütz. Her English, though perfectly intelligible, was not as fluent as her father's, but she had no difficulty in saying some pleasant things about family friendship which made me very happy. She lived in the same street, though not in the same house with the General, and that morning my good-fortune had brought the whole family together at No. 6.

The occasion was a singular one. One of those heartless speculators to whom our Government has too often given free scope among the Indian tribes of our borders had brought to France a party of Osages, on an embassy, as he gave them to understand, but in reality with the intention of exhibiting them, very much as Van Amburgh exhibits his wild beasts. General Lafayette was determined, if possible, to counteract this abominable scheme; but as, unfortunately, there was no one who could interpret for him but the speculator himself, he found it difficult to make the poor Indians understand their real position. He had already seen and talked with them, and was feeling very badly at not being able to do more. This morning he was to receive them at his house, and his own family, with one or two personal friends, had been invited to witness the interview.

Madame de Lasteyrie was soon followed by her daughters, and in a few moments I found myself shaking some very pretty hands, and smiled upon by some very pretty faces. It was something of a trial for one who had never been in a full drawing-room in his life, and whom Nature had predestined to mauvaise honte to the end of his days. Still I made the best of it, and as there is nothing so dreadful, after all, in a bright eye and rosy lip, and the General's invitation to look upon his house as my home was so evidently to be taken in its literal interpretation, I soon began to feel at my ease.

The rooms gradually filled. Madame de Maubourg came in soon after her sister, and, as I was talking to one of the young ladies, a gentleman with a countenance not altogether unlike the General's, though nearly bald, and with what was left of his hair perfectly gray, came up and introduced himself to me as George Lafayette. It was the last link in the chain. The last letter that my grandfather ever wrote to General Lafayette had been about a project which they had formed at the close of the war, to bring up their sons—"the two George Washingtons" —together; and as soon after General Greene's death as the necessary arrangement could be made, my poor uncle was sent to France and placed under the General's care. It was of him that General Washington had written to Colonel Wadsworth, "But should it turn out differently, and Mrs. Greene, yourself, and Mr. Rutledge" (General Greene's executors) "should think proper to intrust my namesake, G.W. Greene, to my care, I will give him as good an education as this country (I mean North America) will afford, and will bring him up to either of the genteel professions that his friends may choose or his own inclination shall lead him to pursue, at my own cost and charge." "He is a lively boy," wrote General Knox to Washington, on returning from putting him on board the French packet, "and, with a good education, will probably be an honor to the name of his father and the pride of his friends."

I may be pardoned for dwelling a moment on the scanty memorials of one whose name is often mentioned in the letters of Washington, and whose early promise awakened the fondest expectations. He was a beautiful boy, if the exquisite little miniature before me may be trusted, blending sweetly the more characteristic traits of his father and mother in his face, in a way that must have made him very dear to both. With the officers and soldiers he was a great favorite, and it cost his father a hard effort to deny himself the gratification of having him always with him at camp during the winter. But the sense of paternal duty prevailed, and as soon as he was thought old enough to profit by it, he was put under the charge of Dr. Witherspoon at Princeton. "I cannot omit informing you," writes General Washington, in 1783, "that I let no opportunity slip to inquire after your son George at Princeton, and that it is with pleasure I hear he enjoys good health, and is a fine, promising boy." He remained in France till 1792, when his mother's anxiety for his safety overcame her desire for the completion of his studies, and she wrote to Gouverneur Morris, who was then in France, to send him home. "Mr. Jefferson," reads the autograph before me, "presents his most respectful compliments to Mrs. Greene, and will with great pleasure write to Mr. Morris on the subject of her son's return, forwarding her letter at the same time. He thinks Mrs. Greene concluded that he should return by the way of London. If he is mistaken, she will be so good as to correct him, as his letter to Mr. Morris will otherwise be on that supposition." He returned a large, vigorous, athletic man, full of the scenes he had witnessed, and ready to engage in active life with the ardor of his age and the high hopes which his name authorized; for it was in the days of Washington and Hamilton and Knox, men who extended to the son the love they had borne to the father. But his first winter was to be given to his home, to his mother and sisters; and there, while pursuing too eagerly his favorite sport of duck-shooting from a canoe on the Savannah, his boat was overset, and, though his companion escaped by clinging to the canoe, he was borne down by the weight of his accoutrements and drowned. The next day the body was recovered, and the vault which but six years before had prematurely opened its doors to receive the remains of the father was opened again for the son. Not long after, his family removed to Cumberland Island and ceased to look upon Savannah as their burial-place; and when, for the first time, after the lapse of more than thirty years, and at the approach of Lafayette on his last memorable visit to the United States, a people awoke from their lethargy and asked where the bones of the hero of the South had been laid, there was no one to point out their resting-place. Happy, if what the poet tells us be true, and "still in our ashes live their wonted fires," that they have long since mingled irrevocably with the soil of the land that he saved, and can never become associated with a movement that has been disgraced by the vile flag of Secession!

But to return to the Rue d'Anjou. A loud noise in the street announced the approach of the Indians, whose appearance in an open carriage had drawn together a dense crowd of sight-loving Parisians; and in a few moments they entered, decked out in characteristic finery, but without any of that natural grace and dignity which I had been taught to look for in the natives of the forest. The General received them with the dignified affability which was the distinctive characteristic of his manner under all circumstances; and although there was nothing in the occasion to justify it, I could not help recalling Madame de Staël's comment upon his appearance at Versailles, on the fearful fifth of October:—"M. de la Fayette was perfectly calm; nobody ever saw him otherwise." Withdrawing with them into an inner room, he did his best, as he afterwards told me, to prevail upon them to return home, though not without serious doubts of the honesty of their interpreter. It was while this private conference was going on that I got my first sight of Cooper,—completing my morning's experience by exchanging a few words with the man, of all others among my countrymen, whom I had most wished to know. Meanwhile the table in the dining-room was spread with cakes and preserves, and before the company withdrew, they had a good opportunity of convincing themselves, that, if the American Indian had made but little progress in the other arts of civilization, he had attained to a full appreciation of the virtues of sweetmeats and pastry.