1894.] obi [Rosengarten, 



the Commander of the French Allied Troops in the War of American In- 

 dependence, and the archeological writings of the present owner are in the 

 library of the American Philosophical Society. I am very sure that the 

 present owners of the Chateau will be glad to know that the name of 

 Rochanibeau is still borne in honor and affection in this country. The 

 official papers of Rochambeau as Commander of the French Army in this 

 country have very properly been obtained by the Government of the 

 United States, and are now safely deposited in Washington, where no 

 doubt they will be made accessible to students of American history. 

 His private papers are still preserved in the family Chateau, where he lived 

 and died, and it would be very interesting if his correspondence wiih those 

 he left there, during his service in this couutrJ^ could be made public, for 

 we should have from a man of large experience his judgment and opinions 

 of the American patriots and statesmen and soldiers with whom he was in 

 daily communication, and we should know how this old French noble- 

 man and soldier was impressed by the country and the people. His 

 printed Memoirs are very favorable in every thing he says of the country 

 and of its people, but they deal in generalities after the fashion of the day. 

 No doubt they give rather his general impressions as he transmitted them 

 by word of mouth to a literary man, who really edited them to suit his 

 own views of how biography ought to be written, than with any fidelity 

 to the plain speech of the old soldier, whose experiences in a long life 

 must have been so wide and so varied. No doubt, too, after the rough 

 usage of the French Revolution, with actual imprisonment and the threat 

 of the guillotine, he looked back on his stay in America, at the head of a 

 well-disciplined and well-equipped force of old soldiers, surrounded by 

 officers who represented the flower of the French aristocracy in its best 

 estate, as a period of great expectations, more than realized by the pros- 

 perity of the infant Republic, in great contrast to the violent changes in 

 France, the sad days of the declining monarchy, its violent overthrow, 

 the stormy days of the French Revolution, its excesses, and the strong 

 measures by which Napoleon reestablished the heavy hand of military 

 power in France and over Europe, and the brilliant years of his empire 

 after its first proclamation. When the elder Rochambeau died, Napoleon 

 was at the very zenith of his power, and when the younger Rochambeau 

 fell at Leipsic, Napoleon's star was still in the ascendant. It would be 

 most gratifying to learn whether their private correspondence and family 

 and other papers are still preserved, and to have them printed, if not in 

 full, at least at sufficient length to give to the growing army of American 

 historical students a better knowledge of the Rochambeaus as they lived 

 and thought, and of their opinions of the men of the new country to 

 ■whose future greatness they had contributed so largely. That they came 

 of old historic and military stock, tracing its home back to Celtic days, 

 and their family to ancestral Crusaders, made them all the more helpful 

 for the Republic of the New World. 



