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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



festly in our favor." And he deplored 

 elsewhere that some could think that an 

 appeal to France's own interest was good 

 policy : 



"Telling them their commerce will be 

 advantaged by our success, and that it is 

 their interest to help us, seems as much 

 as to say: 'Help us and we shall not be 

 obliged to you.' Such indiscreet and im- 

 proper language has been sometimes held 

 here by some of our people and produced 

 no good effect. The truth is," he said 

 also, that "this nation is fond of glory, 

 particularly that of protecting the op- 

 pressed." 



The treaty of commerce, accompany- 

 ing the treaty of alliance of 1778, had 

 been in itself a justification of this judg- 

 ment. Help from abroad was so press- 

 ingly needed in America that almost any 

 advantages requested by France as a con- 

 dition would have been granted ; but that 

 strange sight was seen : advantages being 

 offered, unasked, by one party and de- 

 clined by the other. 



France decided at once not to accept 

 anything as a recompense, not even Can- 

 ada, if that were wrested from the Eng- 

 lish, in spite of Canada's having been 

 French from the first and having but re- 

 cently ceased to be such. The fight was 

 not for recompense, but for liberty, and 

 Franklin could write to Congress that 

 the treaty of commerce was one to which 

 all the rest of the world, in accordance 

 with France's own wishes, was free to 

 accede, when it chose, on the same foot- 

 ing as herself, England included. 



This was so peculiar that many had 

 doubts ; John Adams never lost his ; even 

 Washington himself had some, and when 

 plans were submitted to him for an action 

 in Canada he wondered, as he wrote, 

 whether there was not in them "more 

 than the disinterested zeal of allies." 

 What would take place at the peace if 

 the allies were victorious? Would not 

 France require, in one form or another, 

 some advantages for herself? But she 

 did not ; her peace was to be like her war, 

 pro-American rather than anti-English. 



THE IDEAL LEADER ROCHAMBEAU 



Aware of the importance and difficulty 

 of the move it had decided upon, the 



French Government had looked for a 

 trained soldier, a man of decision and of 

 sense, one who would understand Wash- 

 ington and be understood by him, would 

 keep in hand the enthusiasts under his 

 orders, and would avoid ill-prepared, 

 risky ventures. The government consid- 

 ered it could do no better than to select 

 Rochambeau. It could, indeed, do no 

 better. 



Rochambeau was appointed an officer 

 and served on his first campaign in Ger- 

 many at sixteen ; fought under Marshal 

 de Saxe ; was a colonel at twenty-two 

 (Washington was to become one also at 

 twenty-two) ; received at Laufeldt his 

 two first wounds, of which he nearly died. 

 At the head of the famous Auvergne reg- 

 iment, "Auvergne sans tache" (Auvergne 

 the spotless), as it was called, he took 

 part in the chief battles of the Seven 

 Years' War, notably in the victory of 

 Klostercamp, where spotless Auvergne 

 had 58 officers and 800 soldiers killed or 

 wounded, the battle made memorable by 

 the episode of the Chevalier d'Assas, who 

 went to his heroic death in the fulfill- 

 ment of an order given by Rochambeau. 

 The latter was again severely wounded, 

 but, leaning on two soldiers, he could re- 

 main at his post till the day was won. 



On the opposite side of the same battle- 

 fields were fighting many destined, like 

 Rochambeau himself, to take part in the 

 American war ; it was like a preliminary 

 rehearsal of the drama that was to be. 

 At the second battle of Minden, in 1759, 

 where the father of Lafayette was killed, 

 Rochambeau covered the retreat, while 

 in the English ranks Lord Cornwallis was 

 learning his trade, as was, too, but less 

 brilliantly, Lord George Germain, the fu- 

 ture colonial secretary of the Yorktown 

 period. 



A HAPPY MARRIAGE WITH ANNALS BRIEF 



When still very young, Rochambeau 

 had contracted one of those marriages so 

 numerous in the eighteenth, as in every 

 other, century, of which nothing is said 

 in the memoirs and letters of the period, 

 because they were what they should be — 

 happy ones. Every right-minded and 

 right-hearted man will find less pleasure 

 in the sauciest anecdote told by Lauzun 



