OUR FIRST ALLIANCE 



545 



final report, in which he gives his own 

 account of the catastrophe and which he 

 caused to be printed when he reached 

 England, he said : 



"The kindness and attention that has 

 been shown us by the French officers, 

 . their delicate sensibility of our 

 situation, their generous and pressing 

 offers of money, both public and private, 

 to any amount, has really gone beyond 

 what I can possibly describe and will, I 

 hope, make an impression on the breast 

 of every British officer whenever the for- 

 tunes of war should put any of them in 

 our power." 



The French attitude in the New World 

 was in perfect accord with the French 

 sentiments in the Old. On receiving 

 from Lauzun and Count de Deux-Ponts, 

 who for fear of capture had sailed in two 

 different frigates, the news of the taking 

 of Cornwallis, of his 8,000 men (of 

 whom 2,000 were in hospitals), 800 

 sailors, 214 guns, and 22 flags, the King 

 wrote to Rochambeau : "Monsieur le 

 Comte de Rochambeau, the success of 

 my arms flatters me only as being con- 

 ducive to peace." 



THE BEGIN XIXG OF A NEW POLITICAL, ERA 



One of the most authoritative publi- 

 cists of the day, Lacretelle, in 1785, con- 

 sidering, in the Mercure de France, the 

 future of the new-born United States, 

 praised the favorable influence exercised 

 on them by the so much admired British 

 Constitution — "the most wonderful gov- 

 ernment in Europe. For it will be Eng- 

 land's glory to have created peoples 

 worthy of throwing off her yoke, even 

 though she must endure the reproach of 

 having forced them to independence by 

 forgetfulness of her own maxims." 



As to the members of the French army 

 who had started for the new crusade two 

 years before, they had at once the con- 

 viction that, in accordance with their an- 

 ticipation, they had witnessed something 

 great which would leave a profound 

 trace in the history of the world. They 

 brought home the seed of liberty and 

 equality, the "virus," as it was called by 

 Pontgibaud, who, friend as he was of 

 Lafayette, resisted the current to the last 

 and remained a royalist. 



Youthful Saint - Simon, the future 

 Saint-Simonian, thus summed up his im- 

 pressions of the campaign : "I felt that 

 the American Revolution marked the be- 

 ginning of a new political era; that this 

 revolution would necessarily set moving 

 an important progress in general civiliza- 

 tion, and that it would before long occa- 

 sion great changes in the social order then 

 existing in Europe." 



ROCHAMBEAU VISITS JEFFERSOX 



For one year more Rochambeau re- 

 mained in America. Peace was a possi- 

 bility, not a certainty. 



Rochambeau had established himself 

 at Williamsburg, the quiet and dignified 

 capital of the then immense State of Vir- 

 ginia, noted for its "Bruton Church," its 

 old College of William and Mary, de- 

 signed by Sir Christopher WYen, and the 

 birthplace of the far-famed Phi Beta 

 Kappa fraternity ; its statue of the for- 

 mer English governor, Lord Botetourt, in 

 conspicuous marble wig and court mantle. 

 "America, behold your friend," the in- 

 scription on the pedestal reads. 



That other friend of America, Ro- 

 chambeau, took up his quarters in the 

 college, one of the buildings of which, 

 used as a hospital for our troops, acci- 

 dentally took fire, but was at once paid 

 for by the French commander. 



Rochambeau, his son, and two aides, 

 one of whom was Closen, journey to visit 

 at Monticello the already famous Jeffer- 

 son. They take with them 14 horses, 

 sleep in the houses where they chance to 

 be at nightfall — a surprise party which 

 may, at times, have caused embarrass- 

 ment ; but this accorded with the customs 

 of the day. 



The hospitality is, according to occa- 

 sions, brilliant or wretched, "with a bed 

 for the general as ornamented as the 

 canopy for a procession," and elsewhere 

 "with rats which come and tickle our 

 ears." They reach the handsome house 

 of the "Philosopher," adorned with a 

 colonnade, "the platform of which is 

 very prettily fitted with all sorts of myth- 

 ological scenes." 



The lord of the place dazzles his vis- 

 itors by his encyclopaedic knowledge. 

 Closen describes him as "very learned in 



