The Glorious Cause - Jeff Shaara [351]
Upon his return to France in early 1782, he finally begins to receive the respect due him from the “veterans” of the French service. His close acquaintance with King Louis XVI ensures a prominent position in French foreign affairs, and when Thomas Jefferson is sent to Paris as United States minister to France, Lafayette becomes his invaluable liaison in the often dark halls of French government.
In 1789, he is named commander of the National Guard, the elite troops close to King Louis. He continues to serve his king during the early months of the French Revolution, and single-handedly rescues Louis and Marie Antoinette from one notable explosion of mob violence.
He is promoted to lieutenant general in the French army in 1791, is prominent as commander of the French forces when war with Austria erupts in 1792. Swept out of power by the outcome of the French Revolution, he flees the country, only to be captured and imprisoned by the Austrians. Freed by Napoleon in 1797, he returns to France to find a very different land, under the control of a dictator whom Lafayette respects but will not serve. Napoleon continues to offer him positions in his government, including the prestigious post as representative to the United States. But Lafayette refuses, chooses instead to pursue a peaceful life as a civilian. He settles into the farm country outside Paris until 1818, then succumbs to pressure to return to politics. He serves in the French Chamber of Deputies for six years, but resigns to accept an invitation from President James Monroe to tour the United States as an honored guest of a grateful nation.
In 1824–25, his yearlong parade through America is met by an extraordinary show of affection and admiration from a people to which he had been so dedicated. He returns to France every bit the hero who has captured the love of the American people.
He writes his memoirs, describing himself in the third person and making no attempt at modesty. But few can deny that the accounts are among the most accurate of those set into writing by one who was so centrally involved in the struggle for American independence.
Nearly bankrupted by the French Revolution, he never seeks reimbursement of his considerable expenses during the war in America. Congress awards him a small fraction of what he is due, but provides him a sizable grant of land, mostly in the new territory that is Louisiana.
He returns to politics, but never enjoys the prestige and power of his early years. He lives out his life as a beloved man of modest means and dies from a flulike ailment in May 1834. He is seventy-seven.
HENRY KNOX
The modest, obese bookseller who becomes the self-taught master of Washington’s artillery is appointed to succeed George Washington as the second commander in chief of the American army. In that post for only a year, he becomes secretary of war in 1785, though that office is not yet given official status by the constitution. He remains in that position under President George Washington until 1794.
He falls into the trap that ensnares so many continental officers, and involves himself in land speculation in what becomes the state of Maine. He is nearly bankrupted, though he and Lucy continue to own a sizable piece of farmland near Thomaston, Maine. After resigning his position under Washington, he moves his family to their home there, called Montpelier, which is one of the finest mansions in that part of the country.
Lucy gives him twelve children, of whom only three reach adulthood. Throughout Knox’s life, he and Lucy continue to inspire the admiration of their friends for their childlike affection toward each other. They become the center of society in their small world, and Knox’s lust for food and high living is well known. On one occasion he writes, “On July Fourth, we had a small company of upwards of five hundred people.”
He dies in September 1806, at age fifty-six. Lucy lives until 1824, her widowhood described by friends as a “joyless endurance.”
CHARLES LEE
After being removed from the field by Washington at the