Six years after the end of the American war, on January 24, 1789, the King of France ordered the drawing up of the famous Cahiers, desiring, he said, that "from the extremities of his kingdom and the most unknown habitations every one should be assured of a means of conveying to him his wishes and complaints." And the Cahiers, requesting liberties very similar to those of the Americans, came indeed from the remotest parts of France, the work of everybody, of quasi-peasants sometimes, who would offer excuses for their wild orthography and grammar. The notes and letters of the volunteers of our Revolution, sons of peasants or artisans, surprise us by the mass of general ideas and views which abound in them. It was not, therefore, a statement of small import that Franklin had conveyed to Congress when he wrote from France: "The united bent of the nation is manifestly 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 in their interest to help us, seems as much as to say: 'Help us and we shall not be obliged to you.' Such indiscreet and improper 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 oppressed."[11]
The treaty of commerce, accompanying the treaty of alliance of 1778,[12] had been in itself a justification of this judgment. Help from abroad was so pressingly needed in America that almost any advantages requested by France as a condition would have been granted; but that strange sight was seen: advantages being offered, unasked, by one party, and declined by the other. France decided at once not to accept anything as a recompense, not even Canada, if that were wrested from the English, in spite of Canada's having been French from the first, and having but recently 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 footing as herself, England included.[13]
This was so peculiar that many had doubts; John Adams never lost his; 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."[14] 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.
Another striking trait in the numerous French accounts which have come down to us of this campaign against the English is the small space that the English, as a nation, occupy in them. The note that predominates is enthusiasm for the Americans, not hatred for their enemies. "In France," wrote Ségur in his memoirs, "in spite of the habit of a long obedience to arbitrary power, the cause of the American insurgents fixed the attention and excited the interest of all. From every side public opinion was pressing the royal government to declare itself in favor of republican liberty, and seemed to reproach it for its slowness and timidity." Of any revenge to be taken on the enemy, not a word. "No one among us," he said further, "thought of a revolution in France, but it was rapidly taking place in our minds. Montesquieu had brought to light again the long-buried title-deeds consecrating the rights of the people. Mature men were studying and envying the laws of England."
Summing up the motives of the new crusaders, who were "starting off to the war in the name of philanthropy," he found two: "One quite reasonable and conscientious, the desire to well serve King and country ... another more unique, a veritable enthusiasm for the cause of American liberty." Ministers hesitated, on account of the greatness of the risk, "but they were, little by little, carried away by the torrent." During the sea voyage only the chiefs knew exactly whither they were going; some officers thought at one time they might have to fight elsewhere than in America. One of Rochambeau's officers, the aforementioned Mathieu-Dumas, confided his misgivings to his journaclass="underline" "Above all," he wrote, "I had heartily espoused the cause of the independence of the Americans, and I should have felt extreme regret at losing the honor of combating for their liberty."[15] Of the English, again, not a word; what he longed for, like so many others, was less to fight against the English than for the Americans.
More striking, perhaps, than all the rest: shortly after we had decided to take part in the war, the question of our motives and of a possible annihilation of England as a great power was plainly put, in the course of a familiar conversation, by the president of Yale University to the future signer of the Louisiana Treaty, Barbé-Marbois, then secretary of our legation in the United States. "Mons. Marbois," Ezra Stiles confided to his diary, on the occasion of the French minister, La Luzerne, and his secretary's visit to Yale, "is a learned civilian, a councillor of the Parliament of Metz, æt. 35, as I judge; speaks English very tolerably, much better than his Excellency the minister. He was very inquisitive for books and American histories.... Among other things I asked Mons. Marbois whether the Powers of Europe would contentedly see Great Britain annihilated.
"He said, no; it would be for the interest of Europe that Britain should have weight in the balances of power.... France did not want to enlarge her dominions by conquest or otherwise."[16]
For the French diplomat, a man of great ability and well informed, addressing, as he was, one to whom a "yes" instead of a "no" would have caused no pain, far from it, the motive of our actions was neither a prospective loss by England of her rank nor the increase of our own possessions, but simply American independence.
II
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 Washington and be understood by him, would keep in hand the enthusiasts under his orders, and would avoid ill-prepared, risky ventures. The time of the d'Estaings was gone; definitive results were to be sought. The government considered it could do no better than to select Rochambeau. It could, indeed, do no better.
The future marshal of France had been first destined to priesthood for no other reason than that he was a second son, and he was about to receive the tonsure when his elder brother died, and Bishop de Crussol, who had been supervising Donatien's ecclesiastical studies, came one day to him and said: "You must forget all I have told you up to now; you have become the eldest of your family and you must now serve your country with as much zeal as you would have served God in the ecclesiastical state."
Rochambeau did so. He was appointed an officer and served on his first campaign in Germany 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 regiment, "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 fulfilment of an order given by Rochambeau. The latter was again severely wounded, but, leaning on two soldiers, he could remain 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 future colonial secretary of the Yorktown period. At Johannisberg, in the same war, Clinton, future commander-in-chief at New York, was wounded, while here and there in the French army such officers distinguished themselves as Bougainville, back from Ticonderoga, and not yet a sailor, Chastellux, already a colonel, no longer a secretary of embassy, not yet an Academician, and my predecessor, La Luzerne, an officer of cavalry, not yet a diplomat, who was to be the second minister ever accredited to America, where his name is not forgotten.