Lafayette’s Son

By FRANK W. HUTCHINS

One late summer day of 1795, a storm-battered ship from France made the American coast, and put into the harbor of Boston. An excited dark eyed boy about fourteen was standing on the deck. He was the only son of the Marquis de Lafayette. With his French tutor, M. Frestel, the boy was a fugitive from the horrors of the French revolution.

Back across the Atlantic, the star of Lafayette had fallen; he and his wife and, daughters were prisoners in Austria. Secret American aid had helped his son safely out of France.

The boy’s name was partly American—George Washington Louis Gilbert Motier de Lafayette. So the boy was a namesake of the man who was at that time President of the United States. But that was not the name on the ships register. Part of the plot to escape from France had been a change of name and a false passport. Now, as the ship tied up at her Boston wharf, it was a tad called George W. Motier who stepped ashore—and straight into a strange story.

It began with disappointment for young George. The Lafayettes had no conception of American affairs, and the young refugee expected to go at once into the home of his father’s friend, President Washington. That could not be. The strained relations between the United States and France were at their peak. War was imminent. It was no time for the President to take into his family the son of a man who (however honored in America) was hated and proscribed by the French republic.

But Washington resolved to adopt the boy secretly, and to be to him “Father, friend, protector, and supporter.” So for some time the son of Lafayette lived in this country as G. W. Motier, watched over and cared for by the President of the United States. The secret of his identity gradually wore thin.

All this time Washington was seeking an opportunity to bring young Lafayette into his family. He consulted one prominent man after another, only to be advised against the dangerous step. He grew more and more troubled. He wrote consolingly to George; and sometimes in such haste to reach him that the letters went, by special mounted courier.

At length, early in 1796, quite in the face of “prudent counsel,” the President sent for George and his tutor to come to him at Philadelphia.

But another branch of the government was interested in the boy. The House of Representatives interrupted proceedings on two afternoons to consider the report that the son of Lafayette was in the United States. A committee of inquiry was appointed.

Upon finding George, the committee urged him to come to the capital under the protection of the “legislature of America.” But he declined the invitation. His letter was a remarkable one, and is to be found today in the published Annals of Congress.

On an April day of 1796, young Lafayette and his tutor arrived at Philadelphia, and were warmly welcomed in the executive mansion. It was well that George could speak English fairly well, for Washington knew no French.

The boy met many prominent men. Vice-President John Adams remembered seeing him in France; but that was in happier days, when the young refugee was a noble of the French empire.

The spring of 1797 saw the end of Washington’s presidency. Upon his retirement to Mount Vernon his relations with young George grew more close. Visitors remarked that the great man evidently looked upon the boy “not as a guest but as a son.” We are even told of the dignified Washington making jokes at the table for his young namesake.

Through that summer of 1797 both George Washingtons were eagerly following the belated news of Napoleon’s victories over Austria. Would he - could he - free the Lafayettes? It was an anxious time. But in September they learned the triumphant Corsican had thrown wide those prison doors, and the Lafayettes were on their way to Paris.

George was quite beside himself. Indoors was not big enough to hold his ecstasy. He rushed into the open, and shouted it all to the fields and the woods and the river.

Washington made every provision for the boy’s long journey homeward. On an October day of 1797 George and his tutor sailed from New York to meet his happy family in Paris.

2/16/1947 CLASSMATE