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that wish. While the First Consul grew in greatness, and unfortunately in power, General Lafayette continued in retirement, the worshipper of liberty."

Lafayette had been restored to his privileges as a citizen, and to his rank as a general in the French armies. When (in May 1802) Napoleon, in his progress towards the splen dour and power of despotism, had caused the Legion of Honour to be instituted, and soon after had constituted a Senate, with extensive privileges and rich endowments, he caused several offers to be made to Lafayette of a seat in that favoured body. They were declined. Bonaparte at length made the offer in person. Lafayette still declined, in a manner which appeared satisfactory to the First Consul. He soon after retired from the army. In his letter to the minister, he said: "Connected from their commencement with those institutions which have triumphed in Europe, united by the ties of affection to the generals of the repub. lick, I have ever been their comrade, but I pretend not, after so many victims, to be their rival. I beg, then, if you think I ought to be put on the retired list, to have the goodness to request it of the First Consul." And yet, at that time Lafayette was in poverty. His income, which once amounted to 200,000 francs per year, then scarcely amounted to 10,000. The offices proffered by Napoleon would have restored him to wealth, title, and what the world calls honours. He preferred independence of principle and consistency of character.

Within the same year, Lafayette was to exhibit new proof of his firmness and integrity. Through the subserviency of the legislative branches, the question of appointing Bonaparte First Consul for life, was submitted to and sanc. tioned by the French people. Called upon to vote on this question, Lafayette did so in these terms: "I cannot vote for such a magistracy, until publick liberty has been suffi. ciently guarantied. Then will I give my vote to Napoleon Bonaparte." He addressed also to the First Consul, the following memorable letter:

"General-when a man, penetrated with the gratitude which he owes you, and too much alive to glory not to admire yours, has pla. ced restrictions on his suffrage, those restrictions will be so much the less suspected when it is known, that none more than himself, would delight to see you chief magistrate for life of a free republick. The

18th brumaire saved France, and I felt that I was recalled by the lib. eral professions to which you have attached your honour. We afterwards beheld in the consular power, that restorative dictatorship, which, under the auspices of your genius, has achieved such great things, less great, however, than will be the restoration of liberty. It is impossible that you, general, the first in that order of men, (whom, to quote and compare it, would require me to retrace every age of history,) can wish such a revolution, so many victories, so much blood and miseries, should produce to the world and to ourselves no other result than an arbitrary system. The French people have too well known their rights, to have entirely forgotten them. But perhaps they are better enabled to recover them now with advantage than in the heat of effervescence; and you, by the power of your character and the publick confidence, by the superiority of your talents, your situation, and your fortune, may, by re-establishing liberty, subdue our dangers and calm our inquietudes. I have no other than patriotick and personal motives in wishing for you as the climax of our glory, a permanent magistrative post; but it is in unity with my principles, my engagements, the actions of my whole life, to ascertain before I vote, that liberty is established on bases worthy of the nation and of you. I hope you will now acknowledge, gen. eral, as you have already had occasion to do, that to firmness in my political opinions are joined my sincere wishes for your welfare and profound sentiments of my obligations to you."

No answer to this letter was received. From this time, all intercourse between Lafayette and the First Consul ceased. They saw each other no more, until after the reverses of Napoleon, 1814-15.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Lafayette in the retirement of Lagrange-Suggested mission to Amer ica-Is offered by President Jefferson the office of Governour of Louisiana-Letter declining the appointment-Mr. Jefferson's opinion of Lafayette-Letter approving his conduct in the French Revolution--Lagrange not exempt from misfortune and sorrow-Accident to Lafayette-Petty resentments of Napoleon-Death of Madame Lafayette--Her character-Lafayette's sorrow, and affectionate remembrance of her-Napoleon's exile to and return from Elba-Endeavours to conciliate the old friends of liberty--Lafayette declines his advances-Refuses the peerage--Remonstrates against the revival of despotism--Is elected a deputy-Battle of Waterloo Last effort of Napoleon--Bold and patriotick declarations of Lafayette-Frustrates the despotick designs of Napoleon-Reply to Lucien Bonaparte-Advises the abdication of the Emperour-Is a commissioner to treat with the allies-Endeavours to secure the liberty of Napoleon, and his safe conduct to America-Retires to Lagrange -Elected again to the Chamber of Deputies-Advocates liberal principles and measures-Resists the despotick encroachments under the restoration-Warns and reproaches the Bourbon dynastyIs accused of treasonable designs--Challenges his adversaries to the proof--Is defeated in his election by the Ministry.

WHILE Napoleon pursued his brilliant career of victory and power-assuming to himself the kingly crown and the imperial diadem-destroying old dynasties and establishing new-making and unmaking kings-conquering nation upon nation, and setting the world in a blaze-Lafayette, the true friend of his country, and reserved for its exigencies, led a quiet and honourable life in the retirements of Lagrange. This had been the paternal estate of Madame Lafayette's mother, who had perished, with her eldest daughter, on the revolutionary scaffold. Lafayette anxiously desired the possession of this estate, as a part of his wife's share, in the division of the property. "I am constantly looking (said he, in a letter to Masclet, Dec. 1801) at the fields of Lagrange, till I know that they are my property, and that I shall be at liberty to cultivate them. The allotment of our shares will be finished, I hope, in three or four decades. Adrienne's share will be less considerable than I had ima

gined; but should I obtain my favoured residence of Lagrange, with its arrondissement of wood, meadows, and arrable land, I shall arrange a good handsome farm for myself, and I shall then envy the lot of none."

wrote: 66

His desire was in due season gratified; and as soon as he had obtained possession, Lafayette applied himself with ardour to the improvement of the estate. To Masclet he then I am here alone in my fields, where I pass a most agreeable life, turning to account four strong ploughs, and aptly demonstrating the disputed problem of the farmer proprietor.'

Identified as Lafayette was with the American republick, his name was naturally suggested, on his return from exile, among the candidates, as minister from the consular gov. ernment to that of the United States. Writing to Masclet on the subject, he said: "I shall not go to America, my dear Masclet, at least in a diplomatick capacity. I am far from abandoning the idea of making private and patriotick visits to the United States, and to the citizens of the new world; but at present I am much more intent upon farming than upon embassies. It seems to me, that were I to arrive in America in any other costume than an American uniform, I should be as embarrassed with my appearance as a savage in breeches." An opportunity, however, was soon presented to Lafayette, of visiting America, of becoming, in fact, an American citizen, in a capacity most honourable, and congenial with his feelings. Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United States, having completed the purchase of Louisiana, pressingly invited Lafayette to accept the office of provisional governour of that territory. Considerations, connected with the liberty and welfare of his native country, prevented Lafayette from accepting this grateful offer. Napoleon had just assumed the title of Emperour. The feelings and motives of Lafayette are expressed in his letter to President Jefferson, (October 8th, 1804) declining the appointment:

"Your proposition (he said,) offers all the advantages of dignity, wealth and security, and I do not feel less warmly than I have done these thirty years past, the desire of advancing with American liberty in its progress over all the continent. But you, my dear friend, you also know and share my wishes for French, and consequently for European liberty. In America the cause of mankind is gained and secured; nothing can arrest, change, or sully its progress. Here all

regard it as lost and without hope. But for me to pronounce that sentence, to proclaim it as it were by a final expatriation, would be a concession so contrary to my sanguine nature, that unless I were absolutely forced, I know not the land, however disadvantageous, and still less can I imagine the hope, however unpromising, which I could totally and irrevocably abandon. This is perhaps after all but a weakness of heart, but in spite of the usurpations of uncontrolled power, and in the event of its overthrow-amidst the dangers of Jacobinism excited to rage, and the still greater dangers of a royal aris tocracy, more absurd, though not less sanguinary, I do not despair of obtaining modifications less unfavourable to the dignity and liberty of my countrymen. When I consider the prodigious influence of French doctrines upon the future destinies of the world, I think it will not be right in me, one of the promoters of that resolution, to admit the imposibility of beholding it, even in our time, re-established on its true basis of a generous, a virtuous, iu a word, an American liberty.”

By no American statesman were the character and services of Lafayette more highly appreciated than by Mr. Jefferson. Speaking, at a late period of his life, of the alliance with France which secured the independence of America, he said: "We commissioners in Europe placed the nail, and Lafayette drove it in." The full concurrence and approbation of Mr. Jefferson, whose democracy will never be doubted, added to those of Gen. Washington, will vindi. cate Lafayette from all charges of having departed in the French revolution from the strict requirements of his duty as a republican. In a letter written to Lafayette in 1815, Mr. Jefferson reminds him, that at the period of the tennis court oath, (see p. 217) he (Jefferson) advised an accommo. dation with the king, until the French nation should be further advanced in its political education.

"You thought otherwise, (he adds,) and that the dose might still be larger, and I found you were right; for subsequent events proved they were equal to the constitution of 1791. Unfortunately, some of the most honest and enlightened of our patriotick friends (but closet politicians merely, unpractised in the knowledge of man), thought more could still be obtained and borne. They did not weigh the hazards of a transition from one form of government to another, the value of what they had already rescued from those hazards, and might hold in security if they pleased, nor the imprudence of giving up the certainty of such a degree of liberty, under a limited monarch, for the uncertainty of a little more under the form of a republick. You differed from them; you were for stopping there, and for securing the constitution which the national Assembly had obtained.. Here, too, you were right; and from this fatal error of the republieans, from their separating from yourself, and the constitutionalists in their councils, flowed all the subsequent sufferings and crimes of

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