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AN  EULOGY
LAFAYETTE,




           DELIVERED    S^/  __   -0 /~
IN BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA,
NINTH OF MAY, 1835,
AT THE' 'REQUEST OF
THE CITIZENS AND STUDENTS.
BY ANDREW WYL1E, D. D.




  PRESIDENT OF INDIANA COLLEGE.
-'A
    UINCINlV^Tl:



TAYLOR AND TRACY.
1835. 
      CINCINNATI:
PRINTED BY p. B. BENTON. 
CORRESPONDENCE
President Wylie:
  Sir,—At a meeting of the citizens of Bloomington and students of Indiana
college, on Saturday, the sixteenth instant, the undersigned were appointed a
committee, to request for publication, a copy of an address delivered by your-
self,  a week previously, on the life and character of General Gilbert Mortier
de Lafayette.   A compliance with this request will be  highly gratifying to
our citizens, and to none  more so than
                 Your obedient humble servants,
                          DAVID H. MAXWELL.
                          BEAUMONT PARKS,
                          PARIS C. DUNNING,
                          JOSEPH  G. McPHEETERS,
  Bloomington, May 18<A, 1835.
                                        Bloomington, May 18JA, 1835,

Messrs. D. H. Maxwell, Beaumont Parks,  Paris C. Dunning, and Joseph G
    McPheeters :
  Gentlemen,—A copy of the address requested for publication, in your note
of this morning, is at your disposal.  A desire  to cherish the remembrance of
one to whom our country and the world are so deeply indebted, and a wish to
comply with your request, must be my apology for submitting to public inspec-
tion a performance so far below the merits of the subject whom it presumes to
celebrate.
  With due sense of that kind feeling to which, rather than  the merits of the
address, I know, I am indebted for your favorable opinion of it,
                  I remain, gentlemen, your humble servant,
                                                ANDREW WYLIE.

Committee 
 
      AN EULOGY

             ON

LAFAYETTE.
Friends and Fellow-Citizens,

  The virtues of Lafayette deserve to be celebrated.  His
sacrifices and services in the cause of civil liberty, merit the
gratitude of all the friends of the rights of man, in both hemis-
pheres.   By the citizens  of these United States especially,
they should be  held  in  everlasting remembrance.   Every
individual of our whole republic, however obscure may be his
condition in life,  should  be again and again reminded of the
debt of gratitude which we all  owe  to  the great and good
Lafayette.  The rising generation  should be  taught to love
and revere  the name,  and  commemorate the virtues of their
country's benefactor.  His  bright  example  should be ever
before their eyes.   To show to what a pitch of exalted excel-
lence our  nature  may  be elevated, when  its powers are
animated by generous sentiments, and devoted to honorable
ends, a specimen should be shown in the life of Lafayette, to
the delight and admiration of all future ages.  Such a specimen
is, indeed, of rare occurrence in the annals of mankind.  The
conjuncture of trying circumstances which formed the occasion
of its display, was itself a rare phenomenon; and it ought not
to pass over without making such use of it as wisdom dictates.
Like the conjunctions of the heavenly  bodies, the  occasion
may furnish an opportunity for such observations as may give
to mankind a more perfect insight into that sublime economy
which governs their destinies.  Sure I am, that, if any one can
contemplate such a character of singular and  exalted excel-
                          r 
6
 lence as the one we are now called upon to celebrate, without
 being made better by it—without being refreshed and exhilar-
 ated by the comtemplation of so many, and such noble virtues;
 without finding himself silently and  pleasantly beguiled into
 better and higher  thoughts  of the  human  species and their
 destiny; without feeling, as it were,  exalted by the company
 and presence of such a man; without becoming more recon-
 ciled to the world, brightened as it has been  by a new lustre;
 without, in fine, having his own virtue inspired with new
 vigor, by having brought in contact with  him, an object so
 worthy of love and admiration—the fault must be his own.
   I feel deeply sensible, fellow-citizens, how inadequate I am
 to the present occasion.  Since the appearance of the oration
 of our distinguished fellow-citizen, John Quincy Adams, on
 the life and character of Lafayette, this feeling has been greatly
 increased, since that has left me no hope of  saying any thing
 on the subject which  has not already been better said.  I,
 indeed,  most  sincerely regret  that  I suffered myself to  be
 committed on the subject.  It might have been better honored
 by another.  But it is  too  late for regret.   You  know the
 press of duties that are constantly upon  me, and which have
 been peculiarly heavy since  I came  under  the  engagement
 which I have now come before you  to discharge.  Let this
 pass, with your kind indulgence, for my apology, in part, for
 the very imperfect manner of discharging it.
  In the  remarks  which are to follow, I shall not attempt to
 trace in detail the events which  distinguished the career of
 our departed friend and benefactor.   This has been done  by
 an abler hand.  To sketch, imperfectly, a  few  only of the
 traits  which  adorned  his  character, without entering at all
 into the  particulars of his  biography, is all that I shall even
 attempt.   In  doing this, I shall, however, pay some regard to
 the order of events.
  The occasion which first  brought Lafayette upon the stage
 of public action, and in the  view of the world, was furnished
 by one of the earliest scenes of our revolution.  By the glori-
ous consequences  which followed,  it has since challenged and
obtained the admiration of the world.  But at the time when 
7
it attracted the eye and fired the heart of Lafayette, there was
nothing great or brilliant about it.   A colony had risen in
arms against the parent country.   They were a handful of
men, scattered over the half-cultivated districts of an ample
territory, which, with hard and persevering toil, amidst perils
and sufferings the most appalling, they had begun to reclaim
from the wilds of nature and the dominion of savage beasts,
and more savage  men.  To appearance,  their attempt would
have been considered, and by all ordinary observers was ac-
tually considered, as wild in its origin as it was likely to  prove
abortive in its issue.   Of the elements of war, except prudent
heads, stout hearts, and sinews  hardened by toil, they had
none.   The mother  country,  now  their  implacable enemy,
wielded a power more formidable  than that of any other single
nation on the globe, and which, in a recent contest, had come
off proudly victorious over two great nations  combined.  To
the ruling powers of Europe, the cause of the colonists was in
itself odious, as well as contemptible.   It was the cause of
subjects rebelling against legitimate  authority; of the  weak
inconsiderately rising against the  mighty; of upstart preten-
sion presuming to interrogate  privileged  prescription  on his
right to rule.  Lafayette belonged, by birth, to that class of
men  with whom  these views  and feelings were habitual and
familiar—handed down from age to age.   Born a peer of the
realm of France, and of one of its most distinguished families,
and heir to a princely inheritance, he was secluded by fortune
from all participation in the feelings and  experiences of that
part of society whose only concern with government, accord-
ing to the received doctrine, was  to hear  and  to obey; to suf-
fer and be silent.   To this class we  belonged;  a  class, which
in France,  is known by an epithet too opprobrious to be even
translated into our language.   We were,  besides, foreigners
to Frenchmen.  A vast ocean rolled between  us.  More still:
we were of a race between whom  and them war had raged
from age to age, and from century to century, almost without
cessation or respite,  or even  truce.  Their armies and ours
had often met in deadly conflict on this very soil.  Besides,in
religion, manners, language, temper, every thing, we were a 
8
different people.   Like oil and water, our bloods would not
commingle.
  Besides all this, at the time to which I refer, Lafayette was
in the bloom of youth; his affections to home, kindred and coun-
try increased and strengthened by the marriage tie, contracted
recently with a young lady in  rank, fortune and accomplish-
ments, entirely worthy of his  choice.  Add to all these con-
siderations, the fact, that the  government  of  France  was
apprized  of Lafayette's intentions in coming to our aid—for,
the slightest movement of a person so conspicuous could not
escape the jealous eye of power—and had taken measures to
prevent their execution.  Yet, bound as he was by so many
silken bonds, fascinated  by so many enchantments, and bless-
ed, substantially  blessed, with every thing which could render
home delightful—so powerful was the impulse which moved his
generous nature, that from the first moment when he heard the
story of our cause, our wrongs and our magnanimous appeal
for redress * to arms and  to the God of hosts,' he could not rest:
the call of humanity oppressed, and of weakness and innocence
likely to be overpowered and borne down by the ruthless hand
of power, tingled in his ears like the notes of the war trumpet,
and he broke away from all—wife, friends, country, rank,
wealth, honor, life itself: every thing he put in jeopardy; and
eluding the vigilance of his government, he got ready a vessel
in one of the  ports of Spain, from which he set sail, and on the
twenty-fifth of April, in  the year seventeen hundred and se-
venty-seven, he arrived safe in the harbor of Charleston, South
Carolina.
  Such, fellow-citizens, is a brief recital of the first decisive
movement made  by  the  youthful hero  in our behalf.   What
were his motives?   This is a question  which cannot  always
be answered with certainty.  Most of  human actions result
from different inducements united, and tending to the same
point—some  more,  some less  pure.   But  there are cases
wherein all ignoble influences lead in one direction; and but
the single motive of the great, the good, the  noble points in
the opposite direction.   It was  clearly so here.   Lafayette
would have been just; he might have been virtuous: he mio-ht 
                             9

 have been generous and brave, had  he remained in France:
 but he would not have raised his name for these virtues, above
 the level of ordinary attainment.  But the course he actually
 adopted and pursued, showed him to be possessed of virtue of
 no ordinary grade, and placed his name on high amongst the
 brightest constellations in the firmament of the world's history,
 where it shall remain, as long as time  endures, a luminary of
. the first magnitude, shedding its beams of glory on the most
 distant ages and nations.  Others have nobly done and nobly
 suffered in the cabinet and in the field, for their own country.
 Some have even been moved by sympathy for their brethren
 of the  human family,  suffering in foreign lands, and have gen-
 erously ventured life and fortune in their behalf.  To Lafayette
 belongs the peculiar glory of devoting himself to the deliver-
 ance from foreign  domination,  of a  people  and a country to
 whom he was not only bound by no  ties of interest or obliga-
 tion, but who were not, as yet, acknowledged as a nation, but
 stigmatized as a confederacy of traitors and rebels,  and of
 putting to hazard in their cause the  splendor of youth,  rank
 and affluence, the favor of his government, and the attractions
 of power.  Magnanimous philanthropist! our warmest expres*
 sions of admiration fall below thy praise!
    If envy itself could fix upon a circumstance that might be
 considered, in the  smallest degree, derogatory from the merit
 of so much generosity, a spot in a disk of such overpowering
 brightness—that circumstance, that  spot, it may be supposed,
 would be found in the fact,  that Lafayette belonged to that
 class of the French people, with whom the virtues of chivalry
 might almost be considered as hereditary, and whose rank in
 society would suffer degradation in the person of that indivi-
 dual, belonging to it by birth, who should fail to  illustrate the
 line of his genealogy, by new displays of virtue added to its
 hereditary glory.  And since their rank and wealth gave them
 the power of distinguishing themselves by generous deeds, and
 as such deeds passed with them as no more than the ordinary
 doings of their every-day  life, it may  be imagined that La-
 fayette, in espousing our cause, was moved, not chiefly, or, at
 least, solely, by moral considerations, but by the impulses of 
10
that spirit of chivalry, and thirst for fame and deeds of arms,
which, from time immemorial, had distinguished the noblesse
of France, and maybe considered as resulting from the genius
of the feudal systems of Europe, to whose nobility it belongs,
as one of the prerogatives of their rank, as well  as a perma-
nent trait  in their character, to seek the post of danger in the
front ranks of war.
  All that is  contained in this suggestion,  may  be frankly
granted, without detracting in  the slightest  degree from the
merit of Lafayette.  Not only so, but if properly considered,
it will redound to his glory.
  We, indeed, are strongly prejudiced against a class of men
of whom so much evil has been said, and whose hereditary
prerogatives of wealth and power are  so foreign from the
genius of  our free institutions, and so revolting to our gener-
ous feelings of republican equality.   Yet, with all the evils of
hereditary greatness, it is not without strong tendencies of an
opposite character.  An exalted grade in society more exposes
the one who occupies it, to the observation of the world, and
consequently renders him more sensible to considerations of
reputation and  honor.   The  stock of glory derived  from
ancestors, as it is committed, successively, to the  keeping of
each heir  to the  distinctions of noble birth, must be preserved
with a care and fidelity becoming the depositary  of such a
trust.  Disgrace falls with blasting effect upon the miscreant
who suffers himself to forget from what lineage he derives his
origin and titles of respectability.  But if the peer is neces-
sarily subjected to the salutary influence of such considera-
tions  as these,  let it not be overlooked, on the other hand,
that he is exposed to  temptations  which the frailty of our
nature finds it difficult to resist.  His wealth lays open before
him the avenues of refined sensuality.  His condition exempts
him from toil and trouble, and exposes him, on the one hand,
to the calls of lawless ambition; on the other, to the solicita-
tions of inglorious ease; into the one or the other of which, he
will be in danger of  falling, according as his constitutional
temperament may be inclined.  A circle of flatterers contin-
ually  surround him, eager to offer incense to his  vanity, and 
11
 to basely cater to his appetites.  When all these corrupting
 influences are duly considered, we should perhaps be  rather
 surprized, that the  ranks  of the nobly born should have fur-
 nished instances  of men  whose virtues were  no less exalted
 than their condition, than that they should have abounded in
 characters who have degraded themselves below the level of
 ordinary insignificance, or  sunk below  the depths of vulgar
 baseness.  That the descendants of the ancient nobility of
 France, at the period to which our remarks  refer, were not
 preeminent for those virtues which are peculiarly appropriate
 to their order, is undeniable.  To philanthropy, to a disinter-
 ested and generous zeal for the rights andliberties of man, they
 made, in general, no pretensions.  These considerations serve
 to enhance the merit of Lafayette; as they show, that, in his
 zeal for liberty, and his sympathy for  the rights  of  men  be-
 longing neither to his own order nor even to his own nation,
 he has the praise of being not only first among his peers, but
 singular among them.   And if the weight of influence  and
 wealth, which Lafayette brought with  him to our cause, be
 ascribed wholly, and the spirit of chivalrous enterprise which
 actuated him, be ascribed, in part, to his condition and rank;
 still, the merit of directing these  powers and  this fiery spirit
 into a worthy channel, is  due entirely  to the man.  And this
 merit is the greater, because all selfish considerations lead in a
 direction opposite to the course which he adopted.   Had not
 Lafayette  been a peer of  France, his interposition  at the
 critical moment would  have been  of  no avail;  had not the
 peer of France been Lafayette, he would not have interposed
 at all.
  In the same point of light, it is proper to consider the pecu-
 niary aid so opportunely rendered by  Lafayette to our coun-
 try during the ' struggle  for  independence.   The funds he
 expended in furnishing the vessel which  first transported him
 to our shores, in raising and  equipping  for service an entire
 regiment in the early part of  the war, and of procuring the
 necessary supplies for the destitute  and dispirited troops that
 followed his standard in Virginia, during the campaign of 1781,
at a time when Lord Cornwallis, with an overwhelming force 
12
was spreading devastation and terror through the South, were
the avails, it is true, of a princely estate, which, without any
merit on his part, had fallen to his inheritance.  But shall the
amount and efficiency of services so promptly rendered, de-
tract from the praises of him who rendered  them?  Absurd
idea!   Who does not  know, that it does not belong to rank
and affluence  to generate  liberality and generosity?   Their
tendency is to produce selfishness and avarice.  Men are gen-
erally found to be tenacious  of  their possessions, and even
anxious to extend them, in proportion to their amount.  High
rank loves to set itself off in a style of corresponding magnifi-
cence, and to dazzle the eye of vulgar admiration, by a vain-
glorious display of  pomp and equipage.   Immense revenues
are requisite to keep up the  show and parade of fetes and
balls and entertainments, with a dissolute retinue of liveried
servants, retainers,  dependents  and flatterers, which  are
usually thought necessary to  compose the state of pampered
greatness.   Hence it is, that profligacy and rapacity usually
go together, qualities which, generally  speaking,  have been
quite as conspicuous  as generosity and beneficence  in the
lives and conduct of the nobility of Europe.  Be it remem-
bered,  that Lafayette, though he  could  vie with the proudest
of his  compeers  in wealth,  and all those gaudy distinctions
which  gratify the taste, and pamper the pride of vulgar great-
ness, chose rather to expend his treasures in feeding the hun-
gry, clothing the naked, and arming and cheering the  dispir-
ited and feeble bands  of patriot militia, who  were fighting
the battles  of an oppressed and  wasted  country.  This was
true glory.
  But  this  was not  all.  Though it is  enough  to raise  him
above  the grade of  ordinary merit, and far more than enough
to give him preeminence above his fellows in rank and station,
and even above what the majority of them could adequately
conceive, yet it is but the beginning of the praise of Lafayette.
For, he not only expended his  wealth, as I have said, in re-
lieving the necessities and encouraging the hearts of the des-
titute  and half-famished patriots of oui  revolution,  but he
shared their toils, their privations and  their  dangers,  fought 
13
a volunteer in their ranks, and shed his blood in their defence.
His money he might  have contributed to their relief, though
he had remained at home in the quietude of La Grange, and the
bosom of his family.  But such a course did not satisfy his
generous zeal.   He knew that his presence here, in the midst
of the scene of conflict,  was needed, to inspire fresh vigor
into the languishing  cause  of liberty,  and that his personal
efforts in the field of  battle would strike terror into the ranks
of her enemies, and do something effectual towards diminish-
ing their numbers, and  disappointing their hopes.  Or, if he
should fail in this, he  knew—for he  had sounded the depths of
his  resolution—his was  no  inconsiderate undertaking—it is
impossible that such a man should have adopted the choice he
did, without deliberately weighing alternatives—he  knew he
could die—die by the fire, or the bayonet of the foe—die, far
from his country and his home, and leave his lifeless body in a
foreign field, to be trampled by the hoofs of insulting cavalry;
and  his name to  be scoffed  at by  the minions of arbitrary
power.
  The space which I  have prescribed for these remarks leave
room for but little to be said  as to the military virtues of La-
fayette.   These have attracted the less notice, because they
are surrounded, if not eclipsed, by other shining qualities in a
character which  is all  over luminous.   In  this respect  he
resembles  our  own  Washington,  who though  justly pro-
nounced <first  in war,'  has.been on  this account  the less
admired, because  he was also 'first in peace.'  But if Lafay-
ette  were not entitled to  our highest  veneration for the other
great qualities which  adorn his character, his military talents
and conduct alone, employed  as they always were on the side
of justice and humanity, would entitle him to a conspicuous
place among the names of those who have been distinguished
in war.   During the war for  independence, the superiority in
numerical force  and  all  the various resources subsidiary to
war, especially in that skill and patient endurance which vet-
eran troops necessarily  possess over militia, and in the many
advantages resulting from the possession, on our  coast, of a
numerous and well-appointed navy, giving them the command
                            2 
14
of all our bays and inlets, belonged to the enemy.  The policy
on our part, was, whenever it was possible, to avoid pitched
battles; and to harass and weaken the enemy by minor oper-
ations.  In such a state of things, true military talent will as
often display itself in retreating as in fighting.   In both these
respects Lafayette, during the five years which he spent in
arms in our cause, was eminently distinguished.  The retreats
of Napoleon,  unquestionably the first  name on the scroll of
military fame, were always disastrous.   Lafayette always
effected his retreat in safety and good  order.   In the attack
he was prompt, resolute and daring.  I cannot enter into  a
detail of historical facts to illustrate the truth of these remarks.
Let the retreat of our troops after the defeat at Brandy wine,
which  he conducted so ably, although suffering from a severe
wound received at the time from a musket ball; and that series
of skilful movements in Virginia during the campaign of '81,
by which he outmanoeuvred and baffled the veteran Cornwal-
lis, who said ' the boy could not escape  him'—let these serve,
by way of  specimen,  to justify the first  of  the foregoing
remarks.   Let his intrepid boldness and good conduct at Mon-
mouth, and in various other actions throughout the war, espe-
cially in heading one of the divisions of the army which took
by storm the fortified camp of Cornwallis  at Yorktown, jus-
tify the second.
  It is  sufficient for our present purpose, and sufficient for the
military reputation of Lafayette, to say, that during the five
years' service, in which the good fortune of our rising coun-
try and his own choice employed him in arms, he was always
found equal to the occasion; that  he never incurred the impu-
tation of having neglected his duty, or committed an oversight;
that he always proved himself, whether acting as the assailant
or on the defensive, superior to the enemy; and that to  the'
end of  his brilliant career, he continued to enjoy the increas-
ing confidence  of his  commander-in-chief.
  A circumstance intimately connected with that part of the
life of Lafayette to which the foregoing remarks are particu-
larly intended  to  apply, in this place specially  demands our
notice, as it is calculated to give  us additional insight into his 
15
character, and new cause of admiration for his virtues.   At
the commencement of our struggle for independence, the king
of France, and those who with him directed the councils of
the nation, would not by any act,  or even by any connivance,
commit themselves to  our cause.  We were  rebels and un-
friended.  They would not provoke the jealousy of the mother
country by any thing which might look like partiality to  our
interests.   Consequently Lafayette, as we have before seen,
incurred the displeasure of his government by embarking for
our shores in 1777.  But in the course of that year, the rebel
colonies, through the blessing of Heaven in calling men of spi-
rit and foresight to take the lead in our affairs, had been trans-
formed into the United States, declared free and independent.
And the capture of Burgoyne and his army at Saratoga, an
event which  took  place near the close of  the  year, stamped
the declaration with the promise of fulfilment.   What effect
these things produced upon the court of Versailles we may
easily imagine. A treaty of commerce with the United States
and France  followed in February of  the ensuing year, soon
after the news of the brilliant affair of Saratoga reached  the
hitherto dull ears  of  Lewis and his court;  and this treaty of
commerce eventuated in a treaty  of defensive alliance in war.
The sharp twang of yankee rifles, we  see, was prompt  and
effectual in the drowsy ear of majesty, and added persuasive
force to the eloquence of Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin.
Now mark the conduct  of Lafayette, and see how, in the  high
character of  the  philanthropist and the friend of liberty, in
which hitherto we have  viewed him, there  shine forth the  vir-
tues of the patriot and the milder lustre  of the domestic affec-
tions.   He seizes  the first bright interval, which the events
just noticed had given to our affairs, and obtains leave of con-
gress to return to  France, now, in consequence of her alliance
with us, involved  in war, urged by a sense of  his duty (I use
his own words) as well as a love of  his country, to present
himself before the king that he might know in what  manner
he should think proper  to employ his services.  Enthusiasm
and even  fanaticism may sometimes, in their wild and irregu-
lar impulses, propel a man for awhile  along the path of noble 
16
 actions.   But in the conduct which originates in these vaga-
 ries of a heated imagination, we never see that beautiful pro-
 portion, that steady  consistency, that nicely adjusted propri-
 ety which is the result of virtuous principle.   One duty will be
 neglected, and  one interest sacrificed for the sake of another.
 Sometimes the  most flagrant enormities will be perpetrated
 under the imposing sanction of the one engrossing passion,
 which, under the guise of some  sacred name, has  taken exclu-
 sive possession  of the soul.   Such was not the character of the
 man whom we  are contemplating.   He was no  weak enthu-
 siast, whom some freak of fancy had captivated and impelled
 into  the society of men embarked  in a noble enterprise, no
 wayward renegado, who, while assisting in the deliverance of
 a  people from  oppression on one continent, could forget that
 he had on another, a country, a home  and a government, to
 which his affections and allegiance were primarily due.  The
 claims of country and kindred, as they are nearer, so in  gen-
 eral they should be more strongly felt,  than those which lie
 remote in the wider circle of our relations to the human race.
 But when suffering, which itself imposes an obligation on for-
 eign aid, is  added to the latter, an exigency is created which
 inverts this order, and while it lasts gives to them the prece-
 dence before the former.  Lafayette acted on this maxim.   He
 gave to our cause the weight of his wealth, name and personal
 efforts, when that cause was at its utmost need; but when he
 saw it begin to  preponderate, he obeyed the  voice  of  nature
 and duty and returned to his native country.   But during the
 year which he spent  there he was still assiduous and untiring
 in his zeal for our cause.   After his return to the scenes of
 war in 1780, he continued, as is well known, to display the
 same  gallantry and good conduct for which he had  been before
 distinguished, till the last campaign of the revolution  was
 closed by the surrender of  Cornwallis  at Yorktown, his bra-
 very on that occasion adding new lustre to his brilliant career.
 It  remains that  we view the character of Lafayette as it was
 displayed in  the scenes of that revolution in the government
 of his own country, which followed so closely the one which
he had exerted so great an influence in bringing to a success-
 ful and glorious  issue in ours. 
17
   The view which I shall endeavor, as briefly as possible,  to
 present to you, of the part acted by Lafayette in the course
 of that wonderful, and in  some respects atrocious revolution,
 is one which. I must confess, has left upon my own mind a
 deeper impression and a higher admiration both of his talents
 and virtues, than have resulted from that portion of his history
 which has just passed swiftly under review; rich though it  is,
 in  the display of generosity, humanity, patriotism, philan-
 thropy and military virtue. In this I may be singular, but my
 honest conviction is, that the theatre, emphatically the theatre
 of Lafayette's greatest glory, is the French revolution.  Here
 he will, in the eye of posterity, stand in the most amiable  as
 well as the most commanding attitude.  I  speak of him in a
 moral, not in a political sense.  In this last respect another
 figure  will seem more gigantic than his.   But, as seen through
 the pure medium of reason and truth, Napoleon will bear no
 more proportion to Lafayette than a pigmy to a colossus.
   Even a  summary of the causes which lead to the French
 revolution  cannot now be given.   Did  even time permit, the
 speaker would hardly presume to undertake such a task.   In
 order  to gain such a view of the person and position of Lafay-
 ette as may answer our  purpose  at present,  it will  be only
 necessary to glance at the state of things in France at the
 time when Lafayette was placed at the  head of the militia, or
 as they were called, the national guards  of that kingdom.
  The first impulse  of the revolution gave rise  to the assem-
 bly of notables, composed of men distinguished for their rank
 and wealth.   This assembly determined  on two  important
 measures, which had a powerful influence in  directing  the
 course of events.   The first was, that a convocation  of  the
 states  general  should  be called:  and the second settled the
 ratio of representation which should be adopted by the peo-
 ple in  choosing delegates to compose that body; by which it
 was provided, that the  delegation  from the tiers etat  should
 equal,  in point  of  numbers, the representatives  of the  other
 two estates of the kingdom: the nobility and clergy.   Thus
 was composed that famous assembly, which, among other mat-
ters decisive in their  character and consequences,  finally
                           2* 
18
matured  and adopted the new constitution, by which France
in future was to be governed.  The state of parties at this cri-
sis, for it was the  crisis of the revolution, stood thus.  First,
there was the party of the royalists, who were in favor of the
government as it formerly existed, and  consequently of a
counter revolution.   Second,  the constitutionalists, so called
because they were in favor of the new constitution; a consti-
tution based on the  rights of man and embracing all the essen-
tials of civil liberty, but retaining, under the name of a king,
Louis the reigning monarch, but shorn of his regal power, and
swaying  instead of his broken  sceptre, an executive influence
really less  important  than that which the constitution of the
United States confers  on our chief magistrate.   Third, the
republicans.  These were  for abolishing  monarchy entirely
with all its  appendages, root and branch, leaving not a vestige
of the ancient form of government.  Fourth, the jacobins,
who seemed to have no ultimate or well-defined object in view.
They were for the most part men daring and reckless in char-
acter, bankrupt in  fame and  fortune, and who, as they had
nothing to  lose, looked  to  the  scenes of  confusion which
attended the revolution  and in which they were the principal
actors, for the means of supporting their profligacy and grati-
fying their  thirst for rapine and blood.   Besides these parties
there lurked through France, and especially in the alleys and
iauxbourgs  of its capital, the  partisans of  the faction of the
Duke of Orleans.  These  were mostly assassins, gamblers,
rakes and desperadoes of all sorts, whom that infamous prince
had^kept in pay, as  the ready  and willing  instruments of  his
horrible purposes.  Lafayette attached himself to the second
of these parties, the constitutionalists, of which indeed he was
the leader; and in this capacity he continued to act with firm-
ness and discretion, till  the tumultuous violence of the  revo-
lution dissolved the constitution, and involved the nation in
anarchy; from which, after passing through the unparalleled
atrocities of the reign of terror, it was rescued, at length, by
the strong hand of a military despotism, seizing it with a grasp
so suddenly and powerfully compressive, that  the hydra mon-
ster which  had astonished and terrified the  nations of the 
19
  earth with its frightful bulk and hideous hissings, and maddened
  the  multitude everywhere with its poisonous breath, expired
  instantly and without a struggle.  Liberty and the constitu-
  tion had been destroyed before, and Lafayette their friend, and
  lor the  time, unsuccessful champion, had been, at  the  same
  time, forced to seek safety in foreign  lands.
    To us, in whose conceptions a republican form of govern-
  ment is identified with  liberty, and whose successful experi-
  ence, for now half a century, has tested its superior excellence,
  the question will naturally occur, why did not Lafayette attach
  himself to the republican party in France, rather than to that
  of the constitutionalists?
   Our ignorance  of the precise state  of things, as they  were
  when Lafayette declared himself,  disqualifies us from deciding
  too peremptorily  on the propriety of  his choice; but from all
  that we know, and  especially from the light which subsequent
 events have  cast on the subject, we may safely affirm that
 the considerations which determined his choice in this matter,
 and the course of  conduct to which it lead,  are  the  very
 things which  give to his character the impress of true great-
 ness;  as  they show not only the goodness of heart and the
 genuineness of his patriotism,  but his  firmness and force of
 principle—his wisdom, fortitude, and magnanimity.   There is
 no one point perhaps in  which we are more liable to mistake
 in our opinions of men than in regard to what is called decis-
 ion of character.  Where parties are violent, he  generally
 gets the praise of decision of character, who goes to the fur-
 thest extreme of the party to which he is attached.   In vulgar
 apprehensions,  violence is  always considered a  proof of
 strength; and  moderation an  object  of scorn, because  it is
 taken  for an  evidence of weakness or indecision.   But, is
 there no way  of exhibiting strength of character, but by run-
 ning to the poles?   Is a  rock less a rock, because at  the equa-
 tor?  When the storm of party violence rages, is it  the chaff
 which rests in a middle position ?  Is it  the man of weak mind,
 or weak principles, who exposes himself to the cross fire of
 poltrons, lurking behind the hedgerows of bigotry and fanati-
cism, on the extreme right or left, during scenes of civil or 
20
 religious discord?   The man who does not think for himselfj,
 and who,  indeed,  all things considered, is least likely fo err
 in  not thinking for himself,  of course, goes with  a leader.
 The timid take shelter behind the shield of the brave.  The
 selfish go where there is the greatest  show of numbers and
 strength.  All these herd with a party, and go to extremes.
 The slow, from indecision; the temporizing,  from interest,
 may, at the same time, with the man of integrity and firmness
 occupy an intermediate position.  But mark the difference:
 the former do not declare themselves till the issue seems no
 longer doubtful; the latter  takes his position while  difficulty
 and danger surround it.  Besides, we are deceived by names.
 When a party changes ground, it still retains the name; and
 often denounces those who now stand where once it stood.
  The  party in France calling themselves republicans, were
 not the same in character and views with those so denomina-
 ted here.   They were, as a party, violent, visionary, extrava-
 gant in their  notions, and  too little under  the influence of
 justice and humanity.  They were, in short, but jacobins of
 a lighter complexion.   Between Regniaud and  Robespierre;
 Lameth and Danton;  Petion and Marat, the difference  was
 only specific.  They were of the same  genus—the  same
 brotherhood.  Both parties, in fact, acted  in concert at first.
 Both  tampered with  the mob.  Lafayette was in  favor of
 allowing to the people, as  their just right, the  direction of
 government affairs,  through the  channels  of constituted au-
 thority, the action of a free press, and the operation of the
 representative principle.  But,  on all occasions, he exerted
 himself to  repress  every attempt by demagogues  to impede,
 or accelerate, or affect in any way the steady and calm opera-
 tion of the constitution and laws, by the demonstration of
 insurgent violence.  He studied and pursued, in short, the
real and permanent good of his country, observing, with the
utmost caution, the narrow path which separates liberty from
licentiousness.  In such times, beset as he was, on  the  one
hand by the jealousy of the king—ivultus instantis tyranni1__
and on the  other by the inconsiderate impetuosity of  a people
unaccustomed to liberty, and goaded to phrenzy by unprin- 
21
 cipled agitators—lcivium  ardor prava jubentium''—to have
 attempted such a course, was  proof enough of the strength
 and depth of his moral courage; to have succeeded in it, as he
 ultimately did, is sufficient evidence of his capacity.
   Lafayette possessed ample means of correct information
 as  to the spirit and ultimate views of the different parties in
 the state.   It could not, therefore, have escaped his penetra-
 tion, that the leaders of  the jacobins, who, on account of the
 complete  organization of the  affiliated societies, extending
 throughout the realm, as well  as  by reason of the  numbers
 and character  of those under their influence, were the  most
 formidable, meditated not only the overthrow of the existing
 government and dynasty, but proscription, confiscation, exile
 and massacre,  to all who should offer resistance to their absurd
 and impractical design of reducing every thing to a perfect
 equality.   He  felt, therefore, under the strongest obligations,
 from motives of patriotism as well as humanity, to do  every
 thing in his power to prevent these violent and bloody meas-
 ures.  It  was  not the fault of Louis XVI, that he had  the
 misfortune to be born of a race of kings, who by the will of
 the nation had for centuries filled the throne of France, nor
 that he should have been destined  to reign in a period so dark
 and portentous.  The vices of  the government belonged to
 the system, and not to the man  who, unfortunately  for him-
 self, was  placed at its head.  For Louis, in temper and in
 the tone of his administration, was  one of the  mildest  and
 most lenient of rulers.  Why,  then,  in a change which was
 to bring so many advantages to the nation at large, should it
 be  thought necessary to involve him and his family  in ruin?
 Why should the first offering to be presented by the French
 nation, in their newly built temple of liberty, be in the  form
 of a libation composed of the blood of the innocent?  ?
  Besides, it  is doubtful whether,  supposing  the  jacobins
possessed of skill sufficient, with all the  aid to be derived
from such a bloody offering, to  construct a republic, France
contained the proper materials requisite for its  construction.
Republican simplicity does not suit the French taste.  At the
time of  the revolution, a  corrupt system of  religion  had 
22
   debauched the minds of the common people; and a species of
   atheism, the result of  this, had deplorably weakened all sense
   of moral obligation in the higher orders.   The plenary power
   of the pope, in spirituals, was an article of their creed: that
   man is a machine, obedient to  the  laws of necessity, was a
   dogma of  their philosophy.  The actual state of public mor-
   als was such as might be expected from such  principles—but
   I shall spare you and myself the pain of a recital.  Republican
   liberty cannot exist where  there is so much corruption.  In
   densely peopled countries, such as was France at the  time of
   which we speak,  and such  as it is now, a degree of energy,
   scarcely compatible with liberty, such as republics only can
   fully enjoy, is necessary for the maintenance of  order and
   public tranquility.
    Besides all this, the relative state of France, with respect to
   the adjoining kingdoms of Europe, was to be taken into view.
   The  Bourbon dynasty had, on  each of the thrones of these
   kingdoms, except that of Great Britain, either an ally or a
   prince of its blood.  Violence done to the reigning family in
   France, would be likely to involve it in war with these king-
   doms,  if not with  the  whole of Europe.  Every body  in
   France  expected this.  The jacobins distinctly foresaw it.
   I call the party by this name, because they were in fact the
   only efficient party, except the royalists, (and they were weak-
   ened by emigration and massacre) which opposed  Lafayette
   and the constitution.  The  republicans, or girondists,  could
  do nothing without their concurrence.  The  jacobins, I say,
  distinctly foresaw the  coming storm which threatened them
  from abroad.  And, to provide for it, they trusted to a scheme,
.  which  shows  of what  stuff they were  composed.  Their
  scheme was, by means of  their emissaries and publications,
  and  the agency of secret  societies, to foment and organize
  rebellion against every government of Europe, in the expecta-
  tion, that  being severally engaged in quelling insurrection at
   home, they would not have the means of molesting them in
  their attempts to regenerate  France—for this was their favor-
   ite phrase—and the world—a work to be  performed by the
   pistol and dagger of the sansculotte, the pike and musket of 
23
the gens d'armes, their own favorite instrument of persuasion*
the guillotine, and other such means of reformation,  Many
philosophers, men of great name—for the bigoted theorist, as
well as the stupidly ignorant, can believe any thing—thought
this a plausible scheme.  To the honor of Lafayette's philoso-
phy, he did not.  His practical habits, if nothing else, (joined
to his native goodness)  would  have  kept  him from  such
extravagance.  There is, as Burke has  well said, a wisdom of
the heart—a better guide than that of the head—which is the
crowning excellence in the character of Lafayette.  Through
the sanguinary scenes of a revolution, characterized through-
out by party violence and deeds of atrocity, he passed with
skirts unstained with innocent blood.   Nor would he suffer
his honor to be sullied by connexion with any—whether party
or individuals—who had polluted themselves  by the blood of
their fellow-citizens.
   The constitutionalists, as a  party, were dissolved by the
flight of Lafayette. Soon after this event was publicly known,
the duke of Orleans returned from his exile in England—that
citizen, Egalit6, (Equality!) who, it is agreed on all hands, was
the basest man in these times,  when ordinary  villany  might
have been esteemed a virtue.   This man's return was an omen
of direful presage to France; and I mention it here with the
flight of Lafayette, and the fall of his party, as the connexion
of these events serves to show in what light the character of
the latter stood in the view of all parties at the time.  The
most effective guardian of the public weal had been compelled
to fly; the spirits of the friends of constitutional  liberty and
social order sank at once; and the dogs and vultures, who for
awhile had been held in abeyance, returned,  with sharpened
appetite, to scenes of anticipated carnage.
   Whether his flight from France was  an act entirely worthy
of Lafayette, may perhaps admit  of some  slight degree of
doubt.  It is a question, which, had we the time, we have not
now the light necessary to solve.   All that we  know compel
us to justify, if not  to commend, the  course he adopted.
Indeed, he had scarcely another alternative left, unless, to be
sure, he chose to perish, a useless death, by  the  hand of an
assassin. 
24
  On the 20th of June, 1792, he was engaged, on the fron-
tiers of France,  in fighting the allied forces of Austria and
P/ussia, who had invaded the country,  with the view—insti-
gated as they were by emigrants of the royal party, and their
own fears of revolution—to restore Louis, by force of arms,
to the possession of those dangerous powers, of which, by the
new constitution, he had been deprived.  On  the same day,
the mob  of Paris, amounting to fifty thousand men,  paraded
the streets, broke into the hall of the  national assembly, with
arms in their hands, and thence proceeded  to the palace of
the Tuilleries, where they perpetrated all manner of outrage
short of actual murder.  Lafayette, in company  with a few
officers of his staff, hastened to restore order to Paris, which
having done, he returned to the army.  < The poor people—the
virtuous people,' as Robespierre was wont to call the rabble of
Paris, had been prevented from  accomplishing their  violent
purposes, and Lafayette, who had stood firm for. the constitu-
tion and social order, in opposition to their sanguinary tumults,
was secretly, by  their leaders and instigators, devoted to des-
truction.   An impeachment was urged against  him in the
assembly  by these  men—selfstyled  republicans.  But his
friends were  firm, and it did not pass into a decree.   With
the mob,  their attempts were not so easily defeated.   A mob
accordingly was raised on the famous 10th of August.  The
issue of this decisive movement was,  that the commander of
the militia of  Paris, and hundreds besides, were assassinated;
the Swiss guards, the body guard of the king, publicly massa-
cred, and the king and royal family imprisoned, and ultimately,
with the  exception of a young female, the whole of them—
king, queen, princess Elizabeth, the princess Lamballe,  and
the dauphin—murdered: the two former, by  the guillotine,
after undergoing the mockery of a trial; the two  princesses,
by the pikes of the mob; and the dauphin, a tender youth, by
the abuse of an inhuman jailer, acting by  direction  of the
more  inhuman assembly.  The same  mob, which now ruled
Paris, the assembly, and France, with despotic sway, proceeded
to the halls of the assembly, which they  entered,  ' band after
band,' their faces blackened with powder,  their  hands  and 
25
weapons streaming with blood from the recent slaughter, and
demanded—no: petitioned—the assembly to abolish the con-
stitution.   The petition, offered thus modestly, and by such
worthy hands, was graciously granted by the assembly, and
three of their number were sent in triumph, to exact, in their
name, submission to their decrees, from Lafayette and his arm v.
Could Lafayette hesitate a moment, whether to submit to an
order requiring him to acknowledge the acts and doings of an
assembly, which had, at a blow, demolished the constitution,
the fruit of so much labor,  and so many patriotic sacrifices;
a constitution, which they and he had sworn to support, and
which was the only remaining bulwark to protect the liberties
and lives of the citizens, from the pikes of confederated ruf-
fians, who had turned murder into a trade, and who expected
to support themselves in riot and debauchery, by the price of
blood?  No:  but resolving instantly  to organize a force, from
the army under his command, sufficient to quell the atrocious
banditti of the capital, as soon as he began to sound his troops
and their officers on the.subject, he found that the jacobins had
planted their spies, friends and agents, in  the very heart of
those companies and battalions,  which he esteemed the most
faithful, and  by this means had brought them over to  their
interests.   In short, the whole army was infected, and as
completely under the control of the assembly, as the assembly
itself was under the control of the mob, or they under that
of their jacobin leaders.  Danton, Robespierre and Marat, a
triumvirate of fiends, were the absolute rulers  of France.
For  Lafayette,  there  was  little hope of safety  except in
flight.
   In attempting his escape, he fell into the hands of the Aus-
trians, and was subsequently  treated  as a prisoner of state.
During his confinement in a dungeon at Olmutz, where he was
treated with unusual rigor, solicitations were urged, with great
interest, not  only by Washington,  and by the friends and
family of Lafayette, but even by individuals of high standing
in the British government, for his deliverance.   But in vain.
The  emperor of Austria was inexorable; and, in violation of
the law of nations, and the rights  of humanity, Lafayette
                            3 
26
  continued to languish in his confinement.   Two generous and
  enterprising individuals, whose names will be  repeated with
 gratitude, whenever the story of Lafayette's sufferings in the
 cause of rational  liberty is rehearsed, resolved to effect his
 deliverance.  The one was a citizen of the United States,
 Francis Huger; the other a  Hanoverian, Erick Bollman;
 whose nephew  was a student  in  our college,  and is now  a
 respected citizen of Bloomington.   Their plan  was well devi-
 sed, and partly executed.   But, though entitled to the credit
 ef doing whatever prudence, patient perseverance, and bold-
 ness  could accomplish in their hazardous attempt, they had
 not the gratification of that complete success which they had
 fondly expected,  and well nigh  achieved.  Lafayette  was
 pursued, overtaken, and rerhahded  to  the walls  of his prison;
 from which at length the victorious sword of Napoleon opened
 the way to his deliverance.  For this deliverance,  Lafayette
 ever  after cherished, and on all proper occasions,  expressed
 iiis gratitude, to the wonderful man who had been,  under the
 auspicies of the directory, the instrument of effecting it.   But,
 though warmly  and repeatedly invited to such  a course,  he
 never acknowledged the right of Napoleon  to  rule over
 France, by consenting to  take part in  his  administration.
 Thus he afforded a new and almost singular proof of the firm-
 ness of his principles, and of the sincerity of that stand in
 favor of liberty and the  rights of man, which he had so early
 and so nobly  taken, and which, through  all  the labors and
 vicissitudes of his eventful career,  he had so strenuously and
 -zealously maintained.
   The rule of the directory was of short duration, and France
 was hurried rapidly through the eddies of the succeeding con-
 sular government, into the vortex of a military despotism, in
 which the fragments of the  old monarchy,  the constitutional
 republic, and the shortlived  and  illcompacted forms that fol-
lowed—scarcely deserving  the name of government—which
had been  in quick  succession  wrecked  by the  fury of the
revolutionary whirlwind^ were engulphed  together.  In the
mean  time, the public mind in France was seized by  a new
species  of  frenzy,  produced by the splendid campaigns of 
27
Napoleon.   Under the  guidance of his  daring  and fruitful
genius,  victory  followed victory, in such close succession;
achievments, before deemed impossible, were performed with
such celerity and ease; the power.of the great nation, wielded
by his  hand, discharged its bolts upon the armies and  the
capitals  of  the  trembling potentates of Europe, with such
sure and destructive effect; that the French people began to
think themselves omnipotent.   Intoxicated with  success,  and
dazzled by false  glory, they lost sight of that boasted liberty
for which such immense sacrifices had been made, and so much
blood had been cruelly spilt.   Now, let us contemplate Lafay-
ette.   His mind is not carried away by the epidemic delirium.
He is not misled by phantoms.  His thoughts are still bent on
the real interests of his country.  Fortune has no power over
him.   He remains in quietude at LaGrange,and comes not out
from his retirement to join his voice to the cry of the giddy
throng, who are shouting after the gilded car of the fickle
goddess; nor will he bow the knee to the proud minion whom
she has raised from the. dust to trample on the necks of hum-
bled kings, and sport himself with their glittering emblems of
power.
   A regularly constructed government has been compared to
a cone; of which the apex represents the highest constituted
authority—the base, the lower orders of the people, and its
body the intermediate ranks.  If I might  speak in language
borrowed from such an emblem, I would say that power, dm>
ing the progress  of the French revolution, not only descended
rapidly along the cone from the apex to the base, but, as if by
reiterated explosions, burst and shivered to atoms each sepa*
rate section  of the cone, which, in its descent it had left behind.
First went the hereditary ranks of royalty and nobility; next
the limited monarchy of the moderes,  (which indeed existed
only in design); next the constitutional republic with the king
as chief magistrate; next exploded the pure republic of the
philosophic girondists, bespattering with their blood and brains
not only the streets of Paris but the fields of France.  Alter
this nothing remained but the lowest frustrum, and this  was
soon calcined to  ashes by the fires of faction.  The structure, 
28
now dissolved to  its elements, was rebuilt  by the daring
genius and mighty hand of the man of destiny.  It rose  with
diminished base  but towering height—not a pyramid but an
obelisk,  its lofty summit terminating in the dominion of one
will, and glaring over Europe with the lurid lustre of some
angry and portentous  meteor,  shedding disastrous  twilight
over half the nations, and with fear of change perplexing mon-
archs.   In the shock of nations, which took place at Leipzig,
it fell; and its architect was banished  to Elba.  After the
lapse of one short year, during which the Bourbon dynasty
was restored in  France, Europe beheld with amazement the
prodigious effort of those hundred days, which was made to
erect again the fallen fortunes of Napoleon.  Waterloo ended
it.   And  the Bourbon  dynasty, supported by the force of
twelve hundred  thousand foreign, bayonets, was  once more
replaced on the  throne of France.   The spirit  of Napoleon,
lofty and daring as  it was, was  quelled and broken.   Lafay-
ette, the champion of liberty, stood erect.  Against the  arbi-
trary proceedings of the members of the holy alliance in pla-
cing Louis the eighteenth on the throne of France, and in the
face of their armed force he had made his solemn protest. Now
he takes his stand in the chamber of deputies, the  only strong
hold of liberty which arbitrary power had left  in the posses-
sion of the people.  And when, in 1830, Charles the tenth, by
four tyrannical  decrees, attempted, as  at a blow, to  destroy
this strong hold, we see this ever-watchful guardian  of the
people's rights,  forgetting  the  infirmities which  age and so
many laborious services had brought upon him, girding on his
sword with the alacrity of  youth—the alacrity which he dis-
played at Brandywine and Yorktown—and repairing to  Paris
to resist the tyrant!   He puts himself for the last  time, at the
head of the  national guards, whom his presence and voice
had, as it were, recalled to life; and  thus by his welltimed
energy, having brought to a successful issue the glorious  revo-
lution of  the three days, establishes in France  a government,
m its essential features the  very same with that of the consti-
tution which he had so  zealously advocated in the early stages 
29
ot the first revolution, and with the dissolution of which  he
had been compelled to fly from his native country!
  The principles of Lafayette were purely republican.   In
politics he avowed himself of the American school.   But he
submitted to compromise his  principles, both when he advo-
cated and most strenuously supported and defended the gov-
ernment  under the constitution in the  early periods  of  the
French revolution, and when near the close of his consistent
career, he recommended to his countrymen the same form of
government as finally settled and established after the three
glorious days revolution in 1830—a form of government hav-
ing an hereditary officer for its supreme executive.  This is no
derogation from the merit  of Lafayette, but the contrary; as
it shows that he preferred the enjoyment of a great  deal of
liberty to having none at all.  A bigoted tenacity to abstract
principles in matters of expedience—and those pertaining to
forms of government, however important, are no more than
such—is no mark of wisdom.  He who would make a coat on
abstract principles, that is, without reference to the shape and
size  of the  wearer, may have  the credit  of making  a very
sightly garment.  But as, in the language of a shrewd politi-
cian of ancient time, that is a well-proportioned garment which
is made to fit the wearer, so that is the best form  of govern-
ment which  is best suited  to the genius and condition of  the
nation which adopts it, and which possesses the further prop-
erty  of  selfadjustment and selfpreservation; like the seam-
less garment which nature makes for all her children, which
expands with their growth, and repairs itself when severed or
bruised by violence or accidental injury.  A  great  change
must take place in France before she will be prepared to enjoy
the benefits  of  a pure republic—such a change as never was
effected, and in the nature of things never can be effected by
revolutionary violence.  And  it may be well for us to bear
in mind, that this truth has its  counterpart,  and' that when-
ever  a corresponding change, though in an opposite direction,
shall  take place in our own character as a people, a republi-
can form  of  government will not be  found the best for these
United States.  Let the country but revert to gothic super- 
30
stition and gothic manners*—may it never be!—and gothic
institutions must, and ought to follow.
  As  despotism itself is preferable to anarchy, so the tyranny
of one will is infinitely more tolerable than that of many. The
sultan is immediately responsible to his  subjects, the fear of
whose cimeters is a check upon  the  operation  of his bow-
string.  But what resource is left to the  oppressed, when the
spirit of ignorance and vice has infected with frenzy the minds
of a lawless majority?   The women and children who were
baked in  ovens at  Pillau;  the heaps of  dead bodies which
choked the Seine and the Loire; the city of Lyons, the second
in France, depopulated, and its very houses razed. to their
foundations; and the capital iiself so often the scene of mas-
sacre and consternation during the reign of terror, may answer
that question.   To  the immortal  honor of  Lafayette be  it
remembered—and surely this is no common praise—that he
was almost the only person of note  in  the  entire nation of
France, who,  throughout the, trying scenes of the revolution,
pursued a  course which was equally opposed to  the tyranny
of the government and. the tyranny of the  mob, and who was
honored through life with the hatred of both.
   To conclude, we may safely pronounce Lafayette not only
one of the greatest, wisest, and best men that ever lived, but
also-r-rthough  this praise is due rather to Providence than to
the man—the most fortunate and happy.  The present, indeed,
is not a state  of retribution: yet, there are periods in  the his-
tory  of this world wherein, even during the lifetime  of indi-
viduals, moral causes, owing to the quick motion of events,
are hastened to their appropriate results.    That invisible hand
which is upon the machinery of the world then whirls  it round
with unusual  velocity, for the twofold  purpose, as it would
seem, of shortening  to miserable mortals the days of evil, and
of exhibiting, on this  side the  impenetrable veil  which hides
the great future from our eyes, a  specimen of that just retri-
 bution which, wc may hence the more readily conclude, will
   * Note.—' The Catholic Sentinel' speaking of Lafayette, says,' his memory
 is abhorred by all good and patriotic Frenchmen, as the ingrate betrayer of the
 heroic Napoleon, and the parasite and elevater of the regal poltron,  nick-
 named the citizen king.' 
31
be found in the end to have marked all the divine dispensation.
Never, perhaps, since  the world began, was this truth more
strikingly demonstrated than in that period through which the
life of Lafayette was extended.   The sons of violence who,
for their  brief day, figured amidst the bloody scenes of  the
revolution, had sown  the wind, and  they  reaped the whirl-
wind.  A  horde of infidels, calling themselves  republicans,
taught  the  populace of France  to renounce their God and
make a jest of an hereafter; and by the rabid fury of that very
populace, whom their doctrines had converted into wild beasts,
they themselves were  torn  to pieces.  The monster Marat
was poignarded by a woman.  Napoleon took the sword, and
by the  sword  he perished.   Toulon saw him first  in arms
against a portion of  his countrymen, goaded by violence into
rebellion; and the weapons of assembled Europe struck him
down at Waterloo.  The  same course of  retributive justice
we may clearly discern—though manifested in a different man-
ner, as  his merits were different—in that series of events
which, at last, conducted Lafayette to the consummation  of
his patriotic wishes  and plans.   In his  youth we see him in
this land, a bold adventurer, come  to plant  the tree of liberty
in our soil and to water it with his blood;  and when but  lit-
tle past the meridian of life, he returns to witness its majestic
growth, refresh himself under its shadow  and taste its mel-
lowed fruits.  The experiment which he assisted in makino- in
the new world with so  much promise of success, he  had also
repeated in the old.  There, by the course he adopted, he was
personally beset with the most unheard of difficulties.  But it
was the only course which offered a rational prospect of free-
dom and peace to his oppressed and distracted country.  For
awhile disappointment baffles his efforts.  The dungeon of a
foreign prison holds his person, while the liberties  of his coun-
try expire in the talons of a harpy faction.  But the drama
is not yet closed.   The man of destiny mounts the stage which
trembles beneath his tread.   The prison doors which had con-
fined Lafayette, fly open.  But  liberty is  not restored  to
France.  It lies crushed beneath the throne of the emperor.
That throne is demolished.  That  of the Bourbon rises in its 
32
steacl—1S removed—rebuilt—again removed, and in the revo-
lution  of  the  three days is demolished—demolished by the
hands  of Lafayette, and by the same hands  a government,
securing constitutional  liberty to the people, is reared in  its
stead—a government, in all its essential ingredients, identical
with that which he had so zealously labored to establish at an
early period of the revolution.   His life is  prolonged long
enough to see its successful operation, and France, under it,
contented and happy—but not so long as to see (what would
have embittered the close of life had he seen it) the country
of his birth and that of his adoption—the two countries ren-
dered,  partly by, his labors, (one of them principally by his
labors) the freest and  most powerful on earth—and united too
by his labors in the bands of mutual friendship and alliance—
not  so long as to see these countries involved—but here we
must stop.   The future  is unknown—God avert the illomen
that flits dimly before our eyes!  He dies—full of days and
full of honors—with the blessings of the civilized world and the
everlasting gratitude  of two great  nations  settled  on  his
memory!
  In virtue,  usefulness, honor and felicity, what name of mor-
tal man is furnished by the annals of our race, which can  vie
with the beloved and revered  name of Gilbert  Motier de
Lafayette! 
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