rren heights--are all that will
flourish. There are, indeed, secluded valleys filled with muskmallows
and bracken, but these are often visited by wild tempests, and sudden
floods may make the whole region dreary and dangerous.

In Lafayette's time the violence of the elements was not the only
thing to be dreaded. When the children wandered too near the edge of
the forest, they might catch sight of a wild boar nozzling about for
mushrooms under the dead oak leaves; and if it had been a severe
winter, it was quite within possibility that wolves or hyenas might
come from their hiding places in the rocky recesses of the mountains
and lurk hungrily near the villages.

The family living in the old chateau was one whose records could be
traced to the year one thousand, when a certain man by the name of
Motier acquired an estate called Villa Faya, and thereafter he became
known as Motier de la Fayette. In 1240 Pons Motier married the noble
Alix Brun de Champetieres; and from their line descended the famous
Lafayettes known to all Americans. Other Auvergne estates were added
to the Chaviniac acres as the years went by, some with old castles
high up in the mountains behind Chaviniac, and all these were
inherited by the father of America's famous champion.

Lafayette's father was a notable warrior, as _his_ father had
been--and his--and his--away back to the days of the Crusades. Pons
Motier de la Fayette fought at Acre; Jean Motier de la Fayette fell at
Poitiers. There were marshals who bore the banner in many a combat of
olden times when the life of the country was at stake. It was a
Lafayette who won the battle at Beauge in 1421, when the English Duke
of Clarence was defeated and his country was compelled to resign hope
of a complete conquest of France. Among other men who bore the name,
there were military governors of towns and cities, aids to kings in
war, captains and seneschals. Many of them spent their lives in camps
and on battlefields. One of them saw thirty years of active service;
another found that after thirty-eight years of military life he had
been present at no less than sixty-five sieges besides taking part in
many pitched battles. Lafayette's grandfather was wounded in three
battles; and his uncle, Jacques Roch Motier, was killed in battle at
the age of twenty-three.

During the summer before Lafayette's birth, his father, the young
chevalier and colonel, not then twenty-five, had been living quietly
in th