any respect shown Lafayette in America
would be appreciated by his powerful relations, by the court, and by
the whole French nation.

The other letter was a royal mandate calling upon the American
Congress to refuse all employment whatsoever to the young Marquis de
Lafayette. The first letter traveled fast; the second missive was
subjected to intentional delays and did not reach its destination
until Lafayette had been made an officer in the American army.

CHAPTER V

FIRST DAYS IN AMERICA

"Here one day follows another, and what is worse, they are all alike.
Nothing but sky and nothing but water; and to-morrow it will be just
the same."

So wrote the restless Lafayette when he had been four weeks on the
ship. The time had thus far been spent, after a sharp affliction of
seasickness, in studying books on military science, and on the natural
features of the country he was approaching.

In time land-birds were seen, and he sat down to write to Adrienne a
fifteen-hundred-word letter which should be sent back by the first
returning ship.

"It is from very far that I am writing to you, dear heart," he began,
"and to this cruel separation is added the still more dreadful
uncertainty of the time when I shall hear from you again. I hope,
however, that it is not far distant, for, of all the many causes that
make me long to get ashore again, there is nothing that increases my
impatience like this."

The thought of his little daughter Henriette comes forward again and
again. "Henriette is so delightful that she has made me in love with
all little girls," he wrote.

Never did a more gallant company set sail than these young noblemen of
France who were following a course across the sea only a little more
northerly than that which Columbus first traced, and with something of
the same high hazard that inspired the great discoverer. Their names
should be remembered by a people that profited by their bravery.
Besides the Baron de Kalb, with his fifty-five years, and the Viscount
de Maury (who rode out of Bordeaux as a grand gentleman while the
disguised Lafayette went before as courier), there was Major de Gimat,
first aid-de-camp to Lafayette and always his special favorite, who
gave up his horse to his young commander, thereby saving his life at
the battle of Brandywine, and who was wounded in an attack on a
redoubt at Yorktown. Then there was Captain de la Colombe who, after
the close of the war in America, pursu