business to be royalist." And he
easily convinced Louis that for one sovereign to assist the subjects of
another monarch who were in open revolt, was to set a mischievous example
which might in time be turned against himself. But since his return to
Vienna, unprecedented disasters had befallen England; a whole army had
laid down its arms; the ultimate success of the Americans seemed to every
statesman in Europe to be assured, and the prospect gave such
encouragement to the war party in the French cabinet that Louis could
resist it no longer. In February, 1778, a treaty was concluded with the
United States, as the insurgents called themselves; and France plunged
into a war from which she had nothing to gain, which involved her in
enormous expenses, which brought on her overwhelming defeats, and which,
from its effects upon the troops sent to serve with the American army, who
thus became infected with republican principles, had no slight influence
in bringing about the calamities which, a few years later, overwhelmed
both king and people.

All Marie Antoinette's language on the subject shows that she viewed the
quarrel with England with even greater repugnance than her husband; but it
is curious to see that her chief fear was lest the war should be waged by
land, and that she felt much greater confidence in the French navy than in
the army;[3] though it was just at this time that Voltaire was pointing
out to his countrymen that England had always enjoyed and always would
possess a maritime superiority which different inquirers might attribute
to various causes, but which none could deny.[4]

Even before the conclusion of this treaty, however, the Americans had
found sympathizers in France, to one of whom some of the circumstances of
the war which they were now waging gave a subsequent importance to which
no talents or virtues of his own entitled him. The Marquis de La Fayette
was a young man of ancient family, and of fair but not excessive fortune.
He was awkward in appearance and manner, gawky, red-haired, and singularly
deficient in the accomplishments which were cultivated by other youths of
his age and rank.[5] But he was deeply imbued with the doctrines of the
new philosophy which saw virtue in the mere fact of resistance to
authority; and when the colonists took up arms, he became eager to afford
them such aid as he could give. He made the acquaintance of Silas Deane,
one of the most unscrupulous of the American age