e had been a member of the regiment and
was eager to have his family name connected with it.

It happened that this twelve-year-old cadet was already a very important
person in the kingdom of France. He had been baptized by the names of
Marie Paul Joseph Roche Ives Gilbert de Mottier, and held the title of
Marquis of Lafayette. His father had been killed at the battle of Minden
when he was only twenty-four years old, but had already won a great name
for bravery. His mother died soon afterward, and so the young Marquis
was left almost alone in his great castle of Chavaniac in the Auvergne
Mountains of southern France.

He must have been very lonely with no playmates of his own age and only
masters and governesses about him. He was what people called "land
poor," which meant that although he owned a large part of French
territory, it brought him in but small profit, and he had little money
to spend.

To make up for his lack of playmates, his masters spent much time
drilling the boy Marquis in the etiquette of the French nobility.
High-born French youths at that time had many things to learn, but they
were such things as would make the boy an ornamental piece of furniture
at court. He must be able to enter a drawing-room with perfect dignity,
to compliment a lady, to pick up a fan, to offer his arm with an air of
gallantry, to take part in the formal dances of the period, to draw his
sword in case his honor should require it.

The little boys and girls of Louis XVI's reign were dressed in stiff
court clothes almost as soon as they were old enough to talk, and were
taught bows and curtsies, gallant words and dancing steps when other
children would have been playing out-of-doors. As a result they grew up
much alike, most of them merely fashion plates to decorate the royal
palace at Versailles.

Fortunately for the boy his lonely life in the mountains ended when he
was twelve years old. Then his great uncle sent for him to come to
Paris, and placed him at the College du Plessis, where a great many
other young courtiers were being educated. The school taught him very
little of history, of foreign languages, or sciences, but a great deal
about riding and fencing and dancing, and how to write a letter which
should be full of worldly wisdom. At about the same time his grandfather
died, and he inherited a very large fortune, so that the small boy bore
not only one of the oldest titles in the kingdom but possessed enough
mone