ow little he seemed interested in the pursuits of his age. When
they heard of his being one of the ringleaders at the Queen's party,
they were horrified. They determined to try and make him more like
themselves, and so sought to get him a place in the household of one of
the royal family, the Duc de Provence.

Lafayette was very much disturbed at the thought, and secretly
determined to defeat the plan. Before the position was finally offered
him he went to a masked ball, and learning which was the Duc de Provence
in disguise, went up to him and spoke republican sentiments which were
not at all to the nobleman's liking. Then the boy allowed the masked man
to recognize him. The Duc said sharply that he should remember the
interview. Thereupon young Lafayette made him a profound bow and replied
calmly that memory was often called the wit of fools. This, of course,
ended the chance of his preferment in the royal household, and the boy
was freed from what he considered an irksome task.

As a result however he was no longer popular at court, and soon asked
that he might be allowed to go back to his distant castle in Auvergne
until he was old enough to take his place in the army. His guardians
were glad to have him safely out of the way for a time, and granted his
request.

So for a year the little Marie Jean Paul de Lafayette went back to his
mountain home and browsed in his father's library and rode over his
estates. He liked the peasants in the country. They were a brighter
race, not so sullen and discontented as the people in the streets of
Paris, but even here, far from Versailles, the boy heard much of the
frightful poverty of the people and the gross extravagance of the court.
It made him think, and the more he considered the matter the more he
thought the people's claims were just.

At the end of a year the boy went back to Paris and married the girl to
whom he had been betrothed. He was sixteen, she fourteen, but the
Duchess considered that the boy had shown that he was neither a
spendthrift nor a fool, and that her daughter could be trusted to him.
So the two, scarcely more than school children, opened their residence
in Paris, and took their place in that gay world which was riding so
rapidly to its downfall.

Meanwhile news was constantly coming to France concerning the glorious
stand which the American colonists were making against England. The love
of liberty was strong in the boy's heart, and the desire to