nts, who promised him,
though he was only twenty years of age, the rank of major-general. As he
was at all times the slave of a most overweening conceit, he was tempted
by that bait; and, though he could not leave France without incurring the
forfeiture of his military rank in the army of his own country, in April,
1777, he crossed over to America to serve as a volunteer under Washington,
who naturally received with special distinction a recruit of such
political importance. He was present at more than one battle, and was
wounded at Brandywine; but the exploit which made him most conspicuous was
a ridiculous act of bravado in sending a challenge to Lord Carlisle, the
chief of the English Commissioners who in 1778 were dispatched to America
to endeavor to re-establish peace. However, the close of the war, which
ended, as is well known, in the humiliation of Great Britain and the
establishment of the independence of the colonies, made him seem a hero to
his countrymen on his return. The queen, always eager to encourage and
reward feats of warlike enterprise, treated him with marked distinction,
and procured him from her husband not only the restoration of his
commission, but promotion to the command of a regiment;[6] kindness which,
as will be seen, he afterward requited with the foulest ingratitude.

Nor was this most imprudent war with England the only question of foreign
politics which at this time interested Marie Antoinette. Her native land,
her mother's hereditary dominions, were also threatened with war. On the
death of the Elector of Bavaria at the end of 1777, Joseph, who had been
married to his sister, claimed a portion of his territories; and Frederick
of Prussia, that "bad neighbor," as Marie Antoinette was wont to call him,
announced his resolution to resist that claim, by force of arms if
necessary. If he should carry out the resolution which he had announced,
and if war should in consequence break out, much would depend on the
attitude which France would assume on her fidelity to or disregard of the
alliance which had now subsisted more than twenty years. So all-important
to Austria was her decision, that Maria Teresa forgot the line which, as a
general rule of conduct, she had recommended to her daughter, and wrote to
her with the most extreme earnestness to entreat her to lose no
opportunity of influencing the King's council. If it depended upon Maria
Teresa, the claim would probably not have been advanced;