mutual interests of France and America, their countrymen are
aided, provided with military resources, and our ministers suffer it,
they do not protest! Is this maintaining the honor of a great kingdom,
of that England which but lately gave laws to the House of Bourbon?"

The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI. and his monarchical principles,
as well as the prudent moderation of M. Turgot, retarded at Paris the
negotiations which caused so much illhumor among the English; M. de
Vergennes still preserved, in all diplomatic relations, an apparent
neutrality. "It is my line (_metier_), you see, to be a royalist," the
Emperor Joseph II. had said during a visit he had just paid to Paris,
when he was pressed to declare in favor of the American insurgents. At
the bottom of his heart the King of France was of the same opinion; he
had refused the permission to serve in America which he had been asked
for by many gentlemen: some had set off without waiting for it; the most
important, as well as the most illustrious of them all, the Marquis of La
Fayette, was not twenty years old when he slipped away from Paris,
leaving behind his young wife close to her confinement, to go and embark
upon a vessel which he had bought, and which, laden with arms, awaited
him in a Spanish port; arrested by order of the court, he evaded the
vigilance of his guards; in, the month of July, 1777, he disembarked in
America.

Washington did not like France; he did not share the hopes which some of
his fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid; he made no case of the young
volunteers who came to enroll themselves among the defenders of
independence, and whom Congress loaded with favors. "No bond but
interest attaches these men to America," he would say; "and, as for
France, she only lets us get our munitions from her, because of the
benefit her commerce derives from it." Prudent, reserved, and proud,
Washington looked for America's salvation to only America herself;
neither had he foreseen nor did he understand that enthusiasm, as
generous as it is unreflecting, which easily takes possession of the
French nation, and of which the United States were just then the object.
M. de La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general's affection
and esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal for
new ideas and a certain political perspicacity, had impelled M. de La
Fayette to America; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judiciou