eace
and fellowship with thy long-lost children."

The Indian warrior's vision was true in a greater sense than he knew.
Through him the soul of America spoke to the soul of Europe, and it
spoke of the fellowship of man. Perhaps the footsteps of this soldier of
France were indeed directed by a high Providence. Perhaps he was himself
a message from the infinite. I love, for my own part, to believe that at
his birth there appeared in this world an eternal and mighty spirit, a
spirit perhaps from another age or sphere. Who knows? Why not? Who is
there can look into the great unknown, the vast and impenetrable depths
of the heavens, and say that this could not be, and was not so? How else
explain this child of a French monarchy, brought up among the titled
nobility of France, who amidst such conditions grew to manhood--the
devotee of freedom and the ever-loyal champion of democracy?

Lafayette was born on September 6, 1757, at the Chateau de Chavagnac in
the province of Auvergne in the monarchy of France. Two months before
his birth his father was killed in battle. Left to the sole guidance of
an indulgent mother, surrounded by flattering attendants and the
enervating influences of wealth and noble birth, he faced the empty and
useless life of a mere titled, wealthy aristocrat. What saved him? To
add to these inauspicious beginnings, he was, at the age of twelve, sent
to Paris to the College du Plessis where his rank and wealth introduced
him to all the gaieties and dissipations of exclusive fashionable
Parisian society. His mother died when he was but thirteen, leaving him
in the full possession of large and valuable estates, the absolute
master of his own destiny, and subject to the indulgences and
corruptions of one of the most notorious courts of all Europe. Of a
winning personality, he was appointed one of the King's pages, a
position much coveted by the princes and nobles of the kingdom. He was
also enrolled in the King's Regiment of Mousquetaires, and at the age of
fifteen through the favour of the Queen obtained a commission, an honour
conferred as a mark of especial royal regard. He was married at the age
of sixteen, and his young wife was a daughter of the aristocratic house
of Noailles, one of the most powerful and influential families of the
French court. What more profoundly barren soil could be chosen to
produce the self-denying fighter for liberty, the clean-minded democrat,
Lafayette?

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