Lafayette by Harlow Giles Unger Read Free Book Online Page A

Bollman and Huger had arrived in America, met with Washington, and described the abortive Lafayette escape and the horrors of Olmütz prison. By then, the saga of Adrienne’s devotion to her husband, the injustice of his imprisonment, and the atrocity of two little girls languishing in prison had become the stuff of legend.
The Prisoners of Olmütz, or Conjugal Devotion
played to packed theaters in Paris and London; newspapers published epic poems such as “The Captivity of La Fayette”:
    Within this gloomy prison, the prototype of Hell,
    For [three] [four] [five]* years bowed beneath the weight of chains,
    Forgotten in the world of man, the world of nature,
    Here in the depths where light scarce penetrates,
    Thus am I forced relentlessly to suffer pains
    And die piecemeal, before the eyes of my oppressor. 29
    The Lafayettes became the subject of heated debates in the French legislature, the British Parliament, and the American Congress. Because of the American policy of neutrality, Congress rejected a resolution declaring the American government’s “ardent wish for his deliverance.” 30 In London, Prime Minister Pitt, who had dined at Lafayette’s house in Paris a decade earlier, refused to debate the issue and asked a political aide to reply: “Those who start revolutions will always be, in my eyes, the object of an irresistible reprobation. I take delight in seeing them drink to the dregs the cup of human bitterness that they have prepared for the lips of others.” 31
    Early in 1796, three months of foul air, water, and food took its toll on Adrienne’s health: she developed a fever; her arms and legs swelled; painfulblisters punctuated the swellings. The prison doctor urged her to seek help from specialists in Vienna, and she wrote to the emperor for permission. In the seven weeks that followed, her fever worsened. Irritated by the harsh wooden pallet, her blisters erupted one by one and amalgamated into large, oozing ulcerations. The prison commander refused her the comforts of a chair or mattress, offering only straw, which he knew would intensify her pain and, he hoped, allow him to rid the prison of her embarrassing presence. In April, the emperor agreed to let her come to Vienna for medical help, but, he warned, once she left her prison cell, he would not allow her to return.
    “The price of my health care,” she replied defiantly, “is not acceptable. I have not forgotten that while we faced death—I from Robespierre’s tyranny, Monsieur de Lafayette from the moral and physical sufferings of his imprisonment—his children and I were unable to obtain any news about him nor was he able to learn whether we were still even alive. I will not again expose myself to such horrors by another separation.
    “Whatever the state of my health and the discomfort for my daughters, we will share every moment of this imprisonment with full appreciation for His Majesty’s kindness.” 32 And, as usual, she signed her letter with the aristocratic signature “Noailles Lafayette.” As Lafayette would later write of her with pride, “What a brave, but foolish heart to remain almost the only woman in France compromised by her name who refused to change it.” 33
    Adrienne’s illness worsened, with swelling and edema depriving her of motion in both arms. Fever plunged her into long periods of restless sleep. When she awoke and saw her husband and daughters hovering about her anxiously, a smile inevitably crossed her face. “Despite her suffering,” Virginie recalled, “she seemed happier than she had ever been. It is hard for me to describe how happy she was. To understand, you have to recognize the fear she had lived with for so long—during the frequent separations and endless adventures that took my father away from home into great danger. She had spent the previous three horrible years almost without hope of ever finding him again. Now her lifelong dream was fulfilled. Each day, she saw the influence of her