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500 THE WIFE OF LAFAYETTE. heard these details for the first time at the table of his commanding officer. We can imagine the breathless interest with which he listened to the story, what ques- tions he asked, and how he gradually drew from the prince the whole interior history of the movement. From the admissions of the duke himself, he drew the inference that the colonists were in the right. He saw in them a people fighting in defence of that very liberty of which he had read in the English Letters of Voltaire. Before he rose from the table that day, the project occurred to his mind of going to America, and offering his services to the American people in their struggle for Independence. " My heart," as he afterwards wrote, " espoused warmly the cause of liberty, and 1 thought of nothing but of adding also the aid of my banner." And the more he thought of it, the more completely he was fascinated by the idea. Knowing well how such a scheme would appear to his prudent relations, he deter- mined to judge this matter for himself. He placed a new motto on his coat-of-arms : Cur non ? This is Latin for, Why not ? He chose those words, he says, because they would serve equally as an encour- agement to himself and a reply to others. His first step was to go on leave to Paris, where Silas Deane was already acting as the representative of Congress, secretly favored by the French ministry. Upon consulting two of his young friends, he found them enthusiastic in the same cause, and abundantly willing to go with him, if they could command the means. When, however, he sub- mitted the project to an experienced family friend, the Count de Broglie, he met firm opposition. " I have seen your uncle," said the count, " die in the wars of Italy ; I witnessed your father's death at the bat- tle of Minden, and I will not be accessory to the ruin of the only remaining branch of the family."