Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 6.djvu/41

MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE 227 his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian soldiers near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank as an .officer in the army and should be considered as a private citizen ; but his rights were not respected in either ca- pacity, for he was not treated as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as a criminal. On the contrary, without any charges being preferred against him, and without the formality of a trial of any kind, he was immediately thrown into prison and was detained in various Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails and for- tresses for i. .ore than five years, the last three being passed in close confinement at Ol'mutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased the severity of his de- tention, and he nearly lost his life through the hardships and privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters came, in 1 795, and voluntarily shared his in- carceration. The only reason for the savage treatment that he received, unjust! fied by any forms of international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain in the fact that he had been a member of the National Assembly and prom- inent in the constitutional struggle for liberty. A feeling of revenge, as mean as ? t was groundless for he had done everything in his power to protect the dig- nity as well as the life of Marie Antoinette, the sister of the Austrian emperor joined with a fear that other peoples might follow the lead of the French and overthrow monarchical institutions unless deterred by some world-shocking ex- ample, formed the mainspring of this atrocious procedure. Efforts were made in this country and in England to procure the release of the prisoner, but no governmental action was taken in that direction, the United States Congress declining to pass a resolution to that effect, so that President Washington was left alone in his unceasing attempts, by instructions to our ministers abroad and by a personal letter to the emperor, to repay some of the debt that he and the whole country owed to our adopted citizen. It was not till the successes of the French republican armies enabled General Bonaparte, at the instance of the Directory, to insist upon the liberation of Lafayette as one of the conditions of the treaty of Campo Formio, that he was discharged on September 19, 1797, the Austrian Government pretending that this was done out of regard for the United States of America. Passing into Denmark and Holland he resided in those countries for two years, when he returned to France only to receive from Bona- parte a significant message recommending to him a very quiet life, a piece of advice which, as it accorded with his own desires, he followed, settling down at Lagrange, an estate inherited by his wife, as his own property had been confis- cated by the National Convention, which had succeeded the Legislative Assem- bly. True to the principles that he had always entertained, he cast his vote, in 1802, with less than nine thousand others, and in opposition to the suffrages of more than three-and-a-half millions, against the decree to make Bonaparte con- sul for life, writing after his name on the polling register the statement that he could not vote for such a measure till public freedom was sufficiently guaranteed. This insured the continued displeasure of the military despot, who revenged him- self by refusing to Lafayette's only son, George Washington, the promotion that he had earned bv his brilliant exploits in the army. President Jefferson's offer