presents, the families represented and their many connections vying with each other in the richness and fineness of their gifts. Diamonds and jewels in settings of quaint design were among them, and besides all these there were the ancestral jewels of Julie de la Rivière, the mother of Lafayette, to be received by the new bride, and by her handed down to her descendants.

The arrangement was that the wedded pair should make their home with the mother of the bride, the young husband paying eight thousand livres a year as his share of the expense. The sumptuous home was the family mansion of the Noailles family; it was situated in the rue St. Honoré, not far from the palace of the Tuileries, at the corner where the rue d'Alger has now been cut through. The Hôtel de Noailles it was called, and it was so large that to an observer of to-day it would appear more like a splendid hotel than like a private residence. When, a few years after Lafayette's wedding, John Adams was representing the United States in Paris, and was entertained in this palatial home, he was so amazed that he could not find words in English or in French to describe the elegance and the richness of the residence. In it were suites of rooms for several families, for troops of guests, and for vast retinues of servants. The building measured from six hundred to seven hundred feet from end to end. There were splendid halls and galleries and arcades. Toward the street the façade was plain but the interior was decorated with astonishing richness. The inner rooms faced on a garden so large that a small hunt could be carried on within it, with fox, horses, and hounds, all in full cry. Magnificent trees waved their branches above the great garden, and rabbits burrowed below.

Here was a delightful place for a few people to pursue beautiful lives. John Adams made a note of the fact that the Noailles family held so many offices under the king that they received no less than eighteen million livres (more than three and a half million dollars) income each year. It must be remembered that the streets of Paris about this time were crowded with a rabble of beggars. But of this the dwellers in such magical palaces and parks saw but little and thought less.

Conditions such as these give a hint of the causes that led to the French Revolution and explain in some degree why thoughts of liberty, fraternity, and equality were haunting the minds of the youth of France, and, to some of the more open-minded among them, suggesting dreams of noble exploit.

CHAPTER III

A Boy's Ideals

BY this time Lafayette was a tall, slender young fellow, of commanding height, and with a look of piercing and imperative sincerity in his clear, hazel eyes. His hair was red—some one in the family used to call him "the big boy with red hair"; but hero worshipers need have no misgivings about this characteristic, nor feel that they must apologize for it as a defect. Lafayette said of himself that he was an awkward boy. It may be that the youth who was rapidly growing to a height of "five feet eleven" may have felt, as most boys do at that age, as if he were all hands and feet. But that Lafayette was really awkward—it is unthinkable! Not one single lady of all the beauties in France and America, who handed it down to her descendants that she "once danced with Lafayette," ever mentioned the fact that her partner lacked any element of grace, while many speak of the ease of manner and address of the distinguished man. One friend of Lafayette's early days reports that he was too tall to make a distinguished appearance on horseback or to dance with special grace; but this was said in a period when the dancing-master's art was the ideal of social conduct. Those who did not know Lafayette very well at this time thought him cold and serious and stiff. Perhaps he was shy; yet beneath that calm exterior seethed a volcano of emotion of which no casual onlooker dreamed.

Lafayette was fortunate in having a cousin, the Count de Ségur, who understood him and who realized that under that surface of gravity was hidden, as he said, "a spirit the most active, a character the most firm, a soul the most burning with passionate fervor."

After his marriage Lafayette continued his studies at the Collège du Plessis, and later he spent a year at the military academy at Versailles, that his education as an officer might be complete.

In the summer his inclinations led him to make various journeys to the fortified city of Metz, where the regiment "de Noailles" was in garrison under the charge of the Prince de Poix who was a brother-in-law of Adrienne, Lafayette's wife. On his way back from one of these visits he stayed at Chaillot for a time and there was inoculated for smallpox. This preventive method was a medical novelty at that time. To submit to the experiment showed a great freedom from prejudice on the part of the youth. The Duchess d'Ayen had once suffered from the ravages of this disease, so she could safely stay with the now adored son-in-law through this disagreeable period of seclusion.

Soon after this the youthful Marquis de Lafayette and his shy girl bride were presented at court. The benevolent king, Louis XVI, was then reigning. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was the head of a social life that was elaborately formal and splendid. Marie Antoinette herself was young and light-hearted, and was at this time without fears from misadventure at the hands of the state or from any personal enemies. The king had thousands of servants and attendants in his military and personal households. A court scene was a display of knots of ribbon, lace ruffles, yellow and pink and sky-blue satin coats, shoes with glittering buckles, red-painted heels, and jeweled trimmings. Fountains threw their spray aloft, and thousands of candles flung radiance broadcast. Said Chateaubriand, "No one has seen anything who has not seen the pomp of Versailles." And no one dreamed that the end was nearing, or realized that no nation can live when the great mass of the people are made to toil, suffer, and die, in order that a favored few may have luxuries and amusement.

Into this Vanity Fair the young Marquis de Lafayette was now plunged. The grand world flowed to the feet of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette. More than that, the queen at once took the tall, distinguished-looking young chevalier into the circle of her special friends. The circle included some who were to follow Lafayette in his adventure to the New World in aid of American independence, and some who were to follow in another long procession equally adventurous and as likely to be fatal—the Revolution in their own country. During the Terror some of them, including their beautiful and well-meaning queen, were to lose their lives. Of any such danger as this, these young nobles, in the present state of seemingly joyous and abundant prosperity, were farthest from dreaming.

On the whole, however, court life did not have much charm for Lafayette. It was a part of the duty of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette to take part in the plays and merrymakings that centered about a queen who loved amusement only too well. But Lafayette could not throw his whole heart into the frivolity of the social sphere in which he was now moving. There were features of life at court that he could not tolerate. His knee would not crook; he already knew, as Everett said, that he was not born "to loiter in an antechamber."

It was liberty itself—the revolt against tyranny in every realm