Resolving to uphold my husband’s principles—and my own—I said, “He will accept.”
I said this with a certainty only God could have granted me.
Oh, the joy I felt when, not long after, my husband led a procession of deputies into Paris! I clung to him in gratitude when he took me into his strong embrace. We strode together into the H?tel de Ville, where he took command of the National Guard as I had pledged he would, and there he swore on his sword of honor—the one given to him by Dr. Franklin—that he would die to defend the liberty of the French nation.
An oath that bound us both.
Within the hour, the first floor of our townhome was an officers’ mess where I fed hungry guardsmen. I doled out soup and porridge—emptying out our larder. Meanwhile, I heard dreadful stories of murders, heads being carried on pikes. The soldiers said the duc d’Orléans was behind it. I knew Philippe thrived on mayhem, but I blamed the king too. If he had agreed to a declaration of rights, he would have been the most beloved of monarchs, the enlightened king who gave up absolute power for the good of the nation.
Instead, he had sent soldiers.
Now Paris was in violent paroxysms. Never had I felt in such danger. Every morning Gilbert mounted his white horse to ride out in the name of restoring law and order, and, heart in my throat, I tried to banish the thought that I might never see him alive again.
While he quelled the mob’s fury, I was on my feet, overseeing the kitchen and turning our house into a barracks. In the evenings, Gilbert returned drained and dispirited, hunched from the weight of our world upon his shoulders. “Today I stopped six people from being hanged by the mob. I do not know what will happen tomorrow.”
What happened is that the king came to Paris.
King Louis rolled up to the gates in a small coach, almost entirely alone. Gilbert met him there, atop his now-famous white horse. To the king he said, “Sire, if you oppose a constitution, I am here to fight you. Otherwise, I will defend you with every last drop of my blood.”
In response, the king surrendered himself into my husband’s power.
Nothing else could have won our hearts more than this gesture. To everyone’s joy, the king accepted a Revolutionary cockade in the colors of Paris—red and blue. Touched, my husband combined it with the white ribbon of the monarchy and held it aloft to the cheers of the crowd.
What a moment. One eclipsed only by our joy when the king wore it. The symbol my husband gave him became the tricolor—and soon every patriot in France wore one. It became our banner, and our flag.
And I hoped, this time, the king had come in good faith.
If so, then liberty is accomplished. God should smile upon us now. Certainly the people did, as every shop in Paris now hawked trinkets and leaflets celebrating my husband’s role. Everyone declared themselves Fayettists, which greatly amused Mr. Morris, who stopped by to report on food shipments from America. “Well, Lafayette, it seems you are now the King of Paris . . .”
My husband shook this off with the dust on his boots. “If so, I reign over a city filled with enraged people who cannot seem to be calmed or reasoned with by anyone but me.”
Hungry people found it hard to hear reason. Flour was still more precious than gold. Yes, people honored my husband above all men, but I believed their bloodlust would not stop until their bellies were full.
Near the end of July, I myself was forced to intervene on behalf of the commander of the Swiss Guard, who had fired on the crowd. I was so frightened they would tear the man to pieces that I cannot remember what I said on his behalf. I know only that he was spared on my say-so because, as one woman put it, “You are the Mother of the New Nation.”
I might have taken more pride in this title if, the next day, a mob whipped up by the duc d’Orléans had not stormed the H?tel de Ville in an attempt to kill a grain profiteer. To the enraged masses, my husband shouted, “I will not permit you to execute a man without a trial. It would dishonor us all. I could not support a revolution that employed such injustice.”
In answer, Philippe’s men swarmed the prisoner, ripping him quite literally from my husband’s custody. The prisoner was swinging from a lamppost by the time my husband’s men battled their way to him. Then the victim’s head was sawed off, mounted on a pike, and carried to his horrified son-in-law, who was taunted to kiss Papa.
After telling me this story, Lafayette shook in my arms, sickened and distraught. “I saw the horrors of war in America, Adrienne. Scalping, smallpox—more death and disease than you can imagine. But this . . . what would Washington do?”