During 1778 and 1779 French effort had failed.Now France resolved to do something decisive.She never sent across the sea the eight thousand men promised to La Fayette but by the spring of 1780 about this number were gathered at Brest to find that transport was inadequate.The leader was a French noble, the Comte de Rochambeau, an old campaigner, now in his fifty-fifth year, who had fought against England before in the Seven Years'
War and had then been opposed by Clinton, Cornwallis, and Lord George Germain.He was a sound and prudent soldier who shares with La Fayette the chief glory of the French service in America.
Rochambeau had fought at the second battle of Minden, where the father of La Fayette had fallen, and he had for the ardent young Frenchman the amiable regard of a father and sometimes rebuked his impulsiveness in that spirit.He studied the problem in America with the insight of a trained leader.Before he left France he made the pregnant comment on the outlook: "Nothing without naval supremacy." About the same time Washington was writing to La Fayette that a decisive naval supremacy was a fundamental need.
A gallant company it was which gathered at Brest.Probably no other land than France could have sent forth on a crusade for democratic liberty a band of aristocrats who had little thought of applying to their own land the principles for which they were ready to fight in America.Over some of them hung the shadow of the guillotine; others were to ride the storm of the French Revolution and to attain fame which should surpass their sanguine dreams.Rochambeau himself, though he narrowly escaped during the Reign of Terror, lived to extreme old age and died a Marshal of France.Berthier, one of his officers, became one of Napoleon's marshals and died just when Napoleon, whom he had deserted, returned from Elba.Dumas became another of Napoleon's generals.
He nearly perished in the retreat from Moscow but lived, like Rochambeau, to extreme old age.One of the gayest of the company was the Duc de Lauzun, a noted libertine in France but, as far as the record goes, a man of blameless propriety in America.He died on the scaffold during the French Revolution.So, too, did his companion, the Prince de Broglie, in spite of the protest of his last words that he was faithful to the principles of the Revolution, some of which he had learned in America.Another companion was the Swedish Count Fersen, later the devoted friend of the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette, the driver of the carriage in which the royal family made the famous flight to Varennes in 1791, and himself destined to be trampled to death by a Swedish mob in 1810.Other old and famous names there were:
Laval-Montmorency, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, Saint-Simon.It has been said that the names of the French officers in America read like a list of medieval heroes in the Chronicles of Froissart.
Only half of the expected ships were ready at Brest and only five thousand five hundred men could embark.The vessels were, of course, very crowded.Rochambeau cut down the space allowed for personal effects.He took no horse for himself and would allow none to go, but he permitted a few dogs.Forty-five ships set sail, "a truly imposing sight," said one of those on board.We have reports of their ennui on the long voyage of seventy days, of their amusements and their devotions, for twice daily were prayers read on deck.They sailed into Newport on the 11th of July and the inhabitants of that still primitive spot illuminated their houses as best they could.Then the army settled down at Newport and there it remained for many weary months.
Reinforcements never came, partly through mismanagement in France, partly through the vigilance of the British fleet, which was on guard before Brest.The French had been for generations the deadly enemies of the English Colonies and some of the French officers noted the reserve with which they were received.The ice was, however, soon broken.They brought with them gold, and the New England merchants liked this relief from the debased continental currency.Some of the New England ladies were beautiful, and the experienced Lauzun expresses glowing admiration for a prim Quakeress whose simple dress he thought more attractive than the elaborate modes of Paris.
The French dazzled the ragged American army by their display of waving plumes and of uniforms in striking colors.They wondered at the quantities of tea drunk by their friends and so do we when we remember the political hatred for tea.They made the blunder common in Europe of thinking that there were no social distinctions in America.Washington could have told him a different story.Intercourse was at first difficult, for few of the Americans spoke French and fewer still of the French spoke English.Sometimes the talk was in Latin, pronounced by an American scholar as not too bad.A French officer writing in Latin to an American friend announces his intention to learn English: "Inglicam linguam noscere conabor." He made the effort and he and his fellow officers learned a quaint English speech.
When Rochambeau and Washington first met they conversed through La Fayette, as interpreter, but in time the older man did very well in the language of his American comrade in arms.
For a long time the French army effected nothing.Washington longed to attack New York and urged the effort, but the wise and experienced Rochambeau applied his principle, "nothing without naval supremacy," and insisted that in such an attack a powerful fleet should act with a powerful army, and, for the moment, the French had no powerful fleet available.The British were blockading in Narragansett Bay the French fleet which lay there.
