The wise, prudent and simple conduct of M. de
Rochambeau has done more to conciliate America to us than the gain of
four battles."
With this representative soldier of his time came so fine a showing of
the noblesse of France, fresh from the most brilliant court of Europe,
that they are worth a short description. They are interesting, if from
nothing else, from the fact that they are the men who appear on the
page of history one day steeped in the enervating luxury and intrigue
of Versailles and Marly, the next fighting and dying with the courage
of the lionhearted Henri de la Rochejaquelin in Vendee, leaving as an
epitaph on their whole generation the words of the Chouan chief,
"Allons chercher l'ennemi! Si je recule, tuez moi; si j'avance, suivez
moi; si je meurs, vengez moi!" Never even in Napoleon's campaigns,
where each man had as incentive a name and fortune to carve, was there
such a race of soldiers as these same aristocrats.
First and foremost, let us mention Armand Louis de Gontaut, duc de
Lauzun, the duc de Biron of the Vendee. He was the gayest gallant of
the time, and whether with the Polish princess Czartoriski, the
beautiful Lady Sarah Bunbury--George III.
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