A complete history of the Marquis de Lafayette, major-general in the American army in the war of the revolution. Embracing an account of his tour through the United States, to the time of his departure, September, 1825. By an officer in the late army.

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 193
ried by storm. Thus fell, in less than four hours, a castle,
which had menaced France for nearly as many ages; and
which an army, commanded by the great Conde, had formerly besieged, in vain, during three-and-twenty days.-The demolition of this famous fortress was the epocha frorn which
the partisans of French liberty dated their regeneration. —
Lafayette largely contributed to the fall of that celebrated
engine of tyrannical power. During the laborious sessions
of the national assembly which succeeded the disgrace of
M. Necker, it was thought that the age and infirmities of the
president, the venerable archbishop of Vienne, would scarcely allow him to exercise so difficult an office without the assistance of a younger person; and the marquis de Lafayette
was, therefore, unanimously nominated vice-president. In
this capacity he presided over the sittings of the assembly
on the nights of the thirteenth and fourteenth of July.-All
lovers of rational freedom, of all nations, rejoiced in the destruction of the bastile, if they condemned the atrocities
which, in a moment of frenzy, were committed by the populace, and which Lafayette did all he could to prevent. The
key of the building was afterwards sent by him, as a present,
and a pledge of his unshaken principles, to general Washington and it is now preserved, in a glass case, in the hall of
Mount Vernon. In testimony of his services on the occasion,
the contractor who had undertaken to tear down the bastile,
presented to him the first stone that was removed; and not
long after, while Lafayette was conducting general Paoli over
ts ruins, he received from the same hands, the last stone of
its dungeons.*?
The appearance of the monarch in the assembly, on the
fifteenth of July, his affectionate and conciliatory address,
his grief at the disturbances which had occurred in the capital, his disavowal of any meditated attack on the persons of
the deputies, and his orders for the immediate removal of the
V Mem. Hist. p. 263.-De Stael, French Rev. i. p. 236.-Port Folio
vol. xix. p. 505 -Hist. French Rev. i. p. 74.
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