of disciplining his troops and attending to his increased military
duties--Rochambeau's command had been divided between himself and
Luckner--conversed freely with his young aide-de-camp. Sometimes, too,
at Lafayette's urgent request, Calvert would sing as he had used to do
around the camp-fires in the Virginia campaign. During those days and
evenings of inactive and anxious waiting, the old friendship between the
two was renewed. Lafayette had heard of Calvert's marriage through Mr.
Morris and, with the utmost delicacy, touched upon the subject. Calvert
told him frankly as much of the story as he intended to reveal to
anyone, and this confidence became another bond of friendship between
them. The years of separation and disagreement somehow melted away. The
Lafayette of Maubeuge was like the Lafayette whom Calvert had first
known and admired; he noticed how much of his rabid republicanism had
vanished--indeed, Lafayette himself owned as much, for if he was
impetuous and extreme, he was also courageous and was not afraid or
ashamed to confess his faults.

"I have learned much," he said to Calvert one evening when they were
alone in the General's quarters, "and am beginning to have radically
different opinions upon some subjects from those I entertained but a
short while ago. Sometimes I ask myself if my call for the
States-General did not open for France a Pandora's box of evils. What
has become of all my efforts?" he said, pushing away a map of the
Austrian Netherlands which they had been studying together and beginning
to pace the room agitatedly. "Instead of the wise ministers prevailing
at Paris, a horde of mad, insensate creatures are ruling the Assembly,
the city, the whole country! If only there were some man courageous
enough to defy the Jacobins and their power--to meet them on their own
ground and conquer them! What can I do at this distance, overwhelmed
with military duties, restricted by my official position? I have been