BY CLAUDE C. ROBIN

From _Magazine of American History_.

_The following extract from a letter written by Abbé Robin, chaplain in
the French army in America, and bearing date "Camp of Phillipsburg,
August 4, 1781," a few weeks after his arrival in this country, is very
suggestive. This letter was the first of a series of thirteen letters
from the Abbé while in America, which were published in Paris in 1782.
He writes_:

I have seen General Washington, that most singular man--the soul and
support of one of the greatest revolutions that has ever happened, or
can happen. I fixed my eyes upon him with that keen attention which the
sight of a great man always inspires. We naturally entertain a secret
hope of discovering in the features of such illustrious persons some
traces of that genius which distinguishes them from, and elevates them
above, their fellow mortals.

Perhaps the exterior of no man was better calculated to gratify these
expectations than that of General Washington. He is of a tall and noble
stature, well proportioned, a fine, cheerful, open countenance, a simple
and modest carriage; and his whole mien has something in it that
interests the French, the Americans, and even enemies themselves, in
his favor. Placed in a military view, at the head of a nation where each
individual has a share in the supreme legislative authority, and where
coercive laws are yet in a degree destitute of vigor, where the climate
and manners can add but little to their energy, where the spirit of
party, private interest, slowness and national indolence, slacken,
suspend, and overthrow the best concerted measures; although so situated