But Lafayette was filled with apprehension for the future. To Colonel John Trumbull, who was about to leave France for the United States at the close of summer, he communicated a special message to Washington concerning the state of affairs in France. After speaking of the changes already effected and the hopes for the future, he said: "Unhappily, there is one powerful and wicked man, who, I fear, will destroy this beautiful fabric of human happiness--the duke of Orleans." He had already been accused, and no doubt justly, of sending hired assassins to Versailles to murder Louis and the royal family, that he might be made regent of the kingdom. "He does not, indeed," said Lafayette, "possess talent to carry into execution a great project; but he possesses immense wealth, and France abounds in marketable talents. Every city and town has young men eminent for abilities, particularly in the law--ardent in character, eloquent, ambitious of distinction, but poor." Such was the material that composed the leaders in the reign of terror which speedily followed, and deluged Paris in blood.
The revolution in France, under the direction of Lafayette and his associates, was thorough as far as it went, yet it was conservative. It elicited the warmest sympathies of the American people, and Washington was rejoiced at the promise thus made of happiness for the French nation. "The revolution which has taken place with you," he wrote to Lafayette in October, "is of such magnitude, and of so momentous a nature, that we hardly yet dare to form a conjecture about it. We however trust, and fervently pray, that its consequences may prove happy to a nation in whose fate we have so much cause to be interested, and that its influence may be felt with pleasure by future generations." To the Count de Rochambeau he said: "I am persuaded I express the sentiments of my fellow-citizens, when I offer our earnest prayer that it may terminate in the permanent honor and happiness of your government and people."
The connection of the revolution, the first act of which we have delineated in outline, with the administration of Washington, will be developed hereafter. It has been given here because it was appropriate in the order of time.