Chapter 2 & 3

[Alexander]

I've read Chapter 2, but not chapter 3 yet. It shouldn't take long for me to catch up though.

[Nancy]

I finished Ch 2, not sure I'll get to Ch 3 this week. Here are of my thoughts on Ch 2: very happy Lafayette married Adrienne, while we don't know much about her yet, she seems to have been a rock to Lafayette, especially since Lafayette did not fit in with her family or the court.
Fascinated by how Lafayette became passionate about the Colonies, through the King' s younger brother. I never would have expected a British Prince to side with the Americans although I know not all Britians were supportive of the war. And while Cmte Dr Broglie's interest in Lafayette seems to have been self-serving, he did help to stir his interest in the military and the Colonies which seems to have given Lafayette a purpose. It gave him an opportunity to avenge his father's death and re-establish France's supremacy over Britian. A way to find a place where he would be happy and fit in, it's also interesting how free-masonry played into the virtuous principles that would drive the revolution and eventually, the formation of government.
Hope it's ok if I went ahead and commented. Wanted to do this while I had some spare time.

[Alexander]

Nancy, of course it's ok! I have just had a whirlwind of a week and haven't had a chance to post anything.

[Patti]

Before I move on to finishing Chapter 4 I want to react to a couple of things in the previous two chapters. I am loving this book! It reads like a novel, and Lafayette's personal story as an extraordinarily wealthy young noble from the provinces who is transplanted to the splendors of the French court still has that fairy tale aspect about it.

I too was struck by some of the same things as Nancy, especially the Duke of Gloucester's role in interesting Lafayette in the Americans' cause and giving him the impetus for traveling to America. Who knew George III's brother would have espoused the cause of liberty? So many things lined up in such serendipitous ways, it seems almost as if it had been fated for Lafayette to come to the rebels' aid.

I've always been amazed at just how many great men of the Enlightenment were involved with Freemasonry. To go slightly off-topic here for a minute, my main music man Mozart (1 1/2 years older than Lafayette and almost an exact contemporary of Hamilton) was also involved, and was initiated as a third degree mason, and much has been written about the probable Masonic symbolism in some of his works, most notably in the Singspiel "The Magic Flute," one of the final works of his death year, 1791. The number 3 is symbolic in Freemasonry, and the work is structured around the key of E flat, which contains 3 flats; there are three introductory E flat chords that come back throughout the work; there are Three Ladies, Three Spirits; the trials which the main characters endure are symbolic of masonic rituals -- it goes on and on. It's also surprising (to me) that although in theory, Catholicism forbade Freemasonry, many Catholic men, like Lafayette and Mozart, were involved. I don't know if I was ever aware that Washington was a Freemason; if I knew, I'd certainly forgotten.

It was also interesting to read about Franklin's secret meeting in Philadelphia (1775) with Louis XVI's agent, and about how many French military men were eager to come to America to join "the cause of liberty." It seems that cause became (ironically) almost a fad among the fashionable French nobility. A portion of a quote from the Comte de Ségur particularly caught my attention: "...in short, independence was spoken of in the [French] camps, democracy among the nobles, philosophy at the balls, morality in the boudoirs."

The sheer amount of financial capital that Lafayette invested getting to America is something I find a little mind-boggling, as well. I'd also never realized the difficulties Lafayette had in finally leaving Europe and reaching American shores. I'm excited to read what happens next.