r trader.
Then came Lafayette from the memories of Monticello.
Escorted by a troop of horse, he had ascended that
historic mountain. The alert lithe figure of the little
Marquis leaped from the carriage; at the same moment
the door opened, revealing the tall, bent, wasted figure
of Jefferson in the pillared portico. The music ceased,
and every head uncovered. Slowly the aged Jefferson
descended the steps, slowly the little Marquis approached
his friend, then crying, with outstretched arms, "Ah,
Jefferson!" "Ah, Lafayette!" each fell upon the
other's bosom. The gentlemen of the cavalcade turned
away with tears, and the two were left to solitude and
recollection.
Long and often had Jefferson and Lafayette laboured together in anxious and critical periods of the past. It was in chasing "the boy" Lafayette that the British came to Charlottesville. When Jefferson was minister in Paris, the young and popular nobleman assisted the unaccustomed American at the Court of France. Together they had seen the opening of the French Revolution. What memories came back as they sat in the parlour at Monticello, discussing the momentous events of two continents in which they had been actors!
"What would I have done with the Queen?" asked the aged Jefferson. "I should have shut her up in a convent, putting harm out of her power. I have ever believed if there had been no Queen there would have been no French Revolution."
Lafayette went to Montpelier to see Madison, and then to Yorktown, over the same road which he himself had opened in 1781 in the retreat before Cornwallis. One long ovation followed his route. Even old ladies who had seen him in their youth pressed forward with the plea, "Let me see the young Marquis again!" forgetful of the flight of years. Echoes of his triumphal tour had reached the border. St. Louis, a city and a State not dreamed of in Revolutionary days, begged the honour of entertaining Lafayette.
Far down the river they saw the smoke of his steamer, coming up from New Orleans.
