SIXTY

ADRIENNE

The Prison of Olmütz

July 1797

Anastasie used her thumbnail to draw a portrait of the cruelest guard and flirted with the friendly ones, which vexed her father. “Do not draw their attentions,” Gilbert said, swishing away flies. “You are too beautiful to put yourself at their mercy.”

“Perhaps my beauty puts them at my mercy,” Anastasie argued. “The guard who passes beneath our window every night has a hungry look. I teased I would give him our ration if he smuggled messages, and he did not flinch.”

It amused me to see Gilbert fuss and fume at a daughter who was so like him in daring and ingenuity. In the weeks that followed, she not only charmed guards into sneaking letters, she also transformed herself into a veritable cobbler, making new shoes out of leather strips she finagled off a young guardsman. She took dictation using my little toothpick and ink. And due to her efforts, we soon had news from the outside.

“We are being talked about everywhere!” our eldest cried. “In America they clamor for our release, and in the English Parliament ministers have been moved to tears. Someone has even written a play called The Prisoner of Olmütz.”

I smiled to think we had not been forgotten! We’d also learned a French Revolutionary army was marching across the Alps toward Austria. The emperor was not so secure in his power now, was he? Did I dare hope the Republic of France had come to free my husband—who was rotting in jail for having started the Revolution in the first place? I had been too long in this prison to know whether France was now led by good or wicked men. Yet I promised my family, “It will not be long now until we are free.”

I believed this, even if our freedom would come too late for me. My blood infection had lately left my arms red and raw, exposed by peeling skin. I could no longer close my hands, and my entire nervous system was afflicted by spasms. Yet in some perverse way I welcomed the pain as a manner of expiation, and knew that the sharper my suffering, the better my weapon. For above all, the emperor did not want me to die in his prison . . .

Not with public sentiment running in our favor on both sides of the ocean. Americans finally bestirred themselves to push for our release. French persons too, including friends and my surviving family. Our most unexpected champion was a young military commander named Napoléon Bonaparte, who was sent by the Directoire to negotiate our release.

One morning, my husband and the loyal officers who had been arrested with him were suddenly reunited in our cell. To lay eyes upon one another for the first time after such long confinement was a sweet torment, and the men burst into tears to see how wretched they had become. They were told, “You may be set at liberty, under the condition that Lafayette promises never again to set foot in Austria.”

But for me, my husband would have refused this offer. For five years he had been caged unjustly, and his honor should not allow him to be treated as if he had committed a crime. However, for once in his life, Lafayette seemed ready to compromise.

Yet I did not want him to give an inch. We were a headache the emperor did not need. This was still my battle with the tyrant—one I meant to win. Like all despots, the emperor had thought to break us. Because of who we were, because of the causes to which we had devoted our lives, it would matter a great deal how we left this jail—dead or alive.

The next offer came. We could be free if we would blame our ill-treatment upon the lowest-ranked guards and absolve the emperor of guilt. This too we refused. The emperor finally negotiated our release directly with Bonaparte, who took matters out of our hands. In mid-September, the doors of our prison swung open. We were to be taken directly to Hamburg, then handed over to the American consul.

Gilbert and I held each other upright, blinking against the sunlight, which had never seemed so bright. Scattered groups of curious onlookers lined the roads, silently watching us go. At the frontier, noisier crowds awaited. Fayettists cheering our carriage, calling out, “Vive Lafayette!”

What a glorious sound.

We stopped briefly at an inn. I had to be carried inside for food and water, but our entire party was giddy. My daughters claimed to have forgotten how to use knives and forks after having so long been forced to eat with their hands. Next we went to the American consulate, which was so crowded with well-wishers, they had to be held back. My husband’s speech faltered, both because he was overcome and because after five years in captivity, his English was a little forgotten.

Everyone wanted to shake his hand, to bring him news, curry favor. Various political factions urged him to champion them. In the group of men who encircled us, I saw Mr. Morris, my savior and sometime nemesis. With customary dryness, he explained that Monroe had been recalled by the president and that tensions between France and the United States were quite high. Before I could think what this might mean for us, I was approached by a young man who dropped to his knees in worshipful ecstasy.

“Thou art the goddess of liberty,” he said, trying to kiss the hem of my skirt.

I snatched it away, admonishing, “I am no goddess.”

Then I saw that I had wounded this admirer, who was sincere. So I invited him to sit beside me in the hopes of smoothing his feelings, and Gilbert bent to whisper, “Savor your victory, my love.”

It did feel like victory, never more than when we were reunited with our son, who now, at nearly eighteen years old, had his father’s auburn hair and big brown eyes like mine. What happy thanksgiving to have Georges safe in my arms again. How right I had been to send him to America! He had returned at the first news of our release, gone straight to Chavaniac, and now presented the swords he’d dug up from the earth where I’d buried them in safekeeping. The blade on the American sword had rusted away, but Gilbert thought to combine them into one sword, using the blade made of iron taken from the Bastille with the golden hilt of the American masterpiece.

Lafayette recovered his strength quickly; for him, freedom itself was nourishment. As for me, my legs were a mass of open sores. He and Georges had to carry me from bed to couch. They had to feed me soft bites of food because my teeth ached, and I could barely keep down what I ate. And the doctors said the marks of my captivity would last the rest of my life.

I counted it a fair price for what I’d gained.

I had freed my family by force of will. Not only my family, but those who had been arrested for our sake. I had done it without sacrificing any principle or doing violence. It was not the sort of victory for which people built stone monuments, but I hoped it might still, someday, be remembered.