4337. LAFAYETTE (Marquis de), Busts of.—
The Commonwealth of Virginia, in gratitude
for the services of Major General, the
Marquis de Lafayette, have determined to erect
his bust in their Capitol. Desirous to place a
like monument of his worth, and of their sense
of it, in the country to which they are indebted
for his birth, they have hoped that the city of
Paris will consent to become the depository of
this second testimony of their gratitude. Being
charged by them with the execution of their
wishes, I have the honor to solicit of Messieurs
Le Prevot des Marchands et Echevins, on behalf
of the city, their acceptance of a bust of
this gallant officer, and that they will be pleased
to place it where, doing most honor to him,
it will most gratify the feelings of an allied
nation. It is with true pleasure that I obey the
call of that Commonwealth to render just homage
to a character so great in its first developments,
that they would honor the close of any
other. Their country, covered by a small army
against a great one, their exhausted means supplied
by his talents, their enemies finally forced
to that spot whither their allies and confederates
were collecting to receive them, and a war
which had spread its miseries into the four
quarters of the earth, thus reduced to a single
point where one blow should terminate it, and
through the whole, an implicit respect paid to
the laws of the land; these are facts which
would illustrate any character, and which fully
justify the warmth of those feelings, of which
I have the honor on this occasion to be the
organ.—
To the Prevot des Marchands et Echevins De Paris. Washington ed. ii, 29.
(P.
1786)
