i once heard that, while in prison, lafayette thought he would be killed and his body thrown in a ditch somewhere, and because of that he wrote smth on the wood from somewhere inside his cell just saying that he had passes throught there in case his family wanted to know where he had been last or smth like this.
So, is this story any true? And if it is, do we have any sort of picture of that?
Yes, that is true - and I have something far better than just scraps of wood for you. :-).
La Fayette was especially worried by his transfer from Magdeburg to Neisse in Silesia. The Prussians were preparing to hand La Fayette over to the Austrian’s and the French army was advancing, further necessitating a transfer. But La Fayette was not told that. He furthermore was very ill at the time and feared that he might have been poisoned. No charges were brought against him and the Austrian’s and Prussian’s therefore had no real basis to execute him on - but if he were to die of “natural causes” in prison, then nobody was to blame.
The situation was thus, that La Fayette expected to die in early 1794. Either he would be executed or he was send away to die somewhere away from the public from poison or generally bad health. It did no help either that he was separated from his companions. He wrote several letters, saying his farewells to his family but also giving an insight into his thoughts. One of the letters was received by his friend, the princess d’Hénin, and she had the letter transcribed and copied and it was treated and understood as an (in)official will.
Of all the letters that La Fayette wrote in prison, most survived that tie directly into the situation I just described (La Fayette had sometimes to destroy letters in fear that his guards would find them or he wrote with such simply tools like vinegar - it is no wonder that many letters are lost to us today.) Because we are speaking about a number of letters and because some of these letters are rather long, I will only include (my) English translations - but let me know if somebody in interested in the original text.
La Fayette to his aides-de-camp, January 3, 1794 (English translation):
You would not have believed, my dear and faithful friends, that the hatred of the coalition hatred could invent new tortures against me, but you will do more justice to its schemes by learning that I am leaving alone for a new dungeon on the frontiers of Silesia. Maubourg, who is being transported to Glatz, asks, with all the warmth and all the tenderness of his friendship, that we should not be separated, that at least, if we do not communicate together, the same citadel should contain us. But, in the meantime, a detachment chosen in Berlin, for greater safety, is taking me a hundred and fifty leagues from here, and you feel that it is not to treat me better there. Take immediately to Madame d’Hénin, to Lally, to Mr. Pinkney, the information and the ideas that I hastened to scribble in the attached note, and make the most use of them for my deliverance. I hope my last package arrived safely. I wanted to write to Mr. Pinkney today, but time has pressed me. I embrace with all my heart all the companions of our caravan as well as Lajard. Farewell, my dear aides-de-camp; my wishes, my tenderness and my gratitude for you will last until my last breath. I renew to d’Arblay and Boinville my tender congratulations on their marriage, and I address a line to M. Pinkney who will deliver this letter to you.
La Fayette to Louis-Saint-Ange, chevalier Morel de La Colombe, January 3, 1794 (English translation):
[A fortnight ago I wrote to MM. Pinkney and Short, to Madame d'Hénin, to my aides-de-camp and to the friend from Hamburg that by a note addressed to L. G. I requested my friends to seek in my correspondence exact information on my situation, and that setting aside imaginary hopes and inadmissible steps, I have examined our other means of deliverance. Convinced that my ideas have reached my friends, I will only call them back here to ask for their help one last time. According to the meaning that I receive that (while Alexandre Lameth and Pusy remain in Magdeburg and that, by a very cruel separation for us, Maubourg must be in Glatz) I am going to be transported alone to another fortress in Silesia, I barely have time to talk about this new event; it should not be attributed to ... or even to ... But it suffices to be here to recognize other causes of this transfer.
1° The natural rallying of opinions around all that is called true freedom; a personal benevolence for which not only unwise patriots, but the wisest politicians, such as Mr. Hertzberg, have been very badly noted; the forthcoming removal of the court and of several regiments obviously contributed to this dispersion.
2° The coalition is working with the Jacobins to destroy any hope that the good citizens of France might have in me, and as it is easier to publish in Paris that I am dead than to prove that I am a traitor, it is also better to bury me in another dungeon, than to explain here to a thousand prisoners who are expected, on what grounds my long torture is based.
3° Although I had been dying at Wezel of the anonymous illness that I contracted there; though my dwelling here and my way of life were marvellously contrary to my bosom, a feeling of resistance to oppression hardened my temper against my illness. Some correspondence with my family, my friends; a few communications with Maubourg have done me inexpressible good, and whether it has been discovered that the state of my health, singularly proper to physical vicissitudes, is composed principally of moral affections; whether one wanted, by multiplying the tortures of the soul, also to redouble the physical means, it was necessary to move away from a city attentive to all these details. But, without stopping at conjectures, I hasten to seek resources. All I have left on this side are the chances of the road, and I will not neglect them; our correspondence permitted, very insignificant; a redoubling of firmness, and I must say that since I struggled against the ideas of revenge and the pleasures of hatred, I have used up more than thirty years of my life; that new torments (especially if Maubourg, who asks to join me, does not obtain it) will do me a lot of harm; that the approach to Vienna somewhat recalls certain symptoms, and, although there is still time to recover all my strength, my deliverance, if it is delayed, could very well come too late. My friends, on the contrary, have several ways of being useful to me. I hope that those who correspond with me will retain the right to do so; that the American ambassadors will demand it for themselves; that every week I receive a detailed letter about my family and my friends, about what I can be told at least disguised by the attached cipher. We subscribed to the Leyden and Hamburg gazettes, to a French paper from Berlin; if this permission remains, we can insert interesting articles. But for confidential communication, two friends have to go to Poland. Although the king is less free there than I am, since he has signed the triumph of aristocracy and despotism, I am sure of his good will, and his resources are quite large.
My ticket will be given to him, as well as to Littlepage, his aide-de-camp, and to Mazzei who is attached to him. The patriots [Jean and Séverin Potosky] will serve us well. They would first correspond with my fortress, the name of which is hidden, but which, I believe, is Neisse, and, I am sure, in Silesia. (…) As soon as we know how to get to my dungeon, it would be necessary to establish communication with me; one could also work from there without danger to win over some guards, and if I had the good fortune to acquire real friends there, I would try to unite their zeal with outside attempts, for it would be enough to touch Polish territory to be safe, and it would then be easy, [by reaching the east], to escape all the requisitions. [After strongly recommending this plan, which is not only good, but the only one possible, I will add nothing to what I have said relative to proceedings of another kind. But it seems to me that this new circumstance is equally proper to private and public complaints, to the reflections of well-meaning writers and of all patriots. It seems to me that the Whig party, unable to hate the Jacobite crimes and the coalitionary conspiracy, is destined, I hope, to save liberty, which these two hordes of brigands tear apart at will, and, called upon by friends of humanity to raise the sacred standard which anarchists and despots would like to drown in mud and blood, it seems to me, I say, that the English opposition must find in the conduct of the powers towards us a new proof that it is not the disorganization of France that they fear the most; it seems to me, finally, that the contrast of this transfer with the wish of the United States and their position between France and the allies offers the American ambassadors the opportunity to carry out their project and the hope of succeeding in it.
As for me, I owed to the tenderness of my friends, even more than to my preservation, to give them, perhaps for the last time, information about my fate and some ideas about my deliverance. I count too much on their enlightenment, their zeal, their constancy,] to regret the haste with which I am forced to write this note; and begging them to preserve for me, or at least for my memory, the sentiments which are so dear to my heart, I hereby renew for them the expression of those which I have vowed to them until my last breath.
La Fayette to the Princess d’Hénin, January 3, 1794:
Scarcely have I had time to write a few lines, my dear princess, and I will still grieve you. However dreadful my captivity here was, at least I had friends there, I corresponded with you, and the layout of the dungeons brought Maubourg and me closer together. [They probably found that I was dying too slowly, and] to break a soul that does not bend, [or to rework a temperament that has overcome so many evils], they imagined transporting me alone a hundred and sixty leagues further . A. de Lameth and Pusy will stay here, and Maubourg will be taken in two days to Glatz in Silesia, while I will go, I believe, to Neisse, [on the border, although it is still said only mysteriously]. My friend, whom his sister's correspondence puts him in a position to write to the Adjutant General of the King of Prussia, asks so earnestly for our reunion, that is to say the advantage of being locked up in two dungeons of the same fortress, which I still flatter myself with; unless the inexpressible harm that this separation does me has essentially entered into the calculations. I have hastily scribbled down my thoughts on this change, and recalled a few others in a note to La Colombe so that, after submitting it to you, he may take it to Mr. Pinkney and other cooperators in my deliverance, which can only be obtained by snatching it from the powers. I hope, my dear princess, that you will approve of my proposals. [Although the haste of my departure does not allow me to dwell here on the objects which you will find there, there is one which, in spite of my reluctance to worry you, I cannot entrust entirely to anyone but you. Maubourg and I had sinister suspicions about the illness I brought to Wezel. I do not accuse the Prussian government of it; but it would be no less dangerous to complain of it; and nevertheless, in ignorance of my future course, as the material proofs would not be recorded, when after my death the little that would remain of me would still denounce the tyranny, I must file in this letter the new indictment which I bequeath to him.
It was at the moment when the death of M. du C. delivered me to the most violent movements of tenderness and terror], when new anxieties for my wife and my children, for my aunt, tore my soul; where the furies of the Jacobins excite more than ever pain and fears without limit like their villainy; that further removed from the places, from the news, from the communications that interest me, torn from the friend who shares and softens all my sorrows, I am going to see the completion of my solitude and the complete closure of my tomb. I have sworn to myself not to compromise my friends in France by a line from my hand; but that they may one day assure the people whom you know to be so dear to me, that at this moment my heart addressed to them the most tender homage of all that it feels for them. Farewell then, my dear wife, my children, my aunt, you too, my excellent friend, more excellent than ever in misfortune, whom I will cherish to my last breath. [A thousand compliments to Mr. Pinkney, who I hope received my last letter, to Mrs. Church, to my dear friend Lally, whom I embrace with all my heart.]
Note affixed to the letter above, February 23, 1794 (English translation):
The friends of M. de La Fayette having to fear all kinds of danger for him, and the letter transcribed above being a kind of testament, a last farewell to all he loves, it has been judged that it was too important to leave it out of the hands to which it was addressed, and it was decided that a copy would be made, which would be certified as matching the original read by Madame d'Hénin, who received the said original, by M. de La Tour, who wrote the present copy, and by other undersigned friends, who declare that they know perfectly the handwriting of M. de La Fayette and certify that they have seen the original and the copy , and attest, on their honor, the perfect conformity of one and the other.
La Fayette to Monsieur Mazzei, January 3, 1794 (English original):
Dear Mazzei, whereas it happens in my course of dungeons, that I am most likely to die your neighbour, I match an opportunity to introduce to you a friend, and referring myself to that lie bas to say, can only add that very affectionately I am yours.
Jules Thomas, Correspondance Inédite de La Fayette, Lettres de Prison, Lettres d’Exile (1793-1801), C. Delagrave, 1903, p. 254-262.
These were the main letter La Fayette wrote around this time (and that survived). We can clearly read his desperation, his fear but also his hope. La Fayette knew that he had friends in Poland and that being so close to the polish border might enable him to escape - plans that were not realized until after his arrival in Olmütz. But La Fayette had friends in Poland and he therefor had hope. Even if he was to die in an Austrian or Prussian prison, he still hoped that his letters and farewells would reach his loved ones.
He did not write directly to Adrienne or his children, partly he could not reach them, Adrienne was herself in prison and I am unsure if he knew the exact whereabouts of all of his children at the time. Partly because he feared that letters from him would aggravate Adrienne’s situation - one or the charges against her was more or less being his wife and La Fayette thought it therefor wise to not have any direct contact with her.
The letters are all from a wonderful book, called Correspondance Inédite de La Fayette, Lettres de Prison, Lettres d’Exile (1793-1801). I had wanted to read this book for a very long time and was overjoyed when I finally was able to find it!
I hope I could answer your question and I hope that you have/had an awesome day!
