Anastasie recorded a conversation between the assistant governor of Olmütz and her parents during their imprisonment. It’s a fairly long excerpt so I’ve put it under the cut, but it gives a good idea of how the Lafayettes acted as a team - their courage, defiance, humour and mutual support. Highlights include Gilbert telling the assistant governor he, Lafayette, is NOT a marquis, copious shade thrown on the Austrian government, and his affirmation that if anyone thinks they can induce Adrienne to lie then they’re even more idiotic than the Austrian court.
Mme de La Fayette: "So I am to understand that the government will not permit my letters to be dispatched because of certain details contained in them?"
La Fayette: "This base and cowardly refusal of your government to admit the infamy of its conduct is the last straw, Monsieur."
The Assistant-Governor: "I have too much feeling not to be aware of what is owing to your situation ... but there are expressions in this letter which cannot be permitted."
La Fayette: "There is nothing in it which should anger you, Monsieur. The expressions are not aimed at you . . . nor at your senior officers, who, like you, are merely passive instruments."
Mme de La Fayette: "I am extremely sorry for your sake, Monsieur, that you should owe obedience to such people."
La Fayette: "I have never felt anything but pity for the officers and generals of the Austrian army. I reserve my contempt for their government. Consequently, it is to the government that I address the words which I now repeat to you: that the last straw is laid upon their infamy by this cowardly refusal to admit it."
(Mme Gilbert read the letter aloud, asking the Assistant-Governor, after each of the passages objected to, whether in fact the words complained of were not true.)
The Assistant-Governor: "As to the complaint about walking-exercise, there is nowhere for you to walk. Even in the Officers' Quarters there is a smell."
La Fayette: "That is all the same to me. All I am concerned to point out is that not one single officer, from the Major down and he is about the most stinking creature whom they could have found to fill the position he occupies not a single officer, I repeat, but holds his nose when he comes in here."
Mme de La Fayette: "What, then, must I write or not write? I beg Monsieur le Commandant to tell me precisely what it is to which his superiors take exception in my letters ... Why does he not come in person to see me? Is it that he is forbidden to do so?"
The Assistant-Governor: "It is true, Madame, that he is so forbidden."
La Fayette: "By which, Monsieur, you may see the force of habit ...When you came into this room you said that bad weather was the reason."
(The Assistant-Governor stammers out that the General is not to blame.)
La Fayette: "I am more than willing to believe that the General has no more part to play in these matters than my little girl here ... What I am saying is aimed at bigger game. What ought we to say? That the Court of Vienna is a humane and freedom-loving government? That I love it with all my heart; that it is composed of the most charming gentlemen to be found anywhere?"
The Assistant-Governor: "Certainly not! Clearly those are things you cannot say. Besides, in your situation... "
La Fayette: "My situation has nothing whatever to do with it, for I esteemed them no more highly before I came here."
Mme de La Fayette: "They allowed a letter to go through in which I announced the first symptoms of my illness, but stopped the one in which I described the progress of my cure. My friends will be in a most terrible state of anxiety. If I die here they will learn of my death even before they have heard in full about my sickness."
The Assistant-Governor: "That, Madame, would be most regrettable. But it is perfectly possible for you to speak of your health without saying things to which the authorities object."
La Fayette: "It is not your fault, Monsieur, if the infamous behaviour of your government is such that it is impossible to give a single detail without revealing its barbarity."
The Assistant-Governor: "But, Monsieur le Marquis..."
La Fayette: "I am not a marquis, but I am certainly being very badly treated."
The Assistant-Governor: "I am instructed only to inform you that certain statements have been found in your letters which are not true."
Mme de La Fayette: "You had already told me so in the passage, which I did not think very polite on your part."
La Fayette: "And I, Monsieur, in reply instruct you to tell the wretched little nobody in Vienna who has all along been saying these things that for all I care he can go to...Where he can go I cannot say in front of these ladies . . . But I expect you know the French compliment commonly employed in such cases."
The Assistant-Governor: "Yes, I know it very well. I have an excellent knowledge of French, and it is very disagreeable for me to have to hear such things."
La Fayette: "They are not aimed at you. You have been given a most ungrateful task. I need make no excuses to you. On the contrary, I am paying you a compliment by myself laying a charge on you. But I expressly request you to give my answer to him who should be answered."
Mme de La Fayette: "I demand to be allowed to write to somebody in Vienna, asking to be furnished with a model on which I can shape my letters."
La Fayette: "You are right. The Emperor or somebody else must be asked to let you know how he wishes you to write and what it is that he finds incorrect in your letters. No matter how shameless they may be, they cannot have the effrontery to refuse what you ask of them."
Mme de La Fayette: "As to the Emperor, I by no means wish to embarrass him, because I cannot help feeling grateful to him for allowing me to enter this place. It may cost me my life, but separation from Monsieur de La Fayette would be worse to me than death. I would very much rather write to Monsieur von Thugut. He received me as an enemy, though politely, and I am curious to have his reply."
The Assistant-Governor: "I do not know, Madame, what Monsieur le Commandant will have to say ... but I think you would do very much better to write to Monsieur le Baron von Thugut."
La Fayette: "Excellent! Then let us write to Monsieur von Thugut. There is nothing to be done but to make him the scapegoat in this affair."
(The Assistant-Governor pricks up his ears and begins to laugh.)
Mme de La Fayette: "Perhaps they are angry at my being here at all, because the necessity of having my signature before our expenses can be paid forces them to let me write at least a few lines. But since I am here, they are not going to find it easy to tear me away again ... No one is going to take me from this place except in company with Monsieur de La Fayette, unless they carry out my dead body; for I believe that this captivity (which has certainly shortened the life of my husband) has done great harm to my health. But of one thing they may be sure, and that is that nobody is going to make me write lies ... "
The Assistant-Governor: "I agree, Madame, that no one can ask that of you."
La Fayette: "It is true, Monsieur, that if anyone should flatter himself that he could do so, he would have to be even more idiotic than your Court."
Document drafted by Anastasie de La Fayette, Collection Fabius
