The Frenchman was not so reserved as the American. His ardent spirit shows in the letter he wrote his commander. “Adieu, my dear general,” he said. “I know your heart so well that I am sure that no distance can alter your attachment to me. With the same candor I assure you that my love, my respect, my gratitude for you are above expression; that, at the moment of leaving you, I feel more than ever the struggle of those friendly ties that forever bind me to you, and that I anticipate the pleasure, the most wished-for pleasure, to be again with you, and, by my zeal and services, to gratify the feelings of my respect and affection.” On December 23, 1781, Lafayette sailed from Boston on the same frigate _Alliance_ that had carried him back to France the first time. He was to be received in his native land like a conquering hero. Already Vergennes, the Secretary of State of France, had written to him. “Our joy is very great here and throughout the nation,” said Vergennes, “and you may be assured that your name is held in veneration.... I have been following you, M. le Marquis, step by step, throughout your campaign in Virginia; and I should frequently have been anxious for your welfare if I had not been confident of your wisdom. It required a great deal of skill to maintain yourself, as you did, for so long a time, in spite of the disparity of your forces, before Lord Cornwallis, whose military talents are well known. It was you who brought him to the fatal ending, where, instead of his making you a prisoner of war, as he probably expected to do, you forced him to surrender.” He landed in France on January 17, 1782. If his former arrival had been a succession of triumphs, this one was doubly so. When he reached the house of the Duke de Noailles in Paris his wife was attending a fête at the Hôtel de Ville in honor of the birth of the Dauphin. As soon as his arrival became known the Queen took Madame de Lafayette in her own carriage and went with her to welcome the Marquis. Louis XVI. announced that he had promoted Lafayette to the high rank of “Maréchal de camp,” and wrote to him, through his minister of war, “The King, having been informed, sir, of the military skill of which you have given repeated proof in the command of the various army corps entrusted to you in America, of the wisdom and prudence which have marked the services that you have performed in the interest of the United States, and of the confidence which you have won from General Washington, his Majesty has charged me to announce to you that the commendations which you most fully deserve have attracted his notice, and that your conduct and your success have given him, sir, the most favorable opinion of you, such as you might wish him to have, and upon which you may rely for his future good-will.”