During this period of suspense and conjecture, Washington was for several days in Philadelphia consulting on public measures with the committees and members of Congress. Here he first met Lafayette. This young nobleman, whose name has since become so dear to every American heart, was born at Auvergne, in France, on the 6th of September, 1757. His family was of ancient date and of the highest rank among the French nobility. He was left an orphan at an early age, heir to an immense estate, and exposed to all the temptations of "the gayest and most luxurious city on earth at the period of its greatest corruption. He escaped unhurt." Having completed his college education, he married at the age of sixteen the daughter of the Duke D'Ayen, of the family of Noailles. She was younger than himself and was always "the encourager of his virtues, and the heroic partner of his sufferings, his great name, and his honorable grave." [3] In the summer of 1776 (says Mr. Everett), and just after the American declaration of independence, Lafayette was stationed at Metz, a garrisoned town on the road from Paris to the German frontier with the regiment to which he was attached as a captain of dragoons, not then nineteen years of age. The Duke of Gloucester, the brother of the King of England happened to be on a visit to Metz, and a dinner was given to him by the commandant of the garrison. Lafayette was invited with other officers to the entertainment. Dispatches had just been received by the duke from England relating to American affairs--the resistance of the Colonists, and the strong measures adopted by the ministers to crush the rebellion. Among the details stated by the Duke of Gloucester was the extraordinary fact that these remote, scattered, and unprotected settlers of the wilderness had solemnly declared themselves an independent people. That word decided the fortunes of the enthusiastic listener, and not more distinctly was the great declaration a charter of political liberty to the rising States, than it was a commission to their youthful champion to devote his life to the same cause. The details which he heard were new to him. The American contest was known to him before but as a rebellion--a tumultuary affair in a remote transatlantic colony. He now, with a promptness of perception which, even at this distance of time, strikes us as little less than miraculous, addressed a multitude of inquiries to the Duke of Gloucester on the subject of the contest. His imagination was kindled at the idea of a civilized people struggling for political liberty. His heart was warmed with the possibility of drawing his sword in a good cause. Before he left the table his course was mentally resolved on, and the brother of the King of England (unconsciously, no doubt) had the singular fortune to enlist, from the French court and the French army, this gallant and fortunate champion in the then unpromising cause of the colonial Congress.