The one anxiety during this happy journey had been caused by the condition of Madame Lafayette, who showed, now that the strain was removed, how very much the prison months had cost her. She did her best to respond to the demands made upon her strength by the friendliness of the crowds; but it was evident that in her state of exhaustion a voyage to America was not to be thought of. From Hamburg, therefore, the Lafayettes went to the villa of Madame Tessé on the shores of Lake Ploën in Holstein. Here they remained several weeks in happy reunion with relatives and close friends; and it was here a few months later that Anastasie, Lafayette's elder daughter, was married to a younger brother of Latour de Maubourg, to the joy of every one, though to the mock consternation of the lively, white-haired Countess of Tessé, who declared that these young people, ruined by the Revolution, were setting up housekeeping in a state of poverty and innocence unequaled since the days of Adam and Eve. The Lafayettes and the Maubourgs took together a large castle at [Pg 249]Lhemkulen, not far from Madame de Tessé, where Lafayette settled himself to wait until he should be allowed to return to France. It was here that George rejoined his family. He had been a child when his father saw him last; he returned a man, older than Lafayette had been when he set out for America. Washington had been very kind to him, but his years in America had not been happy. Probably he felt instinctively the constraint in regard to him. Washington had been much distressed by Lafayette's misfortune and had taken every official step possible to secure his release. It was through the good offices of the American minister at London that Lafayette had learned that his wife and children still lived. Washington had sent Madame Lafayette not only sympathetic words, but a check for one thousand dollars, in the hope that it might relieve some of her pressing necessities. He even wrote the Austrian emperor a personal letter in Lafayette's behalf. When he heard that George was to be sent him he "desired to serve the father of this young man, and to become his best friend," but he did not find the godfatherly duty entirely easy. It threatened to conflict with his greater duty as father of his country, strange as it seems that kindness to one innocent, unhappy boy could have that effect. Washington was President of the United States at the time and it behooved the young nation to be very circumspect. Diplomacy is a strange game of many rules and pitfalls; and it might prove embarrassing and compromising to have as member of his family the son of a man who was looked upon by [Pg 250]most of the governments of Europe as an arch criminal.