If, as certain French historians say, Lafayette and Napoleon were dictators in turn, Lafayette's task was in a way the harder of the two; for Napoleon's turn came after the fury had spent itself and men were beginning to recover, sobered by their own excesses. It was in the mounting delirium of their fever that Lafayette's middle course brought upon him first distrust, then enmity from both sides. If an Austrian prison had not kept him from destruction he must have perished during the Revolution, for he was never swerved by fear of personal danger. One of his eulogists asserts that he was "too noble to be shrewd." Another says that he judged men by his own feelings and was "misled by illusions honorable to himself." After his experience in America he undoubtedly expected to play a great part in the uprising in France, and, not realizing the strength of selfishness and passion, helped to let loose forces too powerful to control. One of his critics has asserted that he never made a wise or a correct decision; but critics and eulogists alike agree that he was upright and brave. They are justified in saying he was vain. His vanity took the form of believing himself right. He was not self-seeking, and the lack of that quality caused him to be regarded with puzzled surprise by men who could not understand his willingness to step aside in favor of some one else, when he thought the cause demanded it. "It seemed so foolish," said Madame de Staël [Pg 295]in her sympathetic portrait, "to prefer one's country to oneself... to look upon the human race, not as cards to be played for one's own profit, but as an object of sacred devotion." Chateaubriand said that forty years had to pass after Lafayette's death before people were really convinced that he had been an idealist and not a fool. The fact was brought home to them, little by little, as records scattered to the four winds during the Revolution gradually saw the light of print; here a public document, there a private letter, there again a bit of personal reminiscence. Fitting together like a puzzle, they showed at last how one single idea had inspired all Lafayette's acts, even when they seemed most erratic. "Fortunately for him," says one of his French biographers, "it was the idea of the century--political liberty." In his lifetime he arranged his papers for publication and dictated occasional bits of comment; but these were only fragmentary, as many of his papers were lost. Besides, it was a task for which he had no great zest. He said it seemed ungracious to accuse men of persecuting him who afterward died for the very principles he upheld. He was sure history would accord to each his just deserts. Madame de Staël said that his belief in the final triumph of liberty was as strong as the belief of a pious man in a future life. He said himself that liberty was to him a love, a religion, a "geometric certainty."