Slight and remote as these connections were, who can say that they did not unconsciously influence a spirit inclined toward liberty? The conversation of the Duke of Gloucester seemed to bring America from a great distance to within actual reach of Lafayette's hand. He hung upon every word. The prince may not have been altogether prudent in his remarks. It was an after-dinner conversation and in that day the English drank hard. Even so, the duke's indiscretions made the talk more interesting and, to Lafayette, more convincing. Every word spoken strengthened the belief that these American Colonists were brave men, well within their rights, fighting for a principle which would make the world better and happier. He realized with a thrill that men three [Pg 34]thousand miles away were not content with mere words, but were risking their lives at that very moment for the theories which philosophers had been preaching for a thousand years; the same theories that orators in six hundred Paris cafés had lately begun to declaim. Afterward he got permission to ask some of the questions with which his brain teemed; but long before the candles of that feast had burned down in their sockets his great resolution was made to "go to America and offer his services to a people struggling to be free." From that time on he could think of little else; but, as so often happens with quick and generous resolutions, the more he thought about it the more difficult it seemed to carry out. He had exulted at first that he was his own master with a fortune to dispose of as he chose. Then he remembered his wife and her family. He knew he could count upon her loyalty; but he was equally certain that he would meet determined opposition from the Duc d'Ayen and all his powerful connection, who had done their worldly best to make him a member of a prince's household. And disapproval of "the family" in France was not to be lightly regarded. No serious step could be undertaken by young people without their elders feeling it their solemn duty to give advice. Very likely the king and his ministers would also have something to say. "However," he wrote in his _Memoirs_, "I had confidence in myself, and dared adopt as device for my coat of arms the words _Cur non?_ that they might serve me on occasion for encouragement, or by way of answer."