It was at a dinner, one of the lucky dinners in Lafayette's career, [Pg 71]that the two met for the first time. The company was a large one, made up of the most distinguished men in Philadelphia; but from the moment Washington entered the room Lafayette was sure he was the greatest in the company. "The majesty of his countenance and his figure made it impossible not to recognize him," while his manners seemed to Lafayette as affable and kindly as they were dignified. Washington on his part observed the slim young Frenchman throughout the evening, and was also favorably impressed. Before the party broke up he drew him aside for a short conversation and invited him to become a member of his military family, saying with a smile that he could not offer the luxuries of a court or even the conveniences to which Lafayette had been accustomed, but that he was now an American soldier and would of course accommodate himself to the privations of a republican camp. Pleased and elated as a boy, Lafayette accepted, sent his horses and luggage to camp, and took up his residence at Washington's headquarters. "Thus simply," he wrote in his _Memoirs_, "came about the union of two friends whose attachment and confidence were cemented by the greatest of interests." In truth this sudden flowering of friendship between the middle-aged Washington, who appeared so cool, though in fact he had an ardent nature, and the enthusiastic Frenchman twenty-five years his junior, is one of the pleasantest glimpses we have into the kindly human heart of each. It took neither of them one instant to recognize the worth of the other, and the mutual regard thus established lasted as long as life itself. [Pg 72]IX PROVING HIMSELF A SOLDIER The American army as Lafayette first saw it must have seemed a strange body of men to eyes accustomed to holiday parades in Paris. The memory of it remained with him years afterward when he wrote that it consisted of "about eleven thousand men, rather poorly armed, and much worse clad." There was a great variety in the clothing, some unmistakable nakedness, and the best garments were only loose hunting-shirts of gray linen, of a cut with which he had already become familiar in Carolina. The soldiers were drawn up in two lines, the smaller ones in front, "but with this exception there was no distinction made as to size." It was while reviewing these troops that Washington said, "it is somewhat embarrassing to us to show ourselves to an officer who has just come from the army of France," to which Lafayette made the answer that won the hearts of all, "I am here to learn, not to teach." He speedily learned that in spite of their appearance and their way of marching and maneuvering, which seemed to him childishly simple, they were "fine soldiers led by zealous officers," in whom "bravery took the place of science."