A plan drawn up by him at the request of M. de Vergennes has been called the starting-point of the events that led to the surrender of Cornwallis, because without French help that event could not have occurred. In this view of the case, the work he did in Paris and at Versailles was his greatest contribution to the cause of American independence. Another general might easily have done all that he did in the way of winning battles on American soil, but no other man in France had his enthusiasm and his knowledge, or the persistence to fill men's ears and minds and hearts with thoughts of America as he did. [Pg 128]After it had been decided to send over another military force it was natural for him to hope that he might be given command of it, though nobody knew better than he that his rank did not entitle him to the honor since he was only a colonel in France, even if he did hold the commission of a major-general in the United States. Having become by this time really intimate with M. de Vergennes, he gave another proof of the sweet reasonableness of his disposition by frankly presenting the whole matter in writing to him. He worked out in detail two "suppositions," the first assuming that he was to be given command of the expedition, the second that he was not, stating in each case what he thought ought to be done. Quite frankly he announced his preference for the first supposition, but quite simply and unmistakably he made it plain that he would work just as earnestly for the success of the undertaking in one case as in the other. It was the second of these plans that the Ministry preferred and adopted practically as he prepared it. After this had been decided he found himself, early one spring day in 1780, standing before Louis XVI, in his American uniform, taking his leave. He was to go ahead of the expedition and announce its coming; to work up a welcome for it, if he found lingering traces of distrust; and to resume command of his American division and do all he could to secure effective co-operation; in short, to take up his work of liaison officer again on a scale greater than before. [Pg 129]XV HELP--AND DISAPPOINTMENT