He did not even know whether Rochefort itself was occupied or not. He hoped it was not, for he intended to make his way up through the Netherlands to England, and so to America. At the very gates of Rochefort a great fire burning warned him of an outpost, and he knew that the place was held. Nevertheless, he hoped against hope to pass through free. The commander of that post, a French noble who had gone over to the enemy, gave him so much liberty as to permit him to ride on with his companions toward Namur, or, rather, to send a messenger on before him to obtain the passports. But Lafayette was already recognized and known. In Namur the Austrian commander, Motielle, was beside himself with joy on hearing the name. He shouted and repeated to himself aloud, “Lafayette! Lafayette!” as though he held in his power not the last sad exile from a soil too violently in love with freedom, but the most active of the new revolutionaries themselves; for the name of Lafayette, execrated by all the Nationalists as that of a traitor in league with the king, was also execrated throughout the privileged classes of Europe as that of a rebel who had destroyed the majesty of the French crown. Between these opposing camps he had no body of friends. It must ever be so with principle. It was to be so with Robespierre himself at last. The governor of Namur held him and sold him, a valuable prey, and he passed into the prisons of the allies. * * * * * The grounds which history possesses upon which to base its conception of Lafayette and therefore of this crucial refusal he made in the very balance of the monarchy’s destiny differ from those which suffice for most characters, and especially for most military characters, because two divergent traditions have arisen with regard to him: the one American, the other of Europe. Of these two traditions, the one which sprang in the United States of America concerns a young, enthusiastic man, so young as to be almost a boy, but reinforced by an independent position, a brilliant fortune, and very solid talents, who voluntarily led the rally of young Frenchmen in support of the new republic and who differed for the better in American eyes from most of his contemporaries in the point that he did sincerely and from the bottom of his soul admire those main principles upon which the Revolution in America proceeded.