On September 12 the French minister, the Chevalier de La Luzerne, and his highly observant secretary, François Barbé-Marbois, met with Washington at Fishkill, New York. Barbé-Marbois jotted down valuable vignettes of an unbuttoned Washington, who personally squired them by boat to his headquarters and showed that he was adept at navigation. “The general held the tiller,” recalled Barbé-Marbois, “and during a little squall which required skill and practice proved to us that this work was no less known to him than are other bits of useful knowledge.”29 Greatly taken with Washington, the secretary found him becomingly modest, gracious, and urbane: “He is fifty years old, well built, rather thin. He carries himself freely and with a sort of military grace. He is masculine looking, without his features being less gentle on that account. I have never seen anyone who was more naturally and spontaneously polite.”30

Accustomed to imperious officers, Barbé-Marbois was charmed by Washington’s more democratic manner, which, contrary to the behavior of most generals, had grown more pronounced as the war progressed. The Frenchman noted Washington’s cordial relations with his aides: “I have seen him for some time in the midst of his staff and he has always appeared even-tempered, tranquil, and orderly in his occupations and serious in his conversation. He asks few questions, listens attentively, and answers in a low tone and with few words. He is serious in business.”31 In another sharp departure from European formality, Washington engaged in sports with subordinates and “sometimes throws and catches a ball for whole hours with his aides-de-camp.”32 Aware of the impression he made, Washington knew that he needed to exhibit sterling republican simplicity to the French as proof of American virtue. “It was not my intention to depart from that plain and simple manner of living which accords with the real interest and policy of men struggling under every difficulty for the attainment of the most inestimable blessing of life—Liberty,” Washington wrote to Lafayette. “The Chevalier was polite enough to approve my principle and condescended to appear pleased with our spartan living.”33

With his flair for political stagecraft, Washington set up his dining marquee—an oval tent with a dark green ceiling—on the Hudson shore, so close to the river that the tide periodically tugged at pins holding the tent erect. Ever the attentive host, he had musicians play a medley of French and American martial tunes. Barbé-Marbois saw that Washington displayed quiet dignity in dealing with people and in social settings allowed himself a “restricted gaiety.”34 “He is reverent without bigotry and abhors swearing, which he punishes with the greatest severity,” he reported.35 At meals the self-effacing Washington allowed his young aides to propose toasts. “All the generals and the higher officers were there,” Barbé-Marbois remembered. “It was interesting to see this meeting of these warriors, each of them a patriot renowned for some exploit.”36 To add extra luster to the toasts, Washington fired cannon to celebrate the health of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

At one point Washington asked Barbé-Marbois if he had seen Lafayette in France, and the secretary answered in the affirmative, saying Lafayette had spoken of Washington with the “tenderest veneration.” Barbé-Marbois recounted how Lafayette’s American exploits had elicited praise from the king. “Washington blushed like a fond father whose child is being praised,” Barbé-Marbois wrote in his diary. “Tears fell from his eyes, he clasped my hand, and could hardly utter the words: ‘I do not know a nobler, finer soul, and I love him as my own son.’ ”37 It was yet another extraordinary proof of the powerful feelings surging beneath the seemingly placid surface of the commander in chief.

Two weeks later Washington wrote a voluminous letter to Lafayette in which this outwardly stolid man allowed sentimental emotions to gush freely to the surface. His “first impressions of esteem and attachment” for Lafayette, he said, had ripened into “perfect love and gratitude.” Politely declining Lafayette’s invitation to visit France, he noted that he was unacquainted with French, was too old to learn it, and would seem “extremely awkward, insipid, and uncouth, . . . especially with the Ladies,” if he spoke through interpreters.38 On the other hand, he pressed Lafayette and his wife to visit Mount Vernon after the war and see “my rural cottage, where homely fare and a cordial reception shall be substituted for delicacies and costly living.” 39 Exactly how Washington transformed a slave plantation into a quaint “rural cottage” remains a mystery.

In the letter, Washington presented a lighthearted but vivid picture of his own ardent nature as a young man, as if Lafayette brought out some buried romanticism in him. Washington asked Lafayette to tell the marchioness

that I have a heart susceptible of the tenderest passion and that it is already so strongly impressed with the most favorable ideas of her that she must be cautious of putting love’s torch to it, as you must be in fanning the flame. But, here again, methinks I hear you say, I am not apprehensive of danger. My wife is young, you are growing old, and the Atlantic is between you. All this is true, but know, my good friend, that no distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder, and that the wonders of former ages may be revived in this.40

He ended on a somber note: “But, alas! will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young woman from real inclination has preferred an old man.”41 Clearly Washington, forty-seven, was lapsing into the wistful mood of an older man nostalgic for his passionate youth. Whether he was thinking of Martha Washington or Sally Fairfax when he wrote this confessional letter, we do not know. At the end, as if amazed at how he had rambled on, he remarked, “When I look back to the length of this letter, I am so much astonished and frightened at it myself that I have not the courage to give it a careful reading for the purpose of correction.”42

Though French diplomats were impressed with Washington, he remained in the dark about the plans of the Count d’Estaing. He heard stray rumors about his fleet’s return to northern waters and stationed Major Henry Lee on the New Jersey shore to greet it, but he could not verify the information. The day after the state dinner with the French, Washington wrote to d’Estaing that the British had beefed up their strength in New York to fifteen thousand men. Reviving his favorite fantasy, he wondered aloud whether the count planned to attack New York. Reduced to an almost servile status, Washington had to beg for scraps of information about French plans. “I have taken the liberty to throw out these hints for your Excellency’s information,” Washington wrote gingerly, “and permit me to entreat that you will favor me as soon as possible with an account of your Excellency’s intentions.” 43 Washington yearned to hurl the weight of his army against the British in New York or Rhode Island, and he seeded New York City with spies to ascertain the strength of the British garrison—all to no avail, as he felt increasingly powerless vis-à-vis his French allies.

In late September Washington learned that d’Estaing’s fleet had appeared off the Georgia coast. When another month passed without information, Washington vented his frustration to Jacky Custis, complaining of his fickle French ally that “we begin to fear that some great convulsion in the earth has caused a chasm between this and that state that cannot be passed.”44 Then Washington learned that d’Estaing and General Benjamin Lincoln had launched a disastrous foray to recapture Savannah. They had stormed British fortifications and suffered more than eight hundred American and French casualties, leaving behind a “plain strewed with mangled bodies.”45 Amid the general carnage, d’Estaing suffered wounds in the arm and leg before retreating with his fleet to the West Indies. As far as Washington was concerned, this unfortunate performance rounded out a misbegotten year of botched battles, missed chances, and enforced idleness.