Lafayette
Weekly Call
(Lafayette, Indiana) 11 Sep 1897
About Dr. Pauline Mariotte-Davies (1849-1930) - Madame Marlotte-Davies, Ph.D., long a much-loved figure at Purdue University and community circles, died at Petoskey Michigan in 1930 at the age of 81. Madame Davies was born in the Madelene Quarter in Paris and received her primary education in a private school from which, after a competitive examination, received a scholarship to the Ecole Normale Supirieure of Paris where she received her degree four years later from the University of France. Following the Franco-Prussian War she taught in a woman's college in England. Afterward she was for nine years Dean of Women in an Ohio college, teaching French and History. She also taught French and History at Milwaukee Downer College. In 1896 she joined the staff of Purdue University as professor of French and during her long connection with that institution also taught psychology and Spanish for several years. She retired in 1915. In 1896 France honored Madame Davies by making her Officer d'Academie. She was the founder of the Alliance Francaise in Indiana. Madame Davies was active in club work in the community, holding membership in the Monday Club, University Club, Association of University Women and the Twenty-Five Year Club at Purdue.
(From Daily Call, Monday, Sept. 6, 1897)
The
castle-like Lingle home on Lingle Heights is this afternoon the setting of a
most inspiring picture. The rare old paintings and tapestries in the
magnificent rooms look down upon a company of seventy-five daintily gowned
women who have assembled to do honor to a great man who, one hundred and forty
years ago today, first saw the light in far-away France, General Lafayette.
Three
years ago last April the patriotic women of the town collected their documents
of ancestry and banded themselves together as members of the great national
order of the Daughters of the American Revolution in the General de Lafayette
Chapter, and since they have met ten times each year to discuss historical
situations and to foster the spirit of patriotism.
Since
its organization the chapter has grown steadily in size and importance, until
now it has outstripped all rivals, even the older Caroline Scott Harrison
Chapter, must to the chagrin of the Indiana daughters. Just now the General de
Lafayette Chapter according to its dainty new gold and blue programs for 1897-’98,has
79 members. Two have died and five have been transferred and the chapter is
still growing. Those who have attended the meetings of other chapters consider
the programs presented in Lafayette the strongest.
At
2:30 this afternoon Miss Mary E. Bruce, regent of the chapter, called the
regular members and their guests to order, and in a graceful way, expressed the
pleasure of the Daughters in having so many of their friends with them, after
which she introduced the lecturer of the afternoon, Madame Pauline
Mariotte-Davies, Professor of French in Purdue University.
Madame
Davies has chosen for her subject: “The Career of General de Lafayette in
Europe,” and for two hours she held her hearers in the deepest attention and
enjoyment.
After
her admirable presentation of her theme, Miss Maude Ross added the charm of
music to that of artistic and aesthetic surroundings, and the intellectual
feast, while Weigle left no stone unturned in his efforts to gratify the sense
of taste and the appreciation of daintiness on the part of Mrs. Lingle’s
guests.
In
conversation before the lecture, Madame Davies said:
“While in Europe this summer, I received a letter from the ladies here, asking me to deliver before them a lecture upon General Lafayette. Being French, it would seem that I should find the subject an easy one, but in fact, it is exceedingly difficult to present any new points upon Lafayette in the city of Lafayette before the General de Lafayette Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, for I felt in touch with them; because if there is one thing of which I feel myself proud, it is that no blue blood ran into my veins and that I am truly a daughter of the French Revolution.
Lafayette In Europe
“So I determined to treat the study of Lafayette from another standpoint and to speak only of his
“I went first to the booksellers of the Lantin quarter, and I know them all, pretty nearly. There I supposed I should find everything, but I failed to discover much outside of memory. Only the books on his career in America were to be had. The few written concerning his work in France were out of print. From Hachette to Larousse and Dentu, I went, but with no result. Then I fell back on my old resources of the past, the quais, or the great stone dykes along the Seine. Colonies of booksellers have their stalls there, and the old books are usually in their stock. But those of Lafayette were not to be found.
Washington and the General
“So,
I was forced to turn to the National Library, the pride of France, and there I
found all.
“Unfortunately,
the French biographers lacked one ingredient in their judgment, the influence
of Washington upon Lafayette. They were bound to be partisan in their opinions,
and of course, although Lafayette’s Memoirs are fair and just, yet they could
not be taken as conclusive evidence, for they were written from his individual
standpoint. But using the influence of Washington as the thread of my study I
was able to understand many of his motives that did not seem clear to his
contemporaries.”
Later in the afternoon, in answer to a question concerning the correct spelling of the name “Lafayette,” Madame Davies said:
Correct Style of Name
“I
have seen the signature of Lafayette himself, in the collection of Felix
Drouin, and he wrote it as one word – Lafayette. Theirs and Louis Blanc also
wrote it without the capital F, but Lamartine writes it as two words and in
France at the present time it is written ‘LaFayette.’ Originally, whatever
change the General may have made through his dislike to aristocracy,
originally, the name must have been in two words – La Fayette. The street in Paris,
Rue La Fayette, is written as two words, the particle de, however, being
omitted.”
The impression made upon one by Madame Davies at all times is that, if she considers a thing worth doing, she throws her whole soul into it and leaves no part of the task unfinished or incomplete. She is as broad in her study of counter-influences and general motives as she is exact in her discrimination of shades of character and the minutiae of detail. Justice and fairness are the keynotes to her character, and they diffuse themselves through her lectures as well as her conversation. She impresses one as being saturated with her subject. With her the difficulty is not what to say, but what not to say. It seemed that she could talk about Lafayette for three days, as easily as three hours! Her English vocabulary is rich and full-and she chooses her words with all the care of a purist. Her style is conversational, rapid and clear, absorbed in her subject, she carries her hearers with her. She may well be called by her favorite expression, “a surgeon of character.” The trouble about many lectures is a lack of patience to get at the bottom of things. Historians must first be honest. Truth must not be sacrificed to rhetoric. Madame Davies, in the study of Lafayette, sets aside her private views and involuntary prejudices and deals with her subject as it appears under the searching X-rays of investigation and fairness.
American Influence on Lafayette
Madame
Davies began her lecture upon Lafayette this afternoon by saying that the
influence of Washington upon the great Frenchman was greater than anyone ever
felt or than Lafayette himself realized. It is the clue to his career in
France. While in point of time, his American campaign came first in point of importance
to Lafayette, the French liberty paused before all.
His
career in America acted as the forerunner of his career in France. It prepared
him for it. In the beginning he had the love of liberty and the love of France.
But the times were not ripe in his mother country for liberty to assert herself,
and in his love of principle, the great flood of his nature sought an outlet
and found it in America. He was a friend of all liberties, but naturally the
French liberties were a little dearer.
But when he succeeded in making the ministers of Louis XVI, with the exception of Necker, influence Louis in acknowledging the independence of the United States, he was happy, not simply, not most for the good service it might be for America, but rather for the precedent which it might be for French liberties. Louis XVI, vanquished by the insistency of his ministries, signed a treaty, by which France recognized the independence of America simply because of America’s declaration of separation from the mother country, England. Today international law is very different. A province must prove itself strong enough in a military way to be independent before the oaths of allegiance are considered severed.
Principle of Sovereignty
Lafayette,
glad for America that her independence had been recognized, rejoiced most in
the establishment of a principle which he felt would, later on, be of great use
to the French in the confirmation of their liberties. Lafayette, speaking of
the act of recognition, said: “This is a principle of sovereignty which France shall
not forget.” What France did was done from the insistency of her lovers of
liberty, Lafayette in particular.
At
first his career in America made Lafayette very popular in France, but the
influence of Washington upon his character made him strictly nonpartisan, and
this could not be comprehended by the French. Lafayette was a republican, but
Washington’s conservatism made him moderate in all things, and he believed that
a pure republican government was too sudden a change for France. The impetuous
French people and partisans could not understand this spirit in Lafayette and
cruelly misinterpreted it. Mirabeau, after Louis XVI, had bought him, because of
his great fear of the popularity of Lafayette, warned the queen in his private
conversations with her to look out for the republican Lafayette. M. de Bonille,
Lafayette’s first cousin and the greatest friend of the royal family, when he prepared
their flight from the Tuilleries, told them to be on their guard of Lafayette.
Robespierre and Danton thought him a lukewarm friend of the revolution and
Murat considered a traitor. Even his own national guard finally lost confidence
in him because he was not decided enough in his actions. This again may be
traced to the influence of Washington which ever prevented him from being an
extremist, prevented him from going to full force of the republic.
Though in his lifetime he was misunderstood by the French, by his enemies and even his own relations, h e was regarded by all, with the exception of Marat, perhaps, as the purest and most honest man France ever had.
His Relation to France
Madame
Davies spoke at Length of his relation to the nation before the fall of the
Bastile, of him as the General of the Parisian National Guard, the critical episode
of the coming of the mob in Versailles, his opposition to the destruction of
the dungeon, and of Vincennes, which started the opposition against him. His
attitude toward the flight of the king caused bitter feeling. He was one of the
guards to keep the king from running away, and it was asserted that he helped
him escape, but, later, it was proved that he had no part in it. She spoke of
his opposition to the death of the king, his retirement from the generalship of
the Guard Nationale, his misunderstanding with the convention, which accused
him of plotting with the allies while at the frontier; his exile, his suffering
in the Austrian and German prisons, his manly bearing, his ever trusting in his
ideal of the republic, his relation to Napoleon, and his relation to the
revolution of 1830. In reality, he took part in three great revolutions, the
American Revolution, French of 1789, and that of 1830. The Madame discussed his
character, his death and the death of his wife, his funeral and the honors paid
him by both nations. France and America – closing with the inspiring words:
“As Napoleon said, ‘All men have modified their political creed. Lafayette alone has retained intact he purity of his ideal.’”
A Valuable Address
The
first meeting of the General de Lafayette Chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution for the current year was held yesterday in the home of Mrs.
Frances E. Lingle.
The
chapter has decided to make the sessions of September 6 and June 6 open
meetings, to which each active member is permitted to invite one guest. A large
and fashionable company was assembled on this occasion.
If
revolutions must occur it is infinitely better that they should transpire a
century or two in the past. They muss things up so sadly while they are going
on. It is much more convenient to be a granddaughter of a real patriot than to
be a daughter in a material sense. The sentiment of loyalty is all here, rather
increased than diminished, and there is none of the nasty smell of gunpowder or
the troublesome dust of crashing walls.
It
is far more delightful to sit at the feet of those who can proudly declare
themselves the daughters of the revolutions that have been than to plod the
weary way of mobs or even of embattled farmers.
The
story of the French Revolution as it came from the lips of Madame Davies
yesterday in the parlors of the Lingle mansion was inspiring. The chatter of
the drum and the hoarse eries of “Blood or Bread” were mellowed by the distance
of time.
Madame
Davies boasts her descent from those who made France free; and we observed that
she emulated the example of Lafayette in greeting, with friendly hand, those
who are able, in equal directness to assert the Orleans strain.
The
Daughters of the American Revolution were gathered where no especial flight of
fancy was required to fill the picture with appropriate background. One might
readily imagine the view beyond the window of a scene in France. The panorama
of field and hill and rive is not unlike.
Nearer
at hand, the library, with its Egyptian furnishings, recalls the 40 centuries
which nerved French arms to deeds of valor; while from these wall looks down
the portrait of one fairer than any Queen of France.
The event was interesting in many ways. The lesson of the hour was Moderation, the keynote to enduring civilization. Daughters of those revolutionists who once moved to the measure of passion in revolt at tyranny nodded approval to the doctrine of high ideals steadily maintained in spite of injustice.
Leaders are Often Misunderstood
It
is the fate of most leaders to be misunderstood. Madame Davies found occasion
on the birthday of her hero to place a laurel on the tomb of him to whom
history alone can accord full meed of honor. That is the destiny of the man
whose pathway lies between contending factions. He never personally realizes
the happiness that comes of revolution. He labors for the ages.
While
Madame Davies differs with many Americans in her conclusions regarding the
character of Lafayette, her opinions are based upon careful studies and will be
gladly accepted by those of us who revere his memory for what he did to aid
American independence.
The
essay was a study in psychology. The influence of Washington upon the plastic
nature of the young French patriot was made to appear of supreme importance.
Lafayette’s career in the two French revolutions was determined by the spirit
of moderation inculcated by the grim American.
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