Correspondance inédite de La Fayette : lettres de prison, lettres d'exil (1793-1801)

288 CORRESPONDANCE DE LA FAYETTE

We are in a phaeton; nobody with me but the line corporal, who, by the bye, is afflicted with a rupture, and a clumsy driver who sometimes, as to-day, is left at home, and the corporal drives in the phaeton. We go different roads, sometimes through bye roads, and do not always return the same way we came. But we always go to an half german mile (one league), and sometimes to a whole mile (two leagues) from town. But suppose it half a mile, you must overtake us on horseback, as we generally drive slowly. Have a trusty man with you, stop the driver. I engage to work to frighten the little cowardy corporal with his own sword, that I will not have the least difficulty to jump on a led horse of your man who can ride to some distance behind me. If the driver is not there, so much the better; if he is, he will do nothing but save himself.

Depend upon it, my dear sir, as you may choose your time and place, and have one or two sets of horses on the road, that nobody will think, dare or wish to hinder us, and before the slow german general knows what we did or what to do, we shall be safe. My friends La Tour-Maubourg and Pusy think it beyond doubt. Itis for this that I have asked to ride, and they have not asked it for themselves, in order that I may go out every other day. The bolder it seems, the more unexpected it is, the better it shall succeed; and we may say with the poet that

Presence of mind and courage in distress Are more than armies to procure success.

Take care not to mistake Beurnonville or Bancal for me. They ride on the day I do not, the one at 1 1/2, the other at 4. I wish you may have pock-