The Drillmaster of Valley Forge (5 page)

Benjamin Franklin. History has ascribed to the colorful Franklin the credit for recruiting Steuben, but the truth is that he did not give Steuben much encouragement.
(Library of Congress)

Caron de Beaumarchais. French playwright and advocate of the American cause. He befriended Steuben when the latter was in Paris, and introduced him to Deane and Franklin.
(Emmet Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

Their shared regard for the Prussian army drew Steuben and St. Germain together. It proved to be the vital connection, for it opened to Steuben avenues that would have been closed to him otherwise. When Steuben arrived in Paris in June 1777, St. Germain was still a man with much political clout. He was happy to see Steuben, and happier still to help him. Without hesitation, he granted the Prussian an audience, penned a glowing reference for him, and then introduced him to even more influential men: first the Comte de Vergennes, Louis's foreign minister, and then the famous—some might say infamous—businessman and playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.

Beaumarchais was the most ardent advocate of American independence then living in France; certainly he was the oddest. Just a couple of years younger than Steuben, Beaumarchais—whose irreverent play
The
Barber of Seville
brought him instant notoriety—was the founder of Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie, an export firm that secretly sold munitions to the American rebels with the clandestine blessing of the French crown. As a highly literate man, and a friend of Voltaire and other men of letters, he was a perfect match for Steuben; and since he was on friendly terms with Silas Deane, he was an invaluable professional contact. Steuben and Beaumarchais hit it off immediately. Before long, Steuben made his temporary residence at Beaumarchais's house on the Left Bank. The Baron now had three substantial allies: St. Germain, Vergennes, and Beaumarchais. How could the Americans refuse him?
¹⁴

Beaumarchais arranged for Steuben to meet the American commissioners at Franklin's Passy residence on June 25, 1777. Steuben had been in Paris for about two weeks when he strode that evening along the picturesque garden walk, between rows of elegant statuary, that led to the front door of the house at the Valentinois—unless he was ushered quickly and quietly into the partially hidden back entrance. The Americans were primed for the meeting by Beaumarchais's enthusiastic endorsements. Deane, a frequent visitor at Beaumarchais's house, had already met the Baron, albeit briefly. The three men made an odd group as they sat together in Franklin's salon. Steuben, now forty-six, was beginning to show signs of middle age, growing heavy in the face and the midriff, yet was still energetic, almost fidgety, resplendent in his new finery; Deane, the slave-owning Yankee aristocrat, was slim and serious, every inch the diplomat; and bespectacled Dr. Franklin, the oldest of the three by a quarter century, was dressed in the plain, almost peasant-like frock that had drawn so much comment at
court. They chatted for a while in French, though Deane was still halting and uncomfortable with the language.
¹⁵

Silas Deane. Although overshadowed by Benjamin Franklin as ambassador to the court of Louis XVI of France, Deane was primarily responsible for encouraging Steuben to journey to the United States. His enemies in Congress succeeded in securing his removal from France shortly thereafter.
(Library of Congress)

The Comte de Vergennes. Minister of foreign affairs under Louis XVI of France, Vergennes collaborated with Deane, Franklin, Beaumarchais, and the war minister St. Germain to get Steuben to America. At the end of the war, he refused to honor St. Germain's promise to find Steuben a place in the French army.
(Library of Congress)

Silas Deane took the lead. Unlike Franklin, who would have preferred not to act as talent scout for the Continental Army, Deane saw the task of feeding military experts into the American war machine as a vital part of his duties. He also took Beaumarchais seriously—again, unlike Franklin, who referred disparagingly to the womanizing, sometimes flippant Frenchman as “Monsieur Figaro.” Beaumarchais, in turn, set great store by Deane. “I have found a great difference between the honest deputy Deane, with whom I have negotiated, and the insidious politician [Arthur] Lee and the taciturn Dr. Franklin,” he lamented to Vergennes after Congress recalled Deane from his post in November 1777.
¹⁶

Deane conducted the interview with Steuben while Franklin sat by quietly. “I…could not bring the Doctor to pay the least attention to him, or to give the Baron any encouragement,” Deane later recounted. Deane knew what his Prussian guest wanted; he did not question Steuben's qualities and character, nor did he doubt for a moment that Steuben had a great deal to contribute to the Continental Army. But he still did not dare to promise Steuben a commission, let alone put him on the Continental Army payroll. Congress would not tolerate it.
Henry Laurens, president of Congress and no friend of Deane's, had already complained that Deane was incapable of “say[ing] nay to any Frenchman who called himself Count or Chevalier.”
¹⁷
Deane also knew that, regardless of Vergennes's and St. Germain's support, the French crown would do little or nothing to help Steuben without being pushed to do so.

The crafty Deane took another tack: he told Steuben
not
to go to America.

It was a ruse. Deane suspected that since government spies were everywhere, a private conversation at the Valentinois would be anything but private, and very soon Vergennes would know precisely what advice Deane had given to Steuben, word for word. Deane's hope was that his talk with Steuben would lead the cautious Vergennes to believe that the American rebels were on the verge of making peace with Britain, and therefore into pushing harder for a greater French commitment to Steuben and to the American cause.
¹⁸

Steuben, however, was not privy to Deane's subtle game. He was disappointed by the diplomat's counsel, but as yet undeterred. He was ready to run the risk of rejection in America. As soon as the esteemed commissioners could get him a berth aboard a westbound ship, he would be packed and ready to leave.

But then came the crushing blow. Steuben asked only for funds to cover his voyage to America. “Mr. Deane made no kind of difficulty,” the Baron noted. “But Doctor Franklin started a great many.” Franklin
refused even to pay Steuben's travel expenses, and his voice would be the deciding one. He tried to placate his guest, who was obviously taken aback by Franklin's inflexibility. Perhaps Congress, Franklin conceded, might see its way to reimburse Steuben with a grant of land deep in the American wilderness, but even this could not be guaranteed. Beyond that, Franklin could do nothing. He stated brusquely that “he was not empowered to make any [cash advances], & that he could not even enter into the least engagement with any Officer whatever.”

Steuben did not know, could not have known, the fetters that bound the hands of Deane and Franklin. He knew little of American politics or the scope of the commissioners' powers. To him, it seemed that he had been betrayed, or at least misled, and the offer was nothing short of insulting. It was not even an offer, really. To travel to America at his own expense, with no firm prospect awaiting him at the end of the journey? Why, anyone could do the very same thing, with or without military experience or recommendations from the chief ministers of the French crown. Anyone, that is, with the money to buy a passage overseas, and that Steuben did not have. Franklin's tone of voice, which Steuben found condescending—“he told me that with an Air & Manner to which I was then little accustomed”—repelled him. Infuriated, he ended the interview. Stomping out of the house, he mounted his horse and, with scarcely a look backward, rode back to Beaumarchais's residence on the Rue de Condé.
¹⁹

 

J
UST AS HE WAS PREPARING
to leave Paris for good, Steuben received welcome news: he was wanted in Karlsruhe, at the court of the Margrave of Baden.

The margrave had been as good as his word. A vacancy had opened in his army, and he was holding it for Steuben. Steuben would be a fool not to seize it. Employment with the margrave would be a substantial prize. Baden was not Prussia or Austria, but it was of respectable size, with a respectable budget. The margrave could offer a much more generous salary, and far greater prestige, than the prince of Hechingen
had. Steuben left Paris, but in leisure, confident that he had finally found a guaranteed position. The margrave knew him well; the Baron would not have to prove himself.

But Steuben never got that far, for what he found waiting for him at Karlsruhe was not an officer's commission, but a rumor—a horrible, vicious rumor. Someone at Hechingen had lodged a foul accusation against the former chamberlain: that while at Prince Josef's court, Friedrich von Steuben had “taken familiarities with young boys” in his charge. This was a serious allegation. In the self-consciously masculine society of the Prussian army, homosexuality was not an issue of grave concern, nor was it an absolute taboo. Prince Henry's more than professional interest in handsome young officers was a matter of public knowledge; the great Frederick himself was widely rumored to be homosexual, a notion that the king did little to discourage. In Europe in general, however, homosexuality was not acceptable, and even open-minded and progressive intellectuals such as Voltaire considered it to be a great moral failing. And pederasty, because it involved innocent youths, was doubly reprehensible.