Margaret Truman by The President's House: 1800 to the Present : The Secrets;History of the World's Most Famous Home

Author:The President's House: 1800 to the Present : The Secrets;History of the World's Most Famous Home
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: DE, Fiction, Architects, Structures, Public, NJ, Photographers, Commercial & Industrial, NY, D.C.) - History, State & Local, MD, Buildings, Presidents - United States, United States, Etc, Presidents - United States - History, Architecture, Middle Atlantic (DC, History, Washington (D.C.), Presidents & Heads of State, Presidents, Washington (D.C.) - Buildings, General, Artists, Biography & Autobiography, PA), White House (Washington, Juvenile Literature, Biography
ISBN: 9780345472489
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2005-01-25T06:00:00+00:00

V

If there had been a Lincoln Bedroom back in 1824, one of its denizens definitely would have been the Marquis de Lafayette. President James Monroe had invited the Revolutionary War hero to cross the Atlantic to help the country celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution.

Lafayette spent the year after his arrival traveling through all twenty-four states and being fêted at dinners and balls in almost every town he passed through. By the time the old warrior returned to Washington in the summer of 1825, James Monroe was no longer in office. The marquis, dressed in his Continental Army uniform, was greeted at the White House by President John Quincy Adams, and invited to stay for as long as he pleased.

First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams was appalled. It meant she had to turn most of her family out of their beds to accommodate Lafayette and his party. She also had to find room for the staggering amount of luggage they brought with them, much of it gifts collected on their grand tour. One item that added to Louisa’s consternation was a live alligator. The creature and the rest of the booty were stored in the East Room while the marquis enjoyed the final phase of his triumphal tour.

On September 6, 1825, Lafayette’s sixty-eighth birthday, President Adams gave a farewell dinner to the nation’s guest in the State Dining Room. The table was as splendid as the White House steward could make it. The speeches rang with patriotic fervor. At one point, the two men were so carried away, they burst into tears and embraced. The president summed up the meaning of the grand occasion in his closing words:

“We shall always look upon you as belonging to us. . . . You are ours . . . by that tie of love, stronger than death, which has linked your name for the endless ages of time with the name of Washington.”

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