As far as books were concerned, the Latin masters--Cæsar, Sallust, Virgil, Terence, Cicero--were carefully studied. The boys were obliged to translate from Latin into French and from French into Latin. Occasionally this training proved useful. It is related that one of the French soldiers who came to New England and who could not speak English resorted to Latin and found to his joy that the inhabitant of Connecticut, from whom he wished to purchase supplies for his regiment, could be communicated with by that obsolete medium; and what would Lafayette have done when imprisoned in an Austrian dungeon if he had not been able to converse with his official jailers in the Latin tongue!
In historical studies the greatest attention was given to wars and treaties and acquisitions of territory. The royal families of his native country and of neighboring kingdoms were made familiar. History was taught as if it were a record of battles only. Swords and coats of mail decorated the mantelpieces in the school and the latest methods of warfare were studied.
In addition to all these military matters, a great deal of attention must have been given to acquiring the power of clear and forcible expression in the French language. While Lafayette can never be included among the great orators of the world, he possessed a wonderfully pellucid and concise diction. He was a voluminous writer. If all the letters he sent across the ocean from America could be recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic, there would be enough to make several large volumes. Sometimes he dispatched as many as thirty letters at one time. He sent them by way of Spain, by way of Holland, or by any other roundabout route that offered promise of final delivery. But privateersmen frequently captured the boats that carried them, and very often the letter-bags were dropped overboard. Still another circumstance deprived the world of many of his writings. When revolutionists took possession of the Lafayette home in Chaviniac, they sought in every nook and cranny to find evidence that they would have been glad to use against these representatives of the nobility. Madame de Lafayette had carefully stuffed all the letters she could find into the maw of the immense old range in the castle kitchen. Other treasures were buried in the garden, there to rot before they could be found again.