October 12th
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“You can only relieve me by promising to partake very often of that hilarity which a Glass of good Claret seldom fails to produce.”
Francois-Jean de Chastellux
National Park Service
To Chevalier de Chastellux*
Head Quarters, 19 July 1781
Dear Sir: You have taken a most effectual method of obliging me to accept your Cask of Claret, as I find, by your ingenious manner of stating the case, that I shall, by a refusal, bring my patriotism into question, and incur a suspicion of want of attachment to the French Nation, and of regard to you, wch. of all things I wish to avoid, I will not enter into a discussion of the point of divinity, as I perceive you are a Master at that Weapon.
In short, my dear sir, my only scruple arises from a fear of depriving you of an Article that you cannot conveniently replace in this Country. You can only relieve me by promising to partake very often of that hilarity which a Glass of good Claret seldom fails to produce. I am &c.
G:o Washington
* Chastellux was a General in the French Army. He arrived in America in July of 1780. — MVLA12
While Lafayette was very much like a son to Washington (Washington was 25 years his senior), Chastellux was of the same generation (they were separated in age by less than two years). Washington wrote Lafayette on December 15, 1782: “I could not have bid a Brother farewell with more regret than I did the Chevr. Chastellux, than whom no Man stands higher in my estimation.” Chastellux would write about Washington in a book published in 1786: “the strongest characteristic of this respectable man is the perfect union . . . between the physical and moral qualities which compose the individual.”
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