With Americans of Past and Present Days Part 9

When he could see the place to better advantage, his admiration knew no bounds. In an unpublished letter to Hamilton he says: "Now, when you may probably have heard that I am finally charged with delineating a plan for the city, I feel a sort of embarra.s.sment how to speak to you as advantageously as I really think of the situation determined upon; for, as there is no doubt, I must feel highly interested in the success of the undertaking, I become apprehensive of being charged with partiality when I a.s.sure you that no position in America can be more susceptible of grand improvement than that between the eastern branch of the Potomac and Georgetown."[113]

A few weeks later L'Enfant was doing the honors of the spot to a brother artist, the painter Trumbull, just back from Yorktown, where he had been sketching in view of his big picture of the surrendering of Cornwallis, and who wrote in his autobiography: "Then to Georgetown, where I found Major L'Enfant drawing his plan of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton; rode with him over the ground on which the city has since been built. Where the Capitol now stands was then a thick wood." (May, 1791.)

Another visitor of note came in the same year, namely the French minister, a former companion in arms of Lafayette and of L'Enfant himself, Ternant, back from a three days' stay at Mount Vernon, and who gave his government an account of what he had observed: "I would not leave Georgetown without having seen the ground destined for the federal city. The position seemed to me a most interesting one from every point of view. The French engineer who has already traced the streets, is busy preparing a detailed plan.... The President shows the greatest interest in this new Salente, which is to bear his name."[114]

The city, L'Enfant thought, must be great, beautiful, and soon peopled, drawn "on that grand scale on which it ought to be planned";[115] meant to absorb "Georgetown itself, whose name will before long be suppressed, and its whole district become a part of the cession."[116] It must be quickly filled with inhabitants, because this will strengthen the Union: "I earnestly wish all that the Eastern States can spare may come this way, and believe it would answer as good a purpose as that of their emigration to the West. It would deface that line of markation which will ever oppose the South against the East, for when objects are seen at a distance the idea we form of them is apt to mislead us ... and we fancy monstrous that object which, from a nearer view, would charm us.... Hence arises a natural though unwarrantable prejudice of nations against nations, of States against States, and so down to individuals, who often mistrust one another for want of being sufficiently acquainted with each other."[117]

The city must be beautiful, due advantage being taken of the hilly nature of the spot for grand or lovely prospects, and of its water resources for handsome fountains and cascades: "five grand fountains intended, with a constant spout of water--a grand cascade" at the foot of Capitol Hill,[118] etc., a part of the plan which was, unluckily, left in abeyance. Some had spoken of a plain rectangular plan, "a regular a.s.semblage of houses laid out in squares, and forming streets all parallel and uniform." This might be good enough, L'Enfant declared, "on a well-level plain, where, no surrounding object being interesting, it becomes indifferent which way the opening street may be directed."

But the case is quite different with the future federal city: "Such regular plans, however answerable they may appear on paper ... become at last tiresome and insipid, and it could never be, in its origin, but a mean continence of some cool imagination wanting a sense of the really grand and truly beautiful, only to be met with where nature contributes with art and diversifies the objects."[119] We may imagine what his feelings would be if he saw, in our days, the steam-shovel busy around the city, dumping as many hills as possible into as many vales, and securing a maximum plat.i.tude.

But the city must be more than that; besides being beautiful, healthy, commodious, it should be full of sentiment, of a.s.sociations, of ideas; everything in it must be evocative and have a meaning and a "raison d'etre." Rarely was a brain more busy than that of L'Enfant during the first half of the year 1791. Surveying the ground, mapping out the district, sketching the chief buildings of the model city that was to be,[120] he presented three reports to Was.h.i.+ngton, the first, giving only his general ideas, before the end of March, the second in June, the last in August, the two latter accompanied with plans, the last of which being the one which was followed in the building of the city.

By the amplitude of its scope, the logic of the arrangements, the breadth of the streets and avenues, the beauty of the prospects cleverly taken into account, the quant.i.ty of ground set apart for gardens and parks, the display of waters, the plan was a unique monument. The selection of the place for what we call the Capitol and the White House, which were then called the Federal House and the Palace for the President, near which the ministerial departments were to be built, had been the result of a good deal of thinking and comparing. "After much menutial [_sic_] search for an eligible situation, prompted, as I may say, from a fear of being prejudiced in favor of a first opinion, I could discover no one so advantageously to greet the congressional building as is that on the west end of Jenkins heights, which stand as a pedestal waiting for a monument.... Some might, perhaps, require less labor to be made agreeable, but, after all a.s.sistance of arts, none ever would be made so grand." On that very pedestal now rises the Capitol of the United States.

As for the "Presidential Palace," L'Enfant made his choice with the object, he says, of "adding to the sumptuousness of a palace the convenience of a house and the agreeableness of a country seat," which are the three main qualities actually combined in the present White House. He selected a spot which Was.h.i.+ngton had himself noticed as a convenient one, at some distance from Congress, it is true, but that would not matter much, L'Enfant thought, with his old-world notions of etiquette, for "no message to nor from the President is to be made without a sort of decorum which will doubtless point out the propriety of committee waiting on him in carriage, should his palace be even contiguous to Congress." Since it was a question of driving, it little mattered whether the drive was to be a little more or less long.

For different reasons President Was.h.i.+ngton approved of that distance; _major e longinquo amicitia_, he apparently thought. "Where and how," he once wrote to Alexander White, "the houses for the President and other public officers may be fixed is to me as an individual a matter of moons.h.i.+ne, but ... the daily intercourse which the secretaries of the departments must have with the President would render a distant situation extremely inconvenient to them; and not much less so would one be close to the Capitol, for it was the universal complaint of them all, that while the legislature was in session they could do little or no business, so much were they interrupted by the individual visits of members (in office hours) and by calls for papers. Many of them have declared to me that they have often been obliged to go home and deny themselves in order to transact the current business."[121] In that respect, carriage or no carriage, distance would have its merits.

L'Enfant's letters and the notes accompanying his plans show that everything in the future city had been devised, indeed, with an intention: ever-flowing fountains and a cascade for health and beauty; an avenue of n.o.ble buildings, leading from the Capitol to the Presidential House, and increasing the dignified appearance of both: "The grand avenue," he wrote, "connecting both the Palace and the Federal House will be most magnificent and most convenient," with a number of handsome monuments, a very characteristic one being a temple for national semireligious celebrations, "such as public prayer, thanksgivings, funeral orations, etc., and a.s.signed to the special use of no particular sect or denomination, but equally opened to all." It would also be a pantheon for the ill.u.s.trious dead, "as may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful nation." A column, as yet never built, was "to be erected to celebrate the first rise of a navy, and to stand a ready monument to consecrate its progress and achievements." The squares were to be allotted, one to each of the States forming the Union: "The centre of each square will admit of statues, columns, obelisks, or any other ornaments ... to perpetuate not only the memory of such individuals whose counsels or military achievements were conspicuous in giving liberty and independence to this country, but also those whose usefulness hath rendered them worthy of general imitation, to invite the youth of succeeding generations to tread in the paths of those sages or heroes whom their country has thought proper to celebrate." This was a way, L'Enfant considered, of fortifying the Union and of giving to the very city that educational value to which he attached so much importance.

Chief among those patriotic objects was to be, at some distance north of the place where the Was.h.i.+ngton monument now rises, "the equestrian figure of George Was.h.i.+ngton, a monument voted in 1783 by the late Continental Congress." And L'Enfant must certainly have hoped that the author would be his ill.u.s.trious compatriot, the sculptor Houdon, on whose behalf we have seen him writing to Congress, in 1785, as to the probable cost.

Distant views and prospects were, of course, to be used to the best advantage: "Attention has been paid to the pa.s.sing of those leading avenues over the most favorable ground for prospect and convenience."

But, above all, L'Enfant was persistent in his request that, on no account, the grandeur of his conception be in any way curtailed: it was to remain commensurate with the greatness of the United States of future times. The plan "must leave to posterity a grand idea of the patriotic interest which promoted it."[122] He foresaw much opposition to some of his ideas, but besought the President to stand by him, and especially to prevent any dwarfing of his views: "I remain a.s.sured you will conceive it essential to pursue with dignity the operation of an undertaking of a magnitude so worthy of the concern of a grand empire ... over whose progress the eyes of every other nation, envying the opportunity denied them, will stand judge."[123]

To make a man of that temper and enthusiasm, having a reason for each of his propositions, accept hints and change his mind was almost an impossibility. In vain did Jefferson object "to the obligation to build the houses at a given distance from the street.... It produces a disgusting monotony; all persons make this complaint against Philadelphia." In the same record of his views, however, and much more to his credit, Was.h.i.+ngton's secretary of state is seen foreseeing the sky-sc.r.a.per and its dangers: "In Paris it is forbidden to build a house beyond a given height, and it is admitted to be a good restriction. It keeps down the price of grounds, keeps the houses low and convenient, and the streets light and airy. Fires are much more manageable when houses are low,"[124] as was only too well evidenced since in the fires at Chicago, Baltimore, and San Francisco.

As for the President himself, he had well-determined, practical ideas on some points, such as the befitting distance between the places of abode of Congress and of the chief of the state, and, what was of more import, the necessarily large extent of the ground to be reserved for the building of the future capital.[125] On the rest, with his habit of trusting those who knew, he seems to have left free rein to L'Enfant.

Submitting to him certain suggestions, some from Jefferson, he allows him to use them or not, as he pleases, and he personally seems to incline toward not: "Sir, although I do not conceive that you will derive any material advantage from an examination of the inclosed papers, yet, as they have been drawn under different circ.u.mstances and by different persons, they may be compared with your own ideas of a proper plan for the federal city.... The rough sketch by Mr. Jefferson was done under an idea that no offer worthy of consideration would come from the landholders in the vicinity of Carrollsburgh, from the backwardness which appeared in them, and therefore was accommodated to the grounds about Georgetown."[126]

Criticism of L'Enfant's plan turned out to be insignificant, and the approbation general. "The work of Major L'Enfant, which is greatly admired, will show," Was.h.i.+ngton said, "that he had many objects to attend to and to combine, not on paper merely, but to make them correspond with the actual circ.u.mstances of the ground."[127] Jefferson, who had the good taste not to stick to his own former suggestions, was sending, a little later, copies of the plan to Gouverneur Morris, then minister to France, for him to exhibit in various cities as a thing for the United States to be proud of: "I sent you by the way of London a dozen plans of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton in the Federal territory, hoping you would have them displayed to public view where they would be most seen by those descriptions of men worthy and likely to be attracted to it. Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the seaport towns of Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Ma.r.s.eille would be proper places to send them to."[128]

Three a.s.sistants had been given to L'Enfant, two of the Ellicot brothers (Andrew and Benjamin) and Isaac Roberdeau, the major's trustiest second.

Three Commissioners of the District had been appointed, Thomas Johnson and Daniel Carroll, both of Maryland, and David Stuart, of Virginia.

They notified L'Enfant, on the 9th of September, 1791, that a name had been selected for the district and the city: "We have agreed that the federal district shall be called 'the Territory of Columbia,' and the federal city 'the City of Was.h.i.+ngton.' The t.i.tle of the map will therefore be 'A map of the City of Was.h.i.+ngton in the District of Columbia.'"

For the expropriation of the ground with a minimum actual outlay, an ingenious system, also applied elsewhere, had been adopted: "The terms entered into by me," Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to Jefferson, "on the part of the United States with the landowners of Georgetown and Carrollsburgh, are that all the land from Rock Creek along the river to the Eastern Branch ... is ceded to the public, on condition that, when the whole shall be surveyed and laid off as a city, which Major L'Enfant is now directed to do, the present proprietors shall retain every other lot, and for such parts of the land as may be taken for public use they shall be allowed at the rate of twenty-five pounds per acre, the public having the right to reserve such parts of the wood on the land as may be thought necessary to be preserved for ornament; the landholders to have the use and profit of all the grounds until the city is laid off into lots, which by this agreement became public property. Nothing is to be allowed for the ground which may be occupied as streets or alleys." The President was confident that everybody would acquiesce and show good-will, "even the obstinate Mr. Burns."[129]

But it turned out that there were other obstinate people besides Mr.

Burns, L'Enfant himself chief among them. He had evinced from the first a great fear of speculators, and was at once at war with them. "How far," he boldly wrote to Hamilton, "I have contributed to overset that plotting business, it would not do for me to tell; besides, I am not wholly satisfied whether I would be thanked for by the people among whom you live."[130] The three Commissioners had notions of their own, but could never bring L'Enfant to take into account either their persons or their ideas; he would acknowledge no chief except Was.h.i.+ngton, who, gently at first, firmly afterward, sternly later, and vainly throughout, tried to make the major understand that he was one of the Commissioners'

subordinates. A great reciprocal irritation, which even the President's painstaking diplomacy could not a.s.suage, began between them from the first. Out of fear of speculators, L'Enfant wanted the sale of the lots to be delayed, while the Commissioners desired to make a beginning as soon as possible. The officer kept, accordingly, his plan to himself, and refused to have it shown to would-be purchasers. How, then, Was.h.i.+ngton exclaimed, could they be "induced to buy, to borrow an old adage, a _pig in a poke_"?[131]

The major would not be persuaded, and, giving an early example of an unconquerable fear of what would now be called a "trust," he persisted in refusing to show his plan to any individual or a.s.sociation. He had declared beforehand, in one of his reports to the President, what were his views and how things should be delayed until the plan could be engraved, distributed all over the country, and made known to all people at the same time: "A sale made previous the general plan of the distribution of the city is made public, and before the circ.u.mstance of that sale taking place has had time to be known through the whole continent, will not call a sufficient concurrence, and must be confined to a few individuals speculating ... and the consequence of a low sale in this first instance may prove injurious to the subsequent ones by serving as precedents." He was afraid of the "plotting of a number of certain designing men," of the forming of a "society" organized "to engross the most of the sale and master the whole business."[132]

When one of the chief landowners of the district, Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, a relative of one of the Commissioners, decided, in spite of all warnings, to go on with the building of a house across what was to be New Jersey Avenue, matters came to a crisis. Was.h.i.+ngton tried to pacify L'Enfant, whose indignation knew no bounds. "As a similar case,"

he wrote to him, "cannot happen again (Mr. Carroll's house having been begun before the federal district was fixed upon), no precedent will be established by yielding a little in the present instance; and it will always be found sound policy to conciliate the good-will rather than provoke the enmity of any man, where it can be accomplished without much difficulty, inconvenience, or loss."

But even at the request of a leader whom he wors.h.i.+pped, L'Enfant would not be persuaded. With no authority from the Commissioners, he sent his faithful Roberdeau to raze the house to the ground, which was but partly done when the Commissioners had Roberdeau arrested. L'Enfant thereupon came in person with some laborers, and saw the work of destruction perfected (November 22). He barely escaped arrest himself. Was.h.i.+ngton, who, as he wrote to Jefferson, was loath to lose "his services, which in my opinion would be a serious misfortune," severely remonstrated now with the major. "In future I must strictly enjoin you to touch no man's property without his consent, or the previous order of the Commissioners," adding in kindlier tones: "Having the beauty and regularity of your plan only in view, you pursue it as if every person or thing were obliged to yield to it."[133]

But so they are, thought L'Enfant. For him the city was his city, his child, and a father has a right to rear his child as he pleases.

Remonstrating went on some time. Jefferson came to the rescue of the President, used the fairest means, asked the major to dine with him "tete a tete," so as to quietly discuss the federal city, the hour for the meal differing rather widely from ours: "Mr. Jefferson presents his compliments to Major L'Enfant, and is sorry to have been absent when he was so kind as to call on him, as he wishes to have some conversation with him on the subject of the federal city. He asks the favor of him to come and take a private dinner with him to-morrow at half after three, which may afford time and opportunity for the purpose.--Sat.u.r.day January 7, 1792."[134] Nothing resulted. Another landowner, Notley Young, had been found in December building a house which had, "contrary to expectation, fallen into a princ.i.p.al street. But I hope," Was.h.i.+ngton wrote the Commissioners, "the major does not mean to proceed to the demolition of this also."

On no point would L'Enfant yield, so that on March 6, 1792, Jefferson wrote to the Commissioners: "It having been found impracticable to employ Major L'Enfant in that degree of subordination which was lawful and proper, he has been notified that his services were at an end."

A consolation and a comfort to him was the immediate signing by all the landowners of the district, except two, of a testimonial "lamenting" his departure, wis.h.i.+ng for his return, praising his work, "for we well know that your time and the whole powers of your mind have been for months entirely devoted to the arrangements in the city which reflect so much honor on your taste and judgment."[135]

IV

The bright part of L'Enfant's life was over. His fame was great, and appeals continued for some time to be made to him when important works were contemplated. But his same tendency to ever see things "en grand,"

his unyielding disposition, his increasing and almost morbid fear of speculators wrecked more than one of his undertakings.

Almost on his leaving his work at Was.h.i.+ngton he was asked to draw the plans of the first manufacturing city, devised as such, in the United States, and which is to-day one of the most important in existence, Paterson, N.J. "Major L'Enfant, it is said," wrote Was.h.i.+ngton, who still retained a friendly feeling for him, "is performing wonders at the new town of Paterson."[136] The moving spirit was Hamilton, under whose influence had been founded the "Society for the Establis.h.i.+ng Useful Manufactures." The chief point was to transform into a city a spot where only ten houses were in existence, and to make of it an industrial one by turning into use the Falls of the Pa.s.saic. Several letters of the major to Hamilton, giving an account of the work, in which faithful Roberdeau was helping, and of the increasing difficulties with all sorts of people, are preserved in the Library of Congress. After one year's toil, L'Enfant was once more notified that his services were no longer wanted.

He is found in the same year and the following one working as an engineer at Fort Mifflin, on the Delaware, and as an architect at a mansion in Philadelphia which was to surpa.s.s in magnificence any other in the States. It had been ordered of him by Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, and the richest man in America.[137] Here was, if ever, an occasion to do things "en grand." L'Enfant, however, did them "en plus grand" than even the financier had dreamed; improvements and afterthoughts, the use of marble for columns and facades increased the delay and the expense. His being busy at Paterson had also been at first another cause of complaint. "Dear Sir," Morris beseechingly wrote him from Philadelphia, "I had like to have stopped my house for fear of wanting money; that difficulty being removed, it will now be stopped for want of Major L'Enfant."[138] The roof had at last been put on, and one could judge of the beauty of the ensemble, quite remarkable, as we can see from a sketch by Birch the Elder preserved in the Philadelphia Library, when Morris's catastrophe occurred, putting an end to the work, and swallowing part, if not all, of L'Enfant's savings.[139]

In his delight at being intrusted with the plan of the federal city he had never said a word about any remuneration, and he had not copyrighted his plan. At the time of his dismissal Was.h.i.+ngton had written to the Commissioners: "The plan of the city having met universal applause (as far as my information goes), and Major L'Enfant having become a very discontented man, it was thought that less than from two thousand five hundred to three thousand dollars, would not be proper to offer him for his services; instead of this, suppose five hundred guineas and a lot in a good part of the city were subst.i.tuted?"

The offer was made; L'Enfant refused, without giving reasons. More and more gloomy times were in store for him; mishaps and disappointments multiplied. He had laid great store on the selling of copies of his plan, but since he had not copyrighted it, no royalty on the sale was reserved for him. He protested against this, against the way in which the engraving had been made, with grievous "errors of execution," and against the suppression of his name on it, "depriving me of the repute of the projector." Contrary, however, to the fear expressed at first by Was.h.i.+ngton, that out of spite he might, in his discontent, side with the many who disapproved of the vast and difficult undertaking, he remained loyal to it, and "there is no record of any act or word that tarnishes his life history with the blemish of disloyalty to the creation of his genius. He bore his honors and disappointments in humility and poverty."[140]

Poverty was, indeed, at his door, and soon in his house. Haunted by the notion of his wrongs, some only too real, some more or less imaginary, he sent to Congress memoir after memoir, recalling what he had done, and what was his dest.i.tution, the "absolute destruction of his family's fortune in Europe," owing to the French Revolution, his being reduced "from a state of ease and content to one the most distressed and helpless," living as he did, upon "borrowed bread"; but he would not doubt of "the magnanimity and justice of Congress."[141]

The family's fortune had been reduced, indeed, to a low ebb, his own lack of attention to his financial affairs making matters worse. His inability to properly attend to them is only too well evidenced by some letters from French relatives, showing that, while he was himself in absolute want, he neglected to receive the pension bestowed on him by the French Government, and which, in spite of the Revolution, had been maintained. He had also inherited from the old painter, his father, a small farm in Normandy, but had taken no steps about it, so that the farmer never ceased to pocket the revenues.[142]

One of these letters, which tells him of the death of his mother, who "died with the piety of an angel," shows what reports reached France as to the major's standing among his American friends: "All the persons whom I have seen and who know you, a.s.sured me that you enjoyed public esteem. This is everything in a country of which people praise the morals, the virtues, and the probity as worthy of our first ancestors."[143]

On two occasions, after many years, Congress voted modest sums for L'Enfant, but they were at once appropriated by his creditors. He was, moreover, appointed, in 1812, "professor of the art of military engineering in the Military Academy of the United States," a nomination which, in spite of the entreaties of James Monroe, then secretary of state, he declined. He is found in September, 1814, working at Fort Was.h.i.+ngton, when fifty men with spades and axes are sent him.

He survived eleven years, haunting the lobbies of the Capitol, pacing the newly marked avenues of "his" city, watching its growth, deploring the slightest deviation from his original design, for, as Was.h.i.+ngton had early noticed, he was "so tenacious of his plans as to conceive that they would be marred if they underwent any change or alteration,"[144]

visiting the friends he had among the early settlers. "Mr. W.W.

Corcoran, who lately departed this life in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, full of years and honor ... had a very distinct recollection of the personal appearance of L'Enfant, the latter having been a frequent visitor at his father's house. He described him to me as a tall, erect man, fully six feet in height, finely proportioned, nose prominent, of military bearing, courtly air, and polite manners, his figure usually enveloped in a long overcoat and surmounted by a bell-crowned hat--a man who would attract attention in any a.s.sembly."[145]

He ended his days, the permanent guest of the Digges family, in their house near Was.h.i.+ngton. His death occurred there in 1825, and he was buried in their property at the foot of a tree. An inventory of his "personal goods and chattels" showed that they consisted in three watches, three compa.s.ses, some books, maps, and surveying instruments, the whole being valued at forty-six dollars.

The federal city, Was.h.i.+ngton had written in 1798 to Mrs. Sarah Fairfax, then in England, will be a great and beautiful one "a century hence, if this country keeps united, and it is surely its policy and interest to do it." It took, indeed, a great many years, and for a long time doubters could enjoy their doubts, and jokers their jokes. The Duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt visited the incipient town in 1797; he found that it possessed one hundred and fifty houses, scattered here and there; the house for the President was ready to be covered the same year, and the only wing of the Capitol yet begun was to receive its roof the year following, both being "handsome buildings, in white stones very well wrought." But the unredeemable fault, in his eyes, was the very magnitude and beauty of the plan. "The plan," he wrote, "is fine, cleverly and grandly designed, but it is its very grandeur, its magnificence, which causes it to be nothing but a dream." The distance, so heartily approved of by Was.h.i.+ngton, between the President's house and the Capitol, seemed to the traveller a serious objection; the raising of five hundred houses would be necessary to connect the two buildings; not one is in existence. "If this gap is not filled, communication will be impracticable in winter, for one can scarcely suppose that the United States would undergo the expense for pavement, footpaths, and lamps for such a long stretch of uninhabited ground."[146] This wonder has, however, been seen.

For a long time, for more than half the present duration of the city's life, deriders could deride to their heart's content. Few cities have ever been so abundantly nicknamed as Was.h.i.+ngton, the "wilderness city,"

the city "of magnificent distances," the "village monumental," the city, as reported by Jean-Jacques Ampere, the son of the great scientist, who visited it in 1851, of "streets without houses, and of houses without streets." He saw in its fate "a striking proof of this truth that one cannot create a great city at will." But this truth, as some others, has proved an untruth.

The growth was slow, indeed, but constant, and when the century was over, Was.h.i.+ngton's prophecy and L'Enfant's foresight were justified by the event. A city had risen, ample and beautiful, a proper capital for a wealthy and powerful nation, one quite apart, copied on no other, "not one of those cities," as was remarked, in our days, by one of Was.h.i.+ngton's successors, Mr. Roosevelt, "of which you can cut out a piece and transplant it into another, without any one perceiving that something has happened."

Then at last came L'Enfant's day. What he had always expected for "his"

city took place; what he had never expected for himself took place also.

In January, 1902, both the "Park Commission," composed of Daniel H.

Burnham, Charles F. McKim, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and F.L. Olmsted, and the Senate committee presented their reports on the improvement and development of Was.h.i.+ngton; the conclusions were: "The original plan of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, having stood the test of a century, has met universal approval. The departures from that plan are to be regretted, and wherever possible, remedied." It was thus resolved to revert, as much as circ.u.mstances allowed, and in spite of a heavy outlay, to several of L'Enfant's ideas, especially to one which he considered of greatest importance, and which had been kept so long in abeyance, the giving of its proper character to that "grand avenue" between the Capitol and the White House, meant to be "most magnificent and most convenient." It is now going to be both.

As for L'Enfant himself, one more appropriation, this time not to go to his creditors, was voted by Congress on account of the major, and it was resolved that his ashes, the place of which continued to be marked only by a tree, should be removed to Arlington National Cemetery, to lie in that ever-growing army of the dead, former members of the regiments of that Republic for which he had fought and bled. His remains were brought to what had been "Jenkins's Hill," and placed under the great dome of the Capitol. In the presence of the chief of the state, President Taft, of representatives of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Society of the Cincinnati, and other patriotic and artistic societies, and of a vast crowd, on the 28th of April, 1909, orations were delivered by the Vice-President of the United States, James Sherman, and by the Chief Commissioner of the District, Henry B. McFarland, the latter amply making up, by his friendly and eloquent address, for the long-forgotten troubles of his predecessors with L'Enfant. The Vice-President courteously concluded thus: "And turning to you, Mr. Amba.s.sador ... I express the hope that the friends.h.i.+p between our nations, which has existed for more than a century, will be but intensified as time pa.s.ses, and that we will in the future join hands in advancing every good cause which an all-wise Providence intrusts to our care." The hea.r.s.e, wrapped in the three colors of France and America, was accompanied to Arlington by the French naval and military attaches, and an escort from one of those regiments of engineers to which the major himself had belonged.