human
My good star gave me such a wife as I could desire; she has been for me a cause of constant happiness throughout life, and I hope, on my side, to have made her happy by the tenderest amity, which has never varied an instant during nearly sixty years. The issue of that union, Viscount Rochambeau, from his youth the companion in arms of his father, an officer at fourteen, accompanied him to the States, and was, after a career of devotion to his country, to die a general at Leipzig, in the
gpt
Battle of Nations.
human
and set to work to get everything in readiness, collecting information, talking with those who knew America, and noting down in his green-garbed registers, which were to accompany him in his campaign, the chief data thus secured. He also addressed to himself, as a reminder, a number of useful recommendations such as these:
gpt
To take with us a quantity of flints, ... much flour and biscuit; have bricks as ballast for the ships, to be used for ovens; to try to bring with us all we want and not to have to ask from the Americans who are themselves in want ... to have a copy of the Atlas brought from Philadelphia by Mr. de Lafayette ... to have a portable printing-press, like that of Mr. d'Estaing, handy for proclamations ... siege artillery is indispensable. Some of the notes are of grave import and were not lost sight of throughout the campaign:
human
Nothing without naval supremacy.
gpt
Neither I nor mine desire anything extravagant; we should like to be able to go to this war at our own expense.