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ALS signed “Lafayette,” one page, 7.75 x 10, February 21, 1827. Handwritten letter to Stephen Longfellow, a former United States congressman from Maine and the father of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The future poet, then 19 years old, is referenced directly in the letter as "your excellent son"; he had traveled to Europe in 1826 to study French, Spanish, and Italian, remaining on the Continent for three years. In part: "Permit me to introduce to you and to our friends in Portland Mr. Guillet formerly attached to the Department of Foreign Affairs, who is going on a scientific literary tour throughout the U.S., the results of which he will probably publish. I give him the more willingly these lines as every inquiry into the state of society in the happy land of freedom cannot but produce admiration. May it also excite imitation. Your excellent son has informed you he found our family, on his arrival, under the long and grievous visitation which ended in the loss of one of my sons-in-law. I have been since myself unwell for some time, but am now recovered." Addressed on the integral leaf in Lafayette's own hand. In fine condition, with old tape stains and paper loss to the integral address leaf.
Revered in the United States as a hero of the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette had made a triumphant return to the United States in 1824 at the invitation of Congress and President James Monroe. He toured all 24 states in the union and was met with a rapturous reception at every stop. On Lafayette's visit to Portland, Maine, on June 24, 1825, he was greeted by an adoring crowd of 15,000. Congressman Stephen Longfellow delivered greetings from the city, and Bowdoin president William Allen presented him with an honorary degree, celebrating Lafayette as 'an enlightened and unshaken friend of regulated liberty.'
When Isidore Guillet, formerly an interpreter for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, decided to visit America in 1826 to conduct research for a book, he reached out to Lafayette for introductions to distinguished Americans—among them Supreme Court justice Joseph Story, Harvard professor George Ticknor, and Congressman Stephen Longfellow. Like Lafayette, Guillet hoped that France would follow the American example and become a democracy.
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