But since his adolescence he’d aspired to be a soldier and experience battle, and he also tended to be very anti-British. In 1778 France decided to side with America’s rebellious colonists; great numbers of distinguished French citizens—most notably the twenty-four-year-old Marquis de Lafayette and his brother-in-law the Vicomte de Noailles—crossed the ocean to join America’s colonists in their struggle for independence from Great Britain. The example of such illustrious men influenced thousands of Europeans to volunteer in that war, and my brother was one of the very first to enlist in the French Expeditionary Force. By order of the king, this force could not exceed five thousand, and it is a sign of France’s enthusiasm for the American cause that thousands of citizens eager to join the conflict were turned down. But was Axel’s decision to fight in the Revolutionary War solely dictated by his martial ambitions and his admiration for the American cause? Could it be that it also had to do with the queen’s tender feelings for him, which she was expressing with increasing candor?
