Later,
Congress commissioned him colonel of a regiment of horse; and, as such,
he served to the close of the war. When the Continental Army was
disbanded, he purchased a place upon the eastern shore of Maryland;
and, marrying into one of the aristocratic families of the
neighborhood, settled down to the life of a simple country gentleman.
He never went back to the land of his birth, nor, indeed, even to
Europe. And this, though, one day, there came to his mansion on the
Chesapeake the Valerian Minister to America and, with many bows and
genuflections, presented a letter from his brother Frederick,
announcing the death of their royal father and his own accession, and
offering to restore to Hugo his rank and estates if he would return to
court.
And this letter, like his sword, his Order of the Cincinnati, his
commissions and the miniature, has been the heritage of the eldest son.
In his soldier days his nearest comrade had been Armand, Marquis de la
Rouerie, and for him his first-born was christened; and hence my own
queer name--for an American: Armand Dalberg.
There was one of the traditions of our House that had been scrupulously
honored: there was always a Dalberg on the rolls of the Army; though
not always was it the head of the family, as in my case.
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