Introduction to Marquis De Lafayette

Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de (1757–1834), a French soldier and statesman. He was a hero of the American Revolutionary War, having volunteered his services to the United States against France's old enemy, Great Britain, and became a symbol of the friendship between France and the United States. Lafayette was also prominent as a champion of liberty in the opening phase of the French Revolution.

Early Career

Lafayette was born in Château Chavaniac, his family's estate in the region of Auvergne. Gilbert, as the boy was called, was two years old when his father was killed in battle. When his mother and her father died, the young marquis, at 13, came into a large inheritance. He went to the Collège du Plessis and trained for the army at the Military Academy at Versailles. At 16, Lafayette married Marie Adrienne de Noailles, whose family was one of the most influential in France, and he was commissioned a cavalry captain.

Eager for glory, Lafayette spurned a career at the royal court. The revolt of the British colonies in America stirred him. “At the first news of this quarrel, my heart was enrolled in it,” he later recalled.

Fighter For Liberty

Defying a royal command against joining the American cause, Lafayette arrived at Georgetown, South Carolina, in June, 1777, on a ship he had bought for that voyage. Baron de Kalb was with him. Silas Deane, American agent in Paris, had given contracts to both for appointments as major generals in the Continental Army. Lafayette was then only 19. Congress was reluctant to honor his contract, but did so as part of a policy of fostering French support and because Lafayette wanted no pay.

General George Washington was puzzled at first as to how to use Lafayette, who wished to command American troops but spoke few words of English and had little military experience. In September, 1777, he proved his courage and ability in battle, at Brandywine, when he dashed into the thick of hand-to-hand fighting, helped to check the British advance, and was wounded. In November, he led a scouting detachment that got the better of a superior enemy force at Gloucester, New Jersey. During the winter of 1777–78, Lafayette was an aide to Washington at Valley Forge. Picked to command an expedition against Canada, he showed skill as a planner, but the campaign was canceled. In May, 1778, he led 2,000 Americans out of a trap that the British, with 8,000 soldiers, had set near Philadelphia.

After France entered the war as an ally of the United States, Lafayette returned home in 1779. He helped persuade his country to send troops, as well as naval units, to America. Lafayette hoped to command the troops, but the Comte de Rochambeau, an older officer, was given the assignment. Lafayette then rejoined the American army. He was a member of the court-martial that condemned to death Major John André, the British spy involved in Benedict Arnold's treason.

Washington sent Lafayette to Virginia to strengthen resistance to British forces there. Lafayette helped prepare for the siege of Yorktown in 1781. After Cornwallis, the British general defending Yorktown, was forced to surrender, Lafayette returned to France, a hero who symbolized the principles of the American Revolution. He visited the United States in 1784.

Reformer In France

During the French Revolution, Lafayette was among reform leaders who demanded that Louis XVI convene the States-General, the legislature that had not met in 175 years. He supported its transformation into the National Assembly, of which he was chosen vice president. He presented for adoption the Declaration of the Rights of Man. After the storming of the Bastille, Lafayette became commander of the National Guard. Its goal was to protect the constitutional monarchy that the king was forced to accept.

In 1792, when Prussia and Austria went to war against the revolutionary regime in France, the government placed Lafayette in command of an army against the Austrian forces in Belgium. He led an invasion into Belgium but achieved little. Because of his support of the king, whom the radical revolutionaries wanted to depose, he had to flee France. He tried to escape to the United States, but was captured by the Austrians and held as a prisoner of war for five years, 1792–97.

General Napoleon Bonaparte arranged for Lafayette's release but, viewing him as a possible rival, barred him from France for two years. Later Lafayette opposed Napoleon's taking the title of emperor and called for his abdication in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo.

Lafayette's Later Years

Lafayette became even more outspoken in his championship of liberty in his later years. Revolutionary movements in Europe and in South America had his open sympathy. From August, 1824, to October, 1825, he toured the United States as an official guest of Congress. He was thrilled by the nation's progress—and by the enthusiasm with which he was received.

Debts he had contracted for supplying soldiers in the American Revolution and his losses in the French Revolution had wiped out Lafayette's fortune. Proceeds from land granted him by Congress in 1803 had gone to his creditors. In 1825, Congress made him a gift of $200,000.

As a member of the French Chamber of Deputies, Lafayette denounced reactionary policies of both Louis XVIII and Charles X. In the revolution of 1830 against Charles, it was Lafayette, then nearly 73, who persuaded the people to accept Louis Philippe as “citizen king.” However, Lafayette did not excuse the reactionary policies of Louis Philippe, and he became his critic. “Liberty must always be a living thing, never laid away in the archives,” he said just before his death.