Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (or Lafayette ) (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834) was a French aristocrat and military officer born in the province of Auvergne in south central France. Lafayette was a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde Nationale during the French Revolution.
In the American Revolution, Lafayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still managed to organize a successful retreat. He served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he returned to France to negotiate an increased French commitment. On his return, he blocked troops led by Cornwallis at Yorktown while the armies of Washington and Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, prepared for battle against the British.
Back in France in 1788, Lafayette was called to the Assembly of Notables to respond to the fiscal crisis. Lafayette proposed a meeting of the French Estates-General, where representatives from the three traditional classes of French society — the clergy, the nobility and the commoners — met. He served as vice president of the resulting body and presented a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Lafayette was appointed commander-in-chief of the French (Garde nationale) National Guard in response to violence leading up to the French Revolution. During the Revolution, Lafayette attempted to maintain order, for which he ultimately was persecuted by the Jacobins. In 1791, as the radical factions in the Revolution grew in power, Lafayette tried to flee to the United States through the Dutch Republic. He was captured by Austrians and served nearly five years in prison.
Lafayette returned to France after Bonaparte freed him from an Austrian prison in 1797. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies under the Charter of 1815, during the Hundred Days. With the Bourbon Restoration, Lafayette became a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1815, a position he held until his death. In 1824, President James Monroe invited Lafayette to the United States as the "nation's guest"; during the trip, he would visit all of the then twenty-four states. For his contributions to the American Revolution, many cities and monuments throughout the United States bear his name (Fayetteville, North Carolina was the only one of those he actually visited in person), and he was the first person granted honorary United States citizenship. During France's July Revolution of 1830 Lafayette declined an offer to become the French dictator; instead he supported Louis-Philippe's bid as a constitutional monarch. Lafayette died on 20 May 1834, and is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil from Revolutionary War battlefield Bunker Hill.
Ancestry
Further information: La Fayette familyLafayette was born on 6 September 1757 to Michel Louis Christophe Roch Gilbert Paulette du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, colonel aux Grenadiers de France , and Marie Louise Jolie de La Rivière, at the château de Chavaniac, in Chavaniac, near Le Puy-en-Velay, in the modern department of Haute-Loire. His full name is rarely used; instead he is often referred to as the marquis de La Fayette or Lafayette. Biographer Louis Gottschalk asserted that Lafayette indifferently spelled his name both Lafayette and LaFayette.
Hi Lafayette's ancestor, Marshal of France Gilbert de La Fayette III, was a companion-at-arms who led Joan of Arc's army in Orléans. His great-grandfather was the comte de La Rivière, a former lieutenant general in the Royal Armées . According to legend, another ancestor acquired the Crown of Thorns during the 6th Crusade. Lafayette's uncle Jacques-Roch died fighting the Austrians and left the marquis title to Lafayette's father.
Lafayette's father, struck by a cannonball at the Battle of Minden in Westphalia, died on 1 August 1759. Lafayette became Lord of Chavaniac, but the estate went to his mother. Lafayette's mother and his maternal grandfather, marquis de La Rivière, died, on 3 April and 24 April 1770 respectively, leaving Lafayette an income of 25,000 livres. Upon the death of an uncle, the 13-year-old Lafayette inherited a handsome yearly sum of 120,000 livres. Lafayette was raised by his paternal grandmother, Mme de Chavaniac, who had brought the château into the family with her dowry. Also in the household were Mme de Chavaniac's daughters Madeleine de Motier, and Charlotte Guérin, the baronne de Chavaniac.
Education and marriage
See also: La Fayette familyLafayette's mother decided that the family's heir necessitated proper schooling in Paris rather than at home-tutoring by the Abbé , was commissioned as a sous-lieutenant (second Lieutenant) in the Mousquetaires . Through an arranged marriage, he wed Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, the daughter of the wealthy Jean-Paul-François, 5th duc de Noailles. On 14 March 1774, Louis XV signed the marriage contract, and the wedding took place on 11 April; Lafayette's father-in-law gave him a dowry of 400,000 livres, the rank of captain, and command of a company in the Noailles Dragoons Regiment.
Departure from France
Joining the American War
In 1775, Lafayette took part in his unit's annual training in Metz, where he met Charles-François, comte de Broglie, the Army of the East's commander and a superior. De Broglie invited the young Lafayette to join the Freemasons, for whom the American Revolutionary War had become an issue. When the Duke of Gloucester, King George III's brother and colonial policy critic, travelled through the region, he was invited to dinner with de Broglie and his men. Lafayette wrote in his memoirs that at this dinner when he
...first learned of that quarrel, my heart was enlisted and I thought only of joining the colors.
Lafayette returned to Paris in the fall and participated in sociétés de pensée (thinking groups) that discussed French involvement in the American Revolution. At these meetings, a frequent speaker, Abbé Guillaume Raynal emphasised the "rights of man". He criticised the nobility, the clergy and the practice of slavery. The monarchy banned Raynal from speaking, and he expressed his views secretly in the Masonic Lodges of which Lafayette was a member.
On 7 December 1776, Lafayette arranged through Silas Deane, an American agent in Paris, to enter the American service as a major general. Lafayette visited his uncle Marquis de Noailles, the Ambassador to Britain, as he promised. During a ball at Lord George Germain's, he met Lord Rawdon, met Sir Henry Clinton at the Opera, and met Lord Shelburne at breakfast. However, Lafayette refused to toast King George, and left after three weeks. In 1777, the French government granted the American military one million livres in supplies after Minister Charles Gravier pressed for French involvement. De Broglie intrigued with his old subordinate, German Johann de Kalb, (who had previously done a reconnaissance of America), to send French officers to fight along side the Americans, (and perhaps set up a French Generalissmo). De Broglie approached Gravier, suggesting assistance to the American revolutionaries. De Broglie then presented Lafayette, who had been placed on the reserve list, to de Kalb.
Departure for America
Returning to Paris, Lafayette found that the Continental Congress did not have the money for his voyage; hence he acquired the sailing ship La Victoire himself. The king officially forbade him to leave after British spies discovered his plan, and issued an order for Lafayette to join his father-in-law's regiment in Marseille, disobedience of which would be punishable by imprisonment. The British ambassador ordered the seizure of the ship Lafayette was fitting out at Bordeaux, and Lafayette was threatened with arrest. He eluded capture disguised as a courier, and travelled to Spain. On 20 April 1777, he sailed for America with eleven companions, leaving his pregnant wife in France. The ship's captain intended to stop in the West Indies to sell cargo; however Lafayette, fearful of arrest, bought the cargo to avoid docking at the islands. He landed on North Island near Georgetown, South Carolina, on 13 June 1777.
American Revolution
Main article: Franco-American alliance
On arrival, Lafayette met Major Benjamin Huger, with whom he stayed for two weeks before departing on the thirty-two day journey to Philadelphia. In Pennsylvania, the Continental Congress delayed Lafayette's commission, as they had tired of "French glory seekers" and other men sent by Silas Deane. Congress, impressed by Lafayette's offer to serve without pay, commissioned the rank of major-general on 31 July 1777. The commission, however, became effective on that date, not from his original agreement with Deane. In addition, he was not assigned a unit; he nearly returned home for this reason.
Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote G
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