By birth Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier belonged to one of the old noble families of France. Born at Chavaniac, in Haute Loire, on September 6, 1757, as a child of 2 years of age he lost his father when he was killed in the battle of Minden. The young man inherited from his father a castle and the title of marquis and from his mother a princely fortune (when she died 11 years later). Coming from a long line of soldiers, he studied at the Military Academy in Versailles. When he was 16 years old he married Marie Adrienne Francoise de Noailles, a daughter of one of the most influential families in France. He joined the circle of young courtiers at Versailles and shortly afterward purchased a captain's commission in the Kneels dragoons.
Lafayette was 19 when the news came that the American colonies had declared their independence of England, France's ancient foe. "At the first news of this quarrel," Lafayette afterward wrote, "my heart was enrolled in it." Finding court life uncongenial and wishing to win distinction as a soldier, he secured from Silas Deane, the American agent in Paris, a commission as major general in the continental army. He disobeyed the commands of his king and his angry father-in- law, purchased a ship, and after many difficulties departed for Philadelphia in 1777. Landing in the U.S. on June 13th, he did not impress the Continental Congress, but it confirmed his rank of major general. He was required to serve as a "volunteer" without a command and at his own expense. George Washington soon became a firm friend and almost a father to the young Lafayette. He referred to Washington as his "adopted father" and took him as his avowed model.
Lafayette proved to be a good officer and a wise adviser, but more important, however, was his popularity with his own countrymen. It contributed to the pro-American sentiment in France and to the signing of a treaty of alliance with the colonies on February 6, 1778. He served as liaison officer between the Americans and the comte d'Estaing, the French commander, in mid-July 1778. Then he was back in France in 1779 to give the French government information regarding America's needs and was promoted mestre de camp (colonel). He returned to America in time to assist in the Virginia campaign, serve as American-French liaison officer again, lead an elite unit, and participate in the final movements that led to General Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown, in 1781.
Lafayette was universally hailed as "America's Marquis." To the French he was "the friend of Washington" and "the hero of two worlds." Returning to France in 1782, he was promoted to the rank of marechal-de-camp (major general) in the French Army by Louis XVI. He visited the U.S. in 1784, staying at Mount Vernon with Washington. He was made a citizen of several states, and he urged constitutional reform to strengthen the national government. He continued to advocate close Franco-American ties, and on his return to France he worked to secure commercial concessions for his adopted country.
Sacrificing court favor and position in behalf of his liberal ideas, Lafayette was one of the first to advocate a National Assembly. He worked to make France a constitutional monarchy and joined those French noblemen who favored the Revolution of 1789. He was elected to the Estates-General and presented a draft for a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which he introduced into the National Assembly on July, 11, 1789--it was composed with help from Thomas Jefferson and modeled on the American Declaration of Independence and the constitutions of the American states. On the day after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, he was made commander in chief of the new bourgeois militia of Paris, organized to safeguard the Revolution. He organized the militia into the Paris national guard and gave it the blue, white and red cockade that eventually became the French tricolor. Other national guard units were created, but his was the best-equipped and the best trained.
Lafayette was one of the most popular and powerful men in France from 1789 to 1791. On the first anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, Lafayette administered the oath of loyalty to "the nation, the law, and the king" not only to thousands of f‚d‚r‚s but also to deputations from the troops of the line and the sailors of France. He favored the abolishment of titles, reform of the criminal procedure, trial by jury, religious toleration, and political rights for free blacks. But eventually he was attacked by royalists as a revolutionary and by radicals as a moderate. He rescued Queen Marie Antoinette from the mob that stormed the Palace of Versailles on October 5, 1789, and issued orders to stop King Louis XVI when he sought to escape from France.
Gradually Lafayette became dismayed at the growing excesses of the Revolution. After the Constitution of 1791 went into effect, he temporarily retired from active politics. When war against Britain broke out in 1792, he prepared his troops for war, winning the confidence of his troops and the local civilian population. He gave the French army mounted artillery. In obedience to order, he moved his troops to what is now Belgium even though they were not prepared. As the military front collapsed, he unsuccessfully tried to suppress the rising tide of Jacobin radicalism at home. Unable to help the king and queen and unable also to turn his troops on the Paris mob, he was proclaimed a traitor. To escape arrest and the guillotine he fled to Belgium with 21 members of his staff, planning to obtain temporary asylum in America. He was arrested by the Austrians who turned him over to the Prussians. For 5 years, from 1792 to 1797, he remained in Prussian and Austrian jails, despite the efforts of his friends in England and the U.S. to procure his release. Finally the Austrians surrendered him, as an American citizen, to the U.S. consul at Hamburg.
Returning to France in 1800, he found his personal fortune gone. He refused honors and rejected a seat in the senate and a diplomatic post in the U.S., becoming a gentleman farmer on his wife's estates, but he could not suppress his interest in politics. After Napoleon returned from Elba and gave France a liberal constitution, Lafayette reentered politics as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He worked as a vice president of that body for Napoleon's second abdication.
In 1803 Lafayette was granted a huge tract of land in Louisiana. Demonstrating the gratitude of the nation, Congress proclaimed Lafayette an honorary citizen in 1824 and invited him to tour the U.S. as its first official guest. The “Nation’s Guest” was old and lame at the time, but he visited every one of the 24 states and was greeted by large crowds and demonstrations of frenzied enthusiasm. He was a reminder of the glorious past, the "adoptive son" of Washington, the last surviving major general of the War of Independence, and Europe's outstanding contemporary opponent of monarchial tyranny. His visit impressed a new generation of Americans with the significance of their political heritage and of their nation’s place as one of the few surviving republics, and did not go unnoticed in Europe, giving much needed encouragement to the liberals in his own country. He also visited old comrades like Thomas Jefferson. Congress voted to give him $200,000 and an additional township in Florida--he sold most of his American land.
No police precautions could stifle the welcome he received on his return to France. Under the restored Bourbon monarchy, Lafayette generally was politically inactive until the people were again oppressed. Then at age 73, he led the opposition to the king's restrictions on citizens' rights. In 1830 he took part in his third revolution and once again became a kingmaker in France. He commanded the Army of National Guards that drove Charles X from France, rejected the popular demand that he become president of the new republic, and placed on the throne Louis Philippe, the "citizen king."
Lafayette's death in Paris on May 20, 1834, saddened both the French and the people of the U.S. The Liberty Bell was muffled on July 21st to toll his death. He was not a great general or a great statesman. He was, however, a lifelong lover of liberty who played a vital part in 3 important revolutions. He promoted throughout his life, sometimes at fearful personal cost, the ideas of liberty, equality, human rights and national self-determination that continue, to this day, to inspire people throughout the world.
During the 19th century, Lafayette's descendants removed thousands of his papers from La Grange, a 15th century chateau in the countryside 30 miles east of Paris, and sent them to another family property, Chavaniac, in Auvergne. They were eventually acquired by Cornell University in 1964. Then in 1956, the Count and Countess Rene de Chambrun, exploring La Grange, discovered a large cache of Lafayette's papers. There were as many as 18,000 items, comprising more than 50,000 individual sheets. And so again news of Lafayette made the headlines.
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