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1 day ago · Early Life Lafayette was born on September 6, 1757, to Michel du Motier and Marie Louise Jolie de La Rivière on the family’s estate in Auvergne in central France. Lafayette’s ancestors had fought for France since the Crusades, and he was especially proud of his father, who was killed in the Seven Years’ War when the boy was just two years old. Read more about: Marquis de Lafayette (1757 ...
Aug 16, 2021 · Lafayette, on his return to France in 1779, was a hero with all the glamour of revolution clinging to his cockade, as charismatic as Che Guevara in the sixties, but with a better character. When ...
Jan 3, 2002 · Report on Lafayette’s Return to France, [23 November] 1781. MS (NA: PCC, No. 19, II, 241–43½). Written by JM. Docketed, “Report of Comee. on letter 22d Novr. 1781. from the Marquis de la Fayette [,] passed Novr. 23d 1781.”. The Committee to whom was referred the letter of the 22d. instant from Major General the Marquis de la fayette ...
[5] Upon Lafayette's return to France, he introduced Jefferson to many people, including his cousin Madame de Tessé (whom he called aunt). In an effort to establish a charter of liberties in France, Lafayette engaged in various philanthropic and humanitarian causes, including the restoration of civil rights to the French Protestants.
- Overview
- Early life and the American Revolution
Marquis de Lafayette (born September 6, 1757, Chavaniac, France—died May 20, 1834, Paris) French aristocrat who fought in the Continental Army with the American colonists against the British in the American Revolution. Later, as a leading advocate for constitutional monarchy, he became one of the most powerful men in France during the first few yea...
Lafayette was born into an ancient noble family in the Auvergne region of central France. Orphaned in his early teens, he had already inherited an immense fortune by the time he married Adrienne de Noailles, the daughter of the influential duc d’Ayen in 1774. He joined the circle of young courtiers at the court of King Louis XVI but soon aspired to win glory as a soldier. Hence, he traveled at his own expense to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia in July 1777, 27 months after the outbreak of the American Revolution. With no combat experience and not yet 20 years old, Lafayette was nonetheless appointed a major general in the Continental Army, and he quickly struck up a lasting friendship with the American commander in chief, George Washington. The childless general and the orphaned aristocrat seemed an unlikely pair, but they soon developed a surrogate father-son relationship. It was as thus that Lafayette distinguished himself among a large colourful group of European soldiers of fortune and idealists—among them Frederick William, Freiherr von Steuben, of Prussia and Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski of Poland—who had joined the Continental Army to fight for American independence. The more Washington saw of the young Frenchman, the more impressed he was and the closer the two became.
Lafayette served on Washington’s staff for six weeks, and, after fighting with distinction at the Battle of the Brandywine, near Philadelphia, on September 11, 1777, he was given command of his own division. He conducted a masterly retreat from Barren Hill on May 28, 1778. Returning to France in February 1779, he worked with American emissaries Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to help persuade the government of Louis XVI to send additional troops and supplies to aid the colonists. Lafayette arrived back in America in April 1780 with the news that 6,000 infantry under the command of the comte de Rochambeau, as well as six ships of the line, would soon arrive from France. He was given command of an army in Virginia, and in 1781 he conducted hit-and-run operations against forces under the command of Benedict Arnold. Reinforced by Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne and milita troops under Steuben, Lafayette harried British commander Lord Charles Cornwallis across Virginia, trapping him at Yorktown in late July. A French fleet and several additional American armies joined the siege, and on October 19 Cornwallis surrendered. The British cause was lost. Lafayette was hailed as the “Hero of Two Worlds,” and on returning to France in 1782 he was promoted to maréchal de camp (brigadier general). He became an honorary citizen of several states on a visit to the United States in 1784.
- Marc Leepson
Dec 20, 2021 · Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de La Fayette (1757 – 1834), was an American hero. Orphaned early in life, Lafayette joined the French Royal Army in 1771. After having achieved the rank of general in 1776 at only 19 years of age, he became inspired by stories of the American colonists’ struggles against British ...
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Dec 17, 2021 · As the camp gathered round, he and Washington embraced. Beloved by two families — one in France, the other in America — Lafayette found that whenever he crossed the Atlantic, he was always coming home. Washington’s pleasure at Lafayette’s return only increased when Lafayette revealed another French expeditionary force was on the way.
