Who is the Marquis de Lafayette? This man was one of the most famous politicians in France. The history of the marquis is the story of three revolutions. The first of these is the American War of Independence, the second is the French Revolution, and the third is the July 1830 revolution. In all these events, Lafayette was directly involved. A brief biography of the Marquis de Lafayette and will be considered in our article.
Origin of the Marquise
Lafayette was born into a family that was descended from a knightly nobility. At birth in 1757, he received many names, the main of which is Gilbert, in honor of his famous ancestor, who was Marshal of France, adviser to King Charles VII. His father was a grenadier with the rank of colonel, Marquis Michel de La Fayette, who died during the 7-year war.
A marquise is a title, which, according to hierarchical attitudes, in its importance is located between the titles of the count and duke.
It should be noted that the surname was originally written "de la Fayette", since both consoles indicated aristocratic origin. After the capture of the Bastille took place in 1789, Gilbert carried out the “democratization” of the surname and began to write “Lafayette”. Since that time, just such an option has been established.
Childhood and youth
The history of the Marquis de Lafayette as a military began in 1768, when he was enrolled in Duplessis College, then one of the most aristocratic educational institutions in France. Further events developed as follows:
- In 1770, at the age of 33, his mother Marie-Louise passed away, and a week later his grandfather, a noble Breton nobleman Marquis Riviere, passed away. Gilbert got a great fortune from him.
- In 1771, the Marquis de Lafayette was recorded in the 2nd company of the king's musketeers. It was an elite guards unit, which was called the "black musketeers", in accordance with the color of their horses. Gilbert later became a lieutenant in her.
- In 1772, Lafayette graduated from a military college, and in 1773 he was appointed commander of a squadron of cavalry regiment.
- In 1775, he was promoted to the rank of captain and transferred to the Metz garrison to serve in the cavalry regiment.
Arriving in America
In September 1776, according to the biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, a turning point occurred in his life. He learned that an uprising had begun in colonial North America, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress. Lafayette later wrote that his “heart was recruited,” he was fascinated by republican relations.
Despite the fact that his wife’s parents got him a place at court, he, not afraid to spoil his relationship with them, decided to go to the USA. To avoid the desertion charge, Lafayette filed a letter of resignation from the service to the reserve, allegedly due to poor health.
In April 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette and another 15 French officers sailed from the port of Pasajes in Spain to the American shores. In June, he and his companions sailed into the American Bay of Georgetown, near the city of Charleston in South Carolina. In July, they were already 900 miles from this place in Philadelphia.
In an appeal to the Continental Congress, the Marquis requested permission to serve in the army without a salary as a simple volunteer. He was appointed chief of the army headquarters and received the rank of major general. However, this post was formal and, in fact, corresponded to the post of adjutant George Washington, commander of the army. Over time, friendships developed between the two people.
Participation in the war of independence
Next, we will tell about the events of the US War of Independence in which Lafayette took part.
- In September 1777, he received a baptism of fire in a battle that took place 20 miles from Philadelphia, near Brendyvine. In it, the Americans were defeated, and the Marquis was wounded in the thigh.
- After Lafayette defeated the mercenaries at Gloucester at the head of a detachment of 350 men in November of that year, he was appointed commander of the 1,200-man division he equipped at his own expense, as the army led by Washington was deprived of the necessities.
- In early 1778, Lafayette already commanded the Northern Army, concentrated in the Albany region, in the state of New York. At this time, he led agitation among the Indians against the British and was honored by them with the honorary name "The Terrible Horseman." With his assistance, an agreement was signed on the “Union of Six Tribes”, according to which the Indians, who received generous gifts paid out of Lafayette’s pocket, pledged to fight on the side of the Americans. And also the Marquis built on his own money for the Indians a fort on the border with the Canadians and supplied it with guns and other weapons.
- In the spring of 1778, as a result of the witty maneuver undertaken by him, the Marquis de Lafayette succeeded in withdrawing a division that was trapped, which was organized by superior enemy forces, without losing weapons and people.
Diplomatic function
In February 1778, after severe pneumonia, Lafayette arrived on vacation in France on the frigate Alliance specially allocated for this by the Congress. In Paris, he was received with triumph, the king awarded him the rank of grenadier colonel. At the same time, the universal popularity of the Marquis was a cause for concern of Versailles.
In April, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States as the person authorized to officially notify Congress that France intends to take military action against the British in the near future by sending a special expeditionary force to North America.
In the future, the Marquis participated not only in the war, but also in diplomatic as well as political negotiations, trying to help strengthen French-American cooperation and expand US assistance from the French.
In the interval between hostilities Lafayette in 1781 again sent to France, where peace talks are planned between England and the United States. He is awarded the rank of camp marshal for the capture of Yorktown, in which he took part. In 1784, he made his third trip to America, where he was greeted as a hero.
Revolution in France
In 1789, the Marquis de Lafayette was elected to the General States by a representative from the nobles. At the same time, he advocated that meetings of all classes be held jointly, defiantly joining the third estate. In July, he submitted to the Constituent Assembly the draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, taking the American Declaration of 1776 as a model.
Contrary to his wishes, Lafayette took command of the National Guard, but honorably carried out his duties, which he considered police officers. So, in October 1789, he was forced to bring his guards into Versailles in order to force the king to move to Paris, but he stopped the ongoing killings and riots.
However, Lafayette’s position was ambivalent. As the head of the main armed structure in the capital, he was one of the most influential personalities in France. At the same time, he was a liberal politician who could not completely abandon the traditions of the nobility, dreaming of the coexistence of a monarchical order and the triumph of freedom and a democratic principle.
He was against both violent speeches of the mob, and the language of the Jacobin speakers, but also did not agree with the actions of the king and his courtiers. As a result, he incurred hostility and suspicion on both sides. More than once Marat demanded that Lafayette be hanged, and Robespierre unfoundedly accused him of aiding the king’s escape from Paris.
Further events
In July 1791, Lafayette was a participant in the suppression of the uprising on the Field of Mars, after which his popularity among the masses sharply waned. When the position of commander of the National Guard was abolished in November, the Marquis ran for mayor of Paris, but not without the influence of the royal court, who hated him, lost the election.
Having appeared in the Legislative Assembly from the northern border, where he commanded one of the detachments, with a petition from the officers, the Marquis de Lafayette demanded to close the radical clubs, restore the authority of laws, the constitution, and save the dignity of the king. But the majority of the audience reacted extremely hostile to him, and he was met dryly in the palace. At the same time, the queen said that she would better accept death than help from Lafayette.
Being hated by the Jacobins and persecuted by the Girondins, the Marquis returned to the army. They failed to bring him to trial. After the king was overthrown, Lafayette arrested representatives of the Legislative Assembly, who tried to swear military allegiance to the republic. Then he was declared a traitor and fled to Austria, where he was imprisoned for 5 years in the Olmuc fortress on charges of duplicity by the adherents of the monarchy.
In opposition
In 1977, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to France and until 1814 did not engage in politics. In 1802, he wrote a letter to Napoleon Bonaparte, where he protested against the authoritarian regime. When Napoleon was offered peerdom during the Hundred Days, the Marquis refused. He was elected to the Legislative Building, where he was in opposition to Bonaparte.
During the second restoration, Lafayette stood on extremely leftist positions, participating in various societies that opposed the return of absolutism. Meanwhile, the royalists made an attempt to make the marquis involved in the murder of the Duke of Berry, which ended in failure. In 1823, Lafayette again visited America, and in 1825 he again met in the Chamber of Deputies. The Marquis, having passed the Masonic initiation, became a member of the Lodge of Masons in Paris.
July Revolution, 1830
In July 1830, Lafayette again led the National Guard. In addition, he was a member of the commission, which assumed the responsibilities of the interim government. At this time, the Marquis de Lafayette spoke out for Louis Philippe of Orleans, against the republic, since he believed that in France the time had not yet come for her.
However, already in September, Lafayette, disapproving of the policies of the new king, resigned. In February 1831, he became chairman of the Polish Committee, and in 1833 created the opposition organization Human Rights Protection Union. Lafayette died in Paris in 1834. In his homeland in Puy, in the department of Haute-Loire, in 1993 a monument was erected to him.
Lafayette family
When Lafayette was 16 years old, he married Adrienne, who was the daughter of the duke. During the Jacobin dictatorship, she had to endure a lot of suffering. She herself was imprisoned, and her mother, grandmother and sister are guillotined because of her noble birth. Since Adriena was Lafayette's wife, they did not dare to decapitate her.
In 1795, she was released from prison and, sending her son to study at Harvard, with the permission of the emperor, she remained to live with her husband in the Olmutsk fortress. The family returned to France in 1779, and in 1807 Adrienne died after a long illness.
The Lafayette couple had four children - one son and three daughters. One of the girls, Henrietta, died at the age of two. The second daughter, Anastasia, married the count and lived to be 86 years old, the third, Marie Antoinette, married the Marquis, released memories of the family - her and her mother. His son, George Washington, having graduated from Harvard, went to serve in the army, where he fought bravely during the Napoleonic Wars, and then took an active part in political events on the side of the liberals.
Marquis de Lafayette Quotes
A few sayings attributed to this outstanding person have reached our time. Here are some of the quotes from the Marquis de Lafayette:
- One of the statements relates to relationships between people. As a man of passions, Lafayette believed: "Infidelity can be forgotten, but not forgiven."
- His other famous phrase is the words: "In fools, memory serves as a substitute for the mind." It is believed that they were told to the Earl of Provence when he boasted of his phenomenal memory.
- The statement of the Marquis de Lafayette: “Rebellion is a sacred duty” was taken out of context and taken by the Jacobins as a slogan. In reality, he meant otherwise. Here is what the Marquis de Lafayette said: "Rebellion is both the most inalienable right and a sacred duty when the old order was no more than slavery." These words are completely consonant with what is said in Art. 35 "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen" adopted by the French in 1973. At the same time, Lafayette adds: “As regards constitutional rule, it is necessary to strengthen the new order so that everyone can feel safe.” It is in this way, proceeding from the context, that one must understand the statement of the Marquis de Lafayette about the uprising.
- There are also discrepancies regarding the following phrase: "The Monarchy of Louis Philippe is the best of the republics." After the July Revolution of July 30, 1830, Lafayette introduced Prince Louis of Orleans to the Parisian republican public, putting a three-color banner in the hands of the future king. At the same time, he allegedly uttered the indicated words, which were printed in the newspaper. However, Lafayette subsequently did not recognize his authorship.
- 07/31/1789, while addressing the townspeople in the Paris City Hall, pointing to a three-color cockade, Lafayette exclaimed: "This cockade is destined to go around the whole globe." And indeed, the tricolor banner, having become a symbol of revolutionary France, circled the globe.
Lafayette, being an extraordinary heroic personality, left his mark in modern culture. So, he acts as the hero of the musical “Hamilton” set on Broadway, telling about the life of A. Hamilton, the 1st US Treasury Secretary. And Lafayette is the character of several computer games. He was not ignored by the filmmakers who made several films about him. There is also a series about the Marquis de Lafayette - “Turn. Washington Spies. ”