Who is the Marquis de Lafayette? This man was one of the most famous political figures in France. The history of the marquis is the history of three revolutions. The first 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 discussed in our article.
Marquis Origin
Lafayette was born into a family that was descended from the knightly nobility. At birth in 1757, he received many names, the main of which is Gilbert, in honor of his famous ancestor, who was a marshal of France, an 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.
Marquis is a title that, according to hierarchical settings, is located between the titles of count andDuke.
It should be noted that the surname was originally written "de La Fayette", since both prefixes indicated an aristocratic origin. After the Bastille was taken in 1789, Gilbert carried out the "democratization" of the family name 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 man began in 1768, when he was enrolled in the College Duplessis, 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, the Marquis of Riviere. From him, Gilbert got a large fortune.
- In 1771, the Marquis de Lafayette was enrolled in the 2nd company of the King's Musketeers. It was an elite guard unit, which was called "black musketeers", in accordance with the color of their horses. Gilbert later became a lieutenant in it.
- In 1772, Lafayette graduated from a military college, and in 1773 he was appointed commander of a squadron of a cavalry regiment.
- In 1775, he was promoted to the rank of captain and transferred to the garrison of the city of Metz to serve in a cavalry regiment.
Arrival in America
In September 1776, according to the biography of the Marquis de Lafayette, a turning point occurred in his life. He learned that a rebellion had begun in colonial North America, and the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the US Continental Congress. Later Lafayettewrote that his "heart was recruited", he was fascinated by Republican relations.
Despite the fact that his wife's parents secured a place for him at court, he, not afraid to spoil relations with them, decided to go to the USA. To avoid being charged with desertion, Lafayette filed for retirement from the reserve, ostensibly due to ill he alth.
In April 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette and 15 other French officers sailed from the port of Pasajes in Spain to the American shores. In June, he and his companions sailed to the American bay of Georgetown, near the city of Charleston in South Carolina. In July they were already 900 miles away in Philadelphia.
In an address to the Continental Congress, the Marquis asked to be allowed to serve in the army without pay as a simple volunteer. He was appointed chief of the army staff and received the rank of major general. However, this post was formal and, in fact, corresponded to the post of adjutant to George Washington, commander of the army. Over time, a friendship developed between the two people.
Participation in the War of Independence
Next, we will talk about the events of the American Revolutionary War, in which Lafayette took part.
- In September 1777, he received his baptism of fire in a battle 20 miles from Philadelphia, near Brandywine. In it, the Americans were defeated, and the Marquis was wounded in the thigh.
- After in November of the same year, Lafayette, at the head of a detachment of 350 people, defeated the mercenariesunder Gloucester, he was appointed commander of a division of 1,200 men, which he equipped at his own expense, since the army, led by Washington, was deprived of the most necessary.
- In early 1778, Lafayette was already in command of the Army of the North, concentrated in the Albany area, in the state of New York. At this time, he campaigned among the Indians against the British and was awarded the honorary name "Terrible Horseman" by them. With his assistance, an agreement was signed on the "Union of the Six Tribes", according to which the Indians, who received generous gifts paid from Lafayette's pocket, pledged to fight on the side of the Americans. The Marquis also built a fort for the Indians on the border with the Canadians with his own money and supplied him with cannons and other weapons.
- In the spring of 1778, the Marquis de Lafayette, as a result of his ingenious maneuver, managed to withdraw the division, which was in a trap, which was organized by superior enemy forces, without loss of weapons and people.
Diplomatic function
In February 1778, after suffering from severe pneumonia, Lafayette arrived in France on vacation on the frigate Alliance, specially allocated for this purpose by Congress. In Paris, he was received with triumph, the king awarded him the rank of grenadier colonel. At the same time, the general popularity of the Marquis was a cause for alarm in Versailles.
In April, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States already as a person authorized to officially notify Congress that France intends to take military action against the British in the near future,sending a special expeditionary force to North America.
In the future, the Marquis participates not only in the war, but also in diplomatic and political negotiations, trying to help strengthen Franco-American cooperation and expand US assistance from the French.
During the break between hostilities, Lafayette in 1781 again sent to France, where peace negotiations between England and the United States were planned. He is given the rank of camp marshal for the capture of Yorktown, in which he took part. In 1784, he makes his third trip to America, where he is greeted as a hero.
Revolution in France
In 1789, the Marquis de Lafayette was elected to the Estates General as a representative of the nobility. At the same time, he advocated that the meetings of all estates be held jointly, defiantly joining the third estate. In July, he submitted to the Constituent Assembly a draft Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, taking the American Declaration of 1776 as a model.
Despite his wishes, Lafayette took command of the National Guard, but honorably fulfilled his duties, which he considered police officers. So, in October 1789, he was forced to bring guards subject to him to Versailles in order to force the king to move to Paris, but stopped the murders and riots that had begun.
However, Lafayette's position was ambivalent. As head of the main armed structure in the capital, he was one of the most influential personalities in France. However, he was liberal.a politician who could not fully abandon the traditions of the nobility, dreaming of the coexistence of the monarchical order and the triumph of freedom and democracy.
He was against both the violent speeches of the mob and the language of Jacobin orators, but also did not agree with the actions of the king and his courtiers. As a consequence, he has incurred hostility and suspicion on both sides. Marat repeatedly demanded the hanging of Lafayette, and Robespierre groundlessly accused him of complicity in the escape of the king from Paris.
Further events
In July 1791, Lafayette was a participant in the suppression of the uprising on the Champ de Mars, after which his popularity among the masses declined sharply. When the post of commander of the National Guard was abolished in November, the marquis ran for mayor of Paris, but lost the election not without the influence of the royal court, which hated him.
Appearing at 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 those assembled reacted to him with extreme hostility, and in the palace he was received coldly. At the same time, the queen said that she would rather accept death than help from Lafayette.
Hated by the Jacobins and persecuted by the Girondins, the Marquis returned to the army. It failed to bring him to trial. After the king was overthrown, Lafayette arrested representatives of the Legislative Assembly, who tried to swear allegiance to the military to the republic. Then it was announceda traitor and fled to Austria, where he was imprisoned for 5 years in the Olmutz fortress on charges of duplicity by adherents of the monarchy.
In opposition
In 1977, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to France and did not engage in politics until 1814. In 1802, he wrote a letter to Napoleon Bonaparte, where he protested against the authoritarian regime. When he was offered a peerage during the Hundred Days by Napoleon, the Marquis refused. He was elected to the Legislative Corps, where he was in opposition to Bonaparte.
During the second Restoration, Lafayette stood on the far left, participating in various societies opposed to the return of absolutism. Meanwhile, an attempt was made by the royalists 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 sat 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 that took over the duties of the provisional government. At this time, the Marquis de Lafayette spoke for Louis Philippe of Orleans, against the Republic, as he believed that the time had not yet come for her in France.
However, already in September, Lafayette, disapproving of the policy of the new king, resigned. In February 1831, he became chairman of the "Polish Committee", and in 1833 he created an oppositionorganization "Union for the Protection of Human Rights". Lafayette died in Paris in 1834. In his birthplace in Puy, in the department of Haute-Loire, a monument was erected to him in 1993.
The 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 were guillotined because of their noble origin. Since Adrienne was Lafayette's wife, they did not dare to behead her.
In 1795, she was released from prison and, having sent her son to study at Harvard, with the permission of the emperor, she remained to live with her husband in the Olmutz fortress. The family returned to France in 1779, and in 1807 Adrienne died after a long illness.
The Lafayettes 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, in the marriage of the Marquis, released memories of the family - her own and her mother's. His son, Georges Washington, after graduating 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
Several sayings attributed to this outstanding person have come down to our time. Here are some quotes from the Marquis de Lafayette:
- One of the statements concerns the relationship between people. Beinga man of passions, Lafayette believed: "Infidelity can be forgotten, but not forgiven."
- Another of his famous phrases are the words: "For fools, memory serves as a substitute for the mind." It is believed that they were said to the Count of Provence when he boasted of his phenomenal memory.
- The saying of the Marquis de Lafayette: "Rebellion is a sacred duty" was taken out of context and taken as a slogan by the Jacobins. In fact, he meant otherwise. Here is what the Marquis de Lafayette said: “Rebellion is at the same time the most inalienable right and a sacred duty, when the old order was nothing more than slavery.” These words are fully consonant with what is said in v. 35 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted by the French in 1973. At the same time, Lafayette adds: "As far as constitutional government is concerned, the strengthening of the new order is necessary here so that everyone can feel safe." It is in this way, based on the context, that the statement of the Marquis de Lafayette about the uprising should be understood.
- There are also discrepancies about the following phrase: "The monarchy of Louis Philippe is the best of the republics." After the completion of the July Revolution on July 30, 1830, Lafayette presented Prince Louis of Orleans to the Parisian republican public, placing a tricolor 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, later Lafayette did not acknowledge his authorship.
- 31.07.1789, while addressing the townspeople in the Paris City Hall, pointing to the tricolor cockade, Lafayetteexclaimed: "This cockade is destined to circumnavigate the entire globe." Indeed, the tricolor banner, having become a symbol of revolutionary France, circled the globe.
Lafayette, being an extraordinary heroic personality, left his mark on modern culture. So, he acts as the hero of the musical Hamilton staged on Broadway, which tells about the life of A. Hamilton, the 1st US Treasury Secretary. And also Lafayette is a character in several computer games. He is not bypassed by the attention of filmmakers who shot several films about him. There is also a series about the Marquis de Lafayette - “Turn. Spies of Washington.”
