The French Connection
Most know that Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, known in the United States simply as Lafayette, was a 19-year-old French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, including the Siege of Yorktown.
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| Lafayette leading troops at Yorktown |
Reform, Revolution & Chaos in France
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Marie Adrienne Francoise de Noailles,
Lafayette's wife |
The young general and confidant of General George Washington later returned to France where he played a key and tragic role in his own nation's revolution. Lafayette led the original reform movement and stayed the course hoping to be a moderate influence as the French veered left and violence entered the body politic. He led the National Guard and the French Army when his
Patrie was invaded. Eventually, the Marquis and his family were caught up in the reign of terror in Paris in 1792. Accused of treason, Lafayette escaped to the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), where he was captured by Austrian troops and spent more than five years in prison. Meanwhile, his wife Adrienne was imprisoned in Paris, a prisoner of the revolution's Committee of Public Safety. There she and her daughter waited in fear as the reign of terror was sending thousands of her fellow nobles (and others) to the guillotine. In fact, Adrienne’s mother, grandmother, and sister were all executed during the bloodbath in the name of
Liberte, Egalite & Fraternite.
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| The reign of terror stained the revolutionary cause and the streets of Paris |
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Elizabeth Monroe
future First Lady |
Fortunately, in 1794, his former comrade in arms (and future American president)James Monroe had become American Minister to France. Monroe and his wife Elizabeth arranged a carriage in which Elizabeth rode to the prison and managed to meet and embrace Adrienne in view of a crowd of Parisians. The emotion of the event forced the Committee of Public Safety to grant Adrienne’s freedom, and she and her daughter traveled to Austria to be with Lafayette. He remained there under dire circumstances until Napoleon Bonaparte forced his release in 1797. But when he returned to France Lafayette refused to support Napoleon's government. He lived as a private citizen until the restoration government where he served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. In 1807 Adrienne died of illness on Christmas eve.
The Return of Lafayette
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Samuel Morse
(telegraph inventor)
portrait of Lafayette |
By 1824 Lafayette was the last surviving French general of the American Revolutionary War. As he approached his own "evening parade" he made a tour of the 24 states in the United States from July 1824 to September 1825. This was his first return trip since the American Revolution. The former Continental Army general was received by the populace with a hero's welcome at many stops, and many honors and monuments were presented to commemorate and memorialize the visit. On New Year’s Day in 1825, Congress gave Lafayette a dinner to honor the hero. At the event, Lafayette returned the kind words and gestures of his American hosts with a toast that presaged the future: “The perpetual union of the United States: It has always saved us in time of storm; one day it will save the World.” He might have added, "and France twice..."
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| NYC parade honoring Lafayette was one of many across the new nation |
We are Here
Almost a century after the Marquis toasted the power of the nation he helped to birth, Charles E. Stanton, the nephew of Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, took the Marquis's vision seriously. Stanton, a career Army officer, arrived in France as an aide to General John J. Pershing during World War I. They were on a close hold mission to begin planning for the arrival and training of the American Expeditionary Force. After three years of watching from the sidelines, America declared war on the German empire and its allies.
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President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Imperial Germany
in April 1917 |
On July 4, 1917, Stanton, as part of John J. Pershing's staff visited the tomb of La Lafayette and said, "Lafayette, we are here!" to honor the nobleman's assistance during the Revolutionary War and assure the French people that the people of the United States would aid them in World War I. Stanton’s remarks were originally attributed to Pershing because the press was under a strict censor policy not to print the name and location of any U.S. soldier in Europe, with the only exception, General Pershing.
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Charles Stanton is third from left in the photo
Pershing is forefront facing |
The Prediction
Lafayette's toast predicting his adopted land's saving the world is more than a polite tip of the hat. By the early 19th century, the growth and potential power of the new nation were widely accepted. And Lafayette's devotion to the country's basic goodness, combined with its potential gave him every reason to make the leap with such a bold statement. As it turned out, his faith in his adopted country was more than a good bet.
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| Lafayette |
