The French Connection
Most people 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 significant and tragic role in his own nation's revolution. Lafayette led the original reform movement and remained steadfast, hoping to serve as a moderate influence as the French shifted left and violence intruded upon the political landscape. He commanded the National Guard and the French Army when his country was invaded. Ultimately, Lafayette and his family became entangled in the Reign of Terror in Paris in 1792. Accused of treason, he fled to the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), where he was captured by Austrian troops and spent over 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 sent 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 |
In 1794, his former comrade in arms and future American president, James Monroe, became the American Minister to France. Monroe and his wife, Elizabeth, arranged for a carriage so that Elizabeth could ride to the prison, where she managed to meet and embrace Adrienne in front of a crowd of Parisians. The emotional event compelled 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 conditions until Napoleon Bonaparte secured his release in 1797. However, upon his return to France, Lafayette refused to support Napoleon's government and lived as a private citizen until the restoration government, during which he served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. On Christmas Eve in 1807, Adrienne died from illness.
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 toured the 24 states of the United States from July 1824 to September 1825. This marked his first return trip since the American Revolution. The populace greeted the former Continental Army general with a hero's welcome at many stops, and numerous honors and monuments were bestowed to commemorate and memorialize this visit. On New Year’s Day in 1825, Congress held a dinner in honor of the hero. At the event, Lafayette reciprocated the warm 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 create, 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 confidential 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 a member of John J. Pershing's staff, visited the tomb of La Fayette and said, "Lafayette, we are here!" to honor the nobleman's assistance during the Revolutionary War and to assure the French people that the people of the United States would aid them in World War I. Stanton’s remarks were initially attributed to Pershing because the press was under a strict censorship policy that prohibited printing the name and location of any U.S. soldier in Europe, with the sole exception being General Pershing.
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Charles Stanton is third from the left in the photo
Pershing is at the forefront facing |
The Prediction
Lafayette's toast predicting his adopted land's saving the world is more than a polite acknowledgment. By the early 19th century, the growth and potential power of the new nation were widely recognized. Lafayette's devotion to the country's fundamental goodness and its possibilities gave him every reason to make such a bold statement. As it turned out, his faith in his adopted country was more than a wise gamble.
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| Lafayette |
