I have a tradition of producing a blog post on the
"back story" of most books I write. With the release of The Lafayette
Circle, it is time to do it again.
A Friend in Need
About a year ago, a Xavier High School classmate, Peter Reilly,
reached out to me with a suggestion that I get involved in helping celebrate
the upcoming 200th Anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette's
celebrated tour of America in 1824. Truth be told, I had never read or heard of
the event, so I was caught off guard. Peter, a CPA who is a contributor to
Forbes.com and Think Outside The Tax Box, is also chair of the Massachusetts
committee for the Bicentennial of Lafayette's Farewell Tour 2024-2025. I
wondered how to respond.
Maybe I could repost items about the upcoming celebration
on my social media platforms. Or write a book about life in America in 1824?
I knew quite a bit about Marie-Jospeh-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis
de Lafayette, from my study of the American and French Revolutions but little
of events after the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Most of what I remembered from
that era came from Peter Neary's American History class when I attended Xavier
High School in New York City—Jacksonian Democracy and all that.
Background
When in doubt, do some research. I started by re-reading two
legacy books on Lafayette from my library and engrossing myself in a recently
released biography. I also took the opportunity to join The Friends of
Lafayette, and when I did, I got behind their paywall and found a trove of
information on Lafayette's trip and the dynamics behind it. A review quickly
drew me to the conclusion that this was more than a feel-good junket—although
it certainly was that, too.
A World in Upheaval
Although the Congress of Vienna that convened with Napoleon
Bonaparte's abdication in 1814 set up a framework for a much-needed fifty years
of peace among the European powers, the world itself was shaking from the movement
of the tectonic plates of liberty. The Spanish colonies in America looked to
North America and, to some extent, to revolutionary France as examples.
Liberation movements, some long-simmering, began to erupt into rebellion and
wars of liberation.
Names like Simon Bolivar and Bernardo O'Higgins would become
examples equal to George Washington throughout most of the continent to our
south. In Spain itself, the newly formed Asturian battalion, one of ten
organized to sail to America to suppress the wars of liberation, revolted, led
by its commander, Rafael del Riego y Flórez.
Other regiments joined. The soldiers demanded a return to
the 1812 constitution. In March 1820, they surrounded the royal palace, and the
king capitulated. A junta ruled Spain for several years until the autocrats of
Europe pushed Royalist France to invade and put the king back in his rightful
place of rule as an absolute monarch. Now, General de Riego was put on trial
and hanged for treason.
Entry into Geopolitics
The long-isolationist United States grew concerned with the
possibility of some European powers stepping into the void of Spanish authority
in the New World. Britain felt the same, especially fearing Russia's incursions
from the North and the threats to its holdings in South America and the West
Indies. A suggestion made for a joint declaration of status quo ante in the New
World resonated somewhat with President Monroe but not the Secretary of State,
John Quincy Adams. After all, two wars were fought against Britain, one quite
recently. America would render its own statement. Adams was the prime drafter
of what became, many years later, called The Monroe Doctrine.
A Birthday Celebration—and More
Monroe's administration was coming to a close as the nation approached its 50th Anniversary. He would lawfully be out of office by April 1825, yet he wanted to do something celebratory prior to his departure. Inviting the last surviving Continental Army general to return to his adopted land seemed a great way to begin the party on his watch, underscore the arrival of the young republic on the world stage, and rebuild patriotic fervor. Lafayette was beloved in America and was a world-renowned figure for his lead role in two revolutionary movements.
The Plot Thickens
As I learned all this, I realized the tour was more than
just a feel-good event but a tool to use in both internal and external
politics. This was pretty slick. Others thought so, too. Among the
others were the members of the Holy Alliance, a reactionary (and not so holy) pact among the Empire of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia,
and the Empire of Russia aimed at curbing the spread of democracy and
buttressing autocracy.
Of course, I built on this by creating the fictional
subcommittee of the Holy Alliance that I named the Aulic Council. The
historical Aulic Council was an executive-judicial council for the Holy Roman Empire
that started during the Late Middle Ages and ended when Napoleon dissolved the
Holy Roman Empire in 1806. I spin it into a Spectre-like organization run by
villainous barons who harken to Austen Powers's Mr. Evil.
Protecting the Man
How does a country with no Secret Service or FBI and a small
military scattered in coastal forts and western outposts protect a dignitary
during a highly publicized series of events? That's the central theme of the
tale. An eclectic mix of characters in and out of government come together with
just minimal help from the Federal and state governments. Catholic monks, diplomats, US naval officers, US Marines, the New York militia, and others all play a role in protecting the general.
Boris and Natascha x Three
Three assassin teams, each consisting of one male and one
female, are dispatched to seek out Lafayette and kill him. This is another
eclectic cast of characters made intentionally evil but like famed "nogoodnik"
Boris Badanoff and his sultry sidekick Natasha in the Rocky and Bullwinkle
Show, not totally unlikeable. Their struggle to "acquire" their target as they
roam early 19th-century America adds to the suspense.
Who's Your President?
The fact that one of the most controversial presidential contests in America's history takes place in the middle of all this provided a subplot I could not resist. The events are proof that the more things change, the more they stay the same with backroom deals, fights for votes, and a "rigged election" that was also, curiously, legitimate. The events that deprived Andrew Jackson of the White House in the 1824 election are more obscure to most Americans than Julius Caesar's assassination, which at least was celebrated in a play by the Bard himself.
Yet the election took place
during Lafayette's visit, and he was known by all the principals involved when
the election was thrown to the House of Representatives for just the second
time in America's history. Deals were struck, and John Quincy Adams went to the White House. The man with the most electoral votes went home to his estate, The Hermitage, outside Nashville. Lafayette would go
out of his way to meet the war hero Jackson while he was home licking his
wounds.
Companions
Lafayette's journey was captured by his personal secretary Auguste Levasseur, who penned a personal account of the incredible journey, Lafayette en Amérique, en 1824 et 1825 ou Journal d'un voyage aux États-Unis. His son, Georges Washington Lafayette, also accompanied the general. Both are involved in fictionalized scenes meant to move the plot along while exposing us to different sides of the great man. Likewise, Fanny Wright, a socialist activist (and Lafayette's purported mistress) from Scotland and some thirty years younger than Lafayette, accompanies him on part of the trip.
Glimpses
The novel has several flashback sections—scenes meant to put
Lafayette back in his youth fighting the American Revolution, leading the
French Revolution, and dealing with the consequences of both. These are
intended to give a bit of historical perspective to those uninformed about his
role in those earlier significant events that shaped the Western world.
The Ordeal
I also attempted to provide a look at America and the world
in 1824. Travel was by wind, steam, and horse. It was slow and steady and
always an ordeal culminating in hundreds of stops across a vast continent. Meetings
with folks from all walks of life. Reminiscing with old comrades. Shaking
thousands and thousands of hands around the clock. Lafayette's prodigious
schedule of events and speeches were like MAGA tours of the day and bound to
take a toll on a man approaching seventy. Yet he did it with aplomb and
graciousness. One has to ask why, and the answer is simple. Indeed, he loved
America and what it stood for. But even more than that, he loved its people.
