When was marquis de lafayette born

But while he was feted as a hero, he was not placed at the head of the French army. Count Rochambeau was chosen instead. By the summer of , Lafayette was back in the United States. Washington sent him to Virginia to stop British raids along the James River. When Cornwallis' forces arrived in Virginia, Lafayette harassed the British general until Washington and Rochambeau could lay siege to him at Yorktown. In October , there was no prouder soldier at Cornwallis' surrender than Lafayette.

Lafayette again returned to France as a national hero. Lafayette remembered, "Our meeting was very tender and our satisfaction was mutual. Like Washington, he favored the creation of a strong central government. But unlike Washington he recommended an immediate end to slavery. Back in France, Lafayette helped launch the French Revolution in He proudly sent the key to the Bastille to Washington, who was serving as the President of the United States.

Lafayette fled from France when the revolution turned violent. Lafayette's fortune was confiscated by the French government and many of his relatives died by the guillotine. One of Lafayette's greatest joys in his later years came in when he made a triumphant tour of the United States.

At Mount Vernon he went alone to visit the grave of George Washington, returning to his carriage with tears in his eyes.

Generals Washington and Rochambeau had already begun marching their armies south to trap Lord Cornwallis, and Lafayette joined the main French-American force for the siege of Yorktown.

The allied victory at Yorktown proved the decisive battle of the Revolution, a fact which Lafayette grasped immediately. Lafayette left for France in December He was once again received by crowd and court alike as a conquering hero.

After his return, Lafayette espoused a new vision for France. He wished to have a charter of liberties established, called for the abolition of slavery and civil rights for Protestants, and attacked the tobacco monopoly of the French Farmers-General. During the early years of the French Revolution, Lafayette was one of the most popular figures in France. Congress and President Washington to gain his release. Lafayette finally obtained his freedom partly through the intervention of the recently victorious general Napoleon Bonaparte.

Lafayette at first saluted the rise of Napoleon, but later broke with the French Emperor. Throughout his later life, he upheld the United States as a model for the rest of the world.

In , President James Monroe invited him to visit America. Lafayette, now in his mid-sixties, arrived at Staten Island on August He toured throughout the United States and was greeted with unprecedented celebration.

Unfortunately, his actions ultimately helped Louis-Phillips assume the French throne, and his last public speech attacked the reactionary politics of the new king. Lafayette, the hero of two revolutions, died on May 20, , at the age of seventy-eight. The following passages are taken from Stanley Idzerda, ed. I am writing to you from very far away, dear heart, and to this cruel separation is added the still more dreadful uncertainty of the time when I shall hear from you.

I hope, however, that it will be soon. So many fears and so many worries are added to the intense grief of leaving everything that is most dear to me. Your grief, that of my friends, your pregnancy, Henrietta [his eldest daughter]—all came to my mind with a terrifying vividness.

It was then that I could find no more excuses for myself. If you knew everything that I have suffered, dear heart, during the sad days I passed in flight from everything that I love in the world! When I arrived here, everyone told me that my vessel had surely been taken, because two English frigates blockaded the port. I even sent orders, by land and sea, for the captain to put the men ashore and burn the ship, if there was still time.

Well, by inconceivable good fortune, a squall had momentarily driven off the frigates, and my vessel arrived in broad daylight without encountering either friend or foe. And now, my dear, I shall tell you about the country and its inhabitants.

In the marquis named his newly born son Georges Washington de Lafayette in honor of the American revolutionary. Three years later, at the suggestion of Thomas Jefferson , Lafayette named his youngest daughter Marie Antoinette Virginie to honor both the French queen and the state of Virginia.

Hounds that Lafayette sent to Washington helped to create a new breed of dog. To increase the size of a pack of black-and-tan English foxhounds that had been given to him by his patron, Lord Fairfax, the future first president of the United States bred the hunting dogs with the imports.

The combination of the English hounds, descended from those brought to the American colonies by Robert Brooke in , and French canines helped to create the American Foxhound. Lafayette co-authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. An portrait of Lafayette that hangs in the House Chamber of the U.

S Capitol. He was initially rebuffed by colonial leaders, but he impressed them with his passion and willingness to serve for free, and was named a major-general in the Continental Army. His first major combat duty came during the September Battle of Brandywine, when he was shot in the leg while helping to organize a retreat. General George Washington requested doctors to take special care of Lafayette, igniting a strong bond between the two that lasted until Washington's death.

Following a winter in Valley Forge with Washington, Lafayette burnished his credentials as an intelligent leader while helping to draw more French resources to the colonial side. In May , he outwitted the British sent to capture him at Bunker Hill, later renamed Lafayette Hill, and rallied a shaky Continental attack at Monmouth Courthouse to force a stalemate. After traveling to France to press Louis XVI for more aid, Lafayette assumed increased military responsibility upon his return to battle.

As commander of the Virginia Continental forces in , he helped keep British Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis' army pinned at Yorktown, Virginia, while divisions led by Washington and France's Comte de Rochambeau surrounded the British and forced a surrender in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War. Known as the "Hero of Two Worlds" after returning to his home country in December , Lafayette rejoined the French army and organized trade agreements with Thomas Jefferson , the American ambassador to France.