author
marquis de Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier Lafayette
1757–1834
A young French nobleman who crossed the Atlantic to fight for American independence, he became one of the great symbols of liberty on both sides of the ocean. His life moved through revolution, imprisonment, exile, and political comeback, making him far more than a one-war hero.
1 Audiobook
Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette
by marquis de Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier Lafayette
About the author
Born in Auvergne in 1757, Lafayette inherited wealth and status early, but he is remembered less for privilege than for the causes he chose. Still in his teens, he sailed to America and joined the Continental Army, where he formed a close bond with George Washington and became a celebrated figure in the Revolutionary War.
After returning to France, he played a prominent part in the early French Revolution. He supported constitutional government and helped shape the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, but the violence of the Revolution and shifting politics left him in an increasingly dangerous position. He eventually fled, was captured, and spent years imprisoned.
Lafayette later returned to public life and remained a well-known liberal voice in France. In the United States, his reputation only grew, especially after his triumphal tour of the country in 1824–1825, when Americans welcomed him as a living hero of the Revolution. He died in Paris in 1834, leaving a legacy shared by both France and the United States.