Lafayette

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Authors: Harlow Giles Unger

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Lafayette

 

Lafayette, in his uniform as a French brigadier general and maréchal de camp, in 1782, from an engraving by Adèle Ethiou of the painting at Versailles. (
From the author’s collection
.)

Lafayette

H
ARLOW
G
ILES
U
NGER

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2002 by Harlow Giles Unger. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Unger, Harlow G., date.

Lafayette / Harlow Giles Unger.

    p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-471-39432-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757–1834. 2. Generals—United States—Biography. 3. United States. Army— Biography. 4. Generals—France—Biography. 5. Statesmen—France—Biography. 6. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Participation, French. 7. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Biography. I. Title.

E207.L2 U45 2002

944.04′092—dc21

[B]

2002071327

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my dear friends
André and Eva Mandel

To my brother
Roger H. Unger, M.D
.

and
To my son
Richard C. Unger

The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; She is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and of peaceful liberty.

Lafayette, June 7, 1777

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Chronology

Preface

P
ART
O
NE
    T
HE
B
EST OF
T
IMES

  
1  The Young Knight

  
2  The Quest

  
3  First Blood

  
4  Boy General

  
5  An American Winter

  
6  The Alliance

  
7  Return to Royal Favor

  
8  The Traitor and the Spy

  
9 Ride to Glory

10  “The Play Is Over”

11  Conqueror of Cornwallis

12  Completing the Quest

P
ART
T
WO
    T
HE
W
ORST OF
T
IMES

13  The Notables and the “Not Ables”

14  “I Reign in Paris”

15  Guardian Angel

16  Prisoners of the Mob

17  The Most Hated Man in Europe

18  The Prisoners of Olmütz

19  Resurrection

20  Apotheosis

21  
Les Adieux

Epilogue

Notes

Selected Bibliography of Principal Sources

Index

Illustrations

Maps

The Battle of Brandywine Creek

Lafayette’s campaign, Virginia cape

The siege of Yorktown

Illustrations

Lafayette as a French brigadier general and maréchal de camp, at twenty-five

The Château de Chavaniac

Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, Lafayette’s father

Julie de La Rivière de La Fayette, Lafayette’s mother

The six-year-old Lafayette and his aunt Charlotte

Lafayette at eleven

The duc d’Ayen

The duchesse d’Ayen

Lafayette, the sixteen-year-old groom

Adrienne de Noailles, Lafayette’s fourteen-year-old bride

Menu, Lafayette wedding dinner

Lafayette, captain of the Dragons de Noailles, at eighteen 16

The comte de Vergennes

The comte de Broglie

“Baron” Johann de Kalb

George Washington

Major General Nathanael Greene

The Peale portrait of Lafayette, in American major general’s uniform

King Louis XVI

Cartoon of the comte d’Estaing

The comte de Rochambeau

Benedict Arnold

Lord Cornwallis

Admiral de Grasse

The surrender at Yorktown

Lafayette’s children

Lafayette and James the slave

Queen Marie-Antoinette and her children

The Assemblée des Notables

Gouverneur Morris

Storming the Bastille

Bailly and Lafayette greet the king

Georges-Jacques Danton

Maximilien Robespierre

Jean-Paul Marat

The
Fête de la Fédération

Mob presents severed head to National Assembly

The beheading of King Louis XVI

Lafayette in chains

Adrienne Lafayette after release from prison

Napoléon I

The Château de La Grange

King Louis XVIII

American triumphal arch

Charles X

Lafayette enthrones the duc d’Orléans in 1830

Lafayette in his garden, at seventy-five

Lafayette’s grave in Picpus Cemetery, Paris

Acknowledgments

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