[Born at Chavagnac, in France, 1757. Died in Paris, 1834. Aged 77.]
Of noble family, but a republican and an enthusiast from his earliest
youth. He was only twenty-three years of age when he embarked secretly
for America, in order to take part in the War of Independence. Raising
and equipping a body of men at his own expense, he fought at the battles
of Brandywine and Monmouth. He was again in France in 1779, for the
purpose of concluding a treaty between that country and America;
returned ta America after accomplishing his object, and commanded
Washington’s vanguard when Lord Cornwallis surrendered in 1782. His
zeal, on behalf of America and the republican cause, knew no bounds, and
his restlessness was excessive. Many of his proposed schemes were wild
and impossible. During the French Revolution, this arch-republican was
himself obliged to fly from France, in order to save his head, and being
taken by the Austrians, was imprisoned for five years at Olmütz.
Buonaparte stipulated for his deliverance, in the treaty of Campo Formio
(1796), and obtained it, but Lafayette took no part in politics under
Napoleon, and at the Restoration publicly evinced his dislike for the
Bourbons. In 1824, he revisited America, where he was received with an
affectionate welcome, and acknowledged as one of the joint founders,
with Washington and Franklin, of American Freedom. The Revolution of
1830 saw Lafayette, for a day, Dictator of France, but he resigned that
supremacy to hand over the vacant throne to Louis Philippe. Lafayette,
with purity of intention, and elevation of principle, was the victim of
vanity, puerile simplicity, and an overweening-love of popularity. His
heart was stronger than his head: his capacity for public business not
equal to the virtues which adorned his heart. Brave and chivalrous to a
fault, he was without solid judgment. One error ran through his life: he
believed that the constitution of America might be transplanted to his
own soil; and that a throne, surrounded by republican institutions,
would be the very perfection of human government, even in France.