Marquis de Lafayette
Lafayette fought in two revolutions and was disowned by both. Born in 1757 into an old Auvergne family, orphaned young and enormously rich, he bought a commission, married into the Noailles family, and sailed for America in 1777 at nineteen against the express orders of the king, having bought his own ship. Congress made him a major general, largely for the diplomatic value. He was wounded at Brandywine, wintered at Valley Forge, and became close to Washington, who had no son and treated him as one. He returned to France and lobbied for the intervention that produced the fleet and army at Yorktown in 1781, where he commanded the force that pinned Cornwallis on the peninsula. He came home a hero and helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 with Jefferson's advice. He was given command of the new National Guard and designed the tricolour cockade by adding the royal white to the colours of Paris. He wanted a constitutional monarchy, which put him between the king and the radicals. His troops fired on a republican crowd at the Champ de Mars in July 1791, killing perhaps fifty, and the left never forgave him. He fled in 1792 and was imprisoned by the Austrians for five years as a revolutionary. He refused office under Napoleon, sat in the Chamber under the Restoration, and toured America in 1824 to enormous crowds. He died in 1834 and was buried under soil from Bunker Hill.
- Lived: 1757 CE – 1834 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: general, liberal_politician, aristocrat
