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Biography of Lafayette, Marquis de
Name: Lafayette, Marquis de
Birth Date: 1757
Death Date: May 20, 1834
Place of Birth: N/A
Nationality: French
Gender: Male
Occupations: general
Lafayette, Marquis de
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), French general, statesman, and hero of the American Revolution, served France by endeavoring to smooth the transition from the Old Regime to the new order created by the French Revolution.The Marquis de Lafayette was born on Sept. 6, 1757, to the Motier family--better known by their noble title of La Fayette (the spelling "Lafayette" is an Americanism which only pedants would now attempt to correct)--at their château of Chavagniac in the province of Auvergne. After 3 years of study in the Collège du Plessis, a distinguished secondary school in Paris, he joined the French army in 1771. Stringent military reforms 5 years later forced his retirement from active service when he was only 18 years old.In 1773 Lafayette married Adrienne de Noailles (1759-1807), daughter of the Duc d'Ayen, and entered the court life at Versailles. He had not yet …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…in two countries, his generosity of purpose was not matched by political astuteness, and he was more carried along by events than he was their maker. He was perhaps most influential as a living symbol--of friendship between France and America, and of the men of goodwill who wanted a new and better world but could not accept terror and dictatorship as the ways to bring it into being. Further Reading Sound modern studies of Lafayette are Brand Whitlock, La Fayette (2 vols., 1929); W. E. Woodward, Lafayette (1938); and David G. Loth, The People's General: The Personal Story of Lafayette (1951). The definitive studies are by the most distinguished modern historian of Lafayette, Louis R. Gottschalk: Lafayette Comes to America (1935); Lafayette Joins the American Army (1937); Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution (1942); Lafayette between the American and French Revolutions (1950); and, with Margaret Maddox, Lafayette in the French Revolution through the October Days (1969).
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