I have often stated now, that La Fayette had at times quite a special humour - a humour that I absolutely adore. I recently came across this little article in the Gazette of the American Friends of Lafayette, No 3, page 3:

When Lafayette’s friend Ary Scheffer was painting his portrait (1818), someone asked the General how he was posed. He said “I am taking a walk - my hat and cane in my hand - like this.”

“And the other hand?”

“It is in my pocket, which is much better than having it in somebody else’s”

The more often I read this (and other anecdotes of a similar kind), the more I realise how alarmingly similar La Fayette’s and my sense of humour is.

Turn: Washington’s Spies | s4e9

I promised a long time ago in a post about La Fayette and his attitude towards woman, that I would transcribe a few letters between La Fayette and notable woman of his time. Now, with the generous help of @acrossthewavesoftime, I can present you the first of these letters - a letter by Emma Willard (née Hart).

Troy, May 1 1833

My dear General,

Sometimes when I think of you I feel such a desire to see you, that I am tempted to go again to France. Are you not coming to America? You intended when I was in Paris, and why not come now? Why not leave France to herself and come to us? Do not my dear friend, too much regret what has happened there. Much had been gained by your revolution, tho not all you could have wished. I rejoice that all that has happened, is of a nature to exalt your own fame, as it will go down to future times, as the great benefactor of your own. You might it is true have taken to yourself, the government of France, when you gave it to other hands; But if you had, the selfish and the ambitious would have suid [sic] — there is no such thing as disinterested benevolence, — even Lafayette has yielded to the dictates of ambition. — Now, I regard you as standing among individuals as America among nations, a revolution in yourself of the slanders against humanity

I send you a copy of an appeal which I have lately made in favour of promoting female education in Greece. It appears to be favourably received and our Ladies in different parts of the country are forming societies to aid in the project. The women in those darkened regions of the earth are oppressed beyond all other oppression. The negro slave is free compared with them — Sold by parents to men whom perhaps they loathe, and by them, if suspected put to asuret [sic] death. Complian [sic] tho I have not so much for spoken of this, in my appeal, does yet contemplate the planting of a Tree whose leaves may be for the future healing of the degraded women of mahometan countries. If we succeed in educating the Greek women, and educating them to moral dignity; it must inevitably work a change in the customs of the surrounding nations. I think you will be gratified to know that a spirit to attempt such an enterprise is abroad among the deaughters [sic] your own America; and that it was moved as fast by her, you have called your friend, and who prizes the appellation above all earthly titles.

Remember me if your daughters are with you as you speak to them. In looking over my papers to prepare my Journal for the press (which I am about to give to the Greek cause) I am again and again touched with the feeling of their kindness to me while I was in France. I have written letters which I think have not been received — one to Mathilde [La Fayette’s second grand-daughter by his son Georges Washington La Fayette] and several to yourself. Perhaps my name devoted to yourself and family may be even too prominent in the memories of my stay in Paris — but the heart loves to speak its inward feelings, and mine is

Yours in the Truest friendship and the warmest gratitude

Emma Willard

Gen. La Fayette

Emma Hart Willard was an American women’s right activist with a special interest in the education of women. Her engagement and sphere of interest was not limited to her native country, as you can see in this letter. She was active all around the western world and had many influential and revered friends - one of them was La Fayette. It seems as if they first met during La Fayette’s visit to America in 1824/25. Willard had established a school for girls in Troy, New York, in 1821 (actually already in 1818 but the school was not properly running prior to 1821), known as the Troy Female Seminary. The school, with a new name, is still operating and doing extremely well these days. La Fayette visited the Seminary in 1825. Here is what La Fayette’s private secretary, Auguste Levasseur, wrote in his book about the visit (Lafayette in America, in 1824 and 1825; or, Journal of Travels, in the United States. by A. Levasseur, 1829, Vol. 1, pages 119-120)

While we were taking breakfast in the house, from the balcony of which we had seen all the militia of the place and the neighbouring towns march by, the General received a message from the ladies of Troy, inviting him to visit the Female Boarding School, where they had all assembled to receive him; and he set out with pleasure. The avenues to that establishment, which is conducted by Mrs. Willard, were decorated with green branches and flowers, and terminated near the house at a triumphal arch, under which he was received by a committee of ladies, at the head of whom was Mrs. Paulding, who, in few words, expressed to him the patriotic sentiments of the ladies of Troy, and their gratitude to the illustrious benefactor of their beloved country. He was then conducted by that committee into the establishment, where none of the other gentlemen accompanied him; and we soon after heard the pure and angelic voices of a choir of young ladies singing.

The General soon after reappeared on the threshold, his features expressing a deep feeling, his eyes filled with tears. He slowly descended the steps, supported and surrounded by the principal ladies of the academy. Two hundred young ladies, dressed in white, followed him, harmoniously raising the voice of gratitude to Heaven. They conducted him to the outer gate, where they took an affecting leave, in the presence of several thousand spectators, whom the scene had reduced to a solemn silence.

General Lafayette wished not to leave Troy, without making a few private visits to different persons of his intimate acquaintance, and particularly Mrs. Taylor, with whose family he became attached during the revolutionary war. Mrs. Taylor is a young lady much distinguished by her wit, and by the acquisitions she has made in the boarding school we had just visited. We found in her house a handsome cabinet of minerals, remarkable for its order and value. She presented the General, as a memorial of Troy, a hortus - siccus, including more than two hundred of the most remarkable plants of that vicinity, collected, arranged, and described by herself.

can you talk a little bit more about it (or if I remember ir wrong)?? thank youu <3

Hello Anon,

thank you for your question. Yes, you remembered that absolutely correct. I wrote in this post about a quote from Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, Marie Antoinette’s and Louis XVI oldest daughter. The young girl was the only member of her immediate family to survive the French Revolution. Her parents were both executed in 1793 and her younger brother died in prison in 1795. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte herself was imprisoned between 1792 and 1795. She was released on December 18, 1795 after the Terror ended and travelled to her mother’s family in Vienna. From there she travelled to her father’s family in exile in Russia (modern day Latvia). She married her first cousin, the son of her father’s younger brother, Louis Antoine and became the Duchess of Angoulême by marriage - but more on that in a bit.

Marie-Thérèse Charlotte is quoted with having said:

Si ma mère eût pu vaincre ses préventions contre M. de Lafayette, si on lui eût accordé plus de confidance, mes malheureux parents vivraient encore

If my mother could have conquered her prejudices against M. de Lafayette, if he only had been more trusted, my unhappy parents would have still been alive.

I could not find the exact source where she said this. Marie-Thérèse Charlotte wrote and published several memoirs, journals and “narratives” during her life and I was only able to read or skip through some of them. I believe she wrote this statement in The journal of Madame Royal but because I was not able to get my hands on the book, take that with a grain of salt.

Her quote is quite interesting because many other people of the time (courtiers, members of the extended royal family and high ranking nobles especially) blamed La Fayette for the fate of the King and Queen. With Marie-Thérèse Charlotte they had a young women who lost her family in one of the most unimaginable ways, who lived through all the madness of the Revolution and nobody would have begrudged her blaming La Fayette - yet she did not. While reading her different writings, it is clear to see that she also criticised La Fayette, that she doubted some of his decisions and actions. But in the end and, more importantly, in hindsight, she believed that her parents and especially her mother would have done good by trusting La Fayette. The relationship between the Queen and La Fayette was far more strained than La Fayette’s relationship with Louis XVI.

Interestingly, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte was forced to leave France a second time - and La Fayette again was involved in all of that. Her father-in-law/uncle became King Charles X of France after the death of his older brother Louis XVIII in 1824. La Fayette and Charles X really, really, did not liked each other. In the course of the July Revolution (1830), in which La Fayette participated, Charles X was forced to abdicate. His abdication put his oldest son, Louis Antoine and his wife Marie-Thérèse Charlotte on the throne of France. They were King and Queen for approximately twenty minutes before Louis Antoine signed the same document as his father and abdicates as well. I have never read anything about Marie-Thérèse Charlotte’s opinion (and I have honestly never really searched for that) but I am guessing that after the events of 1830 she was completely done with La Fayette.

War was a dangerous business and the Marquis de La Fayette was quite aware of it. Not only had he lost many family members, his own father included, to war, he also was wounded in the calf during his very first taste of war during the Battle of Brandywine. Lucky for La Fayette he had some very eager sentry guards at times – guards who were not only fending off potential enemies but also fellow continental Generals – allow me to elaborate.

 La Fayette was one of several generals taking command during the Virginia Campaign, one of the last great stages of the Revolutionary War that eventually lead to the Siege of Yorktown and cumulated in the Surrender of General Cornwallis after the Battle of Yorktown. One of his fellow generals was General Anthony Wayne, often referred to as “Mad Anthony Wayne”. On September 2, 1781 he planned on meeting with La Fayette in the afternoon. But when Wayne arrived at La Fayette’s camp he was mistaken for an enemy and shot by one of the guards. Here is what Wayne wrote in his diary concerning this accident:

“On the 2d inst. the French troops landed near this place. After I had pointed out the most proper position for an encampment, I received an express from the Marquis Lafayette, to meet him on business of importance that evening about ten miles distant. I proceeded, accordingly, attended by two gentlemen and a servant. When we in the vicinity of the camp, about ten o'clock at night, we were challenged by a sentry, and we made the usual answer, but the poor fellow being panic-struck, mistook us for the enemy and shot me in the center of the left thigh, then fled and alarmed the camp. Fortunately the ball only grazed the bone, and lodged on the side opposite to which it had entered.“

 Lieutenant Feltman (apparently one of the two gentlemen who accompanied Wayne) wrote in his journal:

“This evening Gen. Wayne was unfortunately wounded in thigh with a buck shot, by one of the Marquis's sentinels, which renders him unfit for duty.”

 Lieutenant Ebenezer Wild of Colonel Vose's Light Infantry (under the command of the Marquis de La Fayette) also noted the event in his journal, although in a very short manner:

“General Wayne was wounded by one of our sentinels in the evening.”

 Very unfortunate indeed. The wound was luckily not too serious but nevertheless made it necessary for Wayne to be confined to his room for several days. By September 12 he was able to ride again, but the wound continued to pester him for a long time after that.

 General Richard Butler noted on his diary on September 2, that:

“(...) Gen. Wayne, who went by appointment to meet the Marquis de Lafayette, and was very unfortunately shot in thigh by a sentry just as he arrived there: the wound is not dangerous, but is very mortifying to this good officer and the troops he commands, who love him, and wish his presence on the field on all occasions.”

He further wrote on September 14, that:

“The Marquis Lafayette still ill of the ague. Yesterday the de St. Simon, and a number of officers, paid a visit to our line, and the Baron Steuben and our good friend Gen. Wayne, whose wound and gout still continue ill.”

General Wayne himself wrote to La Fayette on September 12 the following lines:

“My Dear Marquis,

I have not been pleased with Madam Fortune for some time, & she has added to that Displeasure in attacking you at this Crisis with a Caitiff fever. Try my Dear Marquis, to shake it off, & I will endeavour to get clear of my Complaint the soonest possible.”

Idzerda Stanley J. et al., editors, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, Volume 4, April 1, 1781–December 23, 1781, Cornell University Press, 1981, p. 399.

The poor man, being shot in the leg and suffering from gout - what a dreadful combination. To everybody wondering what was wrong with La Fayette, he was ill with a fever and ague, most likely a bout of malaria. Malaria was one of the great obstacles that the armies in the south had to face. Regardless of that, La Fayette did reasonable well; he was nowhere near as ill as he had been in Fishkill in late 1778.

There is one last letter I want to showcase, it was written by General Wayne on November 4 and addressed to General Washington.

“Sir,

The Campaign in this Quarter being gloriously terminated under your Excellency’s auspices—I have to request the Indulgence of a short respite from the field. If that can not be granted, I must beg permission to advance at leasure (Independent of Command) until I join Genl Greene. This is a matter in which I am much Interested not only on acct of my Wound but my feelings your Compliance will therefore greatly Oblige your Excellency’s Most Obt & very Hume Sert.”

  “To George Washington from Anthony Wayne, 4 November 1781,” Founders Online, National Archives, [This is an Early Access document from The Papers of George Washington. It is not an authoritative final version.] (03/08/2023)

🗣️ - Lafayette

📚 - William the younger

Uh, you asked exactly the two questions I really wanted to get asked – thank you for that!

4. A quote about them: The French writer, politician and historian François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand, a contemporary of La Fayette and himself an ardent royalist, wrote a very fitting characterisation of the Marquis.

M. de Lafayette had one idea only; luckily for him, it was that of the century. The fixity of this idea gave him a kingdom; it served him as a pair of blinders; it stopped him from looking to the right and left; he walked a straight line with a firm step; he went forward without falling into the precipice, not because he could see it, but because he didn’t; blindness served him as genius might have.

5. A quote from a primary source related to them: On January 25, 1804, only two days after the death of William Pitt, one of Pitt's friends, Ralph Creyke , wrote a letter of condolence to a different friend of Pitt, to William Wilberforce. I was never able to read the letter in its entirety but there is one line that always struck me:

It really is a noonday eclipse. But when will that former light be relumined? (...) I shall ever revere his memory for standing between the dead and the living, and staying the plague which, in the French Revolution, had infected the Continent, [and] might have spread and desolated this island (...).

5. What is the most ridiculous statement on them you have ever read?

Oh, that one is easy :-). No, La Fayette did not disguised himself as a (pregnant) women in order to travel to America. I repeat, La Fayette did not disguised himself in that way. That did not happen. I do not know exactly who came up with this story but made it up.

14. Do you think your favourite historical figure would like you?

Hmmm ... that is the hardest question of them all. Since La Fayette died in 1834 there will be no definitive answer – but I go with a “possible”. La Fayette made friends easily and he was not above befriending women, even quite headstrong and opinionated women. Depending a bit on the time and the circumstance of our meeting (and my ability to get a grip on myself :-)), he might very well like me – I do not think we would become the best of friends though.

19. What is the biggest difference in personality between you and them?

The ocean. La Fayette hated every sort of water that was not in a glass or in a bathtub. I on the other side love few things as much as the sea. While La Fayette was happy to be as far away from the sea and ships (unless the ship was bound for America perhaps) as possible, I could never part with one or the other.