Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757-1834

Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette was born at Chavaniac, Auvergne, in 1757, to an old, illustrious family of the provincial and military nobility. He lost both his parents early: his father was killed by the British at the Battle of Minden when Lafayette was two years old (1759), and when he was thirteen and attending the prestigious Collège de Plessis in Paris both his mother and grandfather died (1770). The latter's death left Lafayette with a sizable inheritance: he was actually the richest bachelor in France. In 1771 Lafayette became one of the King's Musketeers, beginning the military career he had always envisioned for himself. In February of 1773 he moved to Versailles as a protégé of Jean de Noailles, the Duc d'Ayen, becoming a lieutenant in the Noailles Dragoons in April and promoted to captain one year later, shortly after his arranged marriage to the Duc d'Ayen's daughter, Adrienne de Noailles on April 11, 1774. And yet, Lafayette's chances at obtaining a position matching his wealth and status were curtailed by the prevailing reformist mood and when the Minsitry of war cut costs and suppresed his regiment, he was relegated to reserve status (June1776.)

Lafayette first heard of the American revolt in 1775, at a dinner given by his commander the comte de Broglie in Metz. Inspired to serve the American cause though he knew very little about America beyond what he had read in Raynal and what he heard from Franklin, Lafayette managed to sign on as a future major-general in the American army in December 1776. But although by this time the French government was sending covert aid to the Americans in the hope of securing French trade interests (the "arms-for-tobacco deal"), Lafayette had to buy his own ship, La Victoire . It sailed from Spain on April 20, 1777 and arrived at North Island, South Carolina on June 13, 1777. Initially disappointed to find himself a general without a command, Lafayette was to return to France in 1782 having earned gloire for himself as well as liberty for the American colonies.

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