Lafayette, MARIE JEAN PAUL ROCH YVES GILBERT MOTIER, MARQUIS DE, was born in the castle of Chavagnac, in Auvergne, September 6, 1757. He belonged to an ancient family; came to his estates at thirteen; married three years later; entered the army, and sailed, in spite of the at least professed opposition of the court, for America in 1777, to offer his sword to the colonists in their struggle for independence. He became an intimate and admiring friend of Washington, who gave him the command of a division after his conduct at the battle of Brandywine. The treaty between the insurgents and France at once led to war between France and England, and Lafayette returned to his country early in 1779. Six months later he again crossed the Atlantic, was charged with the defence of Virginia, and had his share in the battle of Yorktown, which practically closed the war. On a third visit to North America in 1784, after the conclusion of peace, he was received in such a manner that his tour was a continual triumph.
Lafayette had imbibed liberal principles in the freer air of America, and was eager for reforms in his native country. He was called to the Assembly of Notables in 1787, and sat in its successor, the Assembly of the States General, and in that which grew out of it, the famous National Assembly of 1789. He took a prominent part in its proceedings, and laid on its table, on the 9th July 1789, a declaration of rights based on Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. He was soon appointed to the chief command of the armed citizens, whereupon he formed the National Guard, and gave it the tricolor cockade. Indeed, in the first stages of the Revolution, it seemed as if the 'Grandison-Cromwell-Lafayette' had the destinies of France in his hands. But the fever of revolution soon surged too hotly for the constitutional channels in which he would have had it flow. He struggled incessantly for order and humanity, yet was mortified to the heart by the furious violence of the mob which butchered Foulon and brandished the reeking heart of the commandant Berthier before his eyes. The Jacobins hated his moderation, while the court abhorred his reforming zeal, and both combined to defeat him in his canvass against Pétion for the mayoralty of Paris. Along with Bailly he founded the club of the Feuillants, and he supported the abolition of title as well as of all class privileges. After the adoption of the constitution of 1790 he retired to his estate of Lagrange till he received the command of the army of Ardennes, with which he won the first victories at Philippeville, Maubenge, and Florennes. But the hatred of the Jacobins increased, and at length Lafayette, who had come from the army to Paris publicly to denounce the Jacobin Club, finding on his return to the camp that he could not persuade his soldiers to march to Paris to save the constitution, rode over into the neutral territory of Liège. He was seized by the Austrians and imprisoned at Olmütz till Bonaparte obtained his liberation in 1797; but he took no part in public affairs during the ascendancy of Bonaparte. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies from 1818 to 1824 as one of the extreme Left, and from 1825 to 1830 he was again a leader of the opposition. In 1830 he took an active part in the revolution, and commanded the National Guards. In 1824 he revisited America, by invitation of Congress, who voted him a grant of 200,000 dollars and a township of land. He died at Paris, 20th May 1834.
See his Mémoires et Correspondance (8 vols. 1837-40); studies by Regnault Warin (1824) and Sarrane (1832); Life by E. Tuckerman (New York, 1889); two books by Bardoux (1892); the Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris (1888); and Doniol's Participation de la France à l'Établissement des États-Unis (1889-91).