When Mike Duncan was researching for his “Revolutions” podcast, he began to notice a familiar name: Marquis de Lafayette. The trans-Atlantic revolutions of America, France, and South America either directly or indirectly involved the wealthy French aristocrat. He was either on the front lines of battle, such as in America and France, or behind the scenes in the form of correspondence letters. Lafayette was a product of the Old World who sailed to fight for the New World and eventually returned home in hopes of instituting the new into the old.
His first book was based on the research conducted for “The History of Rome” podcast. When asked by his publicist what his next project would be, he decided to take a subject from his “Revolutions” podcast, and the one subject that seemed to be a constant was Lafayette.
“Lafayette turned into an unofficial mascot of the show,” Mr. Duncan said. “The second season was on the American Revolution, and I knew I needed to pay a little extra attention to some of the people who I knew were going to show up in the French Revolution. For example, Thomas Paine is a major player in the American Revolution and then he shows up in the French Revolution. Then Lafayette shows up, this 19-year-old kicking it around with [George] Washington. When I moved over to the French Revolution, I was quite surprised to find how big of a role he played.”
Coming to the New World
As Mr. Duncan notes, Lafayette was one of the wealthiest men in his country and was part of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s inner circle. Rubbing shoulders with the wealthy and powerful, however, presented the hereditary monarchy in a light that left Lafayette less than impressed. Though he grew up separate from the commoners, when he arrived on the shores of the recently declared United States he was met with the full power and brilliance of the common man.
“He meets people like Alexander Hamilton, who is clearly a military and financial genius, who was a bastard from a colony out in the middle of nowhere, and has risen on the strength of his own talent and merit. He meets Henry Knox, who was just selling books before the war, and is now leading the American artillery in the Continental Army,” Mr. Duncan said. “He’s running into people who are commoners, who are coming from nowhere. But because of their intelligence and talent and wit and courage are accomplishing something that, really, they have no business accomplishing, which is breaking away from the British Empire.
“He walks away from all of this believing that hereditary aristocracy is for the birds. If you want to actually have a country or a kingdom or a republic run well, you need to open up the offices and leadership positions to people of talent, where what you do matters quite a bit more than who you are or who your parents were.”
Arguably the most important aspect of Lafayette’s experience during the American Revolution was witnessing a people’s desire for self-government and freedom. It was not about power, but rather liberty. This aspect of the Revolution could hardly have been better personified than in the man he most admired: George Washington.
Indeed, Washington was one of the wealthiest men of Virginia, but wealth was not his motivation. Certainly, if it had been, Washington would have refrained from his involvement in the Revolution. Rather, his motivations were based on the principles of liberty and for a people to be properly governed. Lafayette was drawn to what would soon be known as America’s founding principles.
“He sees in the Americans and in their struggle for independence that they are trying to achieve in reality these abstract notions of liberty, equality, and republicanism that he did believe in,” Mr. Duncan said.
Returning to the Old World
Greatly influenced by the ideals of the American Revolution and the possibility of establishing a new and successful government, Lafayette returned to France with ideas not of a republic, but of a constitutional monarchy, which would include a bill of rights and a reasonable and fair system of taxation. By 1789, France was in an uproar over its monarchical rule, and the call to revolution echoed in the streets of Paris. Lafayette’s vision of the Revolution was soon shattered by a radicalized version, which, led by the Jacobins, demanded the immediate establishment of a republic.“Lafayette thought this went too far, too fast. He resisted overthrowing the monarchy and declaring the First French Republic, which gets him labeled as a royalist and a traitor to the Revolution,” Mr. Duncan explained. “By 1792, in what we might call the Second French Revolution, with the out and out overthrow of the monarchy and the declaration of the republic, Lafayette is viewed as an enemy by those who staged that insurrection in August 1792.”
A warrant for his arrest was issued. France, however, was at war with much of Europe at the time. Lafayette learned of the warrant and decided to flee to America. Along with several French officers, he crossed the battle lines but was shortly thereafter captured and arrested, not by the French, but by the Austrians.
“As he is running away from people who see him as a traitor to the Revolution, the Austrians see him as an original instigator of the Revolution. So, they throw him in a dungeon,” Mr. Duncan said. “For five years he lives in virtual solitary confinement in various dungeons in Prussia and Austria, and that’s basically why he survives the French Revolution.”
Bonaparte Versus Washington
By the time Lafayette was released in 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte had become the leader of the French. It was due to Bonaparte that Lafayette was released. As promising as Bonaparte began, he was finally undone by his inability to follow in the footsteps of the man whom Lafayette held in the highest esteem.“Initially, Lafayette is very impressed with Bonaparte. Many people are. He seems to be the personification of all that was good about the Revolution,” Mr. Duncan noted. “As Napoleon begins to turn more authoritarian in 1802, 1803, and 1804, Lafayette really sours on him. Bonaparte becomes one of the few people that Lafayette really detests. I think all of it goes back to George Washington being his model for leadership.
“[Washington] was the most powerful, the most influential person in what was about to become the United States. If George Washington had wanted to, I think he could have made himself King George. But he didn’t do it, and this becomes Lafayette’s model for what a good, selfless, disinterested republican leader actually looks like. He sees Napoleon Bonaparte making the opposite choices. By 1804, [Napoleon] declares himself emperor and has turned his back on all the revolutionary principles he had espoused earlier in his career. We fast forward to 1815 and Napoleon is getting defeated at Waterloo―who is standing in the office with Napoleon saying, ‘Sire, it is time for you to go’? It’s Lafayette.”
Lafayette is indeed a notable figure for Americans as well as the French. How notable? Apparently more than history has truly given him credit for. For Mr. Duncan, this was why he decided to visit that Old World and bring one of its finest heroes into the New.
“Between 1776 and 1830, he was clearly such a major player. But I don’t think he had ever gotten his due. He’s always portrayed as this secondary figure,” Mr. Duncan said. “I think making him the main character of his own story really helps define what the era was about.”
