 |
| The youthful, aristocratic Marquis de Lafayette had a sunny nature. Reunion des MusÉes Nationaux/Art Resource, N.Y. |
George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette: revolutionary friends
'For Liberty and Glory' tells the story of the unlikely friendship that helped to change the world.
By Randy Dotingafrom the September 4, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
They were quite the odd couple – a dour middle-aged frontiersman with a spotted military history and an upstart teenage Frenchman who grew up with princes and loved to think the best of everyone and everything.
But it was thanks in large part to their affectionate and dedicated partnership that two revolutions succeeded in changing the world in the late 18th century.
And two countries – another May-December combo at the time – developed a rocky friendship that has survived two world wars, one nuclear age, and an outbreak of Freedom Fries.
Not that George Washington had high hopes when he first met the Marquis de Lafayette. In For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette and Their Revolutions, a fresh and engaging new look at the pair, the American general declares himself to be "mightily perplexed" about what to do with the buoyant 19-year-old Frenchman.
Washington saw "that terrible combination of very little experience with grand and excited ideas about his prospects … a pushy French teenager would seem the last problem Washington needed," writes James R. Gaines in his revealing new history. But our first president ended up having second thoughts about that first impression. Besides becoming his best friend, Lafayette served as an effective general for the American side and helped convince the French king to provide financial help to the needy Americans.
It was ultimately a bad decision for the king, whose largess led to bankruptcy and ultimately sent heads rolling, including his own. But Lafayette's love affair with the US – he adored its "youth and majesty" – helped ignite a near-permanent mutual admiration society between the two countries.
(Not that there weren't some kinks now and then. Back during the Revolutionary War, some South Carolinians thought of the French as an "almost dwarfish" nation of poorly dressed frog-eaters. On the other hand, a Frenchman warned Lafayette that Americans were the product of "fanaticism, the insatiable desire to get rich and misery." Mon dieu!)
As for their own friendship, Lafayette and Washington shared high-born backgrounds and desires to attain glory and honor, which back then had a lot to do with public reputation and historical staying power. There's another word for their guiding force: ambition.
RSS feed