The election last month of Nicolas Sarkozy to the Presidency of the French Republic is widely and correctly regarded as salutary to relations between France and the United States. Compared to his immediate predecessors, Francois Mitterand and Jacques Chirac, Mr. Sarkozy has shown both a greater level of respect for the ideals that animate the American polity and a keener understanding of global threats which are common to both nations. Contrary to the assertions of some pundits, however, if there now ensues greater French-American cooperation and harmonizing of interests based on shared values, it will not be a wholly new era for the two countries. It will instead mark a reprise of French support for the United States at a most propitious moment, given the trials of wartime the coming years are sure to inflict on both nations.
'The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind'
Today, June 7th, is the anniversary of a formal friendship between France and America that was first promulgated on this precise date in 1777 by one of the great heroes of the American Revolution, Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette—better known to history as the Marquis de Lafayette. On this day 230 years ago, as he approached the South Carolina coast, General Lafayette wrote these prescient words to his wife Adrienne:
While defending the liberty I adore, of my own free will, as a friend, offering my services to this most interesting republic, I bring with me nothing but my heart and good will, with no personal ambitions to fulfill, no selfish interests to serve, working only for my own glory and for the happiness [of the American republic]. I hope that, for my sake, you will become a good American, for that feeling is worthy of every noble heart. The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and of peaceful liberty. (emphasis added)
Captured in this remarkable statement is an exceptional level of understanding and foresight into the future course of civilization. In the 18th century age of autocratic empires, there were no effective references for Lafayette to draw upon. That so young a French aristocrat and general officer could apprehend the importance of the incipient American experiment in republican self-government is equally astonishing, and is testimony to Lafayette’s genuinely liberal discernment. (His countryman de Tocqueville would make much the same forecast after visiting America in the 1830s.) It is a minor scandal that the hallowed name of Lafayette, once so familiar to every American child, is today seldom recognized as the root of over 600 eponymous towns, cities, counties, schools, organizations, naval vessels, and parks. A brief review of the trajectory of his distinguished life, as well as the values embodied by it, holds both insight and promise for the current challenges confronting both the United States and his native country.
Lafayette became known affectionately to American troops as “Our Marquis”, an appellation which lasted a lifetime, and was a high compliment in a democratic and anti-imperialist society.
Lafayette was born in the mountainous Auvergne region of France, into a wealthy family of landed aristocrats with ancestors tracing to noblemen who had fought alongside Joan of Arc. His father was killed fighting the British in 1759 at the Battle of Minden in the Seven Years’ War, and his mother died at age 13, so he was raised by a grandfather and then aunts into his early teens. Moving to Paris at age 11, he was enrolled with the scions of French nobility in schooling and military training at Versailles, where he studied the classics. At an early age, Lafayette became enamored with the writings of Locke, Newton, and the philosophes of the Enlightenment, who as a group were inclined toward tolerance and reason, as opposed to the prevailing autocracy or despotism of the age. Hence, while over his life he held a reverential respect for the tradition of the monarchy, Lafayette early on came to believe in the superiority of an underlying constitutional government and wide freedoms for the citizenry. Lafayette’s liberal leanings were furthered when, soon after becoming an officer in the French army, he joined the Freemasons. In late-18th century autocratic France, the Masonic lodge was a bastion of liberalism, and his Masonic background was to prove useful when meeting fellow Freemason George Washington and other American Masons.
At age 16, a French duke and courtier to King Louis XV picked Lafayette to marry his daughter, Adrienne de Noailles, to whom Lafayette was singularly devoted over his lifetime (so much so that he never remarried after her death in 1807, which was unusual for the age). They had four children, including a son born in 1779, Georges Washington Lafayette—the godson of the first President of the United States.
Lafayette’s military and political career beginning with the Revolutionary War was nothing short of extraordinary, and he may be the only person to have been directly active as a major figure in both the American and French Revolutions. Having lost to the British in the recent military conflict ending in 1763, France was keenly interested in seeing the rebellion in North America succeed, both to weaken the British and re-assert French interests in Canada. Lafayette was prominent among the French officer corps clamoring to go to North America to fight after 1775, and he was commissioned by the American representative Silas Deane in late 1776. As one of the most famous and wealthiest of French noblemen and courtiers, and well-known to the British, Lafayette defied the French monarch in setting sail for America in the summer of 1777, where he arrived in Georgetown, South Carolina on June 13th after avoiding the British fleet near Charleston. By August 1 he was in Philadelphia and meeting with George Washington and other luminaries of the Revolution; by September he was a general officer commanding a brigade at the Battle of Brandywine, where he was wounded.
If there now ensues greater French-American cooperation and harmonizing of interests based on shared values, it will not be a wholly new era for the two countries. It will instead mark a reprise of French support for the United States at a most propitious moment...
Later, Lafayette commanded an invasion in Canada, was with Washington at Valley Forge, and fought in various other engagements into 1778. As one of the world’s richest men, he served the entire war without pay, and developed a reputation for paying for weaponry and provisions for his men with his own money. He sent a constant stream of correspondence home to France, and always encouraged fellow French enthusiasts of the war to speak well of the Americans’ chances against the dominant British. In 1779, after the British declared war on the French, Lafayette returned to France where he continued to rally support for the colonies; he later returned to America in 1780 in time to take command of troops in Virginia, and in the campaign which eventually trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown, ending the war. During this time Lafayette became known affectionately to American troops as “Our Marquis”, an appellation which lasted a lifetime, and was a high compliment in a democratic and anti-imperialist society.
In 1785 Lafayette returned to France and became active in French politics after being named as a field marshal in the French army. In ensuing years leading up to the revolution he was elected to the constituent assembly for his region, and often at odds with Louis XVI, advocating lower government expenditures, and power devolution to localities. In June of 1789, Lafayette collaborated with his friend Thomas Jefferson in writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man, intending it to be the preamble to a new French constitution, with guarantees of life, liberty, and property. But Gouvernor Morris, also in Paris in the summer of 1789, saw things more clearly than Jefferson and Lafayette: before the Bastille, Morris wrote James Monroe, predicting the eventual chaos, and that republican government “with a king….but without the American people”, would be fated to fail in France. Lafayette continued to fight for constitutional monarchy in the years of ensuing turmoil, but was declared a traitor by the Jacobins and eventually landed in Prussian and Austrian prisons from 1792-97, along with his wife and daughters (many of his in-laws were beheaded during the Reign of Terror, and most of his property was confiscated during this time). After exile in Denmark and Holland, Lafayette eventually returned to France, but was kept at bay during the Napoleonic era; after 1815 he again became active in French politics, working tirelessly as an elected official for greater degrees of self-government, up until his death in 1834.
In 1824-25, over the course of 13 months, Lafayette toured America at the invitation of both the Congress and President Monroe (newspaper accounts described him as the “Nation’s Guest”). He passed through all 24 states, Harvard, Yale, old battlefields where he had fought and been wounded, and visited Jefferson at Monticello (where he saw a bust of himself in the foyer), Madison at Montpelier, many aging veterans of the American Revolution, and even the first town named in his honor, Fayetteville, North Carolina. In final acts of reverence, General Pershing’s aide visited Lafayette’s grave on July 4, 1917, planted an American flag, and announced, “Lafayette, we are here”; that American flag continued to lie over his grave during the Nazi era, and in 2002, Lafayette was named an Honorary U.S. Citizen, joining Churchill as one of only six.
What are the lessons of Lafayette’s life events for today? First, at points of world-historical inflection, singular men can make a monumental difference. Lafayette was instrumental in developing crucial French support and aid in the war, as well as displaying exemplary leadership on the battlefield. His sustaining effect on morale during the war effort was substantial. Second, the nobility of forgoing a life of luxury, as one of the world’s richest men, in the service of the sublime but then only nascent cause of individual liberty, stands as a testament to human courage and honor. Thirdly, then as now, the historic preservation of human liberty rests primarily upon the United States, but in a long war, its fragility necessitates the effective cooperation and perseverance of key allies around the globe. On this June 7th, 230 years after Lafayette first wrote the words, Mr. Sarkozy would do well to promote them to his countrymen, and like Lafayette, seek strong and close U.S./French cooperation in what per force will be a long conflict.
John L. Chapman is an NRI fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
