Founding Son

By Donald Morrison

LAFAYETTE: HERO OF TWO WORLDS

by Olivier Bernier

Dutton; 356 pages; $19.95

Timid, tongue-tied, earnest to a fault, Gilbert de La Fayette did not seem bound for glory. He embarrassed himself on horseback, stumbled on the dance floor. But he had a fine old name, and after his father died when Gilbert was two years old and his mother when he was twelve, Gilbert came into a handsome fortune. Hating court life in the Versailles of Louis XV, the marquis went into the army. At 19, with only the briefest of military training, he set off to become a hero of the American Revolution.

Lafayette's gallant service to the young nation helped contribute to the special affection that still binds the two countries. Yet as Olivier Bernier, an American author born of French parents, points out in this stirring biography, the French did not always have special affection for Lafayette.

Lafayette first shocked his countrymen by stealing off to America against the King's wishes. But he quickly won the friendship of George Washington, spent $3 million of his own funds on the colonial cause and performed bravely at Brandywine and Yorktown. When word of his exploits reached home, he became a drawing-room sensation. Beautiful women pursued him upon his return, and Louis XVI was even moved to authorize French aid for the Americans. Lafayette had convinced his countrymen, as he wrote in 1777, that "America's happiness is intimately linked to that of mankind."

Throughout his New World adventure, however, Lafayette remained curiously immune to the principles he was fighting for. "It had not yet occurred to him that democracy was for export," writes Bernier. The soldier returned to France an enthusiastic supporter of the ancien regime. Yet as the toast of Paris salons, he met some of the new egalitarian thinkers of the day and became a genuine convert to the cause of democracy. His new ideals and his ever growing popularity drew him into the French Revolution, and at 31 he became vice president of the new National Assembly the day before the Bastille was stormed. By trying to give the monarchy a republican patina, however, he earned the enmity of both commoners and nobility. As the Revolution turned bloody, he fled across Austrian lines toward Belgium but was imprisoned. Austria and Prussia considered him a dangerous insurrectionary influence.

Lafayette here becomes a tale of high heroism, not by the marquis but by his quiet, self-effacing wife Adrienne. As relatives were falling to the guillotine all around her and the family's assets were confiscated, she responded with Fayettesque valor. Briefly imprisoned, Adrienne found food and housing for her family, began caring for destitute friends--including her husband's mistress--and waged a vigorous letter-writing campaign to win his freedom.

Returned to France, the marquis remained on the margins of politics until he was 72, when the nation turned to him for leadership after the 1830 rising against Charles X. But Lafayette dithered in restoring order. The Due d'Orleans emerged to become King Louis-Philippe and forced Lafayette to resign as commander of the National Guard. "The sad truth was, no one really disliked Lafayette," says Bernier, "but no one wanted him back." He managed to stay in the spotlight, however, speaking out forcefully for such causes as free public education, independence movements in Greece and Poland and the perfection of French democracy. He died in 1834 at 76, surrounded by his family and pressing a medallion of Adrienne to his lips.

A naive egotist, a vain philanderer, a dilettante who often preferred attention to responsibility--the marquis was hardly the complete hero. But his generosity was immense, and he was admired by one of history's great figures. Lafayette is the tale of a boy who lost his father at age two and at 19 found a magnificent replacement: George Washington, who dominated the American Revolution and its young visitor. After helping the U.S. gain independence, Lafayette spent a lifetime trying to be the French Washington, attempting to transfer the American ideal of freedom to his benighted land and to act with the principled courage of his mentor. Pretending to be great, the marquis eventually learned to behave nobly. In the end, Lafayette was not France's gift to America, but America's gift to France--and to the idea of liberty.

--By Donald Morrison