Lafayette: The Lost Hero (2010) - full transcript
No one in recorded history has suffered a fate quite like Lafayette. Once, the most famous man in the world; today, few people know who he was or what he accomplished. It is time to re-evaluate his crucial role in America's independence.
We can never know what
really happened in the past,
but there are people all over
America and probably the world
who dress up on the weekends in
the clothes of a favourite period
to try and re-create the lives of
men and women from a distant time.
Yeah, we're getting
one more rehearsal
for framing here.
Yeah, is the camera ready?
History has an imperfect memory.
It may be hard to believe,
but a Frenchman,
an aristocrat named Lafayette,
was one of America's first
and most popular heroes.
Without him, this
country might not
have won its war of independence.
Millions of people stood
waiting on roadsides
and cheered Lafayette
like a rock star
when he travelled through
America 50 years
after the revolution
he helped win.
How did we forget one of
our founding fathers?
If you even recognise
the name Lafayette,
it's probably a vague
memory from a storybook
or maybe you've walked down
a street with that name
or driven through a
town named Lafayette,
Fayetteville, or
something like that.
There are more than 50 of
them around the country.
Did you ever wonder why?
France and America have always had
a strange love/hate relationship.
[Dialogue dubbed in French]
Neither side likes to admit it,
but each defines itself, at
least partly, by the other.
Americans say the
French are snobs,
but admire their sense of style.
The French think Americans
are violent and
uncivilised, but love
to imitate them.
It's really common values that
have always bound us together.
And made us allies when
it really mattered.
Action.
Maybe the Marquis de Lafayette is
this figure from the distant past.
A foreigner, a
Frenchman, can tell us
something important
about ourselves
and help us remember
a time when America
became the symbol of
freedom in the world.
Following his trail into the past,
we might even understand more
about where we're headed now.
Cut.
Lafayette left us part of the
story in his memoirs and letters.
I was born in the small
village of Chavaniac
just before the
death of my father.
In the seven years
war with England.
So many Lafayettes have
died fighting for France.
That I was baptised
was the protection of
every saint who might
guard me in battle.
Marie Joseph Paul Yves
Roch Gilbert Du Motier...
Most historians agree about the
basic facts in Lafayette's life.
The differences are
mainly about which
incidents they choose to emphasise
or ignore.
His father was
killed in the battle
of Minden when he
was two years old,
and his mother sort
of retreated to Paris
and very rarely came
home to Auvergne.
He is a natural boy.
He was educated in
the countryside.
He lived with the peasants.
It was a lonely childhood, and
Lafayette fancied himself,
even at that young age,
as the gallant knight
out against all bad things
the could happen to people.
He kept that image of himself
throughout his life.
At 8 years of age,
my heart beat when
I heard of a wild
beast terrorising
our neighbourhood.
The hope of meeting it was the
object of all my
walks in the woods.
Lafayette may be
forgotten other places,
but you can still
find traces of him in
the French province
of the Auvergne.
They hold a festival in
his memory every summer.
It celebrates
18th-century village life
and commemorates the birth
of their Marquis...
But they don't tell you
much about his life
after he left the countryside.
When I was 11, my
mother sent for me
to come and live
with her in Paris.
Young Lafayette is
in for a surprise;
his mother lives at the
Palais Du Luxembourg,
one of the grandest
homes in Paris.
Shortly thereafter,
his mother died,
and Lafayette became a
very wealthy orphan.
At the age of 14,
Gilbert is already a wealthy
and eligible bachelor.
He's introduced to the
charming Adrienne de Noailles,
from the most well-connected
family in France.
It was towards the close of 1773
that monsieur de Lafayette
would meet us sometimes,
either at home or out
walking in the park.
She was fascinated by this man.
It's very interesting to see
how she became the
important person
of his life.
Sabine Renault-Sabloniere
is a great-great-great-
great-great-granddaughter.
Of Lafayette and Adrienne.
She's writing a book
about them and the story
of their unlikely partnership
in two revolutions.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"Our family's elegant townhouse,
the hotel de Noailles,
has gardens looking
out on the Seine."
[Sabloniere speaking French]
I was only 12 years old when my
father proposed
monsieur de Lafayette
to my dear mother as a match
for me or one of my sisters.
Gilbert was already in
possession of a large fortune,
one of the largest
in France, which my
mother looked upon
as a dangerous gift.
But from the first moment
of their acquaintance,
she saw in him the qualities which
others had yet to discover.
I was 14 when we
married; He was 16.
A great chance in his
life is this wife,
his woman... Adrienne de Noailles.
It was an arranged marriage
who become a beautiful love story.
Married into this
illustrious family,
Lafayette was taken to the
balls of Marie Antoinette.
My wife's family wish to obtain
a place for me at their side,
but it was impossible for me to
bend to the guises of the court
or to the chance of a
supper with the queen.
I have still less
to say relating to
my so-called entrance
into the world
or the brief moment
of favour I enjoyed.
On one occasion, the
shy Lafayette is
singled out to dance
with the young queen.
At some point, the story goes,
Marie Antoinette stops the dance
and laughs at him, as the
whole court joins in.
Lafayette's friends never
let him forget it.
At a masked ball, Lafayette lets
his disguise slip on purpose,
just as he's passing
the Comte de Provence,
the future King Louis
XVIII, and the very man
his family wants to use to launch
Gilbert's career at court.
The Comte de Provence was bragging
about his wonderful memory.
And Lafayette said
to him, "you know,
"memory is a fool's
substitute for wit."
One didn't say things like
this to a prince of the blood.
Lafayette knew exactly
what he was doing.
He cut himself off
from life at court.
Teenage defiance became
a form of revolution.
Lafayette's family went back 7
centuries as a military family,
the noblesse d'epee... "The
nobility of the sword."
Lafayette was raised on stories
of his family's glory at war,
and he needed to find his
own way to that glory.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"August 8, 1775.
"My darling, there is word
that the Duke of Gloucester,
"the brother of England's King
George, may dine with us tonight.
"It could prove lively
as, apparently,
"he takes the side of the American
insurgents just to
irk his brother."
The Duke of Gloucester
was a radical rake
who was very much for the
American revolutionaries,
and he described the
ideals for which the
American revolutionaries
were fighting:
Human rights, liberty,
equality, democracy.
Lafayette never
forgot that dinner.
He described it as a
turning point in his life.
From the moment I heard the
name "America," I loved it.
I burned with a desire to
spill my blood for her.
Lafayette was caught up in
the enlightenment principles
expressed in the declaration
of independence,
a text that Lafayette
was very familiar with.
Late in 1776,
Benjamin Franklin arrives
in Paris as an envoy,
to help win France's support
for the American cause.
So does another American,
on a secret mission.
The United States congress
sent a recruiter to Paris.
His name was Silas Deane.
Lafayette was looking
for a future,
and Silas Deane agreed to send
Lafayette to the continental army
with the commission
of a Major General.
At the time of the beginning
of the American revolution,
he understood that there was
a political opportunity.
He wasn't able to have
glory in France, but
it was possible to
have glory in America.
Lafayette bought a ship,
outfitted it with cannon,
named it "la Victoire."
The family was very embarrassed
by what Lafayette wanted to do.
His father-in-law was close to
the court and close to the King,
and when the King learnt that
Lafayette was going
to leave France
to go to the states, he
tried to prevent him.
He was a knight-errant
on his white horse,
and he wasn't going to be deterred
by the King or anybody else.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
In April, Gilbert
carried out the scheme
he had been forming
for 6 months past
of going to serve the cause
of independence in America.
I still loved him tenderly.
It was a very long and arduous
voyage. It was 6 weeks.
Ocean crossings were
horrible in those days.
Lafayette appears to
have been seasick most
of that time. He was
a terrible sailor.
They were in very
heavy seas, and he
didn't begin his first
letter to his wife
until he was about halfway there.
In his letter to
Adrienne, he said,
"I don't understand
people who like the sea.
It's so sad and I am ill."
"The sea, the sea, always the sea,
every day alike. It's
so lonely here."
He's talking to his wife as if she
should feel some pity for him,
having left her
without a word when
she was pregnant with their child.
But, after a fortnight,
he was not so ill,
and he learnt English
because he's very clever.
Most of the French officers
didn't do the same.
He learnt English.
He learnt English
because, he explains,
that you have to understand
the people of liberty.
"My dear Adrienne,
"I go to defend
liberty as a friend.
"The happiness of America
is intimately tied
"to the happiness of all mankind.
"One day she will
become the safe haven
"of tolerance, equality,
and peaceful liberty."
He was a visionary when
he said to Adrienne...
When he said such
things as America
was born for glory and prosperity,
it's really incredible
because how could he think
of that 230 years ago?
When Lafayette's ship arrived off
the coast of South Carolina,
they couldn't get into
the port of Charleston
because it was being heavily
patrolled by the British.
So they sailed north to look for
a safe harbour to get into.
They land at a plantation
near Charleston
and soon start off on the
700-mile journey to Pennsylvania.
Lafayette and his men travel
for more than a month
by carriage, on horseback,
and finally on foot.
It's not until July 27, 1777
that Lafayette and the 6 other
exhausted French soldiers arrive
in the capital city
of Philadelphia.
He finds out where the
continental congress is meeting,
walks up, and knocks on the
door of independence hall.
They were met by the head of the
secret committee for
foreign soldiers,
and he just told them to go away
and he turned his back on
them and walked back inside.
So many French officers
had presented themselves
to the continental
army for commissions
that the congress was
really sick of them,
and so Lafayette and his fellow
officers, having
braved the Atlantic
and an incredible march from
Charleston to Philadelphia,
were treated like the worst
kind of adventurers.
I entreated his
deputy, a Mr Lovell,
to return to congress
with the message,
"after the sacrifices I have made,
"I have the right to
be accepted as a
volunteer and serve
at my own expense."
A delegation came to him
the next day and said,
"we're very sorry that we
treated you as we did."
By then, they had
gotten a letter of
recommendation from
Benjamin Franklin
saying, "he will help our cause no
end, so please treat him well."
In fact, he said, "please...
Don't get him killed,
but let him learn
his glory on some
important occasion."
Men like Washington,
like Franklin,
could immediately realise
that this was a person who could
speak at the highest levels
of the French government, who'd
become an advocate for us.
We've come to see
General Washington.
After his noble manoeuvres
at Panton and Princeton,
General Washington
came to Philadelphia,
and I beheld for the first
time this great man.
Present arms.
It had been a very bad
day for Washington.
He had been told that
18,000 British regulars
were on their way to
invade Philadelphia.
So to meet yet another
French officer,
this one now a Major General
who was 19 years old,
was the perfect end to
a perfectly bad day.
You are Lafayette?
I am, sir.
Lafayette, of course,
was thrilled.
Attention.
Maybe it starts out
as a polite gesture
to the rich kid with connections,
but Lafayette's modesty makes
a good first impression.
Washington gives the teenager.
A chance to prove himself when
the continental army marches out
to stop the 8,000
British and Hessian
soldiers at Brandywine Creek.
The first column appeared
just up the stream from us.
General Charles Cornwallis and his
men advanced across the plain
and opened a brisk fire
of muskets and artillery.
I was granted
permission to ride out
and support General
Sullivan on our right.
I arrived to find the enemy
had crossed the ford.
Our cause scarcely had time
to form itself on the line.
Get back there now.
Stand your ground. We
don't want this...
Get back in line, damn you.
Lafayette hadn't noticed
that he was wounded
until blood started
gushing from his boot.
He had it attended to on the
battlefield and
continued to fight,
and helped manage a
very, very chaotic
retreat while he was wounded.
The battle is lost, allowing the
British to take Philadelphia,
but Lafayette is carried from
the field at Brandywine a hero.
Cut. Cut.
The way you did it before. Huh?
The handsome young General
captures the public's imagination.
His fame spreads
through the country
and back across the Atlantic.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"September 12, 1777.
"Dear Adrienne,
"I will begin by telling
you I am in good health
"because I have to wind up by
informing you that yesterday
"I was honoured by my lords, the
"English, with a musket
ball in my leg.
"But, my dear heart,
it is a mere trifle.
"Neither bone nor
nerve were touched;
I came off lightly."
When news from my husband arrived,
it gave me enormous comfort,
at first.
Gilbert wrote to me about his
wound at the battle of Brandywine.
I need not tell you my feelings
on receiving that news.
At least my mother
was able to keep me
from hearing the
report of his death,
which was spread about at
that time by the English.
"November 27, 1777.
"Paris is ringing with
reports of the first battle
"in which Gilbert has brought
glory to the name of France.
"My husband's fame is spreading
through the country."
The very people who
had most blamed
his rash adventure
now applaud him.
Valley Forge is what
most people think of
when it comes to
soldiers suffering
during America's war
of independence.
It's mythologised in movies
going all the way back
to D.W. Griffith, the King
of epic silent films.
The real winter was probably more
horrible than we can even imagine.
Lafayette makes a point of
living there with his men
and gives a vivid
account in his memoirs.
The army settled into its
melancholy winter quarters.
The unfortunate soldiers
were in want of everything.
They had no coats or shoes.
Their feet and legs froze
till they became black,
and it was often necessary
to amputate them.
The army remained for
days without provisions,
and many deserted
to the countryside.
The American public
was not supporting
the continental army any more.
The congress and the
states were not
well supporting the
continental army.
They were expecting them
basically to just hang on,
just to survive, to keep the
continental army together.
Until the British lost
their will to stay.
And Washington, while
his men were freezing,
was told to come to the
defence of Philadelphia,
and he had to tell
the congress, "it
would be nice if we
had clothes or food.
It would be nice if
our men weren't dying
of exposure and
eating their shoes."
Washington is coming under
attack in congress.
A cabal seeks to replace
him as commander-in-chief.
Lafayette, tempted with offers
from Washington's enemies,
remains steadfast and comes
to Washington's defence.
"Dear General Washington,
"I don't need telling
you how I am sorry
"to be the one to bring
it to your attention.
"There are open
dissensions in congress,
"parties who hate each other
as much as the enemy.
"My dear Marquis,"
"what you have just conveyed to me
is fresh proof of your friendship.
"It's well known I have not
sought for this place.
"If I am displeasing to
the nation, I will retire,
"but until then, I will
oppose these intrigues."
"General, I see
plainly that America
"could be betrayed
by her own sons.
"These are jealous men, perhaps
secret friends to the British;
"stupid men who, without knowing
a single word about war,
undertake to judge you."
Washington's opponents in congress
were trying to remove
him from command.
"My dearest friend,
I have no doubt of your loyalty."
Some of this group invited
Lafayette to join them in a toast,
and while they all had
their glasses raised,
Lafayette added, "and to his
excellency, General Washington."
Lafayette's support in
that very difficult
time helped to seal
their relationship.
Washington learnt at Valley Forge
that Lafayette could be trusted.
Astonishingly, the unemotional
George Washington,
who keeps everyone
at arm's length,
expresses a fondness
for Lafayette.
Washington has no son, and the
young Frenchman no father.
Lafayette now becomes a part
of Washington's inner circle,
what he calls his family.
A great friendship develops
between these men.
They discuss the principles
of the American revolution.
By this time, the growing fame of
a Frenchman in the American ranks
and close to Washington has become
an embarrassment to the British.
They'd love to capture
and humiliate Lafayette.
Now they see their chance.
In the late spring of 1778,
Lafayette is given a command
befitting a real General:
To lead a scouting
expedition of 2,000 men
near the British stronghold
in Philadelphia.
These English Generals,
Howe and Clinton,
felt so certain of my capture
that they sent out invitations
to a fete in Philadelphia
at which, they said,
"Lafayette will be present."
"Sir, your detachment
is a very valuable one.
"Any accident would be a
severe blow to this army.
"You will therefore use every
"possible precaution
for its security
"and to guard against a surprise.
A stationary post is inadvisable."
Still an impetuous
teenager at heart,
Lafayette ignores his
commander's advice
not to stay in one place too long.
He soon has reason to
regret his decision.
Sir.
We camped on the 18th
of May at Barren Hill,
on a good elevation with a small
road down to the
river in the rear.
March.
On the morning of the
20th, I was informed
that the red dragoons
were approaching.
I first heard that
I was surrounded
in the presence of my troops.
Several officers whom
I had dispatched as
scouts declared we were
cut off from the road,
and they had been unable
to find an escape route.
I attacked from among the
trees and behind stone walls.
Fire.
I proceeded onto the small
path down to the river road.
The time the enemy wasted in
reconnoitring... looking
for an ambush...
I used to evade the trap.
Lafayette, still
only 20 years old,
had proved himself as an American
soldier who thinks on his feet.
But Washington was convinced his
protege would be
more useful to him
as a lobbyist to the
court of Versailles.
Lafayette is seen
as a key to the French
treasury and French supply,
the things that the American
army needs so badly.
And he's sent to open the
doors that would give us
the financial support, the
weaponry, the troops,
and the navy that we didn't
have, because, remember,
given his birth, his connections,
he walks right into
court and can speak
to the people at the
highest levels.
By the time Lafayette returns,
there was already a treaty of
alliance between
America and France.
The French realised
that these Americans
might have a chance of winning.
That said, the extent of their
support was not yet clear.
Lafayette basically camped on
the doorstep of Versailles
to make sure that America got
as much aid as possible.
I have often said
to myself that to
clothe the army of
the United States,
I would willingly have unfurnished
the palace of Versailles.
Gilbert.
At first, the King orders
him under house arrest...
A slap on the wrist for going to
America without permission...
Then, Lafayette is
welcomed at court.
Adrienne is often
left waiting as he
gets swept up in the festive balls
and other diversions.
She knew that men
who were at court
were out of the house and
that they had mistresses.
Her sister tells her that
there are some rumours
saying that many women
are interested in him
and that... he doesn't refuse.
So little by little,
she will accept,
you know, this kind of life.
Amidst the tumultuous scenes
that now occupied me,
I do not forget our revolution,
whose ultimate success still
appears as uncertain as ever.
With the King's promises
of 10,000 French troops
and a fleet from the west indies,
Lafayette sails back to America.
But there's no guarantee that
the reinforcements will arrive.
I am welcomed in Boston
with a salute of guns,
with the ringing of the church
bells, with a band marching ahead,
and with cheering from
the assembled multitude.
I await the arrival of the French
troops, who, as it turns out,
will be commanded not by me, but
by the Count de Rochambeau.
Lafayette dreams of
leading the charge
that will drive the British
from New York City,
but Washington has a different
mission in mind for the Marquis.
Lafayette is sent south
with the Virginia militia
to fight his old enemy,
the English General
Lord Charles Cornwallis.
This was not only
Washington's home
state, it was the
home of Mount Vernon.
Members of Virginia
society begged him
to send someone
senior to Lafayette,
and Washington wrote
them back that
they were really underestimating
the General that he'd
sent to their rescue.
"Richmond, Virginia,
"May 6, 1781.
"Dear General Washington,
"was I to actually fight a
battle I will be cut to pieces,
"the militia dispersed,
and the arms lost?
"Was I to decline
fighting, Virginia
"would think herself given up.
"I am, therefore,
determined to skirmish,
"but not to engage too far.
I am not strong enough
even to get beaten."
Lafayette, he fight not
in the French way,
not in the English way,
not in the Prussian way.
He fight like the Indian:
You attack and you return.
When he has to fight,
again, Cornwallis says,
"I will take the boy," and
in effect takes the boy.
In June, Washington
sends reinforcements.
Lafayette sets off after
Cornwallis with 5,000 men
across Virginia to Yorktown
on Chesapeake Bay.
Lafayette thought it
would be very important
to get accurate information
about what was happening
within Cornwallis' compound.
Lafayette sent a number of spies,
one of which was a slave
named James Armistead.
Armistead, James Armistead...
An African-American slave...
Is one of the first known
American secret agents.
James infiltrates
the British camp,
he feeds Cornwallis
false information,
and tells Lafayette what the
British General is planning.
Cornwallis was an extremely
competent officer,
and yet, he was
ultimately outmanoeuvred
by this young French General.
Washington learns Lafayette
has Cornwallis pinned down
on the Virginia coast
and races south,
but he fears the promised French
fleet will arrive too late
to prevent the English
from escaping by sea.
On August 14th,
25 French warships are sighted at
the mouth of the Chesapeake River.
Thanks in part to
Lafayette's diplomacy,
Comte de Grasse, the Admiral
of the French fleet,
arrives in time to attack
the English flotilla
that has come to
rescue Cornwallis.
Admiral de Grasse
chased the British
fleet off and back to New York.
Then Cornwallis had no avenue
of retreat from Yorktown.
Before Washington
can reach Virginia,
Admiral de Grasse
wants the Marquis
to lead an attack right away
and finish off Cornwallis.
Many more of Lafayette's
men would have died
had they undertaken the siege when
de Grasse insisted
that they do so.
Lafayette had grown up
in a very meaningful way
in the course of this
revolutionary war.
When he came to America, he was
full of vinegar and out for glory.
He really wanted to become famous,
but he had become so
attached to his troops
and so attached to the American
cause that he insisted
that they wait until
Washington and Rochambeau
arrived with the
troops from the north.
Lafayette is given a place
of glory after all...
Commanding the American
forces closest
to the enemy's outer defences.
They bravely charge,
the French way,
without any bullets in their guns,
taking the fort at Yorktown
with fixed bayonets.
As the British surrender,
marching between the lines of
French and American soldiers,
I see they make a clear point
of looking only at the French.
Standing with my American
soldiers, of course,
I order the drum major
to play "Yankee doodle."
The English all turn their heads
and surrender their weapons
to this American tune.
When the war is over, Lafayette
returns to the Virginia capital
and wins an appeal for the
emancipation of his former spy,
James Armistead.
To honour the General,
James takes "Lafayette"
as his new last name.
Gilbert arrived
unexpectedly in Paris
on the 21st of January, 1782.
Everyone who was there still
remembers the enthusiasm
at the time of his
triumphant return.
He is a sort of pop
star of history.
The women want to kiss his boots
when he is on his white horse.
There was no TV in that
time, so just imaging,
just coming back from
the United States,
he was recognised on
the street in Paris.
Lafayette is greeted as
the hero of two worlds
by a crowd that has gathered in
the street outside his home.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
I found myself drawn to
him with a new intensity,
just from the joy of
having him back again
after so many adventures
and so much glory.
The feelings were so overpowering
that for several months,
I felt ready to faint every
time he left the room.
I gave a speech at which a
French woman stood up and said,
"wasn't Lafayette
just a lucky idiot?"
There's a school of
thought in France
that Lafayette just fell
into wonderful positions,
it was just a lucky life.
But the fact is that Lafayette
was a very serious man.
When he came back after
Yorktown to France,
he tried to solidify
the American victory
and the French victory
in the American cause.
Lafayette is impatient to
see France transformed
by the democratic ideas
he has embraced.
But first, he writes
to Washington,
passionately urging his
mentor and dearest friend
to perfect the American
experiment in democracy
by removing the taint of slavery.
Lafayette is a man of the freedom,
and he has written many
letters to Washington
to ask Washington to stop
slavery in United States.
"My dear General,
"permit me to propose a plan which
might be greatly beneficial
"to the black part of mankind.
"Let us unite in
purchasing a small estate
"where we may try the experiment
to free the negroes."
And Washington says,
"who will work if we
have not slaves?"
In the cause of my black brethren,
I most decidedly side against
the white part of mankind.
Whatever be the complexion
of the enslaved,
it does not alter the
complexion of the crime
which the enslaver commits,
a crime much blacker
than any African face.
Lafayette, with Adrienne,
asks the French ministry
to free the French
slaves of Guiana.
And they learn to the slave
to become free servant
and not slaves.
We purchased a plantation,
la Belle Gabrielle,
to give an example of
gradual emancipation.
Every just and liberal
idea my husband
had found a place
in my heart, too.
When he struggled against slavery,
she herself managed that property,
la Belle Gabrielle.
Adrienne shared all his struggles.
He couldn't do anything without
asking her to help him.
Lafayette relentlessly pursued
his commitment to freedom,
but his heroic efforts to
bring democracy to France
were to unleash forces
beyond his control.
This statue of Lafayette,
a gift from American
schoolchildren,
once stood in the
very centre of Paris,
a site visited every year
by millions of people.
In the 1980s, the statue was moved
to this out-of-the-way spot.
Lafayette's uncertain
place in French history
can be traced to his role
in the French revolution.
He helps to get it
started just a few
years after he returns
from America.
Lafayette want to take
this model of success
to import it in France
because he wanted to be
the French Washington.
"My dear General Washington,
"our revolution is getting
on as well as it can,
"with a nation that has swallowed
up liberty all at once
and is still liable to mistake
licentiousness for freedom."
In 1789, Lafayette's friend
Thomas Jefferson, the
American ambassador,
helps him draft the declaration
of the rights of man...
What may be Lafayette's greatest
contribution to the
cause of democracy,
a vision of human rights as
the core value of a society.
But within a few days of its
release, the people of Paris,
inflamed by more radical voices,
storm the Bastille prison...
A symbol of the King's tyranny...
And parade through the streets
with heads impaled
on their spears.
Lafayette takes
charge of a national
guard responsible for
restoring order.
And finds himself in
an untenable position.
Lafayette was really caught in the
middle of the French revolution.
He's sort of a tragic
figure in that way.
He was caught between the
monarchists on the right
and the populists on the left.
His efforts to bring the
two sides together.
Are played out in
3 memorable days.
A huge crowd of women
marches to Versailles
and threatens the
queen, dramatically
exposing Lafayette's
precarious position
as both a champion of freedom
and a figure of authority.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
Lafayette's dramatic gesture
achieves a momentary truce.
On the first anniversary of
the storming of the Bastille,
a quarter of a million people
rally around Lafayette
and his plan for a constitution
to give them liberty
and a King to protect order.
They celebrate on a field where
the Eiffel Tower stands today.
It's a moment absolutely magic,
the reconciliation
of all the French.
This great fete de la
federation, a celebration,
and all the French
coming from everywhere
are in a great happiness.
And you have the King
with a constitution;
well, you have, of course,
Lafayette, who is the hero
of this great success.
He had, really, a very
charismatic personality,
and that's why, at
the beginning of the
French revolution, he
had so much influence.
But Lafayette, in his
thirst for glory,
has put himself so much
in front of everything
and hasn't been...
Clever enough to manage
the revolution to go
in a certain way.
A year later, Lafayette
is overwhelmed
by the violent
forces of revolution
he's been trying to keep in check.
Radical factions incite
an angry mob to riot
in the same field where
they had cheered Lafayette.
Someone fires a gun at him.
They miss, but his troops
open fire on the crowd.
There's still a dispute
over who gave the order.
He couldn't hold
the ends together.
Because France had so much more to
revolt against than
the Americans did.
The revolution spins
out of control.
Thousands of people have already
escaped to nearby countries.
In the next year and a
half, nearly 3,000 more...
Including Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette...
Will die on the guillotine.
Lafayette, now viewed as
a traitor by both sides,
tries to escape, hoping
to reach America.
But he's taken prisoner by the
Austrians, whose Emperor...
Francis II, brother of Marie
Antoinette... despises Lafayette
for inspiring a democratic wave
that's sweeping over Europe.
Lafayette ends up in
a series of prisons,
moving further east in Europe
until he finally
ends up in Olmutz,
in what today we would
call the Czech Republic.
Adrienne, like most aristocrats,
awaits her own inevitable arrest.
She assumes she will follow her
mother and sister
to the guillotine.
George Washington, now President
of the United States,
tries in vain to help her.
She is imprisoned
for 3 long years.
Adrienne is finally released
as the terror ends.
As soon as she's free,
she begs the Emperor of Austria
to let her join
Lafayette in prison,
and Adrienne took with her.
Their two daughters.
They enable me to live again,
but they are paying the price,
especially my dear, dear Adrienne.
I have always respected her
intelligence and her courage,
but here, I have
time to appreciate
the strength of her character.
The cell is poisoning Adrienne,
making her sicker every day,
but she never falters.
I like these words of madame
de Stael to Adrienne.
"Madame...
The constant support of
Washington and the Americans
finally brought about our release.
When he was in prison,
then in exile,
it is Adrienne who became
a real political woman,
went to see Napoleon to negotiate
for Lafayette to be allowed
to go back to France.
But her illness only left
them a few more years.
They spent these last years
together at la grange,
one of her family's estates,
just outside Paris.
Lafayette wrote to a close friend,
describing Adrienne's last words.
Gilbert, there was a time after
you first came back from America
and I felt so attracted to you.
How lucky that passion
should have been my duty.
Will you give me your blessing?
You're not a Christian.
You're Fayettist.
Me, too.
I am all yours.
When Lafayette died
about 30 years later,
he was wearing a
portrait of Adrienne
in a locket around his neck.
But Lafayette did live
to see how democracy
had been brought to life
in the United States.
On the eve of the 50th
anniversary of the revolution,
President James Monroe
invited General
Lafayette to return to America...
A unifying hero who everybody
in America can thank
for their country's independence.
Sometimes I do these
collections of essays...
Sarah Vowell, the American author,
like Lafayette's descendant,
Sabine Renault-sabloniere,
has fallen in love with
the story of this man
who devoted his life to
the fight for democracy.
We're here in New York harbour,
and on August 16, 1824,
this elderly French gentleman
I think you've heard of
arrived in the harbour here,
and 80,000 people are
here to welcome him.
And the population of New York
city at the time was 120,000
so that's two-thirds
of the population of
New York is here.
- Two-third of the population?
- Yeah.
It's incredible.
You know, when the
Beatles came in 1964,
and there was all the hoopla?
Like, compared to
Lafayette, you know,
the Beatles thing is just,
like, a couple of girls
picking up 4 guys
from the airport.
It's hard to overstate
how beloved this man was,
and this marks the beginning
of this 13-month victory
lap around America,
where he goes to all
of the then-24 states.
Lafayette's return is a moment
when the country can re-focus
on what brought it together
in the first place.
The congress has this
banquet for Lafayette,
and he says, "someday America
will save the world."
And I think, while he's there
and says these things,
he makes everyone around
him want to live up to it.
Lafayette uses the
tour to ask Americans
if their country is living
up to its promise.
He returns to his
beloved Virginia,
where one of the biggest
crowds in the tour
gathers for a rally
at the state capital.
Lafayette suddenly
stops the parade
and steps out of his carriage
as he recognises a
face in the crowd.
It's his former spy...
James Armistead Lafayette,
now a free man.
In tears, the two embrace
while the whole city of
slaveholders looks on.
Just before he sails,
Lafayette visits the tomb of
George Washington at mount Vernon.
With his son, George Washington
Lafayette, by his side,
the old man kneels to scoop
something up before they depart.
When he came back from Virginia,
he took with him some earth,
and he wanted to be
buried in this earth.
So he does lie next to Adrienne
in American soil.
really happened in the past,
but there are people all over
America and probably the world
who dress up on the weekends in
the clothes of a favourite period
to try and re-create the lives of
men and women from a distant time.
Yeah, we're getting
one more rehearsal
for framing here.
Yeah, is the camera ready?
History has an imperfect memory.
It may be hard to believe,
but a Frenchman,
an aristocrat named Lafayette,
was one of America's first
and most popular heroes.
Without him, this
country might not
have won its war of independence.
Millions of people stood
waiting on roadsides
and cheered Lafayette
like a rock star
when he travelled through
America 50 years
after the revolution
he helped win.
How did we forget one of
our founding fathers?
If you even recognise
the name Lafayette,
it's probably a vague
memory from a storybook
or maybe you've walked down
a street with that name
or driven through a
town named Lafayette,
Fayetteville, or
something like that.
There are more than 50 of
them around the country.
Did you ever wonder why?
France and America have always had
a strange love/hate relationship.
[Dialogue dubbed in French]
Neither side likes to admit it,
but each defines itself, at
least partly, by the other.
Americans say the
French are snobs,
but admire their sense of style.
The French think Americans
are violent and
uncivilised, but love
to imitate them.
It's really common values that
have always bound us together.
And made us allies when
it really mattered.
Action.
Maybe the Marquis de Lafayette is
this figure from the distant past.
A foreigner, a
Frenchman, can tell us
something important
about ourselves
and help us remember
a time when America
became the symbol of
freedom in the world.
Following his trail into the past,
we might even understand more
about where we're headed now.
Cut.
Lafayette left us part of the
story in his memoirs and letters.
I was born in the small
village of Chavaniac
just before the
death of my father.
In the seven years
war with England.
So many Lafayettes have
died fighting for France.
That I was baptised
was the protection of
every saint who might
guard me in battle.
Marie Joseph Paul Yves
Roch Gilbert Du Motier...
Most historians agree about the
basic facts in Lafayette's life.
The differences are
mainly about which
incidents they choose to emphasise
or ignore.
His father was
killed in the battle
of Minden when he
was two years old,
and his mother sort
of retreated to Paris
and very rarely came
home to Auvergne.
He is a natural boy.
He was educated in
the countryside.
He lived with the peasants.
It was a lonely childhood, and
Lafayette fancied himself,
even at that young age,
as the gallant knight
out against all bad things
the could happen to people.
He kept that image of himself
throughout his life.
At 8 years of age,
my heart beat when
I heard of a wild
beast terrorising
our neighbourhood.
The hope of meeting it was the
object of all my
walks in the woods.
Lafayette may be
forgotten other places,
but you can still
find traces of him in
the French province
of the Auvergne.
They hold a festival in
his memory every summer.
It celebrates
18th-century village life
and commemorates the birth
of their Marquis...
But they don't tell you
much about his life
after he left the countryside.
When I was 11, my
mother sent for me
to come and live
with her in Paris.
Young Lafayette is
in for a surprise;
his mother lives at the
Palais Du Luxembourg,
one of the grandest
homes in Paris.
Shortly thereafter,
his mother died,
and Lafayette became a
very wealthy orphan.
At the age of 14,
Gilbert is already a wealthy
and eligible bachelor.
He's introduced to the
charming Adrienne de Noailles,
from the most well-connected
family in France.
It was towards the close of 1773
that monsieur de Lafayette
would meet us sometimes,
either at home or out
walking in the park.
She was fascinated by this man.
It's very interesting to see
how she became the
important person
of his life.
Sabine Renault-Sabloniere
is a great-great-great-
great-great-granddaughter.
Of Lafayette and Adrienne.
She's writing a book
about them and the story
of their unlikely partnership
in two revolutions.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"Our family's elegant townhouse,
the hotel de Noailles,
has gardens looking
out on the Seine."
[Sabloniere speaking French]
I was only 12 years old when my
father proposed
monsieur de Lafayette
to my dear mother as a match
for me or one of my sisters.
Gilbert was already in
possession of a large fortune,
one of the largest
in France, which my
mother looked upon
as a dangerous gift.
But from the first moment
of their acquaintance,
she saw in him the qualities which
others had yet to discover.
I was 14 when we
married; He was 16.
A great chance in his
life is this wife,
his woman... Adrienne de Noailles.
It was an arranged marriage
who become a beautiful love story.
Married into this
illustrious family,
Lafayette was taken to the
balls of Marie Antoinette.
My wife's family wish to obtain
a place for me at their side,
but it was impossible for me to
bend to the guises of the court
or to the chance of a
supper with the queen.
I have still less
to say relating to
my so-called entrance
into the world
or the brief moment
of favour I enjoyed.
On one occasion, the
shy Lafayette is
singled out to dance
with the young queen.
At some point, the story goes,
Marie Antoinette stops the dance
and laughs at him, as the
whole court joins in.
Lafayette's friends never
let him forget it.
At a masked ball, Lafayette lets
his disguise slip on purpose,
just as he's passing
the Comte de Provence,
the future King Louis
XVIII, and the very man
his family wants to use to launch
Gilbert's career at court.
The Comte de Provence was bragging
about his wonderful memory.
And Lafayette said
to him, "you know,
"memory is a fool's
substitute for wit."
One didn't say things like
this to a prince of the blood.
Lafayette knew exactly
what he was doing.
He cut himself off
from life at court.
Teenage defiance became
a form of revolution.
Lafayette's family went back 7
centuries as a military family,
the noblesse d'epee... "The
nobility of the sword."
Lafayette was raised on stories
of his family's glory at war,
and he needed to find his
own way to that glory.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"August 8, 1775.
"My darling, there is word
that the Duke of Gloucester,
"the brother of England's King
George, may dine with us tonight.
"It could prove lively
as, apparently,
"he takes the side of the American
insurgents just to
irk his brother."
The Duke of Gloucester
was a radical rake
who was very much for the
American revolutionaries,
and he described the
ideals for which the
American revolutionaries
were fighting:
Human rights, liberty,
equality, democracy.
Lafayette never
forgot that dinner.
He described it as a
turning point in his life.
From the moment I heard the
name "America," I loved it.
I burned with a desire to
spill my blood for her.
Lafayette was caught up in
the enlightenment principles
expressed in the declaration
of independence,
a text that Lafayette
was very familiar with.
Late in 1776,
Benjamin Franklin arrives
in Paris as an envoy,
to help win France's support
for the American cause.
So does another American,
on a secret mission.
The United States congress
sent a recruiter to Paris.
His name was Silas Deane.
Lafayette was looking
for a future,
and Silas Deane agreed to send
Lafayette to the continental army
with the commission
of a Major General.
At the time of the beginning
of the American revolution,
he understood that there was
a political opportunity.
He wasn't able to have
glory in France, but
it was possible to
have glory in America.
Lafayette bought a ship,
outfitted it with cannon,
named it "la Victoire."
The family was very embarrassed
by what Lafayette wanted to do.
His father-in-law was close to
the court and close to the King,
and when the King learnt that
Lafayette was going
to leave France
to go to the states, he
tried to prevent him.
He was a knight-errant
on his white horse,
and he wasn't going to be deterred
by the King or anybody else.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
In April, Gilbert
carried out the scheme
he had been forming
for 6 months past
of going to serve the cause
of independence in America.
I still loved him tenderly.
It was a very long and arduous
voyage. It was 6 weeks.
Ocean crossings were
horrible in those days.
Lafayette appears to
have been seasick most
of that time. He was
a terrible sailor.
They were in very
heavy seas, and he
didn't begin his first
letter to his wife
until he was about halfway there.
In his letter to
Adrienne, he said,
"I don't understand
people who like the sea.
It's so sad and I am ill."
"The sea, the sea, always the sea,
every day alike. It's
so lonely here."
He's talking to his wife as if she
should feel some pity for him,
having left her
without a word when
she was pregnant with their child.
But, after a fortnight,
he was not so ill,
and he learnt English
because he's very clever.
Most of the French officers
didn't do the same.
He learnt English.
He learnt English
because, he explains,
that you have to understand
the people of liberty.
"My dear Adrienne,
"I go to defend
liberty as a friend.
"The happiness of America
is intimately tied
"to the happiness of all mankind.
"One day she will
become the safe haven
"of tolerance, equality,
and peaceful liberty."
He was a visionary when
he said to Adrienne...
When he said such
things as America
was born for glory and prosperity,
it's really incredible
because how could he think
of that 230 years ago?
When Lafayette's ship arrived off
the coast of South Carolina,
they couldn't get into
the port of Charleston
because it was being heavily
patrolled by the British.
So they sailed north to look for
a safe harbour to get into.
They land at a plantation
near Charleston
and soon start off on the
700-mile journey to Pennsylvania.
Lafayette and his men travel
for more than a month
by carriage, on horseback,
and finally on foot.
It's not until July 27, 1777
that Lafayette and the 6 other
exhausted French soldiers arrive
in the capital city
of Philadelphia.
He finds out where the
continental congress is meeting,
walks up, and knocks on the
door of independence hall.
They were met by the head of the
secret committee for
foreign soldiers,
and he just told them to go away
and he turned his back on
them and walked back inside.
So many French officers
had presented themselves
to the continental
army for commissions
that the congress was
really sick of them,
and so Lafayette and his fellow
officers, having
braved the Atlantic
and an incredible march from
Charleston to Philadelphia,
were treated like the worst
kind of adventurers.
I entreated his
deputy, a Mr Lovell,
to return to congress
with the message,
"after the sacrifices I have made,
"I have the right to
be accepted as a
volunteer and serve
at my own expense."
A delegation came to him
the next day and said,
"we're very sorry that we
treated you as we did."
By then, they had
gotten a letter of
recommendation from
Benjamin Franklin
saying, "he will help our cause no
end, so please treat him well."
In fact, he said, "please...
Don't get him killed,
but let him learn
his glory on some
important occasion."
Men like Washington,
like Franklin,
could immediately realise
that this was a person who could
speak at the highest levels
of the French government, who'd
become an advocate for us.
We've come to see
General Washington.
After his noble manoeuvres
at Panton and Princeton,
General Washington
came to Philadelphia,
and I beheld for the first
time this great man.
Present arms.
It had been a very bad
day for Washington.
He had been told that
18,000 British regulars
were on their way to
invade Philadelphia.
So to meet yet another
French officer,
this one now a Major General
who was 19 years old,
was the perfect end to
a perfectly bad day.
You are Lafayette?
I am, sir.
Lafayette, of course,
was thrilled.
Attention.
Maybe it starts out
as a polite gesture
to the rich kid with connections,
but Lafayette's modesty makes
a good first impression.
Washington gives the teenager.
A chance to prove himself when
the continental army marches out
to stop the 8,000
British and Hessian
soldiers at Brandywine Creek.
The first column appeared
just up the stream from us.
General Charles Cornwallis and his
men advanced across the plain
and opened a brisk fire
of muskets and artillery.
I was granted
permission to ride out
and support General
Sullivan on our right.
I arrived to find the enemy
had crossed the ford.
Our cause scarcely had time
to form itself on the line.
Get back there now.
Stand your ground. We
don't want this...
Get back in line, damn you.
Lafayette hadn't noticed
that he was wounded
until blood started
gushing from his boot.
He had it attended to on the
battlefield and
continued to fight,
and helped manage a
very, very chaotic
retreat while he was wounded.
The battle is lost, allowing the
British to take Philadelphia,
but Lafayette is carried from
the field at Brandywine a hero.
Cut. Cut.
The way you did it before. Huh?
The handsome young General
captures the public's imagination.
His fame spreads
through the country
and back across the Atlantic.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
"September 12, 1777.
"Dear Adrienne,
"I will begin by telling
you I am in good health
"because I have to wind up by
informing you that yesterday
"I was honoured by my lords, the
"English, with a musket
ball in my leg.
"But, my dear heart,
it is a mere trifle.
"Neither bone nor
nerve were touched;
I came off lightly."
When news from my husband arrived,
it gave me enormous comfort,
at first.
Gilbert wrote to me about his
wound at the battle of Brandywine.
I need not tell you my feelings
on receiving that news.
At least my mother
was able to keep me
from hearing the
report of his death,
which was spread about at
that time by the English.
"November 27, 1777.
"Paris is ringing with
reports of the first battle
"in which Gilbert has brought
glory to the name of France.
"My husband's fame is spreading
through the country."
The very people who
had most blamed
his rash adventure
now applaud him.
Valley Forge is what
most people think of
when it comes to
soldiers suffering
during America's war
of independence.
It's mythologised in movies
going all the way back
to D.W. Griffith, the King
of epic silent films.
The real winter was probably more
horrible than we can even imagine.
Lafayette makes a point of
living there with his men
and gives a vivid
account in his memoirs.
The army settled into its
melancholy winter quarters.
The unfortunate soldiers
were in want of everything.
They had no coats or shoes.
Their feet and legs froze
till they became black,
and it was often necessary
to amputate them.
The army remained for
days without provisions,
and many deserted
to the countryside.
The American public
was not supporting
the continental army any more.
The congress and the
states were not
well supporting the
continental army.
They were expecting them
basically to just hang on,
just to survive, to keep the
continental army together.
Until the British lost
their will to stay.
And Washington, while
his men were freezing,
was told to come to the
defence of Philadelphia,
and he had to tell
the congress, "it
would be nice if we
had clothes or food.
It would be nice if
our men weren't dying
of exposure and
eating their shoes."
Washington is coming under
attack in congress.
A cabal seeks to replace
him as commander-in-chief.
Lafayette, tempted with offers
from Washington's enemies,
remains steadfast and comes
to Washington's defence.
"Dear General Washington,
"I don't need telling
you how I am sorry
"to be the one to bring
it to your attention.
"There are open
dissensions in congress,
"parties who hate each other
as much as the enemy.
"My dear Marquis,"
"what you have just conveyed to me
is fresh proof of your friendship.
"It's well known I have not
sought for this place.
"If I am displeasing to
the nation, I will retire,
"but until then, I will
oppose these intrigues."
"General, I see
plainly that America
"could be betrayed
by her own sons.
"These are jealous men, perhaps
secret friends to the British;
"stupid men who, without knowing
a single word about war,
undertake to judge you."
Washington's opponents in congress
were trying to remove
him from command.
"My dearest friend,
I have no doubt of your loyalty."
Some of this group invited
Lafayette to join them in a toast,
and while they all had
their glasses raised,
Lafayette added, "and to his
excellency, General Washington."
Lafayette's support in
that very difficult
time helped to seal
their relationship.
Washington learnt at Valley Forge
that Lafayette could be trusted.
Astonishingly, the unemotional
George Washington,
who keeps everyone
at arm's length,
expresses a fondness
for Lafayette.
Washington has no son, and the
young Frenchman no father.
Lafayette now becomes a part
of Washington's inner circle,
what he calls his family.
A great friendship develops
between these men.
They discuss the principles
of the American revolution.
By this time, the growing fame of
a Frenchman in the American ranks
and close to Washington has become
an embarrassment to the British.
They'd love to capture
and humiliate Lafayette.
Now they see their chance.
In the late spring of 1778,
Lafayette is given a command
befitting a real General:
To lead a scouting
expedition of 2,000 men
near the British stronghold
in Philadelphia.
These English Generals,
Howe and Clinton,
felt so certain of my capture
that they sent out invitations
to a fete in Philadelphia
at which, they said,
"Lafayette will be present."
"Sir, your detachment
is a very valuable one.
"Any accident would be a
severe blow to this army.
"You will therefore use every
"possible precaution
for its security
"and to guard against a surprise.
A stationary post is inadvisable."
Still an impetuous
teenager at heart,
Lafayette ignores his
commander's advice
not to stay in one place too long.
He soon has reason to
regret his decision.
Sir.
We camped on the 18th
of May at Barren Hill,
on a good elevation with a small
road down to the
river in the rear.
March.
On the morning of the
20th, I was informed
that the red dragoons
were approaching.
I first heard that
I was surrounded
in the presence of my troops.
Several officers whom
I had dispatched as
scouts declared we were
cut off from the road,
and they had been unable
to find an escape route.
I attacked from among the
trees and behind stone walls.
Fire.
I proceeded onto the small
path down to the river road.
The time the enemy wasted in
reconnoitring... looking
for an ambush...
I used to evade the trap.
Lafayette, still
only 20 years old,
had proved himself as an American
soldier who thinks on his feet.
But Washington was convinced his
protege would be
more useful to him
as a lobbyist to the
court of Versailles.
Lafayette is seen
as a key to the French
treasury and French supply,
the things that the American
army needs so badly.
And he's sent to open the
doors that would give us
the financial support, the
weaponry, the troops,
and the navy that we didn't
have, because, remember,
given his birth, his connections,
he walks right into
court and can speak
to the people at the
highest levels.
By the time Lafayette returns,
there was already a treaty of
alliance between
America and France.
The French realised
that these Americans
might have a chance of winning.
That said, the extent of their
support was not yet clear.
Lafayette basically camped on
the doorstep of Versailles
to make sure that America got
as much aid as possible.
I have often said
to myself that to
clothe the army of
the United States,
I would willingly have unfurnished
the palace of Versailles.
Gilbert.
At first, the King orders
him under house arrest...
A slap on the wrist for going to
America without permission...
Then, Lafayette is
welcomed at court.
Adrienne is often
left waiting as he
gets swept up in the festive balls
and other diversions.
She knew that men
who were at court
were out of the house and
that they had mistresses.
Her sister tells her that
there are some rumours
saying that many women
are interested in him
and that... he doesn't refuse.
So little by little,
she will accept,
you know, this kind of life.
Amidst the tumultuous scenes
that now occupied me,
I do not forget our revolution,
whose ultimate success still
appears as uncertain as ever.
With the King's promises
of 10,000 French troops
and a fleet from the west indies,
Lafayette sails back to America.
But there's no guarantee that
the reinforcements will arrive.
I am welcomed in Boston
with a salute of guns,
with the ringing of the church
bells, with a band marching ahead,
and with cheering from
the assembled multitude.
I await the arrival of the French
troops, who, as it turns out,
will be commanded not by me, but
by the Count de Rochambeau.
Lafayette dreams of
leading the charge
that will drive the British
from New York City,
but Washington has a different
mission in mind for the Marquis.
Lafayette is sent south
with the Virginia militia
to fight his old enemy,
the English General
Lord Charles Cornwallis.
This was not only
Washington's home
state, it was the
home of Mount Vernon.
Members of Virginia
society begged him
to send someone
senior to Lafayette,
and Washington wrote
them back that
they were really underestimating
the General that he'd
sent to their rescue.
"Richmond, Virginia,
"May 6, 1781.
"Dear General Washington,
"was I to actually fight a
battle I will be cut to pieces,
"the militia dispersed,
and the arms lost?
"Was I to decline
fighting, Virginia
"would think herself given up.
"I am, therefore,
determined to skirmish,
"but not to engage too far.
I am not strong enough
even to get beaten."
Lafayette, he fight not
in the French way,
not in the English way,
not in the Prussian way.
He fight like the Indian:
You attack and you return.
When he has to fight,
again, Cornwallis says,
"I will take the boy," and
in effect takes the boy.
In June, Washington
sends reinforcements.
Lafayette sets off after
Cornwallis with 5,000 men
across Virginia to Yorktown
on Chesapeake Bay.
Lafayette thought it
would be very important
to get accurate information
about what was happening
within Cornwallis' compound.
Lafayette sent a number of spies,
one of which was a slave
named James Armistead.
Armistead, James Armistead...
An African-American slave...
Is one of the first known
American secret agents.
James infiltrates
the British camp,
he feeds Cornwallis
false information,
and tells Lafayette what the
British General is planning.
Cornwallis was an extremely
competent officer,
and yet, he was
ultimately outmanoeuvred
by this young French General.
Washington learns Lafayette
has Cornwallis pinned down
on the Virginia coast
and races south,
but he fears the promised French
fleet will arrive too late
to prevent the English
from escaping by sea.
On August 14th,
25 French warships are sighted at
the mouth of the Chesapeake River.
Thanks in part to
Lafayette's diplomacy,
Comte de Grasse, the Admiral
of the French fleet,
arrives in time to attack
the English flotilla
that has come to
rescue Cornwallis.
Admiral de Grasse
chased the British
fleet off and back to New York.
Then Cornwallis had no avenue
of retreat from Yorktown.
Before Washington
can reach Virginia,
Admiral de Grasse
wants the Marquis
to lead an attack right away
and finish off Cornwallis.
Many more of Lafayette's
men would have died
had they undertaken the siege when
de Grasse insisted
that they do so.
Lafayette had grown up
in a very meaningful way
in the course of this
revolutionary war.
When he came to America, he was
full of vinegar and out for glory.
He really wanted to become famous,
but he had become so
attached to his troops
and so attached to the American
cause that he insisted
that they wait until
Washington and Rochambeau
arrived with the
troops from the north.
Lafayette is given a place
of glory after all...
Commanding the American
forces closest
to the enemy's outer defences.
They bravely charge,
the French way,
without any bullets in their guns,
taking the fort at Yorktown
with fixed bayonets.
As the British surrender,
marching between the lines of
French and American soldiers,
I see they make a clear point
of looking only at the French.
Standing with my American
soldiers, of course,
I order the drum major
to play "Yankee doodle."
The English all turn their heads
and surrender their weapons
to this American tune.
When the war is over, Lafayette
returns to the Virginia capital
and wins an appeal for the
emancipation of his former spy,
James Armistead.
To honour the General,
James takes "Lafayette"
as his new last name.
Gilbert arrived
unexpectedly in Paris
on the 21st of January, 1782.
Everyone who was there still
remembers the enthusiasm
at the time of his
triumphant return.
He is a sort of pop
star of history.
The women want to kiss his boots
when he is on his white horse.
There was no TV in that
time, so just imaging,
just coming back from
the United States,
he was recognised on
the street in Paris.
Lafayette is greeted as
the hero of two worlds
by a crowd that has gathered in
the street outside his home.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
I found myself drawn to
him with a new intensity,
just from the joy of
having him back again
after so many adventures
and so much glory.
The feelings were so overpowering
that for several months,
I felt ready to faint every
time he left the room.
I gave a speech at which a
French woman stood up and said,
"wasn't Lafayette
just a lucky idiot?"
There's a school of
thought in France
that Lafayette just fell
into wonderful positions,
it was just a lucky life.
But the fact is that Lafayette
was a very serious man.
When he came back after
Yorktown to France,
he tried to solidify
the American victory
and the French victory
in the American cause.
Lafayette is impatient to
see France transformed
by the democratic ideas
he has embraced.
But first, he writes
to Washington,
passionately urging his
mentor and dearest friend
to perfect the American
experiment in democracy
by removing the taint of slavery.
Lafayette is a man of the freedom,
and he has written many
letters to Washington
to ask Washington to stop
slavery in United States.
"My dear General,
"permit me to propose a plan which
might be greatly beneficial
"to the black part of mankind.
"Let us unite in
purchasing a small estate
"where we may try the experiment
to free the negroes."
And Washington says,
"who will work if we
have not slaves?"
In the cause of my black brethren,
I most decidedly side against
the white part of mankind.
Whatever be the complexion
of the enslaved,
it does not alter the
complexion of the crime
which the enslaver commits,
a crime much blacker
than any African face.
Lafayette, with Adrienne,
asks the French ministry
to free the French
slaves of Guiana.
And they learn to the slave
to become free servant
and not slaves.
We purchased a plantation,
la Belle Gabrielle,
to give an example of
gradual emancipation.
Every just and liberal
idea my husband
had found a place
in my heart, too.
When he struggled against slavery,
she herself managed that property,
la Belle Gabrielle.
Adrienne shared all his struggles.
He couldn't do anything without
asking her to help him.
Lafayette relentlessly pursued
his commitment to freedom,
but his heroic efforts to
bring democracy to France
were to unleash forces
beyond his control.
This statue of Lafayette,
a gift from American
schoolchildren,
once stood in the
very centre of Paris,
a site visited every year
by millions of people.
In the 1980s, the statue was moved
to this out-of-the-way spot.
Lafayette's uncertain
place in French history
can be traced to his role
in the French revolution.
He helps to get it
started just a few
years after he returns
from America.
Lafayette want to take
this model of success
to import it in France
because he wanted to be
the French Washington.
"My dear General Washington,
"our revolution is getting
on as well as it can,
"with a nation that has swallowed
up liberty all at once
and is still liable to mistake
licentiousness for freedom."
In 1789, Lafayette's friend
Thomas Jefferson, the
American ambassador,
helps him draft the declaration
of the rights of man...
What may be Lafayette's greatest
contribution to the
cause of democracy,
a vision of human rights as
the core value of a society.
But within a few days of its
release, the people of Paris,
inflamed by more radical voices,
storm the Bastille prison...
A symbol of the King's tyranny...
And parade through the streets
with heads impaled
on their spears.
Lafayette takes
charge of a national
guard responsible for
restoring order.
And finds himself in
an untenable position.
Lafayette was really caught in the
middle of the French revolution.
He's sort of a tragic
figure in that way.
He was caught between the
monarchists on the right
and the populists on the left.
His efforts to bring the
two sides together.
Are played out in
3 memorable days.
A huge crowd of women
marches to Versailles
and threatens the
queen, dramatically
exposing Lafayette's
precarious position
as both a champion of freedom
and a figure of authority.
[Sabloniere speaking French]
Lafayette's dramatic gesture
achieves a momentary truce.
On the first anniversary of
the storming of the Bastille,
a quarter of a million people
rally around Lafayette
and his plan for a constitution
to give them liberty
and a King to protect order.
They celebrate on a field where
the Eiffel Tower stands today.
It's a moment absolutely magic,
the reconciliation
of all the French.
This great fete de la
federation, a celebration,
and all the French
coming from everywhere
are in a great happiness.
And you have the King
with a constitution;
well, you have, of course,
Lafayette, who is the hero
of this great success.
He had, really, a very
charismatic personality,
and that's why, at
the beginning of the
French revolution, he
had so much influence.
But Lafayette, in his
thirst for glory,
has put himself so much
in front of everything
and hasn't been...
Clever enough to manage
the revolution to go
in a certain way.
A year later, Lafayette
is overwhelmed
by the violent
forces of revolution
he's been trying to keep in check.
Radical factions incite
an angry mob to riot
in the same field where
they had cheered Lafayette.
Someone fires a gun at him.
They miss, but his troops
open fire on the crowd.
There's still a dispute
over who gave the order.
He couldn't hold
the ends together.
Because France had so much more to
revolt against than
the Americans did.
The revolution spins
out of control.
Thousands of people have already
escaped to nearby countries.
In the next year and a
half, nearly 3,000 more...
Including Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette...
Will die on the guillotine.
Lafayette, now viewed as
a traitor by both sides,
tries to escape, hoping
to reach America.
But he's taken prisoner by the
Austrians, whose Emperor...
Francis II, brother of Marie
Antoinette... despises Lafayette
for inspiring a democratic wave
that's sweeping over Europe.
Lafayette ends up in
a series of prisons,
moving further east in Europe
until he finally
ends up in Olmutz,
in what today we would
call the Czech Republic.
Adrienne, like most aristocrats,
awaits her own inevitable arrest.
She assumes she will follow her
mother and sister
to the guillotine.
George Washington, now President
of the United States,
tries in vain to help her.
She is imprisoned
for 3 long years.
Adrienne is finally released
as the terror ends.
As soon as she's free,
she begs the Emperor of Austria
to let her join
Lafayette in prison,
and Adrienne took with her.
Their two daughters.
They enable me to live again,
but they are paying the price,
especially my dear, dear Adrienne.
I have always respected her
intelligence and her courage,
but here, I have
time to appreciate
the strength of her character.
The cell is poisoning Adrienne,
making her sicker every day,
but she never falters.
I like these words of madame
de Stael to Adrienne.
"Madame...
The constant support of
Washington and the Americans
finally brought about our release.
When he was in prison,
then in exile,
it is Adrienne who became
a real political woman,
went to see Napoleon to negotiate
for Lafayette to be allowed
to go back to France.
But her illness only left
them a few more years.
They spent these last years
together at la grange,
one of her family's estates,
just outside Paris.
Lafayette wrote to a close friend,
describing Adrienne's last words.
Gilbert, there was a time after
you first came back from America
and I felt so attracted to you.
How lucky that passion
should have been my duty.
Will you give me your blessing?
You're not a Christian.
You're Fayettist.
Me, too.
I am all yours.
When Lafayette died
about 30 years later,
he was wearing a
portrait of Adrienne
in a locket around his neck.
But Lafayette did live
to see how democracy
had been brought to life
in the United States.
On the eve of the 50th
anniversary of the revolution,
President James Monroe
invited General
Lafayette to return to America...
A unifying hero who everybody
in America can thank
for their country's independence.
Sometimes I do these
collections of essays...
Sarah Vowell, the American author,
like Lafayette's descendant,
Sabine Renault-sabloniere,
has fallen in love with
the story of this man
who devoted his life to
the fight for democracy.
We're here in New York harbour,
and on August 16, 1824,
this elderly French gentleman
I think you've heard of
arrived in the harbour here,
and 80,000 people are
here to welcome him.
And the population of New York
city at the time was 120,000
so that's two-thirds
of the population of
New York is here.
- Two-third of the population?
- Yeah.
It's incredible.
You know, when the
Beatles came in 1964,
and there was all the hoopla?
Like, compared to
Lafayette, you know,
the Beatles thing is just,
like, a couple of girls
picking up 4 guys
from the airport.
It's hard to overstate
how beloved this man was,
and this marks the beginning
of this 13-month victory
lap around America,
where he goes to all
of the then-24 states.
Lafayette's return is a moment
when the country can re-focus
on what brought it together
in the first place.
The congress has this
banquet for Lafayette,
and he says, "someday America
will save the world."
And I think, while he's there
and says these things,
he makes everyone around
him want to live up to it.
Lafayette uses the
tour to ask Americans
if their country is living
up to its promise.
He returns to his
beloved Virginia,
where one of the biggest
crowds in the tour
gathers for a rally
at the state capital.
Lafayette suddenly
stops the parade
and steps out of his carriage
as he recognises a
face in the crowd.
It's his former spy...
James Armistead Lafayette,
now a free man.
In tears, the two embrace
while the whole city of
slaveholders looks on.
Just before he sails,
Lafayette visits the tomb of
George Washington at mount Vernon.
With his son, George Washington
Lafayette, by his side,
the old man kneels to scoop
something up before they depart.
When he came back from Virginia,
he took with him some earth,
and he wanted to be
buried in this earth.
So he does lie next to Adrienne
in American soil.