50 Fun Facts About Marquis De Lafayette

Lafayette lies buried in Paris under soil he brought home from which American battlefield?

Bunker Hill gave him the earth in 1825, when he laid the cornerstone of its monument. His son sprinkled it over the coffin nine years later.

The teenage Lafayette won over a wary Congress in 1777 by offering to serve on what terms?

Without pay was the offer that set him apart from the crowd of French officers seeking rank and salary. Congress made him a major general at 19.

Lafayette was shot in the leg in his first taste of combat, at which 1777 Pennsylvania battle?

Brandywine left him wounded yet still rallying an orderly retreat. In 1825 the US Navy renamed a new frigate after the battle to carry him home to France.

Which rapper won a Tony for originating the role of Lafayette in the Broadway musical Hamilton?

Daveed Diggs took the 2016 Tony for Featured Actor, playing the Frenchman in Act One and a rival Founding Father in Act Two.

Which souvenir of the French Revolution did Lafayette send to George Washington in 1790?

The Bastille's key is still on display in the first president's home, a trophy from the fortress whose fall on July 14 opened the Revolution.

Which general is wrongly credited with saying 'Lafayette, we are here' at the marquis's tomb in 1917?

John J. Pershing himself said the line belonged to his aide, Charles E. Stanton, who spoke it at the grave on July 4, 1917, as American troops reached France.

Lafayette went to Virginia in 1781 with orders to hang which enemy commander at once if captured?

Benedict Arnold, by then raiding for the British, got away because British warships kept the French fleet from sealing off his escape by sea.

Who volunteered to move into Lafayette's cell at Olmütz prison in 1795 and stayed for two years?

His wife and daughters arrived after Adrienne won the emperor's permission in person. Lafayette, in solitary since a failed escape, was astounded when the door opened.

In 2002 Congress gave Lafayette which rare honor, also held by Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa?

Honorary US citizenship came 168 years after his death. In life he boasted that he had become an American citizen before French citizenship even existed.

During his 1825 farewell tour of America, Lafayette escaped a sinking steamboat on which river?

Ohio River waters took the steamboat Mechanic along with his money and belongings, but every passenger reached shore and a passing boat collected the party next day.

Lafayette shared the hardships of which winter encampment with George Washington's army in 1777–78?

Valley Forge was his base when the Board of War sent him to Albany to lead a winter invasion of Canada. He called it off on finding too few men.

Lafayette's troops boxed in a British army at which Virginia port before the war's decisive siege?

Yorktown ended with Lord Cornwallis surrendering on October 19, 1781, after Lafayette's containment and a French fleet left the British no way out.

Which American diplomat in Paris helped Lafayette draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man?

Thomas Jefferson, then the US minister to France, advised on the draft that Lafayette put before the Assembly on July 11, 1789.

The tricolor cockade credited to Lafayette joined the red and blue of Paris with which royal color?

White stood for the Bourbon monarchy, set between the city's two colors as a show of loyalty to the king. The combination grew into the French flag.

On a Versailles balcony in October 1789, Lafayette calmed an angry crowd by kissing whose hand?

Marie Antoinette had stepped out alone to shouts that she be shot. The gesture drew cheers, though the crowd still made the royal family move to Paris.

Which rising French general negotiated Lafayette's release from Olmütz prison in 1797?

Napoleon Bonaparte, fresh from his victories in Italy, pressed the prisoners' captors to free them during peace talks. Lafayette later voted against making him consul for life.

Which president invited the aging Lafayette back to America in 1824 as the guest of the nation?

James Monroe offered a warship for the crossing, but Lafayette thought that undemocratic and booked passage on a merchant ship instead.

Washington's Lafayette Square has a statue of which president at its center, leaving Lafayette a corner?

Andrew Jackson has ridden at the center since 1853, on a rearing horse. Lafayette shares the four corners with three other foreign heroes of the Revolution.

The first American city named for Lafayette, Fayetteville, is in which state?

North Carolina's Fayetteville took the name in 1783. When the man himself arrived 42 years later, admirers stood in mud and pouring rain to welcome him.

Which of the Marquis de Lafayette's many baptismal names is the one he was actually known by?

Gilbert came last in the string and ran in the family: his father and a medieval ancestor who became a Marshal of France both carried it.

How did Lafayette's father die at the Battle of Minden, making his son a marquis before the age of two?

Hit by a cannonball while fighting an Anglo-German army in 1759, he left a son who, one historian argues, grew up loathing the British for it.

At 13, Lafayette became an officer in which elite unit of the French king's household troops?

The Musketeers ran in the family: his great-grandfather had commanded the Black Musketeers, the king's personal mounted escort. The boy's duties were mostly parades.

A Lafayette ancestor, a Marshal of France, fought beside which famous figure at Orléans in 1429?

Joan of Arc counted the marshal among her companions-at-arms during the siege. Family legend also credits another forebear with acquiring the crown of thorns on crusade.

What did Lafayette begin learning on his Atlantic crossing in 1777 and master within a year of landing?

English was new to him when he sailed. Many French officers who reached Congress before him could not speak it at all, which helped his case.

How did the French king punish Lafayette in 1779 for having sailed to America against royal orders?

Brief house arrest, just eight days of it, was a face-saving gesture. Lafayette got a hero's welcome and was soon invited to hunt with the king.

Which French frigate carried Lafayette back to America in 1780 and was rebuilt as a sailing replica?

Hermione landed him at Boston with word that a French army was coming. Her full-size replica, begun at Rochefort in 1997, crossed to the United States in 2015.

Which enslaved double agent spied on British camps for Lafayette and later took the marquis's surname?

James Armistead posed as a runaway to enter British camps, then fed the enemy false reports. A testimonial Lafayette wrote in 1784 helped him win his freedom.

Lafayette lobbied Versailles for the 6,000 French troops who sailed in 1780 under which commander?

Comte de Rochambeau once refused to receive the impatient marquis until he apologized for pressing grand schemes to attack New York.

Which Native nation did Lafayette recruit to the American side in 1778, earning the name Kayewla?

Oneida allies called him Kayewla, meaning fearsome horseman. He met them at Albany while preparing an invasion of Canada that never went ahead.

Lafayette laid cornerstones across America in 1824 and 1825 as a member of which brotherhood?

The Freemasons had opened doors for him since his first weeks in Philadelphia, where George Washington was inclined to think well of a fellow Mason.

After the July 1789 uprising in Paris, Lafayette was made commander of which new citizen militia?

The National Guard got its name from Lafayette himself. He resigned in 1791, then was called back to lead it again during the revolution of 1830, at 72.

Fleeing France in 1792 as radicals turned on him, Lafayette was captured by troops of which empire?

Austria treated him as a dangerous revolutionary, not a refugee. He claimed to be an American, but the United States had no diplomatic ties with his captors.

Which Schuyler sister, with her husband, sponsored a failed plot to spring Lafayette from prison?

Angelica Schuyler Church and her husband hired a young German doctor as their agent. Lafayette got clear of his escort on a carriage drive, lost his way and was recaptured.

Adrienne de Lafayette's mother, sister and grandmother all died on one day in 1794 by what means?

The guillotine took all three on July 22, 1794. Adrienne later helped trace their mass grave at Picpus, and she and Lafayette chose to be buried beside it.

After an 1803 land deal with France, Lafayette declined to govern which new American territory?

Louisiana needed a governor, but he turned the idea down, citing personal problems and his wish to keep working for liberty in France.

Which French decoration did Lafayette repeatedly refuse because it came from an undemocratic regime?

The Legion of Honour was offered again and again, along with a Senate seat. He said he would gladly have taken both from a democratic government.

After which 1815 battle did Lafayette stand up and demand the emperor's abdication?

Waterloo was four days old when the emperor gave up his throne. Lafayette then tried to arrange his passage to America, but the British blocked it.

Offered power himself in the July Revolution of 1830, Lafayette instead backed which duke as king?

Louis-Philippe had lived in America and had a common touch, but he soon backtracked on reform and Lafayette angrily broke with him.

Congress thanked Lafayette in 1824 with $200,000 and a township of land in which present-day state?

Florida's grant lay at Tallahassee and is known as the Lafayette Land Grant, a thank-you to a man who had bought his own ship to join the Revolution.

The Lafayette Escadrille, a French squadron formed in 1916, was made up largely of which volunteers?

American pilots flew for France before their own country entered the war, and kept two lion cubs named Whiskey and Soda as mascots.

Which nickname did Lafayette earn for his service to both France and the United States?

Hero of the Two Worlds suits a man who fought in the American Revolution and then helped lead two French ones, in 1789 and 1830.

To test a plan for gradual emancipation, Lafayette bought a plantation in which colony of France?

French Guiana's La Belle Gabrielle venture was meant to pay and educate its enslaved workers and never sell them. Earlier he had urged George Washington to free slaves and settle them as tenant farmers.

Lafayette was blamed in 1791 when the royal family slipped out of Paris, reaching which town?

Varennes is where the fugitives were stopped and arrested. Radicals said Lafayette had either sold out his country or been a fool to vouch for the king.

In 1791 Lafayette's troops fired on petitioners at which Paris site, now overlooked by the Eiffel Tower?

Champ de Mars had seen him lead the nation's oath of loyalty a year earlier. The shooting wrecked his standing, and rioters attacked his home straight afterwards.

Which revolutionary, as minister of justice, signed the warrant against Lafayette in August 1792?

Danton acted four days after a mob stormed the Tuileries and toppled the monarchy. Lafayette crossed the border hoping to reach the United States.

Which statesman delivered a three-hour eulogy of Lafayette before Congress after his death in 1834?

John Quincy Adams called him high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind. Both houses of Congress were draped in black for 30 days.

Lafayette was born in a château at Chavaniac in which rugged province of south-central France?

Auvergne is where his grandmother raised him after his widowed mother moved to Paris. The village now carries his name: Chavaniac-Lafayette.

American towns called LaGrange, such as the one in Georgia, are named after what in Lafayette's life?

His country estate, La Grange, came through Adrienne's family. He retired there after his years in prison and kept open house for visiting Americans.

Smuggled out of France as a boy, Lafayette's only son became a house guest at which Virginia plantation?

Mount Vernon took in a boy whose full name was Georges Washington de La Fayette. Almost three decades on he crossed the Atlantic again at his father's side for the 1824 tour.

Which future American writer served in the youth escort for Lafayette's 1824 visit to Richmond?

Edgar Allan Poe, then 15, was lieutenant of the Richmond youth honor company as the city celebrated the old general's return.