Explore the compelling story of the young Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who defied his family and the French court to join the American Revolution. Discover how his passion for liberty led him to become a pivotal figure in both the American and French revolutions.
This episode of ‘Talk with History’ delves into Lafayette’s historic journey, his deep connection with Benjamin Franklin, and his enduring legacy, culminating in the discovery of his and his wife’s grave in the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. Hosts Scott and Jenn provide a deep dive into the historical significance of Lafayette’s life and adventures, and the ongoing efforts to honor his memory, including the 200th anniversary reenactment of his return to America.
🎙️Reviewing Napoleon with a World-Famous Napoleon Reenactor
🎥 Video from Lafayette’s gravesite
00:00 The Spark of Revolution: Lafayette’s Inspiration
02:29 Podcast Introduction and Listener Engagement
04:16 Lafayette’s Return to America: 200th Anniversary
05:15 Finding Lafayette’s Grave in Paris
10:38 The Reign of Terror and Its Victims
13:32 Lafayette’s Imprisonment and Adrien’s Struggle
14:14 The Hidden Cemetery: Picpus
20:26 Lafayette’s Legacy and Final Resting Place
27:29 Lafayette survives the Reign of Terror
Transcript
118 – Lafayette’s Gravesite
118 – Lafayette Grave
[00:00:00] The Spark of Revolution: Lafayette’s Inspiration
[00:00:00] Scott: Paris 1776. The air in the grand salons buzzed with the whispers of a distant conflict, the American colonies in rebellion against Great Britain. For the young Marquis de Lafayette, just 19 years old. These whispers were more than mere gossip. They were. Sparks igniting a fire in his soul. Newspapers smuggled across the Atlantic spoke of a fledgling nation fighting for ideals of liberty and self governance.
[00:00:40] Ideals that resonated deeply with the impressionable Lafayette. He devoured every account of the battles at Lexington and Concord, his heart swelling with colonists courage. Eventually, the echoes of these distant battles reached Lafayette through another source, Benjamin Franklin. The American ambassador to France, a man with a sharp wit and even sharper mind, became a frequent visitor to the Lafayette household.
[00:01:08] During these visits, Lafayette would pepper Franklin with questions about the American fight, his youthful enthusiasm contagious. Franklin, sensing Lafayette’s genuine interest and bold spirit, saw more than just a curious aristocrat. He saw a potential ally. He shared with Lafayette the plight of the Continental Army, its lack of resources and skilled leadership.
[00:01:31] The young marquis, fueled by a brilliant Burgeoning sense of purpose felt, a call to action. Despite his aristocratic background and the disapproval of the French court, Lafayette was determined to join the American cause. He poured over maps, charting a course to the new world. He secretly financed the purchase of a ship, La Victoria, and recruited a small force of other idealistic young officers.
[00:01:58] On April 20th, 1777, defying the wishes of his family and King Louis, Lafayette set sail He crossed the vast Atlantic, carrying with him not just weapons and supplies, but a burning desire to fight for the ideals of a nation he barely knew. This young Frenchman, barely out of his teens, was on his way to become a legend.
[00:02:20] The Marquis de Lafayette. Hero of two worlds.
[00:02:29] Podcast Introduction and Listener Engagement
[00:02:29] Scott: Welcome to talk with history, I’m your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen on this podcast We give you insights to our history inspired world travels YouTube channel journey and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers Now,
[00:02:48] I haven’t asked for this in a while, but if you’re an Apple podcast listener, I would love to get some reviews from our regular listeners, or even if you’re just listening to this podcast for the very first time and you enjoy the episode, please drop us a review. If you drop us five stars, we will read it.
[00:03:03] And as we’ve joked in the past, we’ve actually gotten some negative five star reviews because people were providing feedback that way. And so we, we, we joke about that. Also it’s been a while since I’ve, I’ve done the segment.
[00:03:16] Good
[00:03:16] review, bad
[00:03:17] And so no, we haven’t done a bad joke on the podcast for a while.
[00:03:21] So you leave me, leave me a good review. I will dig up a bad history joke to tell.
[00:03:25]
[00:03:29] Scott: All right, so Jen, as the listeners heard, we’re talking about the Marquis de Lafayette. So this is a little bit of a continuation of your trip. When you were out in France. So we’re almost done with our Normandy time.
[00:03:41] We’ve got one more topic that we’re still going to get to, but we wanted to talk about Lafayette for a couple of different reasons. So let’s, let’s talk about this infamous French, Frenchman who whisked himself away to, to America for an adventure. And then we came back to France much later in Yes.
[00:04:02] Jenn: So if you’re no stranger to the channel, you know that we love Mark. He is the E. interpreter of the Marquis de Lafayette at Yorktown at Colonial Williamsburg.
[00:04:16] Lafayette’s Return to America: 200th Anniversary
[00:04:16] Jenn: And right now they’re in barking on the 200th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s return to America. So the Marquis came back in 1824.
[00:04:27] He was only supposed to come back for a couple months and see his fellow countrymen that he fought alongside with for the American Revolution. And he ended up staying like two years he toured all the way down to the to New Orleans and all the way up north. So they’re recreating that
[00:04:49] Scott: Yeah, this year, in 2024.
[00:04:51] Jenn: in 2024 since the 200th anniversary. So Mark and three other men will be portraying the Marquis de Lafayette and they will be going to those locations. And if it’s along your route or something you’re interested in doing it’s there for you. It’s a lot of fun. They were just in Boston. So it’s just really neat to recreate the Marquis de Lafayette.
[00:05:15] Finding Lafayette’s Grave in Paris
[00:05:15] Jenn: When I was in paris, the
[00:05:16] Marquis is actually buried in Paris, and I wanted to see his grave. And that is what this whole video is. It was not easy to find, and if you even look up TripAdvisor, the top
[00:05:30] recommendation
[00:05:31] is hard to find cemetery because it’s very difficult to find, and it took my, myself and my travel companion a while to find it.
[00:05:39] to figure out how to get there. This is not a touristy part of Paris. Everyone speaks French pretty exclusively.
[00:05:48] Scott: Yeah, not, not a lot of English like you will find in, in the
[00:05:52] Jenn: in the touristy areas. So you’ve got to know a couple phrases yourself. Or if you’re like me, you would put them into your phone and translate and then hold up the phone for people and then they could read it and then they would answer me.
[00:06:02] And so that was a great way for me to get around. But
[00:06:06] Scott: So just to Remind folks when we, we, you mentioned we’ve met Mark and I forget Mark’s last name off the top of my head, but we met him via Colonial Williamsburg, but we first interviewed him on talk with history. If you’ve been listening for a while, because he plays Napoleon pretty extensively.
[00:06:22] And so we talked to him about after the Napoleon movie came out and he gave us his thoughts and his take on the portrayal of Napoleon and historical accuracy of Napoleon. So we will include. In the show notes, just for reference, if you were, if you’re new, if this is the kind of first time you’re listening to talk with history, we’ll include a link to the old podcast when he talks about Napoleon, because he is. Legitimately one of the, the world’s kind of world renowned Napoleon reenactors. He is one of the experts out there. And then when it comes to Lafayette, well, they’re both French, and Mark speaks French incredibly fluently and not like American fluently. I think he, his mother was
[00:07:01] French. And he speaks it very, very fluently and he plays Lafayette all the time. And so he’s getting to do this really cool thing for the 200th anniversary to tour around. So we’ll, we’ll include links to his social media so you can see what he’s doing and kind of opportunities that might be in your area if you’re interested in that era of American
[00:07:21] Jenn: Yeah, Mark Schneider is his name and the American Friends of Lafayette, they’re big in supporting this as well. So just remember that The Marquis de Lafayette was French, comes to America at a very young age to make his name and to find his glory. And Marc has done extensive research, like you said, he can answer any question you really have about the Marquis de Lafayette and his life.
[00:07:45] But he’s also an amazing Napoleon reenactor and he is world renowned.
[00:07:50] Scott: The country of France and various cities throughout that region, including Austria and all this stuff. They are flying him out, they are paying to bring him out for reenactments on a consistent basis. So that, that should speak to what caliber he is. He, he is the best of the
[00:08:08] best.
[00:08:09] And so we’re good friends with him and you had to go see Lafayette’s grave in Paris.
[00:08:14] Jenn: I had to go see it. Now, to get some background of this grave, it is, you want to say, wrought in French history. This grave is wrought in French history. Lafayette is like the bridge between the American Revolution and the French Revolution.
[00:08:31] So a little history background, I’m not going to go deep into it, but the French really funded the American Revolution. They really backed up the Americans. They provided ammunition. They provided guns. They provided
[00:08:43] Scott: Yeah, through Lafayette.
[00:08:44] Jenn: through Lafayette. Lafayette was an aristocrat’s son. He had a lot of money, had a lot of influence, but he wasn’t going to be able to take on a big group of military men at his young age and free them.
[00:08:58] France. So he thought if he came to America, he could stake his name out in America. And America had promised him through Benjamin Franklin, if he did come to America, that they would ga make him a general. And so he took him up on that and he, he came and he became a general.
[00:09:16] Scott: he showed, he left in April. Got there, got to America in a couple months.
[00:09:22] And within a couple months after that, he was a general and part of the Continental Army.
[00:09:27] Jenn: And if you, if you realize he’s, he’s relatively young,
[00:09:30] Scott: he’s 19, 20
[00:09:30] Jenn: exactly, to become a general. But this is also the beginning of America and things are being made as they go. I don’t want to disparage the Ben Franklin and what Thomas Jefferson were doing in France. They were also being good ambassadors.
[00:09:44] They were getting funds and things sent to America as well. But the Marquis de Lafayette was the Frenchman representation in America.
[00:09:53] After the American Revolution, he goes back home, and he has four children. He is married before he leaves. He gets married in 1774 to Marie Adrienne, and she is also an aristocrat.
[00:10:08] When the French Revolution breaks out, and I want people to understand the French Revolution, there’s a king and a queen. Most people know Louis XVI Marie Antoinette, the coffers are basically been run dry. They’ve funded the American Revolution. They have extravagant spending, and now the country is broke.
[00:10:29] And so they try to tax the people more, the people revolt, and you get the French Revolution. And so it’s really on the heels of the American Revolution.
[00:10:38] The Reign of Terror and Its Victims
[00:10:38] Jenn: Now pay attention because since 1794, when we talk about this cemetery, the victims were killed between June 14th and the, and July, 27th.
[00:10:52] Scott: now if and if I remember correctly for the French Revolution I think it was the events around and everything building up and the aftermath was a lot longer than just the one year was like four or five
[00:11:03] Jenn: It was, but this is the reign of
[00:11:04] Scott: The reign of so specifically the reign
[00:11:06] of terror and and and Jen and Jim will Speak to why in a bit why we’re gonna focus on that period because it ties Directly to why Lafayette is buried where he’s buried
[00:11:17] Jenn: Yes. The French revolution is much longer. The reign of terror is between 1793 and July of
[00:11:24] Scott: Yeah, and that Reign of Terror really was like the peak of, it’s what’s his name? Saint Robespierre. Robespierre.
[00:11:32] Jenn: Rose Pierre. So this is where people are being killed.
[00:11:34] Scott: Yeah, so they’re killing people, they’re guillotining them and this is This is where Lafayette’s tie to this reign of terror and this cemetery come
[00:11:44] Jenn: so
[00:11:44] think of the reign of terror. They start to kill. everybody who is basically who they believe has is is holding more conservative values, who wants to go back to the old way of life, who wants to have some kind of and I wouldn’t even say monarchy, some kind of constitution, some kind of way of policing.
[00:12:06] Scott: Yeah, basically, from what I understood, is if you’re not on the extreme, then you’re against them.
[00:12:15] And that’s essentially this height of everything was the reign of terror. And so I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, Lafayette was a little bit more moderate, even though he brought in some of these You know more more kind of power to the people kind of democratic ideas He brought them over and so he was part of the the initiation of the french revolution And all of a sudden he had his same ideals, but it got so extreme That eventually everybody said hey lafayette.
[00:12:41] You’re not over here with us on the extreme end You’re against us and he
[00:12:45] he flees.
[00:12:46] Jenn: flees. So Lafayette has a precarious situation. Most soldiers during the French Revolution are going to be okay because they’re the ones enforcing the reign of terror, quote unquote, the reign of terror. So they’re going to be okay, but, but Lafayette’s married to an aristocrat. And the issue is the aristocrats are to blame for the French Revolution because they’ve been living these extravagant lives.
[00:13:11] Scott: and Lafayette’s very wealthy
[00:13:12] Jenn: He’s very wealthy. His parents were wealthy and. They believe, they’ve gotten their status by birth, which they don’t believe is by merit. So again, they want to end that system. So if you were an aristocrat and ended up being stuck in Paris at the time, more than likely you were killed.
[00:13:32] Lafayette’s Imprisonment and Adrien’s Struggle
[00:13:32] Jenn: Like you said, Lafayette flees, but he is imprisoned in Austria. So they do imprison him. Now, Marie Adrian goes to be with him because As families, you could take better care of your loved one in prison if you could be with them. And so that’s what she did. And she brought her children with her. It saved her life.
[00:13:53] Because in essence, what happens is her mother, her grandmother, and her sister are all guillotined
[00:14:00] Scott: Yeah, during the Reign of Terror.
[00:14:01] Jenn: during the reign of terror. And this is why they’re buried in this cemetery. So this is Pickpuss Cemetery. Am I saying that right?
[00:14:09] Scott: P-I-C-P-U-S. It’s difficult for us Americans to, to pronounce.
[00:14:14] The Hidden Cemetery: Picpus
[00:14:14] Jenn: So it’s the largest private cemetery in Paris, and it was a convent that was seized during the revolution.
[00:14:21] So again, they’re pushing back against all these kind of establishments, especially even convents, like the church, the Catholic church. And so they seize this area during the French revolution, so much so that 13 nuns from this convent are guillotined the same time that Adrian’s family is
[00:14:40] Scott: That’s crazy.
[00:14:41] Jenn: And so it’s not far away from where this cemetery is. I think it’s now called Place of the Nation. It’s a square you can walk to. It’s a five minute walk. And what was happening during this time, again, this is June 14th to July 27th, 1794, is This is the height of the reign of terror. So many people have been guillotined.
[00:15:03] It’s starting to get very smelly around Paris because they’re not burying these people. And so they’re really enforcing if you’re killing these people, you need to bury them quickly. And so They have already confiscated this land from this convent. It’s a five minute walk from when, when the most famous guillotines had been set up and they take the people on a cart after they’ve been executed through these doors into this convent and bury them in these mass pits.
[00:15:31] And a little girl, They call her Miss Paris, had followed her father and her brother who had been guillotined. She was a, she was poor, a pauper and there’s no class system to what they were guillotined. Everybody who they felt, like I said, was not following this extreme. And because the aristocrats had fled who survived and the only aristocrats who were there were killed, she was the only one to know where.
[00:16:01] These families
[00:16:03] Scott: was the only witness.
[00:16:04] Yeah.
[00:16:05] Jenn: And so you get not only Adrian’s family, but you get Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife. Her first husband was part of this group of people. He’s also in these mass pits. Rose Pierre is executed the end of July 1794 by his sidekicks mostly because they’re afraid that he’s going to execute them.
[00:16:27] So they execute him first. That’s basically the end of the Reign of
[00:16:31] Scott: Yeah, and I believe, again, if I think I put this in kind of what, it’s going to be at the end of the podcast. His death all things start slowing down. They taper off. And it’s 1797 that Lafayette gets, finally gets released. And it’s because his wife has been petitioning, American Diplomats that she’s been petitioning local leaders.
[00:16:53] And then she finally I guess gets connected with a young French general named Napoleon Bonaparte. Mm-Hmm. . And through various interactions and some maneuvering, she’s able to get her husband out of prison.
[00:17:05] Jenn: Yeah, and Napoleon respects Lafayette. He is a hero of the French as a soldier, and Napoleon loves soldiers. And again, the connection is his wife’s first husband is there, so 1797 he’s released Adrian, Mary Adrian and comes back and these aristocrats start to find out where their family has been killed.
[00:17:30] And so secretly they start to buy the land and they start to buy all of that land and they put another church there. They put another church there. group of a covenant there.
[00:17:41] Scott: Is that the one you saw in the video?
[00:17:43] Jenn: And they, they asked for them to pray for the victims there. So that is what is there today. It also becomes a convalescent home.
[00:17:52] And, so people can go there and in respite and things like that.
[00:17:58] Scott: and for people too, if you want to go watch the video, I took some time and I think I did a pretty good job of showing where the cemetery is within the Paris area, right? It’s not far from the heart of Paris, of modern day Paris.
[00:18:11] Jenn: It’s not, you can actually take the local transpo, the metro, I think it’s the metro there’s a stop along the way. Now what’s difficult about it is it’s how do I explain? It’s in the middle of a, of a.
[00:18:24] almost like a block of a city block. So there’s so many things around it, a school, a hospital, a university. So if you’re following like Google Maps, you keep going, well, it’s right here. It’s right here. How do I get to it? I go through this hospital. Do I go through this school? Do I go? And there’s just one door.
[00:18:44] They look like two wooden doors. And that is the place to go.
[00:18:49] Scott: Yeah, we show you, we don’t, I don’t think we mentioned the address on the video, but I showed like a Google Maps fly over overview. So if you’re curious and you’re going to Paris and you’re listening to this podcast or if you’re planning on it in the future, save our video because a video, it gives you at least a sky view of where, what you’re looking
[00:19:10] Jenn: Yeah, so it’s 35 rue de Picpus. And the 35 will be on the wall and like I said, the two big brown doors. Now the hard part is it’s only open like from 2pm to 5pm, you got three hours, it’s closed on Sundays and holidays, and you have to pay two euros to go in and there’s a buzzer and you can buzz it.
[00:19:31] But again, the gentleman only speaks French. So be prepared. to, say hello, I would like to come in something like along
[00:19:39] Scott: May I, may I come see the cemetery,
[00:19:40] Jenn: very heavy doors, if he buzzes you in for me, I had to call there was a number there. And I called it on my phone international calling. And I asked him to come to the door and when he pushed it open, because it’s a very heavy door, I did not realize that.
[00:19:56] that I had to push it or pull it. I wasn’t, I don’t think I was going in the right direction, but it’s a huge, these huge wooden doors. So you only get three hours. And again, it’s, it’s almost like you really worked to find this area. So Adrian and other aristocrats had bought the land. They had,
[00:20:13] taken those, two pits and marked them.
[00:20:16] You can’t walk where the pits are. They are on the very far end of the of the cemetery or the whole church area in the very far back right side.
[00:20:26] Lafayette’s Legacy and Final Resting Place
[00:20:26] Jenn: Marie Adrienne and the Marquis de Lafayette are the first two graves beside the brick wall that separates the cemetery from the mass graves.
[00:20:38] Now she is the one closest to the wall and then he’s, she’s buried on the left hand side. He’s buried on the right hand side and he When he dies, he’s buried under soil from Bunker Hill, which is the first battle of the American Revolution. Now, if you know anything about history, is it Bunker Hill, is it Breed’s Hill?
[00:20:57] And when you think about it, he dies in 1834, Marie Adrian dies
[00:21:03] She dies 1807, he dies 1834, because even when he comes back to America, she is already passed,
[00:21:09] There’s a perpetual American flag that flies over his grave. It’s changed every 4th of July, and it’s dedicated by, I think it’s the Daughters of the American Revolution. What happened though, it didn’t always, that didn’t always happen. On July 4th, 1917, three months after the United States entered World War I, U. S. Army Colonel Charles E. Stanton visited the General’s tomb. He placed the American flag, uttering the phrase, Lafayette, we are here. It’s cool, right? To me, you get that part in Hamilton where they’re arguing should America join, the French Revolution, should we help them?
[00:21:44] And they’re like, well, we were fragile right now. And we made the treaty with King Louis, who’s dead I take that as we are still honoring our pact with the French. We come during World War One. We’re there during World War II, we, Paris has been occupied for four years. I do think even when Paris was occupied by the Nazis, though, they kept the American flag over Lafayette’s grave but again, America will liberate Paris.
[00:22:11] So it’s like America has kept that promise, that initial pact. were 1300 victims of the guillotine.
[00:22:18] And
[00:22:19] there’s nuns, so there’s this very famous group of nuns from that area that were guillotined that they actually made a whole museum, I think it was an opera about them because they sang the whole time. And the people who were guillotined, they ranged in age from 16 to 85.
[00:22:36] . If you want to see a list of all the 1300 victims, their names are in the
[00:22:41] Scott: Oh,
[00:22:41] wow.
[00:22:42] Jenn: if you walk in the church, their names are entombed on the wall on the church.
[00:22:45] So again, you can read. Marie Adrian’s family will be there. Josephine’s first husband will be there. There’s other famous people that are on there. Those nuns will be on there as well. And then you’re going to get just regular workers and just like that poor little girl’s family that she followed, right?
[00:23:02] Like they’re going to get all different types of class of people, which I find the most interesting is they’re all buried together. All these different classes. Now the cemetery, the formal cemetery on the other side of the pits, those people are all related to anybody who are, who are of the 1300 victims.
[00:23:24] I think there’s one person who’s not a relation. He’s a historian who wrote a book about the cemetery and the people and he was allowed to be buried there. But everybody else, you have to shown a relation to those 1300.
[00:23:40] Mass victims.
[00:23:41] The graves of the Marquis and Adrian, they’re flat tombs that have a bunch of ornamentation on them.
[00:23:49] They’re decorated with different plaques from different organizations. There’s crosses from the society of Cincinnati.
[00:23:56] There’s a green circle plaque from the Raleigh Tavern of Colonial Williamsburg. There’s a smaller green plaque from the First Company Governor’s Foot Guard of Hartford, Connecticut. So you can see there’s a lot of these, and they’re all different types, organizations from the American Revolution who honor Lafayette for what he did.
[00:24:18] During the French Revolution, and of course, Marie Adrian, because she was holding down the fort while he was gone, when the Marquis comes back to do his tour of America, he will bring his son, George Washington Lafayette with him. Lafayette had planned his burial and soil brought back from each of the 24 states he visited 1824 to
[00:24:37] 1825, unfortunately, toward the end of his American tour, the steamship carrying Lafayette and his American entourage and the soil sunk in the Ohio
[00:24:46] Scott: so that’s where the idea came
[00:24:47] Jenn: Yeah, the next best thing Lafayette thought was soil from Bunker Hill.
[00:24:50] His son, George Washington
[00:24:51] Lafayette,
[00:24:52] Scott: back and
[00:24:53] Jenn: completed his wish, spreading American soil over his interred remains, filling his
[00:24:57] grave.
[00:24:57] Scott: Oh, so that’s how that
[00:25:00] Jenn: but you can see how much regard these two countrymen had for each other. George Washington and Lafayette become close friends. Of course, Hamilton and Lafayette will become close friends. Hamilton is the he’s the aid to George Washington. So you can imagine all the time and hardship they’ve spent together during the French American Revolution.
[00:25:23] For who he is to America to be able to go there and visit him for me was such a great experience. I left a flag there. I left a dollar bill with George Washington’s face on it. And I left a Sacajawea coin because if even if you talk to Mark who plays the Marquis de Lafayette, he gives a lot of credit to Marie Adrienne.
[00:25:47] She really held the fort down in France while he was gone fighting the American Revolution when he comes back and he’s in prison during the French Revolution. She’s the one who goes up and stays with him, keeps his morale up, and then she petitions to have him released. I think to be buried there with her family beside her is his way of also approving it.
[00:26:10] showing his appreciation for all his wife did during his lifetime. So it’s such an amazing location. It’s such a crossroads of American history and French history. And for me, it just was so awesome to be able to be there. We really had the place to ourselves. It’s very
[00:26:31] private.
[00:26:32] Scott: it was just you and Courtney.
[00:26:33] Jenn: Just Courtney and I and chickens.
[00:26:34] Scott: Yeah, they were following you guys around
[00:26:36] for a little
[00:26:37] Jenn: random chickens,
[00:26:38] no one has ever disrupted the graves. So no one knows in what either pit people are buried. And again, they were de clothed and covered in lime. So there probably wouldn’t be much anyway. And again, you cannot even walk over to where the mass graves are. They are secluded, but you can see them. So for me, it, it was, It’s so important to go.
[00:27:01] And I don’t know, it felt like the perfect ending to a D Day
[00:27:06] Scott: Yeah.
[00:27:07] Jenn: because here we are keeping our promise to the French.
[00:27:11] Scott: Yeah, it was, it was really cool and that was one of those ones that if you were going to go to one spot in Paris, because you weren’t sure what you were going to film in Paris after Normandy and everything, that was the one that I was hoping you were going to, going to make happen and you were able to do it even as difficult as it was to find.
[00:27:29] Lafayette survives the Reign of Terror
[00:27:29] .
[00:27:29] Scott: Paris, August 19th, 1792. Fifteen years after Lafayette first set sail to the tumultuous horizon of the American Revolution, the Paris city air crackled with fear. The once vibrant metropolis was now a landscape of suspicion. The tide of the French Revolution had turned bloody. The reign of terror led by the ruthless Maximilien Robespierre had begun.
[00:28:01] Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of both the American and French revolutions, found himself a target. His moderate views, wanting a constitutional monarchy instead of a complete overthrow, were deemed counter revolutionary. He was labeled an enemy of the revolution, and while fleeing France, he was captured by the Austrians, his former allies.
[00:28:23] Back in Paris, Adrien, Lafayette’s wife, faced a different kind of danger. Being a member of the French nobility, she was constantly under suspicion. Yet, fear never deterred her, and Adrienne tirelessly lobbied for her husband’s release. She wrote desperate pleas to influential figures, including the American ambassador, James Monroe.
[00:28:45] Years pass in a haze of uncertainty. Lafayette, imprisoned in harsh conditions in Olmütz, Austria, clung to hope, fueled by the letters Adrian managed to smuggle in. Meanwhile, in France, the tide began to turn. By 1794, Robespierre himself was overthrown and executed, marking the end of the Reign of Terror.
[00:29:08] However, Lafayette remained a prisoner of the Austrians. Adrian, ever resourceful, saw an opportunity. A young general on the rise by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte was negotiating with the Austrians. She reached out to her American contacts, hoping they could influence the discussions and secure Lafayette’s release.
[00:29:28] Her efforts, combined with Napoleon’s political maneuvering, finally bore fruit, and in 1797, after five years of imprisonment, Lafayette was freed. He returned to a France vastly different from the one he left. Despite the hardships, Lafayette and Adrien remained deeply connected. They spent the following years raising their children and advocating for democratic ideals.
[00:29:53] As they aged, they began discussing their final resting place. Both knew they wanted to be buried in Paris, the city that had witnessed their love story in the tumultuous years of revolution, but more importantly, they both had family that were buried in mass graves during the Reign of Terror, and they wanted to be near them.
[00:30:10] In 1834, the Marquis de Lafayette passed away. Their simple grave in the hidden garden of the Picpus Cemetery in Paris, France is next to the mass graves where their family is, and it became a symbol of their enduring love and the turbulent times they had survived.