Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/626

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590
LAFAYETTE
LAFITTE

chantman, and arrived 15 Aug. in New York. In the course of the next fourteen months he trav- elled through the whole country, visiting each of the twenty-four states and all the principal cities, and was everywhere received with tokens of enthu- siastic reverence and affection. In consideration of his services in the Revolutionary war, congress voted him a grant of $200,000, besides a town- ship of 24,000 acres, to be assigned somewhere among the unappropriated public lands. His sixty- eighth birthday, 6 Sept., 1825, was celebrated at the White House in Washington, on which occa- sion a noble farewell speech was pronounced by President Adams, and next day he sailed from the Potomac in the frigate " Brandy wine," and arrived in Havre, 5 Oct. The illustration on page 588 represents a vase that was presented to him by the midshipmen of the frigate shortly after his ar- rival. He was again, in 1827, elected to the cham- ber of deputies. In the revolution of July, 1830, he was made commander-in-chief of the National fuard, and was instrumental in placing Louis hilippe on the throne, in the hope that France might thus at length be en- abled to enter upon the path of peaceful constitutional progress. He remained a member of the chamber of deputies un- til his death. He received

a magnificent

funeral, and his remains were interred beside those of his wife in the cemetery of Picpus in the fau- bourg Saint- Antoine. The grave is shown in the illustration above. He left one son, George Wash- ington, and two daughters, Anastasie and Vir- ginie; the elder married Charles de Latour Mau- bourg, and the younger the Count de Lasteyrie. In person Lafayette was tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders, deep chest, and a tend- ency toward corpulence. His features were large and strongly marked. He had much dignity of manner, and was ordinarily quiet and self-possessed. Perhaps the best testimony to his purity of char- acter is the fact that his bitterest detractors, in the absence of any other available charge, are in the habit of insisting upon his vanity. Among all the eminent Frenchmen of the revolutionary period, he was perhaps the only one in whose career there was nothing to be really ashamed of. His traits of character were solid rather than brilliant ; and he was too thoroughly imbued with American ideas to identify himself with any one of the violent move- ments originating in the French revolution of 1789. His love of constitutional liberty was too strong for him to co-operate either with Bourbons or with Jacobins or with Bonapartists ; and from all three quarters attempts have been made to detract from his rightful fame. In European history his place, though not among the foremost, is respectable ; in American history he is not only a very picturesque and interesting figure, but his services in our strug- gle for political independence were of substantial and considerable value.

Lafayette left a journal of the principal events in which he took part, which was published by his son, and completed with some supplementary documents, letters of Washington and other statesmen, under the title u Memoires, manuserits et correspondance du General de Lafayette " (6 vols., Paris, 1837-'8). See also E. de "la Be- dolliere, "Vie politique du Marquis de Lafayette" (Paris, 1833) ; Jules Cloquet, " Souvenirs de la vie privee du General Lafayette " (Paris, 1836) ; E. Laboulaye, "Histoire politique des Etats-Unis"; Henri Martin. " Histoire de France " ; Duruy, " Histoire de Prance " ; Thiers, " Revolution Fran- eaise"; Sainte Beuve, "Portraits historiques et litteraires " and " Critiques sur Memoires de La- fayette " (" Revue des Deux-Mondes," 1838) ; Louis Blanc, " Histoire de mon temps" ; Napoleon, " Me- morial de Sainte Helene " ; L. de Lomenie, " Gale- rie des contemporaires " ; Chateaubriand, " Me- moires d'outre tombe " ; Louis Blanc, " Histoire de 10 ans " ; Vaulabelle, " Les deux restaurations " ; A. Nettement, " Histoire de la restauration " ; Villemain, " Souvenirs " ; Bourguelat, " Etudes critiques"; Guizot, "Memoires" and "Essai sur Washington " ; A. Maurin, " Chute des Bourbons " ; De Barante, " De la declaration des droits " ; Mira- beau, " Correspondance et memoires " ; Mme. de Stael ; Rivarol, " Portrait de Lafayette," etc. There are also numerous biographies of him both in French and English. — His son, George Wash- ington, b. in Paris in 1779 ; d. in December, 1849, entered the army as a lieutenant in 1800 and served with distinction until 1808, when he resigned and retired with his father to La Grange. During the Hundred Days he was elected to the house of rep- resentatives, and in 1822 to the chamber of depu- ties, voting constantly for all liberal measures. In 1824 he accompanied his father during his visit to the United States. He was re-elected to the cham- ber of deputies in 1827, and at all the subsequent elections till 1848. He left two sons. Oscar Thomas Gilbert du Motier, b. in Paris, 20 Aug., 1815, served as an artillery officer from 1835 till 1842, when he was elected to the chamber of depu- ties, and made himself conspicuous for his liberal opinions. Re-elected in 1848 and 1849, he sent his resignation after the coup d'etat, 2 Dec, 1851, and lived quietly in La Grange under the reign of Na- poleon III. In 1871 he was elected to the national assembly, and in 1875 became a life-senator. His brother, Francois Edmond Gilbert du Motier, b. 11 July, 1818; d. in Paris, 10 Dec, 1890, was in 1848 elected to the legislative assembly. After 1876 he represented the department of La Sarthe in the chamber of deputies. He was a Radical in politics.


LAFITAU, Joseph Francis, French mission- ary, b. in Bordeaux, France ; d. in France in 1740. He belonged to the Jesuit order, was for several years a missionary in Canada, and after his return to France was a professor of belles-lettres till his death. He discovered in the country of the Iro- quois a plant that he named the Aureliana Cana- densis. In his opinion it was the same as the one which the Chinese call gin-seng. He wrote " Me- moire concernant la precieuse plante gin-seng de Tartaire" (Paris, 1718); "Moeurs des sauvages Americains compares aux moeurs des premiers temps," in which he tries to show that the Ameri- can Indians are descended from the primitive in- habitants of Greece (2 vols., 1723 ; 4 vols., Rouen, 1724) ; and " Histoire des decouvertes et des con- quetes des Portugais dans le nouveau monde " (2 vols., Paris, 1733; 4 vols., 1734).


LAFITTE, Jean, adventurer, b. in France about 1780; d. in Yucatan in 1826. He arrived in New Orleans about 1809 with his elder brother Pierre. They were men of limited education, but of attractive manners and enterprising charcters. For some time they carried on a blacksmith-shop with slave labor. Then engaging in