Duncan displays impressive skill in keeping his Lafayette an admirable figure despite painful limitations. He opposed the Bourbons’ increasingly reactionary policies and supported the 1830 revolution that placed Louis-Philippe on the throne, but Lafayette found him a disappointment. Although freed by Napoleon, Lafayette disapproved of the military leader’s autocracy and retired from politics-until the monarchy’s restoration in 1814, when he again became a voice for liberal ideals. When the Terror began in 1792, he fled to Austrian territory to escape arrest but was treated as a dangerous revolutionary and imprisoned for five years. As commander general of the National Guard, he was a leading figure early in the French Revolution.
Only 24 when the British surrendered, Lafayette returned to France to participate in efforts to reform the crumbling French economy. Duncan tells this story in the first third of the book. Lafayette became a trusted lieutenant who fought the British, lobbied French leaders to support the rebellion, and entered the pantheon of Revolutionary heroes. Anxious to smite France’s traditional enemy or simply find work, many Frenchmen did the same, but Lafayette didn’t exaggerate his military experience and made no demands on George Washington, who was charmed. Among the richest men in France, Lafayette sailed to America in 1777 at age 19 to join the rebellion, seeking mostly adventure.
Instead, he loomed large on the world stage for decades after the war, and history podcaster Duncan does a fine job of filling out his subject’s life. The Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) did not fade away after the American Revolution. A new biography of the giant of both European and American history.
0 kommentar(er)
