French Revolution
In 1783, Lafayette bought a townhouse, at 183 rue de Bourbon, for 200,000 livres ($2 million). He and Adrienne were active in their salon, at the Hôtel de La Fayette, the headquarters of Americans in Paris, such as Benjamin Franklin, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay, and Mr. and Mrs. John Adams who met every Monday, and dined in company with family, and the liberal nobility, such as Clermont-Tonnerre, Madame de Staël, Morellet, and Marmontel.
Adrienne took a dislike to the pessimistic Gouverneur Morris, calling him an 'aristocrat'.
Lafayette joined the French abolitionist group Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des amis des Noirs), which advocated the end of the slave trade and equal rights for free Blacks. In 1783, in correspondence with Washington, he urged the emancipation of slaves; and to establish them as farmer tenants. Although Washington demurred, Lafayette purchased land in the French colony of Cayenne to "experiment" with education, and emancipation, at his plantation La Belle Gabrielle.
On 15 July 1789, he was acclaimed commander-in-chief of the National Guard (Garde nationale). His moderate (Constitutional Monarchist) views were rejected by the Royalists (Legitimists or Orléanist), and became marginalized, with the rise of the Girondists, and then Jacobin radicals, and the increasing polarisation of politics. Adrienne went with Lafayette to Chavaniac, in October 1791, after he lost the mayoral election.
After war was declared on Austria on 20 April 1792, Lafayette left for command of the army at Metz. After returning to Paris to defend the King, he was then accused of treason, and sought to escape to the Dutch Republic, but was arrested on 19 August by the Prussians at Rochefort, Belgium, and imprisoned at Wesel, and Magdeburg, Prussia. He was later transferred to the Austrians, and held at Olmutz. An escape attempt was unsuccessful.
Read more about this topic: Adrienne De La Fayette
Famous quotes containing the words french revolution, french and/or revolution:
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)
“But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“It is said that when manners are licentious, a revolution is always near: the virtue of woman being the main girth and bandage of society; because a man will not lay up an estate for children any longer than whilst he believes them to be his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)