Though baffled oft, is ever won.”—Byron.
LA FAYETTE was not only the Knight of Liberty in two worlds and in two centuries, but was also the champion of law and order. Other men have fought for freedom; but few men in history have so truly and broadly comprehended the indissoluble tie which must ever bind liberty to law, if the shackles of oppression be unloosed, and the equal rights of men become the watchwords of national peace and prosperity.
The battle of Minden, in 1758, was fought, and a young and valiant French marquis sacrificed his life upon that battle-field. He was the first Marquis de La Fayette. At that time his son, Marie-Jean-Paul-Roch-Yves-Gilbert de Motier La Fayette, lay in his cradle, an infant of seven months old. The warlike mantle of the father fell upon the son. But gentler spirits than Stern War hovered over his pillow. Gleaming-eyed Liberty said, “I will make him my champion”; and mild-eyed Law bent over the cradle and smoothed the baby brow, murmuring, “I will make him love peace and order.” Thus War, Liberty, and Law christened the fatherless child, and to the long list of titled names which already weighted his infant forehead, they added yet another, of nobler rank than all; for they placed there, in letters of glowing light, the unrivalled title, Knight of Liberty.
The name of La Fayette was distinguished as far back as the fourteenth century. “The founder of the family was a Marshal de La Fayette, who defeated the English at the battle of Baugé shortly before the time of Jeanne d’Arc,—a success which raised the hopes of the Dauphin, who afterwards recovered the French throne.
“In the seventeenth century two noble and illustrious women bore the ancient name. One of these ladies was Louise de La Fayette, maid of honor to Queen Anne of Austria, whose son, Louis XIII., fell so deeply in love with the young lady that he proposed to establish her in his country house at Versailles, a royal shooting-box built before the time of the great château. Alarmed at the infatuation of the king, and seeing no way of resisting the royal commands save by devoting herself to Heaven, Louise de La Fayette retired to the Convent of the Visitation, and at once took the vows. She died at the age of fifty, as Mère Angélique, abbess of Chaillot, a convent she had founded.
“Her brother, Count La Fayette, married, in 1655, Marie Madeline Pioche de la Vergne, an intimate friend of Madame de Sévigné, and authoress of the ‘Princesse de Clèves,’ a classical romance of the old school, still read by lovers of the literature of the Renaissance.
“The wife of the renowned General La Fayette, whom he married in 1774, when he was sixteen and she a year younger, was Marie Adrienne Françoise, second daughter of the Duke d’Ayen, and granddaughter of Maréschal de Noailles. After three years of happy married life, he left her shortly before the birth of their second child, to hasten to the aid of the American colonies. The infant born during her father’s absence became Madame Charles de Latour-Maubourg.”
In 1881, in the Paris Figaro appeared the following account of the descendants of General La Fayette: “His only son, George Washington La Fayette, married, in 1802, Mademoiselle Desture de Thacy, and had five children. The eldest, Oscar, died in 1881. His wife, a relative of M. de Pusy, one of the prisoners at Olmütz, had died after one year of married life, and he never married again. The second son, Edmond, the present head of the house, is now sixty-two, and a bachelor.
“The daughters are Madame Adolphe Périer (her husband was a nephew of Casimir Périer), Madame Bureaux de Pusy, and Madame Gustave de Beaumont. Mesdames Pusy and Beaumont are still living. The former has a son, an officer of merit, and two daughters. M. Paul de Beaumont, son of Madame Gustave de Beaumont, was a cabinet minister under M. Daufaure. Madame Périer left daughters, one of whom married M. de Sahune.
“Madame Charles de Latour-Maubourg, who was born whilst her father, General La Fayette, was serving in America, had two daughters, Madame de Brigode and Madame de Perron. General Perron, husband of the latter lady, was a Piedmontese, and a president of the Council of Ministers in Piedmont. He was killed at the battle of Novara.