Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Sarah Vowell opens the book by giving a brief history of the Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman who would become a beloved figure in American history and an important figure in America’s Revolutionary War.

He became a major general in the United States army on July 31, 1777, after devoting himself to the cause of American liberty. He was 19 years old. In 1824, he returned to the United States. More than 80 thousand fans came to greet him at the New York harbor. Vowell later points out that this would have been more than two-thirds of the population of New York. However, relatively few Americans today could explain what Lafayette’s role in the war was or why he was celebrated.

For months, Lafayette toured America. He visited Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and gave speeches. Musicians wrote songs about him, and multiple towns threw parades in his honor. In Philadelphia, he spoke to a crowd of 20 thousand and proclaimed that the initial pursuit of America’s independence had been a change for the social order of the world. He saw in America a society that had, as its guiding principle, the inalienable rights of man.

After participating in the American Revolution, Lafayette returned to France to help with the French Revolution. His war credentials afforded him some respect and made him a stabilizing presence at times. But, during what would be called the Reign of Terror, Austrian troops captured him as he was trying to escape with French radicals. He then spent five years in Austrian prisons.

1824 was a contentious year in America, as a bitter presidential campaign took place. A Connecticut reporter contrasted the venom of the election—won by John Quincy Adams—with the joy of Lafayette’s visit. People traveled in groups to hear him speak or watch him in parades. After Lafayette returned to France, Adams assumed the office, and American politicians returned to the infighting that Vowell argues is a staple of American politics.

In 2013, Vowell followed heated budget debates in Congress. Texas Senator Ted Cruz had refused to pass legislation that would fund the federal government in the approaching year unless there was a delay or repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The impasse led to a shutdown of government operations deemed to be inessential in the immediate future, such as national parks. The squabbling among the politicians reminded Vowell of the fighting that occurred during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. She mentions how, on a tour of Independence Hall, she saw a chair popularized by Benjamin Franklin. When reminiscing on the Constitutional Convention, Franklin noted that the chair in which Washington sat had a sun carved into it. Franklin wondered if the sun symbolized an optimistic view or a pessimistic one. After the Constitution was ready for ratification, he concluded it was optimistic.

Vowell believes Lafayette was a unique figure, stemming from the fact that Americans seemed to agree on him. He was not a polarizing figure, and in a divided America, there are few issues—and people—upon which one can expect consensus. Lafayette’s uniqueness was one of the reasons Vowell was initially attracted to him as a subject.

She then backtracks into a history of Lafayette’s childhood. In 1759, Lafayette’s father was killed by a British cannonball before his son’s second birthday. Vowell defines Lafayette’s father’s death as the likeliest motivation for Lafayette to fight against the British in America. On a national level, France had longstanding grudges with Great Britain, and Lafayette’s grudge against the English was a smaller version of the mutual nationalistic loathing shared by the two countries.

When he was eight, Lafayette began hunting a mysterious creature that supposedly terrorized the province of Auvergne where he lived. He hunted the so-called Beast of Gevaudan with zeal. This bravery, and hunger for recognition, would be reflected later in his military service.

Vowell visits the museum at the Château de Chavaniac, near Lafayette’s boyhood home. A man named Monsieur Comte gives her a tour and tells her more about Lafayette’s childhood.

Lafayette’s mother sent him to Paris to study at age 11. She and his grandfather died shortly after Lafayette turned 12, making him a wealthy orphan. After his mother died, Lafayette was sent to Versailles to join the Black Musketeers, a group of the king’s household soldiers. He needed a father figure and craved a closeness to authoritative men of power.

In 1774, Lafayette married a teenager named Adrienne, the daughter of Jean de Noailles, a powerful duke. They were sequestered in separate rooms because of their youth but soon conceived a child. When Lafayette’s daughter Henriette was born in December of 1775, he was already making plans to go to America.

Lafayette continued soldiering during his teenage years. He made connections with powerful men that led to an invitation to join a military branch of the fraternal brotherhood of the Freemasons. He learned about Benjamin Franklin and George Washington—both Masons who were conflicted in regards to the British government. Mason lodges were gathering places where freethinkers—or at least, those who considered themselves freethinkers—could discuss weighty issues of politics, war, and religion.

Lafayette was impressed (and influenced) by Abbé Guillaume Raynal. Raynal had been a Jesuit priest before devoting himself to writing. He was a staunch abolitionist and supporter of oppressed citizens overthrowing their oppressors.

In March 1776, the Continental Congress sent delegate Silas Deane to France to gain French aid during what looked to be an inevitable separation between America and England. The French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, was already planning to secretly fund the Americans, hoping this would weaken the British Empire in the aftermath of the Seven Years War.

On July 8, “Congress adopted what was known as the Olive Branch Petition.” John Dickinson, a lapsed Quaker, was the primary author of the petition, which asked King George III to intervene and support the colonists against the wishes of Parliament. The Olive Branch Petition was the last attempt by moderate figures in Congress to ask the king to intervene and settle the matter. The king refused to read the petition, increased the forces of the British Navy, and prepared to end the conflict as quickly as possible.

Vergennes believed at that point that the rebels were fully committed to the war. If he could secretly fund the Americans, he could avoid overt conflict with England. King Louis XVI agreed to Vergennes’s plan. Vergennes gave Count Pierre Beaumarchais the task of figuring out how to help the Americans without alerting the British. Beaumarchais created a fake business, Rodrige Hortalez & Company, that allowed him to gather funds and redirect the money without arousing suspicion.

That August, a British fleet of more than 400 boats and ships, carrying upwards of 45 thousand British troops, arrived in New York Harbor.