Sylvia Neely

A thorough history of an overlooked period in the life of the Marquis de Lafayette (though at this time he preferred to be called “General Lafayette”; his aristocratic title was used ostentatiously by his royalist opponents to rile him up) — the decade of his later life when Lafayette was part of the liberal opposition to the Bourbon Restoration.

Neely chronicles how Lafayette’s stubborn idealism both helped make him an uncompromising symbol for a generation of progressives, and also sometimes kept him from understanding that the silent mass of the country was not simply waiting for the signal to rise up behind Lafayette.

The general is contrasted with a range of foils, from the restored King Louis XVIII (who loathed Lafayette and ordered his government to sabotage his political campaigns), the writer Benjamin Constant (who agreed with Lafayette on political matters, but who was constantly trying to clean up after messes Lafayette provoked with intemperate words), and the Bonapartist Jacques-Antoine Manuel, who believed secret military conspiracies rather than popular revolutions were the best way to overthrow the Bourbons. We also learn of Lafayette’s intriguing relationship with the English radical Fanny Wright, who at one point proposed that the much older Lafayette either adopt her or marry her. (He did neither.)

This period ends in failure for Lafayette, who sees both he and his movement defeated politically, and retreats to his famous American tour. But Neely suggests, in an intriguing postscript, that Lafayette learned from the failures of this period and managed to finally get the last laugh on the Bourbons.

Perhaps a bit too focused for casual fans of Lafayette, but recommended for anyone fascinated by the Hero of Two Worlds, or by the forgotten period of the Bourbon Restoration.… (más)