You are probably familiar with the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Such was the course of life for Marquis de Lafayette. Born into vast wealth, he faced more misfortune than good luck.
A volunteer in the American Revolution, Lafayette rose to the rank of major general and became a surrogate son to George Washington. Injured at the Battle of Brandywine, he demonstrated his facility as a commander throughout the war. After returning to France, he played a central role in the early French Revolution. A quarter century later, he emerged as an influential foe of the restored Bourbon monarchy. Later still, as his life drew to its close, Lafayette led the July Revolution of 1830 that installed Louis-Philippe and the House of Orléans.
In between, his sister-in-law and mother-in-law were executed during the Reign of Terror, and he spent five years as a prisoner in foreign dungeons — including solitary confinement. The bulk of his property was seized from him, and without a congressional dispensation granted to him in 1825, he might have died in destitution.
Richard Brookhiser’s new book The Hero Returns: Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution focuses on Lafayette’s triumphant tour of the United States in 1824–1825. As the last great surviving figure from the American Revolutionary War, he was treated as the living embodiment of revolutionary bravery and sacrifice across towns and cities. This journey offered him an opportunity for observation and reflection — one anticipating that of Alexis de Tocqueville.
Brookhiser, a senior editor at National Review and author of Founding Father, presents Lafayette’s story through this tour. He reunited with George Washington’s contemporaries: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, and John Quincy Adams in the White House. Accompanying him were his son and secretary Auguste Levasseur.
Published by Yale University Press in a 248-page volume priced at $30, The Hero Returns is the eighth book in Brookhiser’s series on American founding figures. Jonathan Leaf, a playwright and novelist who lives in New York, provides this review.