#edmond de la fayette

[nordleuchten]

I regret your disappointment in regard to your letter from Miss Below [?] but I have sustained a greater loss – Oscar Lafayette wrote to me immediately after the death of his father, my faithful friend & brother, giving me all the particulay of that event.

Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis, to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, August 4, 1851

Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis to Elizabeth Bordley Gibson, 1824 October, A-569.104, Box: 3, Folder: 1824.10.00. Elizabeth Bordley Gibson collection, A-569. Special Collections at The George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Accessed June 28, 2023.

This is a heartfelt message from a woman, who just learned of her friend’s death, a man she described as her “faithful friend & brother”. But the following passage and indeed the date of the letter reveal a maybe even more painful component. Georges, Marquis de La Fayette died on November 29, 1849, and Eleanor wrote this letter in August of 1851 – almost three years later. She writes:

I have never received it, nor can it be recovered. & Edmond could not come to see me as he wished to do. He was some days with my children in [illegible] – they were charmed with him – In heart & mind, he resembles entirely his Grandfather & father, in features, a handsome resemblance of his Father. I regret much not seeing him.

This letter, this very important letter, seems to have been lost in the mail. But what this letter also tells us, that Edmond, Georges’ son and La Fayette’s grandson, must have been in America at one point – definitely worth looking into.

On a closing note, I find it quite heartwarming to see how similar in character and looks the La Fayette men appeared, close enough that it was noted by people like Eleanor and her children.

[emsylcatac]

hi! i'm writing a fanfic where the love square bonds over their shared interest in classic literature but i don't know what is considered 'classic' in france. are they the same as english classics, just translated? or are they historical french literature only?

Hiyaa!

When we study books in French classic literature, we indeed mostly learn about what's considered "classic" and a key work in France.

It happens that we'll learn of some translated ones from the most famous ones in English, like some book plays from Shakespeare (I know I studied "Romeo & Juliette"), but it'll mostly be the French ones!

A few French authors we'll likely read from that come to mind:

Victor Hugo (particularly, "Les Misérables" is one almost everyone studies at some point in their French class)

Émile Zola (I know I studied "Germinal" but there are other books, it depends what the French teacher want to study)

Molière - it's the French author we all study at some point for plays (some famous ones are "Le Tartuffe", "Le Malade Imaginaire" - famous especially cause Molière died very shortly after a representation for which he incarnated the eponym role aka the hypochondriac - , "Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre", etc).

Edmond Rostand (his play "Cyrano de Bergerac" is one of the most famous here)

Jean Racine (pretty famous for plays as well, like "Phèdre" or "Andromaque")

Pierre Corneille ("Le Cid" is one of his most famous plays)

Madame de La Fayette (she wrote "La Princesse de Clève" which I know some study too at school, at least I did)

Voltaire (for instance, "Candide" is pretty famous)

Beaudelaire (for poems, "Les Fleurs du Mal" is a famous collection of poems from him)

Albert Camus ("L'étranger" or "La Peste" are often studied)

Jean de La Fontaine (really famous for his fables)

Guy de Maupassant (he wrote novels and short stories, some famous ones are "Le Horla" which belongs to the fantastic and psychologic register, pretty new for the time, or "Bel-Ami")

There are a lot more obviously but I gave you a few to work with in no particular order, I just wrote them as they came to mind ahaha!

Hope this answers your question and helps!! 😄

[iafayettes]

1848 lithograph of Marquis de Lafayette's grandson, Edmond du Motier de La Fayette (son of Georges Washington de La Fayette)

[musasilente]

Libri letti nel 2017

(Lista in ordine casuale)

(La E tra parentesi sta per "libro letto per un esame")

Il rosso e il nero - Stendhal (E)

Il Golem e altri racconti - Gustav Meyrink

La pura superficie - Guido Mazzoni

Paura - Stefan Zweig

Scritti corsari - Pier Paolo Pasolini

La principessa di Clèves - Madame de la Fayette (E)

Una stanza tutta per sé - Virginia Woolf

La cantatrice calca - Eugène Ionesco

Verità e metodo - Hans Georg Gadamer

Ritorno al mondo nuovo - Aldous Huxley

I quaderni di Malte Laurids Brigge - Rainer Maria Rilke (E)

Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand

Lettere luterane - Pier Paolo Pasolini

Diari - Sylvia Plath

Narciso e Boccadoro - Hermann Hesse (riletto) (E)

Viaggio al termine della notte - Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Anna Karenina - Lev Tolstoj (riletto)

Il mondo nuovo - Aldous Huxley

Il delitto perfetto - Jean Baudrillard

Memorie d'una ragazza perbene - Simone de Beauvoir

Elegie duinesi - Rainer Maria Rilke

Il cardellino - Donna Tartt

Casa di bambola - Henrik Ibsen

[yourstudentblogworld-blog]

French Novel’s

 Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac

  “Poor, plain spinster Bette is compelled to survive on the condescending patronage of her socially superior relatives in Paris: her beautiful, saintly cousin Adeline, the philandering Baron Hulot and their daughter Hortense. Already deeply resentful of their wealth, when Bette learns that the man she is in love with plans to marry Hortense, she becomes consumed by the desire to exact her revenge and dedicates herself to the destruction of the Hulot family, plotting their ruin with patient, silent malice.” (Good Reads)

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

  “Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Data's is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration.” (Good Reads)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

  “When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and passion that she reads about in sentimental novels and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull country doctor, and provincial life is very different from the romantic excitement for which she yearns. In her quest to realize her dreams she takes a lover, and begins a devastating spiral into deceit and despair.” (Good Reads)

 The Stranger by Albert Camus

  “Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in English in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.” (Good Read)

 Candide by Voltaire

  “Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best'. But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world.“ (Good Reads)

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

  “This extraordinary historical novel, set in Medieval Paris under the twin towers of its greatest structure and supreme symbol, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, is the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the hunchback; Esmeralda, the gypsy dancer; and Claude Frollo, the priest tortured by the specter of his own damnation. Shaped by a profound sense of tragic irony, it is a work that gives full play to Victor Hugo's brilliant historical imagination and his remarkable powers of description.” (Good Reads)

Les Miserable by Victor Hugo  

  “Introducing one of the most famous characters in literature, Jean Valeant ”the noble peasant imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread” Les Miserable ranks among the greatest novels of all time. In it, Victor Hugo takes readers deep into the Parisian underworld, immerses them in a battle between good and evil, and carries them to the barricades during the uprising of 1832 with a breathtaking realism that is unsurpassed in modern prose. Within his dramatic story are themes that capture the intellect and the emotions: crime and punishment, the relentless persecution of Valjean by Inspector Javert, the desperation of the prostitute Fantine, the amorality of the rogue Thanardier, and the universal desire to escape the prisons of our own minds. Les Miserable gave Victor Hugo a canvas upon which he portrayed his criticism of the French political and judicial systems, but the portrait that resulted is larger than life, epic in scope ”an extravagant spectacle that dazzles the senses even as it touches the heart.” (Good Reads)

Sarah’s Key By Tatiana de Rosney

  “Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel d’Hiv roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.“ (Good Reads)

  The Princesse de Calves by Madame de La Fayette

  “This new translation of The Princesse de Calves also includes two shorter works also attributed to Madme de Lafayette, The Princesse de Montpensier and The Comtesse de Tende.”(Good Read)

 Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

  “Published in rapid succession in the middle 1930s, Journey to the End of the Night and Death on the Installment Plan shocked European literature and world consciousness. Nominally fiction but more rightly called "creative confessions," they told of the author's childhood in excoriating Paris slums, of service in the mud wastes of World War I and African jungles. Mixing unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, they also created a new style, in which invective and obscenity were laced with phrases of unforgettable poetry. Celine's influence revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction. Under a cloud for a period, his work is now acknowledged as the forerunner of today's "black comedy."” (Good Reads)

[nordleuchten]

Resources

Historical research can be quite tricky at times – especially so if you are not a professionally trained historian, if you do not have access to libraries and achieves and the likes. Many great resources are behind paywalls and I therefor though I compile a list with resources (with links this time), mostly relating to the Marquis de La Fayette, that might come in handy and are easy and free to access.

La Fayette

Founders Online is a databank with letter from and by Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, including their respected correspondences with La Fayette. For starters, here are the correspondences between

La Fayette and George Washington,

La Fayette and Alexander Hamilton

La Fayette and Thomas Jefferson

La Fayette is sometimes listed under different names (or different spellings of his name) so keep that in mind.

The Papers of James Monroe is a project to catalogue the letter of, you have guessed it, James Monroe. Included in this project are also parts of the correspondences between Monroe and La Fayette.

Guide to the Lafayette Manuscripts 1792-1834 by the Chicago Library. A digital collection of an assortment of letters, written to and from La Fayette, his son Georges, his secretary Auguste Levasseur and his grand-son Edmond de La Fayette among others.

La Fayette, Une Figure Politique Agricole by the Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne. The La Fayette’s château Lagrange is situated in the department Seine-et-Marne and the Archive has compiled several biographical snippets, among them police reports on the Marquis’ movements, as well as letters from several family members.

Dossier historique Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne by the Archives départementales de Seine-et-Marne. A PDF-dossier with additional information, images and letter from La Fayette and his family.

Next up, there are a few online exhibitions and collections that I can recommend:

“La Fayette: Citizen of Two Worlds” by the Cornell University

“Lafayette and Slavery” by the Lafayette College (here is a second, slightly different version)

“The Prisoner of Olmütz” by the Lafayette College

“Marquis de Lafayette in Prints Collection” by the Lafayette College

Archive of the “Gazette of the American Friends of Lafayette” by the Lafayette College

“Marquis de Lafayette Collections” by the Lafayette College

“The Marquis de Lafayette Collection” by the Cleveland State University

The Library of Congress has a number of handwritten original letters that were exchanged between La Fayette and George Washington

The Internet Archive is a pure treasure chest of resources. They have collected a great deal of photos, videos, audio recordings, books and lose documents from libraries, collections and different archives. They also have a huge stock of curated websites. All of their resources are free, although some require a user account (which is free as well, but you have to sign up with your E-Mail Address). They have just so many great resources, from old texts to modern books - they truly have something for everyone. Here are a few links to books (memoirs and books by La Fayette and his family). All of that is just a very, very shallow peek into what the Internet Archive has to offer

Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Volume I, by the Marquis de Lafayette

Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Volume II, by the Marquis de Lafayette

Memoirs, Correspondences and Manuscripts of General Lafayette, Volume III, by the Marquis de Lafayette

(The Memoirs are also available in French and in the French version they are divided into eight volumes.)

Life of Madame de Lafayette by Mme de Lasteyrie

Recollections of the Private Life of General Lafayette by M. Jules Cloquet

Lafayette in America, Volume I, by Auguste Levasseur

Lafayette in America Volume II, by Auguste Levasseur

All the books mentioned can also be obtained for free via Google Books.

Bicentannial of the 1824/1825 Tour

Lafayette Teen Audio Tour - A Teen Take on our French Founding Father

Follow the Frenchman

Fete Lafayette: A French Hero's Tour of the American Republic

The Marquis de Lafayette and His Farewell Tour

Virginia American Revolution 250

The Lafayette Trail Inc.

Lafayette 2024 by The Lafayette Trail Inc.

Lafayette 200

The Farewell Tour Bicentennial by the Lafayette Society

Reenactment

Tavern Debate: Disorder in the Streets

Tavern Debate: Radicalism

Liberty in Full Sail

An Afternoon with the Marquis de Lafayette

A Conversation with James Armistead Lafayette

The Marquis and the Spy Reunited

Bastille Day Livestream with Jefferson and Lafayette

Victory at Yorktown

Bastille Day at Mount Vernon

Marquis de Lafayette - Commemorating the Hero of two Worlds at the Rider Tavern

Other Resources

The Georgian Papers Program has digitalized a multitude of letters relating to Georg I, George II, George III, George IV and William IV, their families and governments. Most of the documents are not transcribed and so I will give you a fair warning; some of the handwritings will severely test your patience.

Elephind lets you search more than 200 Million historic newspapers.

The Old Bailey Online lets you access all the court proceedings from the Old Bailey from 1674 up until 1913 and gives a great insight into English law and its evolution.

The Friedrich Schiller Archive is dedicated to the German poet Friedrich Schiller and has transcripts and analyses of all of his works as well as transcripts of the majority of his correspondences.

Here you can find all the issues of Jean-Paul Marat’s L’Ami du Peuple.

The National Archive in England, the National Archive and Records Administrations in America and the Archives Nationales in France offer a well of information (although they are sometime a bit troublesome to navigate).

Many museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Louvre have digitalized their collections and everybody can search items therein.

I am sure I have forgotten something but right know these are all the resources I can think of. I wish you all a happy researching!

[nordleuchten]

I just saw your post about the letters between George(Lafayette) and Jackson so I had to ask this question

Out of all five of the Lafayettes (Gilbert, Adrienne, and their three children) who had the best handwriting in your opinion?

Or maybe any others who were close to them that you think had a good handwriting?

And here we are for round two, my dear Anon!

Félix Frestel was Georges’ tutor and brought him to America during the French Revolution. The Library of Congress has a small number of letters from Frestel, mostly to George Washington.

Félix Frestel to George Washington, October 22, 1797, (English).

George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Felix Frestel to George Washington. 1797. Manuscript/Mixed Material. (05/23/2022)

Last but not least, Auguste Levasseur. He was La Fayette’s secretary and we have quite a sizable stack of letters, mostly between him and Georges Washington de La Fayette.

Auguste Levasseur to Georges Washington de La Fayette, January 7, 1826, (French).

Lafayette Manuscripts, [Box 1, Folder 32], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. (05/23/2022)

After I have let you all suffer through these examples, lets summaries what we have seen. I think my most favourite handwriting is Levasseur’s. Following Levasseur is either Adrienne’s (particularly the one in English) or La Fayette’s handwriting. I can not quite decide between the two of them. An honourable mentions goes to Georges and Edmond. :-)

That was my unnecessary long opinion on historic handwritings, I hoped that was what you were looking for and I hope you have/had a fantastic day!

[nordleuchten]

I just saw your post about the letters between George(Lafayette) and Jackson so I had to ask this question

Out of all five of the Lafayettes (Gilbert, Adrienne, and their three children) who had the best handwriting in your opinion?

Or maybe any others who were close to them that you think had a good handwriting?

Yes, finally somebody is asking me something about handwritings. :-) Thank you Anon!

But although I love the question, it is a bit tricky to answer because for some of the family-members the sample sizes are quite small.

Henriette died aged just two so there are naturally no written documents from her.

I know of one handwritten letter by Anastasie but that one was written when she was six years old and therefor also not really suitable to judge her handwriting by.

I also know of one handwritten letter from Virginie when she was an adult.

For Adrienne and Georges we have a number of adult letters (and in George’s case also a few youthful ones) - not too many, but enough for such a comparison.

And, to absolutely no one’s surprise, we have a large number of handwritten letters from La Fayette. I also have a few letters of Edmond de La Fayette - La Fayette’s grandson by his son Georges.

As to people in the vicinity of the La Fayette’s, I would propose Félix Frestel (George’s turor in his youth) and Auguste Levasseur (La Fayette’s secretary around 1824/25). They are amongst the few people where a number of handwritten letters survived.

I am not sure, if I have a clear favourite but we can go over all the different handwritings and I can leave my opinion :-)

First of all, Anastasie:

Anastasie de La Fayette to George Washington, June 18, 1794 (English).

LaFayette: Citizen of two Worlds, From “Rebel” To Hero: The American Revolutionary War, Anastasie de Lafayette. Letter to George Washington. June 18, 1784., 2006, Cornell University. (05/22/2022)

Well, this is obviously the handwriting of a young person but I think the handwriting is nevertheless quite neat, especially considering Anastasie’s age and the fact that English was not her native language. I also have to say that her letter is, from all of the letters in my collection probably the most legible one.

Virginie is next:

Virginie de La Fayette Lasteyrie to Madame Hay, undated (French).

Monroe-Hay Family Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary. (05/22/2022)

A lovely, solid handwriting. Nothing too fancy in my eyes but very legible and clean.

Adrienne is up next. For her we have both letters in French as well as in English:

Adrienne to George Washington, November 9, 1790 (French).

George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Marie A. F. de Noailles de Lafayette to George Washington, November 9, in French. November 9, 1790, Manuscript/Mixed Material, p. 1. (05/22/2022)

Adrienne to Georg Washington, June 18, 1794 (English).

George Washington Papers, Series 4, General Correspondence: Marie A. F. de Noailles de Lafayette to George Washington. 1784. Manuscript/Mixed Material, p. 1. (05/22/2022)

I really like Adrienne’s handwriting, both in French and in English. Her French writing is quite small and very neat/controlled while her English writing is a bit more outlandish and larger. I think there is a certain similarity between her and her daughters handwriting.

Georges’ is next. The problem with him is that a considerable number of his letters are in a rather bad condition.

Georges Washington de La Fayette to Captain Allyn, February 17, 1825 (English).

Lafayette Manuscripts, [Box 1, Folder 31], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. (05/22/2022)

Georges Washington de La Fayette to Monsieur Dutrone, January 6, 1826 (French).

Lafayette Manuscripts, [Box 1, Folder 33], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. (05/22/2022)

Now, I think I would not call his handwriting “beautiful” but I think is had a certain charm. He definitely evolved from his writing in his boyhood. You often see with his letters that he started out very controlled and then the writing just becomes messier the more he wrote. He was also quite fond of hyphens. I think his handwriting is consistently the most legiable.

We move on to his son Edmond:

Edmond de La Fayette to an unknown person, November 27, 1852 (French).

Lafayette Manuscripts, [Box 1, Folder 36], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. (05/22/2022)

I can not quite tell what it is, but I really like Edmond’s handwriting. It has something … flourishing. :-)

We close the list of more intimate members of the family with La Fayette himself.

Now, La Fayette’s handwriting is the one I “work” with the most and I have seen it all - the good, the bad and the ugly. His handwriting is normally very legible but I can also always tell when a letter was written in haste, when he had a headache or anything along the line. It should be noticed though that his handwriting was different in English than in French. There are several letter between him and Dr. Benjamin Franklin where Franklin criticizes him for his handwriting. I also noticed that I started to write my L’s like La Fayette did - that should be a warning sign for me. :-)

La Fayette to the Count de Charlus, April 20, 1777 (French)

Raab Collection, April 20, 1777, The Birth of a Legend: 20-year-Old Marquis de Lafayette Leaves France Behind and Sets Sail for America and into History. (05/23/2022)

La Fayette to Captain Francis Allyn, November 9, 1828 (English)

Lafayette Manuscripts, [Box 1, Folder 21], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. (05/23/2022)

You will see that I chose two letters with the largest possible gap - I wanted to illustrate that La Fayette’s handwriting stayed relatively consistent and did not change too much with age or maturity.

Since Félix Frestel and Auguste Levasseur are still missing and Tumblr only allows me to include a certain number of pictures, I will make a follow-up post where we have a look at some more handwritings and I can tell you whom I probably like best. :-)