The Marquis Quotes

“Lafayette had been welcomed to the land of liberty by men who were not free.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Mauroy saw greedy men who “sword in hand … cut down, under a sky that is new to them, forests as ancient as the world, water a still virgin land with the blood of its primitive inhabitants, and fertilize with thousands of scattered cadavers the fields they conquered through crime.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“As the father of five girls, d’Ayen faced the unenviable task of assembling five dowries hefty enough for five sons-in-law to accept.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Mercier did not miss the irony that France’s absolute monarchy employed teachers to “explain solemnly all the eloquent declarations advanced against the power of kings” by the ancient Romans.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Lafayette remembered thrilling to tales of his father’s, grandfather’s, and uncles’ heroic battlefield exploits; if he ever learned that the stories were embellished for his benefit, he never let on.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“If not for a series of almost freakishly premature deaths, he might have inherited nothing at all.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“As Lafayette put it, his direct ancestors had “left the province only to make war and played no role at all at court.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Dearly though Lafayette may have loved the Auvergne, it was not a fashionable place to call home.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“So little does France love Lafayette that the monumental Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, published by a leading team of French historians in 1988, states flatly”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“and his title all but guaranteed his renown. The same nation that rejected Old World traditions of hereditary privilege rejoiced to find a highborn nobleman on its side, as if his interest in the American cause proved its universal appeal.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Earnest, enthusiastic—as optimistic as Voltaire’s naïf Candide—Lafayette was out of place in the glittering Parisian world of wit and cynicism that the urbane Franklin so effortlessly mastered. Lafayette”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“and a card game called “Le Boston” was sweeping through high society. The”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Lafayette interjected with his opinion that “memory is a fool’s intellect.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“On the road to Paris, he noticed something unusual: the men he passed did not tip their hats in deference to his position. For most of us, the process of growing up entails discovering the limits of our own, individual significance. But few people can pinpoint with precision the exact moment of that humbling realization. For Lafayette, it was seared into his memory.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered

“Lafayette was proud to call himself a moderate in an era of extremes. Explaining his philosophy later in life, he insisted that “true moderation consists, not as many people seem to think, in always seeking the middle between any two points … but in trying to recognize the point of truth and holding to it.”
― Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered