“ He never achieved distinction in the field, and his political career proved him to be incapable of ruling a great national movement; but he had strong convictions which always impelled him to study the interests of humanity, and a pertinacity in maintaining them, which, in all the strange vicissitudes of his eventful life, secured him a very unusual measure of public respect. ”

“ During the revolution of 1830 he again took command of the National Guard and pursued the same line of conduct, with equal want of success, as in the first revolution. In 1834 he made his last speech—on behalf of Polish political refugees. He died at Paris on the 20th of May 1834. In 1876 in the city of New York a monument was erected to him, and in 1883 another was erected at Puy.
Few men have owed more of their success and usefulness to their family rank than La Fayette, and still fewer have abused it less. ”

“ His son, Georges Washington Motier de La Fayette (1779–1849) , entered the army and was aide-de-camp to General Grouchy through the Austrian, Prussian and Polish (1805–07) campaigns. Napoleon’s distrust of his father rendering promotion improbable, Georges de La Fayette retired into private life in 1807 until the Restoration, when he entered the Chamber of Representatives and voted consistently on the Liberal side. He was away from Paris during the revolution of July 1830, but he took an active part in the “campaign of the banquets,” which led up to that of 1848. ”

“ Congress intended his appointment as purely honorary, and the question of giving him a command was left entirely to Washington’s discretion. His first battle was Brandywine (q.v.) on the 11th of September 1777, where he showed courage and activity and received a wound. Shortly afterwards he secured what he most desired, the command of a division—the immediate result of a communication from Washington to Congress of November 1, 1777, in which he said:—
“The marquis de La Fayette is extremely solicitous of having a command equal to his rank. ”