In 1787 La Fayette took his seat in the Assembly of Notables. He demanded, and he alone signed the demand, that the king con voke the states-general, thus becoming a leader in the French Revolution. In 1789 he was elected to the states-general. He was chosen vice-president of the National Assembly, and on July II, 1789, presented a declaration of rights, modelled on Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. On July 15, the second day of the new regime, La Fayette was chosen by acclamation colonel general of the new National Guard of Paris. He proposed the com bination of the colours of Paris, red and blue, and the royal white, into the tricolour cockade of modern France (July 17). For the succeeding three years, until the end of the constitutional mon archy in 1792, his history is largely the history of France.
In the Constituent Assembly he pleaded for the abolition of arbitrary imprisonment, for religious tolerance, for popular repre sentation, for the establishment of trial by jury, for the gradual emancipation of slaves, for the freedom of the press, for the abolition of titles of nobility, and the suppression of privileged orders. In February 1790 he refused the supreme command of the National Guard of the kingdom. In May he founded the "Society of 1789" which afterwards became the Feuillants Club. He took a prominent part in the celebration of July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille. After suppress ing an emeute in April 1791 he again resigned his commission, and was again compelled to retain it. He was the friend of liberty as well as of order, and when Louis XVI. fled to Varennes he issued orders to stop him. Shortly afterwards he was made lieutenant general in the army. He commanded the troops in the suppression of another emeute, on the occasion of the proclamation of the constitution (September 18, 1791), and then retired to private life.
When, in December 1791, three armies were formed to attack Austria, La Fayette was placed in command of one of them. But he definitely opposed himself to the further advance of the Jacobin party, intending eventually to use his army for the restoration of a limited monarchy. On Aug. 19, 1792 the Assembly declared him a traitor. He fled to Liege, whence as one of the prime movers in the Revolution he was taken and held as a prisoner of state for five years, first in Prussian and afterwards in Austrian prisons. Napoleon stipulated in the treaty of Campo Formio (1797) for La Fayette's release. He returned to France in 1799; in 1802 voted against the life consulate of Napoleon; and in 1804 he voted against the imperial title. He lived in retirement during the First Empire, but returned to public affairs under the First Restoration and took some part in the political events of the Hundred Days.
From 1818 to 1824 he was deputy for the Sarthe, speaking and voting always on the Liberal side, and even becoming a carbonaro. He then revisited America (July 1824–September 1825), where he was overwhelmed with popular applause and voted the sum of $200,000 and a township of land. From 1825 to his death he
sat in the Chamber of Deputies for Meaux. During the revolution of 1830 he again took command of the National Guard. In he made his last speech—on behalf of Polish political refugees.
He died at Paris on May 20, 1834.
His son, GEORGES WASHINGTON MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1799. 1849), was aide-de-camp to General Grouchy through the Aus trian, Prussian and Polish (1805-07) campaigns. He took an active part in the "campaign of the banquets," which led up to the revolution of 1848. His Son, OSCAR THOMAS GILBERT MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1815-1881), received a post in the provisional government after the revolution of 1848, and as a member of the Constituent Assembly he became secretary of the war com mittee. After the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly in 1851, he retired from public life, but emerged on the establishment of the third republic, becoming a life senator in 1875. His brother EDMOND MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1818-189o) was one of the secretaries of the Constituent Assembly, and a member of the senate from 1876 to 1888.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Memoires historiques et pieces authentiques sur M. de La Fayette pour servir a l'histoire des revolutions B. Sarrans, La Fayette et la Revolution de 183o, histoire des choses et des hommes de Juillet (1834) ; Memoires, correspondences et menu scrits de La Fayette, published by his family (1837-38) ; Regnault Warin, Memoires pour servir a la vie du general La Fayette (1824) ; A. Bardoux, La jeunesse de La Fayette (1892) ; Les Dernieres annees de La Fayette (1893) ; E. Charavaray, Le General La Fayette (1895) A. Levasseur, La Fayette en Amerique 1824 (1829) ; J. Cloquet, Souvenirs de la vie privee du general La Fayette (1836) ; Max Liidinger, La Fayette in Ocsterreich (1898) ; and M. M. Crawford, The Wife of Lafayette (1908) ; Bayard Tuckerman, Life of Lafayette (1889) ; Charlemagne Tower, The Marquis de la Fayette in the American Revolution (1895) ; Octavia Roberts, With Lafayette in America (1919) ; Lettres inedits du general de La Fayette an vicomte de Noailles, ecrites des camps de l'armee Americaine durant la guerre de l'independence des Etats-Unis (1924) ; Lafayette Letters (1925) ; R. Caste, "L'armateur de La Fayette: Pierre de Basmarein d'apres des documents inedits, Revue des questions l.istoriques, Serie 3, Tome 6, p. 78-133 (1925) ; "Centennial of the Visit of General Lafayette to Shawneetown," Illinois State Hist. Soc. Jour. vol. 18, p. 350-362 (1925) ; C. W. Dahlinger, "General Lafayette's Visit to Pittsburgh in 1825," Western Pa. Hist. Mag., vol. 8, p. 129-147 (1925) ; F. L. Fishback, "The Congressional Reception of Lafayette One Hundred Years Ago," Columbia Hist. Soc. Records, vol. 28, p. 227-236 (1926) ; H. D. Sedgivick, La Fayette (1928) ; F. Delteil, Lafayette (1928) ; Brand Whitlock, La Fayette (1929).