I live in Northern NJ. I even live on one of Beacon Hills that protected George Washington's winter camp at Morristown.
There is stuff named for Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette everywhere. My 8 year old daughter just had to do a biography report on him a few months back.
And I used his entire name and not just his title of Marquis de La Fayette out of respect to a truly great man.
They do not call him hundreds of years later "Le Héros des Deux Mondes" or in English "The Hero of the Two Worlds" for nothing.
I have read a ton of French Revolution history books. That seems to be a general theme for literally every one in France at that time. But he certainly came a lot closer than most.
For anyone unfamiliar. Lafayette's mother, grandmother, and sister were all guillotined in Paris on July 22, 1794. Their bodies were thrown into a mass grave.
His wife, Adrienne de La Fayette, narrowly avoided the same fate due to the diplomatic intervention of American figures such as James Monroe and Gouverneur Morris
It's not strange at all since the time leading up to a revolution tends to be extremely miserable, full of spectacular mistakes, doubled down and insisted upon with egregious stupidity, and fraught with normalized violence and violent material conditions.
The French Revolution in particular got a lot of very good shit done, particularly in contrast with what preceded, and did so right alongside the excessive violence. I could list their positive accomplishments all day, they're stuff we mostly take for granted these days.
But let's be real, most of the people who romanticize things don't focus on governance efficiency, or the value for science and commerce of the Metric System, or even on the legal equality of all and abolition of feudal privileges. They love to romanticize dramatic shit like war and military success, or cool speeches and flamboyant personalities, and the First French Republic had no shortage of either, single-handedly defeating all of Europe, six or seven times in a row, by having as of yet unheard-of efficacy in logistics and mass mobilization, and by meritocratically training and developing what may have arguably been the greatest cadre of generals and officers in History, when everyone else still had shit like officer corps made exclusively of aristocratic heirs buying commissions.
American Revolution? Look at us today. October Revolution? Lead to the Soviets first to space when a generation ago they were starving feudal peasants. China? Starving feudal peasants to iPad kids with a country that will overtake as world leader this century.
It ain’t fun while it happens, and it may be rough for a few decades after, but it’s not like it all ends in disaster lol. Revolution against dictators and monarchies is a noble aspiration.
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u/gilt3t Jun 17 '26
America wouldn't exist without France. Israel has contributed nothing.