Lafayette, another study case for transatlantic misunderstanding

 

There are thousands of places in America that are named after French General Lafayette. If it’s a safe bet to think many Americans know who he is and how he contributed to the independence of their country, maybe the same Americans would be surprised to learn the same man they consider a hero and a legend possibly on par with General Washington himself is next to totally irrelevant on the French side of the pond. The French aristocrat who was bestowed an honorary American citizenship is no more than a distant, unrecognizable figure among the French.

Actually, to most Parisians, the name Lafayette evokes the department store on Boulevard Haussmann, and to the majority of the French it evokes hardly anything. Should a poll be conducted about what he contributed to American history, my guess is that about 80% of the French simply wouldn’t know. The gardens of Château de Chavagnac, his birthplace, feature a rock on which a plaque has been mounted, without even a reference to his role in the American Revolution.  

Those interested in history know he played a very minor role during the French Revolution (on the royalist side) and then again during the 1830 revolution. As for the location of his grave, likely more than 99% of the French and Parisians alike simply don’t know (and don’t care…). Well, as we were reminded some time ago, the Marquis de La Fayette actually is buried in the Cimetière de Picpus in the 12th district of Paris where he died May 20, 1834. As was his wish, he now rests by his wife.

An interesting question is to ask why isn’t Marquis de Lafayette buried in the Père Lachaise or some other famous French cemetery? In fact it all has to do with the horrors of the Revolution, particularly the episode known as the Terror which, this time, most French know about. The mother and one sister of Lafayette’s wife were then beheaded on the nearby Place de la Nation and their bodies dumped in an adjacent field, which later was turned into the Picpus cemetery.

At the bottom of the garden, behind a chapel that was erected at the beginning of the 19th century you will find the grave of the General, resting among other victims of the Terror.

There, regularly, American delegations hold some formal ceremony in memory of the French soldier who came to the rescue of the insurgents of 1776. The American flag is always on display and plaques adorn the surrounding walls.

As you may expect, it is a very, very quiet place, much less intimidating than the Père Lachaise or Montparnasse cemeteries, with only some dozens graves in such an extremely peaceful setting you wouldn’t guess you’re in the French capital.

Isn’t it somehow ironic and tale-telling that what bonds France and America so closely is also given such an enormously different treatment on each side of the Atlantic? Isn’t that difference of perspective a good illustration of the state of our relations for over 2 centuries? 

And why not hope it will go on just the same for as many years to come?

Note 1: This discrepancy between the respective American and the French importance granted to the memory of Lafayette kind of reminds me of the French-Indian wars in America that are almost unheard of in France whereas they occupy a not so insignificant part in the early history of the U.S.

Note 2: The picture is that of Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge (1907) by John Ward Dunsmore, a century old painting, familiar in America, but little known in France.