Lafayette
The shot heard round the world thunders across the screen !
At 13 years old, Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier inherited from his parents a long name, a fortune bigger then that, and the title of Marquis de La Fayette. Barely past majority, he was a brilliant lieutenant and a King Musketeer, and married Adrienne, second daughter of the Duke of Ayen. Educated in the new ideas about religion, science, and humankind, supported by his lovely wife but against his conservative family, he became involved in politics, favouring the faction of Queen Marie Antoinette against that of the King Louis XVI. Therefore, in 1776, he was ready to offer much needed help when Silas Dean, a secret agent from the thirteen Rebel states, contacted him in Paris. In 1784, after years of political and logistical preparation, La Fayette freighted a ship to America, with a handful of men and much needed weapons and money. He became Washington's best friend, taught some military discipline and tactics to the voluntary Rebels, and fought battles alongside them during the Independence War. He was wounded, travelled extensively through America as a guest of the new USA, and returned to France, joining his persuasion to the arguments of the ambassador Benjamin Franklin to get Louis XVI decisive help: the French fleet support to Washington's siege of Yorktown in which he got the surrender of the English General, Cornwallis.
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