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Today's Featured Biography
Marquis De La Fayette
 Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de la Fayette,[5] one of the most celebrated men that France ever produced, was born at Chavaignac, in Auvergne, on September 6, 1757, of a noble family, with a long line of illustrious ancestors. Left an orphan at the age of thirteen, he married, three years later, his cousin Anastasie, Countess de Noailles. Inspired from the earliest age with a love of freedom and aversion to constraint, the impulses of childhood became the daydreams of youth and the realities of maturer life. Filled with enthusiastic sympathy for the struggling colonies of America in their contest with Great Britain, he offered his services to the United States, and, though his enterprise was forbidden by the French Government, hired a vessel, sailed for this country, landed at Charleston in April, 1777, and proceeded to Philadelphia. His advances having been treated by Congress with some coldness, by reason of the incessant application of other foreigners for commissions, he offered to serve as a volunteer and at his own expense. Congress may be excused for having taken him at his word; on July 31st it appointed him major-general, without pay the titular honor, which carried with it no command, being, perhaps, the highest ever given in America to a young man of nineteen years. Having accepted the cordial invitation of General Washington, the commander-in-chief, to live at his head-quarters and to serve on his staff, Lafayette was severely wounded in the le...
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