Long Description:The only entrance to the cemetery is at N48 50.654 E2 23.780. An
entrance fee of 2.50 euros is charged.
Opening hours : Oct.-Easter, Tues.-Sat. 2-4; Easter-Sept.,
Tues.-Sat. 2-6. Métro: Nation.
La Fayette first heard about the American struggle for
independence while stationed in Metz as a French army officer in
1776. Young and idealistic, he immediately resolved to serve the
American cause of liberty. Early in 1777, he signed an agreement
with Silas Deane to serve as a major general in the Continental
Army. He bought a ship, which he named "La Victoire" and equipped
it at his own expense. However, a wealthy young man with a high
profile at the Court of Versailles could not take up the American
cause without endangering official french neutrality, and Louis XVI
issued an order to prevent his departure. Deterred neither by his
family nor his king, La Fayette left for America in the utmost
secrecy from a small Spanish port in April 1777.
He reached South Carolina in mid-June and rode 600 miles to
Philadelphia to present his credentials to the Continental
Congress. A skeptical Congress first denied his application as
coming from just another foreigner who expected a commission in the
U.S. Army. They soon realized, however, that La Fayette was in a
class by himself. Captivated by his enthusiasm for their cause and
his wish to serve without pay, Congress decided to give him the
rank of Major General - one month before his twentieth birthday.
Soon after, La Fayette met General Washington, who took an instant
liking to him. He adopted La Fayette as the son he never had, while
La Fayette found in his General the father he had lost in
battle...
In the spring of 1780, General Clinton, who had sailed from New
York with a huge expeditionary force, had taken the South Carolina
port of Charleston and had left General Cornwallis in command.
Cornwallis quickly moved north into North Carolina and Virginia.
Washington's efforts to contain him were fruitless. Late in 1780,
he dispatched La Fayette with his elite troops to take command of
the army in Virginia.
It wasn't until the following June, however, that La Fayette
received the necessary reinforcement that enabled him to march 5000
strong from Fredricksburg to Williamsburg.
It was at that moment that General Clinton, fearing the arrival
of a new French fleet under Admiral de Grasse, ordered Cornwallis
to hold the seaport at Yorktown for the British fleet. Cornwallis
moved his army to Yorktown early in August and began to fortify the
town. La Fayette occupied nearby Williamsburg while he awaited the
arrival of Washington's and Rochambeau's troops by land and de
Grasse's fleet by sea.
After the decisive victory of the french and American forces at
Yorktown in October, La Fayette returned to france in December 1781
where he continued to lead an active career in public life...
La Fayette returned twice to the United States after the War. In
1784, he toured the battlefields, and stayed with Washington at
Mount Vernon. Acclaimed in all the major cities of the East Coast,
La Fayette was, at twenty-eight, the "Hero of Two Worlds." La
Fayette's farewell visit took place in 1824. At the invitation of
Congress, he was a "guest of the Nation" for an entire year.
Together with his son, George Washington La Fayette, the
sixty-seven-year-old Marquis visited all twenty-four states. He was
deeply moved by the tremendous outpouring of gratitude of the
American people wherever he went. He was made an honorary citizen
of the United States, and his descendants still have the right to
carry an American passport.
When La Fayette's wife, Adrienne de Noailles, died in 1807, she
asked to be buried in the private cemetery of Picpus next to the
other members of her family who had been victims of the Terror
during the French Revolution. They had been buried here in a common
grave along with 1300 victims of the guillotine in 1793 and 1794.
La Fayette was buried beside her in soil that he brought back from
America in 1824...
Today, every 4th of July, U.S. officials, French Cincinnati
Society members, and French Sons of the Revolution gather to
remember La Fayette. A Star Spangled Banner always flies over the
grave.
(Text taken from "Paris : Birthplace of the U.S.A." by Daniel
Jouve, Alice Jouve, and Alvin Grossman.)
