Wyoming Supplement
Kim L. Kurasz, Grand Commander Thomas C Harmon, Editor PO Box 3491, Gillette WY 82717-­‐3491 (307) 670-­‐0128 [email protected] From the Apartment of the Grand Commander:
SIR KNIGHTS & LADIES OF WYOMING
This month’s article is contributed by SK Thomas Harmon, editor of this
Supplement and Illustrious Grand Captain of the Guard for the Wyoming
Cryptic Masons.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LA FAYETTE?
As we celebrate the day we severed our ties to Great Britain and became
our own nation, please permit me to take some time to consider another
July national holiday. The French celebrate July 14th, commemorating the
day French citizens stormed the Bastille which ignited the French
Revolution, and set into motion the chain of events that over the following
two hundred years would bring democracy to nearly all of Europe. One of
the participants in that revolution was Brother Gilbert du Motier, the
Marquis de La Fayette, who was at Brother George Washington’s side at
General Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown.
In early 1782 La Fayette returned to France a hero. During that decade he
worked with Thomas Jefferson and other American envoys to establish
diplomatic relations in Europe and to cultivate trade relations with France
in hopes of reducing France’s war debt. Despite their efforts, the debt
was so huge it precipitated a fiscal crisis, and by 1789 the situation was
compounded by famine. King Louis XVI called an assembly of the
Estates General, a representative body consisting of members of the
clergy, nobility and the common people, to find a way out of the crisis. La
Fayette had been appointed to the Estates General as a member of the
nobility, and with some other nobles who were also inspired by
Enlightenment ideals, advocated for equal rights for all French people.
The common people and most of the clergy sided with La Fayette’s
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faction, but the king and other nobles, fearing that their prerogatives were
threatened, locked them out of the meeting place. They regrouped on a
tennis court at Versailles and, declared themselves the National Assembly
and swore an oath not to disband until France had a written constitution.
Shortly afterward, La Fayette was named Commander in Chief of the
National Guard, charged with maintaining law and order in the new republic.
In this position the supporters of the status quo suspected him of being
tainted by his association with the revolutionaries who were in turn uneasy
about his duty to protect the king and his family. The Revolution became
increasingly divided into two factions – the monarchists, who supported a
constitutional monarchy like the British model and the radicals who wanted
its abolition. When the king and his family fled Paris in 1791, La Fayette
was blamed for helping them escape; soon afterward, in trying to maintain
order in Paris, he ordered the National Guard to open fire on a radical
assembly signing a petition calling for the abolition of the monarchy at the
Champs de Mars, thereby losing support of the people and the government.
La Fayette opposed the growing power of the radical Jacobins in the
government but he had become too unpopular, and in 1792 the Minister of
Justice signed a warrant for La Fayette’s execution for his supposed part in
the royal family’s near escape. He attempted to flee to the United States by
way of Rotterdam, but was taken prisoner by the Prussians as soon as he
crossed the French border. He and his party were finally interned in
Olomouc, in the present-day Czech Republic. In 1795 his Wife, Adrienne,
and their two daughters obtained permission of the Austrian Emperor to join
him in Olomouc and remained with him until Napoleon Bonaparte secured
his release in 1797.
Despite reversals in his fortunes, La Fayette made a huge contribution to the
French Revolution. One of the first tasks the National Assembly undertook
was to define the rights of the French people. La Fayette was appointed to
help draft a document, and with input from Thomas Jefferson, who was still
in France at the time, he presented The Declaration of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen to the Assembly three days before the Bastille incident. The
Declaration and our Constitution are among the great achievements in the
development of human rights. They also express ideals that 18th Century
Freemasons everywhere revered: Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood.
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