Vulgar History - French Revolution： Witnesses (part 4)： Lafayette In America

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00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is

00:00:44.680 Anne Foster and this is season seven, part two. How do you solve a problem like Marie

00:00:49.640 Antoinette, where we are slowly learning about the world that Marie Antoinette lived in and

00:00:54.580 to eventually when we get to her story, we'll have so much context for it. And it's really

00:00:58.460 exciting for me because this part, especially the stories are intertwining. Like people I've

00:01:03.000 talked about before are showing up again. And it's like, oh, it's kind of starting to feel like that

00:01:07.140 Mary Quay of Scott season a bit where you're like, oh, that person, oh, that person. It's like,

00:01:10.800 there's characters who recur. And one of those recurring characters is the Marquis of Lafayette,

00:01:16.900 a person who I never knew existed until Hamilton, the musical. And I'm like, why is there a French 0.99

00:01:24.680 character in this. I don't know. I didn't really look into why there was a French character in it

00:01:29.300 because I didn't care. But anyway, it turns out Lafayette is a big fave of one of your faves.

00:01:37.900 A guest we have not had on the show since for almost a year. Alison Epstein, welcome.

00:01:44.420 Thank you for having me back. It has been a long time and I'm here to get excited about my boy.

00:01:49.960 And I do want to mention like, you know, feminist women's history comedy podcast,

00:01:53.820 And sometimes we talk about other genders. And today we're talking last time we were talking

00:01:59.100 about Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier St. George. Today we're talking about Lafayette because

00:02:02.700 you know, it's kind of like when you see, like, I think of traditional history is like men's

00:02:07.160 history. You know, when you see those lists that are like the hundred most important people in the

00:02:10.520 world and it's like men plus like Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc. And I'm like, well, that's kind

00:02:17.840 of men's history. So that proportion, I think it's kind of like this podcast is almost always

00:02:22.920 about women, but sometimes it's not. And I will say that like, we probably wouldn't have done

00:02:27.520 a Lafayette episode had he not appeared in 19 of the past 25 episodes that you've done. Like he's

00:02:32.760 insisting upon being on this podcast. He's here. Well, and then he's your guy. Can you explain

00:02:37.500 about the fan fiction of it all? Did you not write Lafayette fan fiction as a young person?

00:02:43.900 Okay. I need to explain. I need to put that, that sentence in context because it sounds insane,

00:02:48.580 But yes, I had a very good history teacher in the fifth grade, which is when we started learning like colonial American history.

00:02:57.680 I had terrible teachers before and after that.

00:03:00.100 The fifth grade was like a really good history year.

00:03:02.440 And that was when we did the American Revolution.

00:03:04.400 And one of the assignments in that class was keep a journal through all of the historical events that you're learning about as if you're one of the people in the events you're reading about.

00:03:15.240 Like pretend you're a colonist who's experiencing the American Revolution.

00:03:18.580 And I, being who I am, said, why would I be a colonist when I could be the Marquis de Lafayette?

00:03:24.540 And so I wrote the entire American Revolution from the point of view of the Marquis de Lafayette as a fifth grader.

00:03:29.560 For some reason, people are surprised I turned out the way I did.

00:03:32.520 But he was my favorite.

00:03:34.340 He's the best.

00:03:35.820 And I don't normally encourage standing historical figures because they're all problematic.

00:03:41.480 But he's surprisingly unproblematic the longer you go.

00:03:44.340 so and that sort of like i came to learn about who he was because i did well especially he shows up

00:03:50.660 in like the sally hemmings episode like he's there in france thomas jefferson um he was i mean i have

00:03:58.260 a couple notes like you have your long notes but i i went through control f like i talked about him

00:04:03.060 before he was in the peggy shipping episode just kind of like causing havoc like he's he's just

00:04:09.060 been there to the point where it's like well we need to learn who this person is why was he

00:04:12.700 involved in the French Revolution and also the American Revolution. And for reasons you're going

00:04:17.240 to talk about. So you've written about him in your substack. He is, would you consider him a

00:04:22.580 dirtbag? He is the least dirtbaggy dirtbag that I've ever profiled at my substack, Dirtbag Super 0.97

00:04:30.220 Ages. I think of him as a dirtbag with a heart of gold, which is that he means so aggressively well 0.96

00:04:35.380 that sometimes he's going to do the dumbest thing possible, but always for noble reasons. He's just 0.98

00:04:41.000 like crusading forward with two brain cells and an idea about justice. And I love that for him.

00:04:47.240 So you have various notes and this is like, you're going to be leading this

00:04:51.860 discussion and I will jump in with questions. And I have, I think two points, two things

00:04:59.380 that I'm going to say just to remind everybody of where we've seen him doing stuff before,

00:05:04.120 but can you explain, wait, his name is, what's his name? His name is too much.

00:05:11.000 His name is Marie-Joseph Paul-Yves Roche Gilbert du Moitié Marquis de Lafayette, because he's rich.

00:05:18.960 We're going to call him Lafayette.

00:05:20.860 Yes, we are. I'm never saying that name again.

00:05:24.660 Although I do like that his name is Gilbert.

00:05:27.140 Yes.

00:05:28.120 Like in Anne of Green Gables. So who is this guy?

00:05:32.960 Yes, I told Anne before this that I put together entirely too many notes.

00:05:37.520 So I am prepared for anything that may come up in this conversation, because when I love somebody, I go too hard.

00:05:44.660 So warning to the list.

00:05:46.680 But our boy Lafayette was born in 1757 in the city of Chavagnac-Lafayette in France, which is how you know he's fancy because he was born in the city with his name in it.

00:06:00.440 That's like Peggy Shippen from Shippensburg.

00:06:02.940 yeah exactly like his parents were fancy they were rich they were marquee and

00:06:10.660 mar marianess i've never known really what the gender alternative that is but i don't know how

00:06:16.700 you say it no but it will it will be uh unsurprising to your listeners know that both

00:06:20.840 his mother and his father each have approximately nine first names as well so this is a family

00:06:26.820 tradition but uh his father was fairly well known at the time for being this uh noble military hero

00:06:35.680 who would also sort of just rush off into danger in the name of justice this is a family trait this

00:06:41.180 went back to um Joan of Arc his great great whatever grandfather fought alongside Joan of Arc

00:06:47.520 so they've always been like this is what I'm saying but when Lafayette was two years old so

00:06:54.240 1759 his father died at the battle of minden during the seven years war in westphalia which

00:07:02.920 i know you're familiar with due to your research into carolando franzwick which we were talking

00:07:07.120 about just before this westphalia is germany ish everything is germany ish for so long germany

00:07:15.480 does not make sense to me or to anyone else it makes sense to lana wood johnson and no one else

00:07:20.420 so at this point um lafayette is two years old and now also the marquis de lafayette um which

00:07:27.280 in most vulgar history stories that we've talked about is a recipe for bad news no one wants a

00:07:32.240 baby to be in charge of anything but it's actually going to be okay so that's sort of nice he lives

00:07:40.820 with his mom and his grandmother i think until lafayette grows up to be about 11 and then he

00:07:46.720 moves to paris and signs up as a musketeer in the service of the french king louis the 15th i'm so

00:07:54.780 sorry he's 11 he is 11 years old is that the age of musketeers usually it is indeed not no okay okay

00:08:02.780 was he very tall no okay was he very good at this at this age no but did he have the spirit yes he

00:08:11.900 kid which we know because he achieved the rank of second lieutenant when he was 13 and a half years

00:08:17.160 old so this is was everyone just like oh he's so cute like like let's just let him do it this was

00:08:22.740 not this was not a combat role he was supposed to hold a musket and walk in parades and go to

00:08:28.600 parties but like this just illustrates who he was as a little baby he's just like i would like

00:08:35.200 to be a soldier and be a good person and save people and he's just the cutest little fiend

00:08:43.040 and it also i presume speaks to the fact that he was charming and people let him do this yes because

00:08:51.620 i don't think every 11 year old who showed up would be allowed to do this let alone get a

00:08:55.460 promotion no it also helps that he's incredibly rich and very powerful so yes yes yeah okay

00:09:02.200 Every single piece of privilege a person can have, the Marquis de Lafayette has.

00:09:07.060 So his sexism bonus is zero.

00:09:10.120 His classism bonus is zero. 0.88

00:09:12.200 So he's thriving, but he's using it to get involved in the musketeers.

00:09:17.900 His mother dies when he is 13.

00:09:21.000 So now he is an orphan baby musketeer. 0.88

00:09:24.200 And he's, I think he still lives with his grandma for a while, 0.96

00:09:27.560 but he like goes to schools in the 1700s for just like you move in.

00:09:31.360 and so he was basically fine at that point but when he turns 14 it becomes time for him to find

00:09:40.220 a wife because he's rich and famous and fancy and has lots of money not that we you talk about this

00:09:47.820 in lots of your episodes but children are getting engaged to be married at this time all the time

00:09:52.320 it's no big deal it's a a political situation yeah and they don't actually move in with their

00:09:58.260 spouse and like are expected to have children until they're like much older this is just like

00:10:02.320 there's a very rich 14 year old walking around we should figure out what's going to happen to him

00:10:07.200 it's like financial planning exactly really and it's i've talked to you about this part of the

00:10:13.360 story before because i love it this is the most adorable little love story in history but i didn't

00:10:19.060 know he was 14 he was 14 when it happened okay so uh when lafayette is 14 there's the this other

00:10:28.800 noble man in paris called the duke d'ayon who has a daughter um marie adrian and he says you know

00:10:36.740 who would be a great husband for my daughter this incredibly rich baby soldier that would be a

00:10:41.320 perfect match so he's trying to like go behind the scenes and machinate so that they can get

00:10:46.720 together but marie adrian's mom says i want my daughter to marry someone she actually likes i

00:10:52.760 don't want to force her into a marriage and i also don't want to force this adorable baby soldier

00:10:56.880 into a marriage either so what she does is she casually arranges these meet-cutes all over paris

00:11:03.920 so they show up together at the same parties and they like go for walks in the park together

00:11:08.820 and they'll like show up at a concert and over like two to three years they actually become

00:11:16.100 best friends and then fall in love and then they agree to get married in 1774 when he's 17 and

00:11:23.040 marie adrienne is 15 and they love each other devotedly they are passionately in love with 0.98

00:11:30.500 each other for the rest of their lives they are besties is the cutest fucking thing in the whole 0.92

00:11:36.300 world that is unprecedented on this podcast yeah i know in terms of in terms of wholesomeness 0.95

00:11:45.660 it's so wholesome and she's such a good person and he's such a wife guy through this entire story

00:11:53.160 i will point it out as we go but like every five or ten years he's in the most tumultuous historical

00:11:59.480 period ever and he just keeps going i'm sorry i have to go home and say hi to my wife i will be

00:12:04.540 back later it's just they're so good for each other and it makes me happy unfortunately murray 0.92

00:12:11.200 adrian's dad is a dick uh who doesn't love fun or revolution so he'll he'll thwart things as we go

00:12:19.360 but love conquers all in this story so it's so when they're newly married lafayette moves into 0.95

00:12:25.680 marie adrian's father's house because he doesn't have a house or a father or anything he just has

00:12:31.620 the palace of versailles and being a musketeer eventually at this point he's an illegal adult

00:12:37.000 so he does get an actual army commission instead of just walking in parades and then he and marie

00:12:42.320 adrian have their first child two years later uh she passes away shortly after that due to

00:12:48.740 infant mortality reasons but they waited until it was a reasonable time to start doing that

00:12:54.140 and then it's 1774 and we get a brand new king in france king louis the 15th passes away 15

00:13:03.120 yes wait wait so we get wait i went in the madame du barry i learned the difference between 14 15

00:13:11.280 and 16 so which one is this uh 15 just died we're heading into 16 16 marie antoinette's husband

00:13:17.700 marie antoinette's husband yes okay got it yeah so uh for context uh lafayette is uh 17 and marie

00:13:26.300 Antoinette is 18 so they are virtually the same age so Louis XVI becomes king and sort of in that

00:13:34.480 time period the American Revolution is just starting to bubble it's 1775 1776 and I'm not

00:13:42.780 going to go into the whole American Revolution of it all because you've already done that

00:13:45.920 for your listeners but you know what that's another thing that I'm just like I can't believe

00:13:49.460 I have to learn this I know I was like Anne's learning about George Washington I know she hates

00:13:54.900 it yeah so but in france the american revolution was sort of a point of interest but not like a

00:14:02.380 huge deal were they like excited because they were enemies with england and the french revolution 0.83

00:14:08.200 was enemies with england so they're just like yeah fuck you england we love this exactly it was oh 0.96

00:14:13.280 something bad's happening to england that's delightful i hope that continues but lafayette 0.98

00:14:18.640 of course being the kind of kid he was was like yes it's bad for england and that's fun but also

00:14:24.120 there are these oppressed people fighting for liberation from an oppressive force. And I think

00:14:28.780 I would like to go help them because of who I am as a person. So he got super jazzed and wanted to

00:14:36.080 like run off and join the American revolution. France did not want that to happen because even

00:14:41.760 though France was enthusiastic about the American revolution, if it started sending soldiers and

00:14:46.440 officers and warships, that's a declaration of war against England. And you sort of have to be

00:14:51.680 ready if that's going to happen. And Louis XVI had been king for two years and wasn't super ready

00:14:57.040 to start declaring more on other countries yet. So the king sent a bunch of French nobles on a

00:15:03.780 diplomatic mission to London in 1777, basically to say, hi, we're aware that you're having a

00:15:10.640 problem over there in America, and we are not going to get involved. We're going to remain

00:15:15.900 neutral don't worry about it they sent lafayette on this mission which was a mistake was he at this

00:15:23.140 point what like 18 years old like he's still very young he's very very young and very in love with

00:15:29.920 his own ideas and so instead of going to like the palace to talk to the king and say hey everything's

00:15:35.760 fine uh he ran off and uh wrote a letter to his father-in-law the duke to say sorry i'm actually

00:15:43.920 going to run away to america to fight in the french revolution i hope that's not a problem

00:15:48.120 and then he started raising money to buy his own warship so that he could sail over there

00:15:53.380 by himself and join the revolution wait and he's he's raising money he's in england while he's

00:15:58.920 doing this yes okay he doesn't need to raise a ton of money because he's rich as hell but he has

00:16:04.380 a lot of money he's got a lot of money to start with yeah this is not a challenge um his father

00:16:09.900 in law is pissed because this is ruining his life and his family's life and also i hate him

00:16:16.220 so he the father-in-law writes to the king and says um i i would like you to issue a proclamation

00:16:24.240 that all french officers are forbidden expressly from serving in the american revolution

00:16:29.520 and the king did and the proclamation says something like all french officers especially

00:16:34.840 the Marquis de Lafayette are forbidden from serving in the American Revolution. And Lafayette

00:16:40.660 said, that's nice. I'm 95% of the way to a warship anyway. So I'm just going to keep doing it and

00:16:46.500 hope nobody stops me. Yeah. He buys his warship called the Victoire and it cost him 112,000 pounds,

00:16:55.320 which I did the conversion on because I'm always curious. And that's 12.6 million dollars.

00:17:00.600 so this boy is committed he starts outfitting the ship for war he like fills it with cannons

00:17:07.840 and gunpowder and then he sends a quick note to his wife Marie Adrien and says I'm going to war

00:17:14.320 how's your dad taking it the answer is not well the dad sends a family friend after Lafayette to

00:17:21.700 say if you send this ship toward America you're going to be in enormous trouble and also we got

00:17:29.200 you an officer's commission in with a battalion in Marseille. So you have to go there. And if you 0.96

00:17:35.300 don't, it's treason. So please go off to Marseille and mind your business. But this is my favorite

00:17:42.540 Lafayette anecdote of the whole story. Actually, this is where he qualifies in my brain as a dirt

00:17:47.120 bag, because he looks at the family friend and says, great, I will go to Marseille. I will mind

00:17:52.520 my business. Don't worry about it. And he rides with the family friend about two miles towards

00:17:57.840 marseille and then as soon as the family friend gets out of eye shot he turns around sneaks back

00:18:04.120 through the forest um goes back to the port and says hey ship take off for america he's not on

00:18:12.620 the ship because he knows as soon as that ship gets to like the port leaving toward the last

00:18:19.220 port toward america at like the end of spain it's gonna get searched because the dad is gonna be

00:18:24.100 looking for him so he sneaks cross country to like bask and then with after the ship gets searched

00:18:31.440 for the last time he hops on at the very last possible minute undercover of darkness and sails

00:18:38.380 away to america running away to his revolution and you imagine him flipping both middle fingers 0.99

00:18:43.940 at his father-in-law from the deck as he sails and i just he's such a little dick and i love him 0.97

00:18:50.220 but he's he's like he's got a plan and he's good at it you know there's been so many stories in 0.98

00:18:55.820 this podcast about people trying to do sneaky shit like that but they always mess up but he 0.83

00:19:01.860 like had it all figured out yeah it was flawlessly executed he was um 18 years old and he had a 0.92

00:19:08.260 scheme and a plan and a warship he had been a soldier since age 11 and he put that experience

00:19:14.520 to use yeah absolutely so he's so he's on the warship and the warship's coming to america

00:19:18.800 yes the warship lands in america in um 1777 so the revolution is well underway at this point

00:19:28.160 like declaration of independence was the year before george washington is in charge of the

00:19:33.000 continental army and uh at this point it's sort of not going so great the american revolution

00:19:38.420 was basically a bunch of farmers with like their hunting rifles pretending to be an army they'd

00:19:44.280 never been trained before. No one really knew how to do anything. And George Washington was

00:19:49.000 absolutely fed up with the quality of soldiers that he had. He had been in like the seven years

00:19:55.000 war. He knew how to command things, but nobody knew what they were doing. So when Lafayette

00:19:59.960 showed up and said, hello, I am an 18 year old soldier who's been in the army for eight years.

00:20:05.440 Also, I have a warship and $12.6 million. Would you like any help with your army?

00:20:11.360 he was on board immediately like George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette sort of

00:20:17.940 met at a party one night and from there it was uh bro love sort of for the rest of their

00:20:24.420 their days together um Lafayette was an 18 year old orphan who just wanted to be loved

00:20:30.920 and Washington was a childless uh general who sucked in a lot of ways as you've discussed

00:20:38.080 but like they have this really lovely father-son sort of relationship through their whole lives

00:20:44.040 that like is problematic given how messed up George Washington is but is also very sweet

00:20:48.700 because Lafayette just wanted a dad to look up to so I sort of love that for them and so Lafayette

00:20:55.240 is now fully in the army he's not given like a division of soldiers to oversee because he's a 0.65

00:21:02.860 foreign citizen who just kind of showed up so that would be problematic but he does start fighting 0.91

00:21:09.660 pretty much right away and he is immediately like the most useful person in most of these early

00:21:16.080 american revolution because he like has actual skills yeah like fighting he knows like strategy

00:21:22.140 and tactics and also he is obsessed with running headfirst into danger to do the most dramatic

00:21:27.980 thing you can like he's got no self-preservation instinct and military training he's the perfect

00:21:32.380 person to have I could see this story like this could be not a good story if he was just like a

00:21:41.100 person who ran like a rich kid who ran off to the army at age 11 and thought he was good but he

00:21:45.360 wasn't but he actually was good yeah he was good and he also didn't need to be in command of

00:21:50.680 everything he's just like put me in coach where do you need me to be useful I want to fight for

00:21:55.480 freedom he's it's truly like the most naive child you've ever heard of except who's also very good

00:22:01.540 with a sword and a gun yeah yeah yeah um this uh i'm not gonna go through all the american

00:22:09.460 revolution battles that he was in because you don't care and i don't care so i'm not gonna do

00:22:15.060 that but he did well and he became like a hero right like people america like loved him he was

00:22:20.720 like wounded in action at a battle but saved his entire regiment before organizing retreat like he

00:22:26.000 was great people are big fan glad this guy showed up one of the interesting things that happened at

00:22:31.760 this point was i don't know your your non-american listeners probably are not familiar with the winter

00:22:37.100 at valley forge but every elementary school american student has to learn about it i'm also

00:22:42.760 not familiar i'm an i'm a non-american yes so it was 1777 1778 so a few like almost a year after

00:22:52.220 he had arrived and it was winter and winter like for an under provisioned army with shitty uniforms

00:23:01.400 and nowhere to stay this is like the dark night of the soul for the american army basically

00:23:06.920 where where is valley forge where is it now like what state i want to say pennsylvania okay so it's

00:23:13.680 like winter is like very cold winter is like foot and a half of snow and you don't have boots

00:23:19.240 is like the image they always give people it's like real okay okay and Lafayette who very well

00:23:26.840 could have been like I'm gonna go somewhere else for this winter I'm gonna go to Virginia and like

00:23:32.520 stay at Mount Vernon and get warm and then come back later but he stayed with his men all winter

00:23:38.400 and paid for new uniforms for everybody in his regiment so they could be warm like polar fleece

00:23:44.140 uniforms with like cortex yeah yeah and that was the moment in fifth grade when i was like oh no

00:23:49.560 he's my boy i love him that was that i swooned for that so uh the winter thaws people are getting

00:23:57.480 ready for the spring battle season and he fights for about another year until he says uh actually

00:24:03.540 do you mind if i go back to france for a few months because i really really miss my wife

00:24:08.140 i would like to say hi to her and he does he goes back to france in late 1778 just to hang out with

00:24:15.700 marie adrian for a while right but like how does that go he gets back to france like his father-in-law

00:24:20.220 is mad he's like done treason by not going to merseille like yeah i mean this is what you were

00:24:25.960 saying earlier like he has to be incredibly charming for this to work because he is put under

00:24:31.640 house arrest when he comes back for eight days and after that king louis the 16th is like actually

00:24:38.940 you're so charming i'm not mad at you would you like to go hunting with me and then he goes on a

00:24:43.500 hunting trip with the king this is like these are so stories are so interesting to me like when

00:24:48.760 people like so i just did a few weeks ago we were doing the madame duberry episode and it's like

00:24:54.840 people say like oh she was beautiful or whatever but like the way that she was treated by people

00:25:00.160 like the it's like so you know what her magnetism was like like even if people you know sometimes

00:25:05.740 they say like oh this person was so charismatic and you look at a portrait and you're like were

00:25:09.440 you yeah but like and people write in letters and diaries like oh this person was so great but

00:25:15.080 in this story like like with madame du Barry like you know how hot she was because of how

00:25:20.200 the world reformed around her whenever she entered a room but with Lafayette like you know how charming

00:25:25.660 he was because of things like this it's like you could say oh he was charming it's like

00:25:29.040 the king invited him out hunting after he did treason yeah like this is how charming this guy

00:25:35.920 was yeah you just it's very illustrative yeah no no and you and you want to hang out with him

00:25:42.280 like it just sounds like he's just such a fun time yes i have in here that you have a lafayette

00:25:47.220 1778 story that you wanted to share i do yes so 1778 that was this is from the peggy shipping

00:25:54.380 an episode so there was um in 1778 that was when so philadelphia had been like the red coats had

00:26:05.080 taken over the city basically and then there was this party the miscienza which was organized by

00:26:12.200 hot spy and my boy john andre i also love john andre hot spy hot comma inept spy he's the worst

00:26:21.640 spy but he's so handsome and he was also a party planner and like since the days of david rizzio

00:26:28.540 like i just love a party planner moment anyway so he planned this party called the miscienza

00:26:33.540 and then there was a whole thing about like oh no oh no it was the god i forget honestly like

00:26:39.180 listeners i do an episode and then two hours later i forget everything i did but basically

00:26:43.620 there was this party and it became very controversial because the i think there was

00:26:48.220 not enough hot girls to go. 0.96

00:26:49.580 So then Peggy Shippen and her sisters were invited.

00:26:52.100 It was this big thing.

00:26:53.020 It's like Peggy Shippen attended the mischianza.

00:26:54.880 And does that mean that she was a sympathizer

00:26:56.460 for the Redcoats?

00:26:57.320 It's like, no, it just meant that she was hot

00:26:58.820 and liked to party. 1.00

00:26:59.640 She loved to party, that girl.

00:27:01.060 So while this party was going on,

00:27:02.720 being held by the British Redcoats side,

00:27:06.220 Lafayette and friends were protesting it

00:27:09.940 by being in the harbor.

00:27:11.700 They poured kettles of whale oil

00:27:13.400 onto the British barriers, 0.70

00:27:15.320 ignited them and then slipped away.

00:27:17.140 so this is just the kind of nonsense he was up to he was leading real battles and then he was

00:27:22.580 just causing mischief and mayhem and i love that like that's got a big like sort of like frat

00:27:27.440 brothers energy to it it's just like it's like your rival school is having a party so you just

00:27:33.740 like go and like yes the whale oil on fire on their ships and he's what like 21 at this time

00:27:40.180 perfect age yeah exactly it's a big frat boy energy um and now i'm picturing him and the

00:27:45.940 bros like the soldiers like just these guys just be like yeah yeah like like yeah one two three

00:27:53.400 Lafayette like that's the energy so yeah I was like I remembered I remembered I came across

00:27:58.780 Lafayette and I think that was a story where I was like who's this guy when I um encountered that

00:28:03.700 yeah just casual burning of things to protest a party that he was philosophically opposed to

00:28:10.740 meanwhile Peggy Shippen is just like whoo tipped out just like having a time there's a there's a 0.99

00:28:17.540 scale and Peggy Shippen's on one side and the Marquita Lafayette's on the other side and it's 0.68

00:28:22.480 all justice and I don't give a fuck about justice so yeah yeah and they were both there at the same 0.59

00:28:28.380 place at the same time and this is what I mean when I said in the introduction like

00:28:31.180 I love how the people from all these episodes are starting to intertwine with each other and

00:28:36.600 like knowing who they are yeah awesome and now for a quick advertising break the war is over

00:28:44.820 and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the

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00:29:16.640 that emerges organically

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00:29:20.340 characters make. This is what it felt like to play

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00:31:55.840 And we're back.

00:31:57.160 so he's back in france so back in france yes his wife has just had one baby a daughter anastasie

00:32:05.480 and she will have another baby nine months after he leaves to go back to america because they are

00:32:12.060 the way that they are so bless these two 40 young adults but while he's in france and not having

00:32:20.160 sex with his wife who he loves a lot he is trying to get the french king to sort of more formally

00:32:25.780 support the american revolution louis the 16th still doesn't want to do well in the 16th i haven't 0.60

00:32:32.740 learned about him a lot yet but i feel like i watched ages ago the sofia coppola movie and

00:32:38.740 it's jason schwartzman and he's just kind of like like and i feel like that's just louis the 16th

00:32:43.600 is just kind of like just useless just kind of like placeholder not really anything but i did

00:32:50.240 want to clarify that lafayette is like chilling at versailles he's like in high society like oh

00:32:56.200 yes doing doing all the stuff yeah and if he's talking to the king he's like he's like showing

00:33:01.180 up at court like at formal court events being like hi it's me the marquis de lafayette the

00:33:06.160 fanciest man who just committed treason don't worry about it yeah yeah okay so he's like in

00:33:11.100 in the versailles of it all yeah yes and um while he's trying to petition the king for all the

00:33:17.000 support he teams up with the American ambassador to France who is at this time Benjamin Franklin

00:33:23.000 sorry not Thomas Jefferson no Benjamin I want to make a clarifying statement on this podcast

00:33:29.020 officially so in one of the American episodes I did I had misunderstood something that either

00:33:36.000 you or Lana had told me about Benjamin Franklin and I think what it was was one of you had said

00:33:41.060 that he was the least racist or like the least slave owningest of the founding fathers not the

00:33:48.600 most least slave owning is but among a select few of them who were like not in favor yeah and so i

00:33:55.300 misinterpreted that as that he was the least awful of them which is not true no he was well you do

00:34:05.620 you remember how you described him to me you said he was i described him as america's horny grandpa

00:34:09.900 yeah which is correct yeah so i want to say like benjamin franklin is not the best founding father

00:34:18.980 i might have said that on the podcast i would like to retract that statement i recall that statement

00:34:23.480 there was like a tiktok i feel like i forget who i've been messaging with about what but it was

00:34:29.020 on the discord or lana had shared it and it was like um if benjamin you know there's a whole thing

00:34:33.500 about like what would the founding fathers want us to do today and someone did a tiktok that was

00:34:37.200 like okay like what do you think about this and like the first amendment and benjamin franklin

00:34:40.240 was like can we go to hooters again and that's correct he's yeah america's horny grandpa which

00:34:50.940 also there was that tv show recently ish there was like michael douglas played benjamin franklin 0.90

00:34:55.980 good casting because michael douglas i've always felt is like a gross horny grandpa type person

00:35:01.120 yes although i didn't watch it but i was texting with my parents who did watch it

00:35:06.160 because of who they are as people and they were furious because there was not one tiny bit of

00:35:11.160 weird horny grandpa energy it was like oh distinguished founding father ben franklin

00:35:15.540 and they were like where is the man who was just sitting naked in front of the window in his 0.88

00:35:20.260 bedroom because he thought the cool night air on his privates was good for health i love your

00:35:24.840 parents and i understand your personality better now yeah and also you cast michael douglas he's

00:35:31.960 got a grimy sleazy quality like no shade to michael douglas but like that's it's like willem

00:35:38.420 defoe you don't cast him to be like some sort of like noble person no it's just like that's not

00:35:43.940 the affect they choices what i what i do know about that benjamin franklin show which again i

00:35:49.660 did not and will never watch um is that it was one of the first appearances in film of the

00:35:55.900 chevalier day on a which we love to see which i'm always happy i'm happy to see and it sounds like

00:36:02.760 it was an okay portrayal of a trans person you'll we'll take it we'll take it yeah yeah 0.87

00:36:09.620 is he on your money he's on the hundred dollar bill yeah not cool not cool he's better than

00:36:22.120 andrew jackson it could be worse i don't know anything about that one he killed probably

00:36:27.320 hundreds of thousands of native americans in a really intentional genocide and he's on the 20

00:36:32.420 so he is he uh this is where it's good like do people in america lately mostly just like use

00:36:38.120 your phone or just like tap your card and like not yeah i haven't seen a 20 dollar bill in ages

00:36:42.680 which is good you know it's the same here because you know who's on our money is king charles the

00:36:47.120 third oh i'm so sorry a man who was recorded on tape saying he wanted to be camilla parker bulls

00:36:55.200 tampon i recall that from season whatever of the crown and i almost cringed out of my body

00:37:01.060 he is on our money so congrats okay so benjamin franklin is he is the ambassador to france

00:37:10.480 yes yes yes and he's working with lafayette to like get support with the american revolution

00:37:16.100 benjamin franklin i picture being 65 years old i don't know yes i feel like he was he's like the

00:37:22.160 oldest founding father type guy lafayette is at this point i'm going to say 22 i don't know roughly

00:37:27.280 so he's just like hey let's work together and like and he's like yeah absolutely i'm uh afterwards

00:37:33.080 we're gonna go to hooters right and lafayette's like no no i love my wife don't worry about it

00:37:36.800 so the king does not make like a formal declaration of war because he's meh but he does

00:37:44.000 agree that lafayette can take a fleet of ships and 6 000 french soldiers back to america which

00:37:50.200 is somehow not the same thing as declaring war i don't know what the difference is but this uh

00:37:55.240 listeners might be familiar with this as the song guns and ships from the broadway musical hamilton

00:37:59.460 yeah we're getting into some real hamilton stuff and please mention all the hamilton connections

00:38:04.720 as they come up because you know the show better than i do yes when i first heard the music of him

00:38:11.380 like when I first became aware of it, it was, I was in a Tumblr era and it was all that anyone

00:38:17.500 on Tumblr was talking about. And I'm like, what is this show? And I'm like, Oh, these songs are

00:38:21.040 catchy. These are good. Don't know what this plot line is. Don't know who any of these people are.

00:38:25.860 And at the time I was trying to, I remember I was listening to it when I was like on a

00:38:30.500 flight, like back to Nova Scotia for Christmas. And I just listened to the soundtrack. I'm like,

00:38:34.360 yes, it's so good. Sorry, cast recording. And I was trying to tell my friends, I'm like, no,

00:38:40.880 you should listen to it and i was trying to describe i'm like it's kind of like jesus christ

00:38:44.640 superstar where there's like a guy and he's jealous of another guy and then he kind of causes

00:38:49.380 his death and that was what i took from it but there's all this american history stuff that i

00:38:54.080 don't understand that actually is the story of it i had never heard of alexander hamilton or

00:38:58.920 anyone in that musical except for maybe george w and thomas jay yes lafayette i was just like how

00:39:06.320 debbie why is he here he's great who's this french person rapping and like i have i have

00:39:14.000 opinions about the portrayal of the marquita lafayette in hamilton which is that guns and

00:39:20.240 chips is the most accurate lafayette moment in that entire show because it's where he has the

00:39:25.800 most swag and he's just like everybody look at me and how incredible i am let me do the most

00:39:31.060 impressive rap in all of musical theater the rest of it he's just like yes i am a noble frenchman

00:39:36.560 who doesn't speak great english and i'm like where's the dirtbag energy from this man where 0.98

00:39:40.900 is he out in the harbor lighting shit on fire like i want more from him is what i'm saying 0.94

00:39:45.800 lafayette i mean this comes up for me personally a lot when i'm doing a lot of these stories but 0.97

00:39:51.160 this one i'm going to say especially especially given the american revolution of it all

00:39:54.800 how is there not a movie of this this is where's my lafayette biopic i'm furious that we don't have

00:40:03.860 how how is there michael douglas is benjamin franklin in writing some treaties in france

00:40:11.180 the tv show or whatever like how is that the tv show they did and not lafayette like this is a

00:40:17.440 great story and he's on the side of the american revolution so people would want to finance this

00:40:22.200 yeah and he's a white straight man yeah and timothy chalamet is a working actor who speaks

00:40:29.120 french and english what are we doing people timothy chalamet yes oh now i'm picturing him

00:40:36.160 and that's perfect because he looks so young and gawky but yeah like but he'd be such a good war

00:40:41.100 hero he'd be great yeah no this is honestly baffling to me because there's such a struggle

00:40:49.540 to get biopics made of like women let alone like women of color people of color like queer people

00:40:55.580 but this is like a straight white man this is a straight white rich founding father who like i'm

00:41:03.820 like it's right there yeah i don't know huh that's bizarre okay but yeah because this is getting very

00:41:10.260 dramatic so he's back there he's got his troops he's in america again so american revolution again

00:41:15.020 is still going on still going on yes it's 1780 at this point i will know continue to be

00:41:21.880 needing to be reminded that the american revolution did not happen just in 1776 that

00:41:27.460 it was a lengthy it went on a lengthy thing yeah they didn't just declare independence and that

00:41:33.460 was kind of it it was like it went on it went on and it went on badly like because i like i was

00:41:39.520 saying they're very untrained and very unfinanced and things are like so when he shows up back in

00:41:44.500 america things are not going great i do i do want a sidebar um shortly after he left but before he

00:41:50.440 arrived in like december 1779 um marie adrienne gives birth to their second surviving child who

00:41:57.680 they name george washington lafayette listeners can't see the face that anna's making george

00:42:05.820 washington i don't know how they would claire jules louis pierre yeah i think the only guy

00:42:14.000 from the two names but this like really underlines the weird father something that they had going on

00:42:19.180 and it's kind of cute i don't know that's true i want to i want to share a story which is similar

00:42:23.820 to this which is that a friend of mine does work with um doctors without borders like msf she goes

00:42:29.220 to various places and she was in around the time that obama was first elected she was and i i want

00:42:38.400 to say ethiopia or so sudan anyway it was an african country on the african continent and

00:42:44.720 she was helping people out there and the women there were calling their daughters and maybe

00:42:49.760 even sons like michelle obama the first lady of the united states oh my god i love that so much

00:42:55.540 you know epstein yeah that was their name because they were so excited about michelle obama

00:43:01.540 i love that that's exactly the energy except if they were also all best friends with michelle

00:43:06.340 obama yeah yeah i just love this person so much and i have adopted them as mine so george washington

00:43:13.560 lafayette yes great great um uh let me see i don't know when exactly this happened but i do

00:43:21.840 want to mention it was at around this time that benedict arnold did his treason and this was where

00:43:28.520 this was also in my notes when i looked up lafayette which is like benedict arnold was in

00:43:33.060 his like secret house out of the way to do his treason house um and he knew that people were 0.97

00:43:38.020 gonna because john andre bad spy hit the map in his boot dressed the wrong way he's such a dummy

00:43:47.240 oh my god john andre that's a good thing he's pretty yeah so all this happened and then peggy 0.99

00:43:54.460 shipping was left in the like forest woods house um and she's like oh fuck like my husband just did 0.94

00:44:00.760 of treason and then Lafayette I want to say Hamilton came to the door and they're like hey 0.96

00:44:05.300 is Benedict Arnold here and she's like oh and she like like pretended to be having this like

00:44:10.000 hysterical nervous breakdown to like distract them so that Benedict Arnold could get away

00:44:13.820 anyway Lafayette was there at that dinner party where Peggy Shippen just like was like oh no I'm

00:44:20.420 having a mental breakdown and also I'm throwing all these letters in the fireplace for no reason

00:44:25.320 and as somebody who actually had schemes I just imagined him watching her like

00:44:30.760 um lady what are you doing yeah so lafayette was there for that as well i just wanted to

00:44:37.500 connect that to that episode yeah yeah that would be yeah 1780 he gets back like early 1780 with all

00:44:44.680 of his guns and all of his ships and they fight for another whole year with battles that we're

00:44:49.440 not going to talk about because blah blah blah whatever but by 1781 which um is the year the

00:44:55.880 revolution ends spoiler it is time for the battle of yorktown aka the act one finale of the project

00:45:02.940 musical it actually might not be the act one finale but it should be that's my hat so lafayette

00:45:08.420 and washington do some sort of military maneuver where they like come at yorktown from two different

00:45:13.820 directions and they like catch the british in between them blah blah blah tactics etc lafayette

00:45:19.400 is leading half the army basically is the point and the general of the british army surrenders

00:45:25.440 at Yorktown. And now Lafayette, age 26, has just won the American Revolution.

00:45:32.140 Okay. Good for him. And he's just getting started.

00:45:36.500 We are on page four of nine of my notes. So for anybody else, this would be plenty

00:45:43.140 for one lifetime. Well, no. And for anybody else, by the time this happened,

00:45:47.860 he would be 56 years old. Right. He's 26. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, well, I guess

00:45:53.980 time to retire like i've had an active military career from age 11 yeah and yeah you're right

00:46:00.820 usually in a story like this either the person is 56 years old or they're going to die in five

00:46:05.860 years of some old timely illness and somehow love it just keeps going and going and history

00:46:10.620 keeps happening to him yeah what's the history has its eyes on him it does and he's like history

00:46:17.600 could you please look at somebody else for a minute i am very tired

00:46:20.200 so there's lots of like treaty making and the constitutional convention and whatever that's

00:46:29.780 going on in america because like now they're a country and they have to figure out how to be a

00:46:33.900 country blah blah blah i want to say just in terms of the blah blah blah the liberty bell

00:46:38.700 exists like just all this stuff that is kind of like okay i imagine this is what

00:46:43.980 textbooks are like in America. Can I, can I just brief sidebar on the Liberty Bell,

00:46:49.060 which is just such a, it like exemplifies American-ness so much to me, which is that

00:46:55.540 we built this bell and we're like, we're going to ring it on the first day of constitution

00:47:00.380 because we're so free and so great. And we ring it once and it snaps in half because we did a

00:47:05.740 shitty job. And then we said, this is the symbol of our nation. And we put it in a museum and 0.87

00:47:10.740 We've never rung it again because it would actually break if we tried.

00:47:14.400 That's what it is?

00:47:15.560 Yeah.

00:47:17.180 That's what it is. 1.00

00:47:18.500 Oh, this country is silly. 1.00

00:47:20.900 Yeah. 0.99

00:47:21.260 And that was the, in the own a judge episode, that was where it's like,

00:47:24.720 we need to have the greatest museum of all time to display this bell.

00:47:29.080 Shitty bell that we made badly.

00:47:32.220 And then the like people of Philadelphia, the like advocates were like, well,

00:47:35.620 actually the place you're going to hang this bell is actually the place where

00:47:39.320 like george washington's enslaved people lived so could you like make the museum about them it's

00:47:44.980 like no bell this terrible cracked bell you can't use this matters more america

00:47:52.800 yeah that's what we've got okay so uh fortunately lafayette didn't care about that either

00:48:00.540 he's not hanging around for the constitutional convention of it all he's like my my work here

00:48:05.600 is done like there's no more battles to fight my work here is done my hot wife is at home i need

00:48:10.380 to go and so like late 1781 he heads home um immediately gets his wife pregnant and they have

00:48:17.080 their third baby who they name marie antoinette no yeah they do wow they're really wow okay yeah

00:48:24.980 um she's born in 1782 and wait yeah but what's didn't marie antoinette hate him yes but we'll

00:48:34.760 get to that i will also say if the queen hates you a really nice way to say we don't hate you

00:48:40.980 please don't arrest us for treason is to name your baby after her okay okay okay it's not so

00:48:48.280 much like a tribute to a woman who they admire and more just like let's try to not be arrested

00:48:52.940 okay no but i will say like things get complicated a little bit in the in the france portion of this

00:48:59.040 story with like what Lafayette's political position is because in America he's the most leftist lefty

00:49:06.240 you've ever seen he sailed across the country to fight a king and start a democratic republic so

00:49:12.320 you would assume that he would carry that energy back to France but he doesn't really he has a much

00:49:19.320 different relationship with his own king and his own monarchy hunting just like yeah yeah he's one

00:49:26.260 of the nobility and like he's we'll get into it as we talk about it but like this is always the

00:49:31.280 part that surprised me when i started learning about this part because obviously american public

00:49:35.680 schools don't teach you about the french revolution so all i knew was american war hero lafayette when

00:49:41.000 i started reading this i was like this seems different from him but when you think about it

00:49:46.020 like like you were saying he is like friends with the king and these are the people he grew up with

00:49:50.300 and this is the world he knows it's different yeah it's easier to fight against tyranny and

00:49:56.660 a monarch in a country that's not your own maybe you can be more objective about it i think so

00:50:03.480 yeah and he was also 18 years old at that time so you have to think maybe he didn't have so much

00:50:08.700 nuance to think about now that he's like in his late 20s early 30s he's got a frontal lobe

00:50:13.620 he's like hmm maybe i should think this through yeah so he gets um a hero's welcome in france

00:50:21.800 which is hilarious because technically he wasn't even supposed to go but he did just like overthrow

00:50:27.320 the british king and since france hates britain so much they're like actually this is fine nice 0.91

00:50:31.400 job love this for you and there's like five years where lafagette gets to take a fucking break

00:50:38.000 good good just like i don't know what he did but i imagine like taking a watercolor painting or 0.93

00:50:45.120 like pottery or just like hanging out with all of his little children like do you want to know

00:50:49.820 what he did do because like what did he do he hung out with his three kids and he got really

00:50:54.560 involved in the french abolition movement against slavery oh yeah because he's he needs a cause he's 0.67

00:51:00.620 a person who needs a cause and he picked a fucking good one and god bless him and also he used this

00:51:07.120 time and his close relationship with george washington to try to talk to americans to be 0.99

00:51:12.120 like can you stop having slaves you dumb bitches look at the constitution you just wrote he once 0.98

00:51:19.400 said i think later as he had more time to think about it but a quote attributed to him is i would 0.99

00:51:24.720 never have drawn my sword in the cause of america if i could have conceived that i was founding a

00:51:30.060 land of slavery yeah he's on the right side yeah and you imagine martha washington off screen just 0.97

00:51:37.880 going like this fucking adopted son i never liked he went back and forth to america a few times in 0.98

00:51:47.560 these like five years of chill and every time he was like hey george washington free your slaves 0.99

00:51:51.780 bro please bring your slaves and he never did but he tried what if i obsessively chase one of them

00:51:58.800 yeah yeah so that was his break that was his abolition break and okay so he just sort of

00:52:07.840 moved into sort of like social justice work okay um but then uh late 1786 1787 came around and this

00:52:18.400 is uh what i call part two of this three-part story the the french revolution part okay this

00:52:25.160 is really important because um you need to explain the french revolution to me i am going to do my

00:52:32.920 very best in an abridged version for the parts that matter for this story but if you have other

00:52:38.440 questions for other parts i have tons of notes i do not need so okay i'm gonna ask a question i

00:52:44.080 don't know if it's this part or not but there's a group of people in the french revolution called

00:52:48.000 sans culottes which i think means no pants what did they wear it means no breeches like no tight

00:52:58.900 pantaloons that you see in like period dramas but they wore was like wide-legged comfy pants

00:53:06.080 oh okay so saying like no no no shorts yeah no it's like i don't wear the fancy breeches of the

00:53:14.760 rich people i wear the wide leg trousers of the proletariat no skinny jeans yes wide leg pants

00:53:25.320 okay because i at first i saw the sans culottes and i'm like what are these guys right just are

00:53:32.060 we going out in our underoos what's happening and we're in our underpants no okay no pants no kings

00:53:40.200 we're good to go but they were actually like more pants they were maximum pants what i will tell you 0.98

00:53:48.860 is that every revolutionary in the french revolution had a fucking costume going on 0.97

00:53:53.680 there was a uniform and it was wide-legged pants and a big old red white and blue rosette and then 0.99

00:54:00.480 a little red stocking cap like a like a garden gnome it's just like i don't know why you needed 1.00

00:54:06.600 that but they are the french and they're never going to stop being the french there's always

00:54:10.900 going to be an outfit okay no that's great so it's like palazzo pants exactly yeah no capris

00:54:18.760 palazzo's palazzo's only no palaces only palazzo's

00:54:22.880 i'm sorry that was terrible no that's good that's great okay okay so the french revolution

00:54:30.740 begins what what what happens well we're leading up to it this is the the like what drove them

00:54:37.320 towards french revolution starts so what you're telling me is that the french revolution

00:54:40.680 like the american revolution didn't was not a single event that happened on one day

00:54:45.280 alas no that would be much easier to talk about a multi-year situation okay yes and like all

00:54:51.340 conflicts unfortunately it starts with the economy and i'm not going to get into the french economy

00:54:56.120 because i don't care and you don't care the listeners don't care but for context it is a

00:55:02.320 recession things are not going great people are starving the weather is bad it's weird the weather

00:55:08.660 is weird and that affected grain yes um like the farms like because we've talked a bit on the

00:55:15.740 podcast about there's been this like weird it's not the little ice age but it's just like weather

00:55:20.860 has been shitty for like quite a while and that when weather's shitty one year then the farming

00:55:26.120 is bad the next year and then that affects the farming the next year and it's just kind of like

00:55:29.500 there's not there's not a lot of food yeah right and we're also coming off like the seven years

00:55:34.820 war was not that long ago i think there were other wars in between there so like spending has not been

00:55:39.500 very practical and also there's this decadent nobility that's spending all of their money on

00:55:44.300 like Versailles things so basically economy is bad um people are starving things are terrible

00:55:51.680 and um the king king Louis XVI calls the uh assembly of notables in early 1787 which is

00:56:00.360 basically like a gathering of all the rich and important people in France to figure out why the

00:56:04.760 economy is busted and uh Lafayette is invited to this meeting which I can only assume is because

00:56:12.160 king louis the 16th forgot everything he ever knew about lafayette as a person because lafayette is

00:56:17.960 immediately like you know what might fix this problem of representative democracy i think that

00:56:22.860 might help um this did not go over but there were lots of debates it's i'm gonna give you like the

00:56:28.980 highest high level version of this because i don't know but basically the way that like the french

00:56:35.960 government was managed there was the king obviously who was in charge of everything

00:56:41.580 But underneath that, this assembly of notables was basically like three branches of people all sent representatives.

00:56:49.960 And it was like kind of like a half assed parliament that didn't really have a lot of power, but had more broad representation.

00:56:57.260 And the three groups were the clergy, the nobility and everybody who's not the clergy or the nobility.

00:57:04.200 And they all get one vote each.

00:57:08.440 And majority rules.

00:57:09.860 so basically the clergy and the nobility voted together on everything and the common people were

00:57:14.580 just like also there so this was not great i want to say i've seen recently so first of all there was

00:57:22.660 the something astrologically i forget what it is exactly um was happening in that time period and

00:57:29.620 is happening now in our time period as well something um and then also i've seen bar graphs

00:57:36.180 it's great people are sharing people listeners um share memes and things with me often and i

00:57:42.600 appreciate and they've started sharing memes with me about um how the french revolution era is

00:57:49.180 similar to this era and one of the things was showing the difference between the rich and poor

00:57:52.840 on a bar graph is like very similar now to what it was in france at that time just the difference

00:57:58.140 between the like one percent and the everybody else so and the economy is bad and it's just like

00:58:03.940 okay okay familiar familiar yeah um i have this tripartite assembly in my notes as it's the

00:58:10.240 electoral college so basically yeah we're doing all of this again yeah yeah yeah but wildly at

00:58:17.180 this point 1787 instead of teaming up with the rich people the way they always did the clergy

00:58:21.800 said actually we're gonna side with the common people we're going to farm our own assembly

00:58:26.340 it's going to be the national assembly that's more of a populist-based thing and we're gonna try

00:58:31.840 to actually fix things for the common people because this economic crisis is so bad this is

00:58:36.760 surprising to me because the clergy in france i'm imagining jonathan price in the affair of

00:58:42.120 the necklace the movie with all the billowing yeah with the billowing cloaks and the just sort

00:58:47.900 of like um you know bribery and the like yeah like they are very much literally in bed with

00:58:55.480 the nobility and just like you know rich people could pay to not have sins anymore and stuff so

00:59:01.580 so this is this is cool of the clergy surprising to me it is surprising um the nobility does not

00:59:09.120 love this now because they're the one with the one disenfranchised vote are they the ones who

00:59:13.220 everyone else is like tax billionaires and they're like no we're the billionaires yeah exactly

00:59:18.420 yeah and so lafayette my boy uh goes over to the national assembly with the clergy and the

00:59:24.980 common people and he's like this is awesome we're gonna start our own thing um it's this goes on

00:59:30.960 for a while because politics takes fucking forever so this kind of percolates along until 1789

00:59:37.820 when lafayette comes back the national assembly and presents the first draft of the declaration 0.54

00:59:44.700 of the rights of man which he wrote in partnership with thomas j so i wanted to slide in here and say

00:59:54.420 this is the part where um thomas j was in paris sally hemings was there james hemings inventing

01:00:00.680 macaroni and cheese um this is when so lafayette was hanging out with thomas jefferson a lot like

01:00:06.180 coming over to his house and like they're like writing stuff and thomas jefferson is like yeah

01:00:10.320 i'm totally cool with abolition of slavery do do do do do um yeah declaration of the rights of man

01:00:17.440 except for these people that i brought with me to make my mac and cheese who are totally not

01:00:23.020 going to have my children don't worry yeah it's like totally illegal to have slaves in france

01:00:30.620 so these are just my friends the Hemmings siblings anyway so that was that was when this

01:00:36.580 was happening so Sally Hemmings is in France at this very um chaotic time but also she was in the

01:00:43.560 household while Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson are like writing this paperwork and stuff and I think

01:00:47.700 they got out of town shortly after this right didn't Thomas Jefferson look around be like

01:00:51.300 something's bad's gonna happen should we should we skid at all I think there was a really cold

01:00:56.840 winter and there was all this stuff happening and they were like let's go back to virginia now

01:01:01.920 yeah okay they might make it another six months then because it is july 1789 which is um the

01:01:09.860 formal start of the french revolution which is when um they present the declaration of the rights

01:01:16.460 of man at the national assembly everyone's all fired up ready to go and then this this little 0.99

01:01:21.640 bisexual asshole named Camille Desmoulins, who is my other favorite French Revolution person, 1.00

01:01:27.000 says... Is this a man or a woman? This is a man. Named Camille? Yeah. Camille. Okay. The French 1.00

01:01:32.620 love a gender neutral name. Remember Lafayette's first name is Marie. Marie. Okay. So Desmoulins

01:01:38.660 is like, this is all going according to plan. However, I would like to make it more violent

01:01:43.620 and faster because if we present this to the king, we're not going to get fucking anywhere. 0.95

01:01:48.260 so he gets a little citizen army together and they storm the bastille prison and try to break 0.99

01:01:54.760 out all of the political prisoners sort of as a statement that now we run paris and fuck the king 0.99

01:02:00.380 and then things kind of go immediately to shit thereafter this is uh the catorge we a bastille 1.00

01:02:07.860 day like france's independence day was with this asshole being like i want this to happen faster 0.99

01:02:14.160 in with more blood please oh yeah bastille day yeah yeah okay yeah yeah so um lafayette is not 0.98

01:02:20.740 a big fan of this approach surprisingly he was he was all for the write the declaration and get the

01:02:26.420 king to sign off and kind of go through the appropriate channels of power and then we'll be

01:02:30.200 like eventually eventually a constitutional monarchy like that was his end goal and then

01:02:35.800 this started kind of go crazy but he was still in like the national assembly he was still in it and

01:02:41.580 he wanted to sort of steer the ship as carefully as he could to get a liberal outcome without

01:02:48.140 killing that many people so he was named a mandarin chief of the national guard of paris

01:02:55.020 which is the national guard sort of like the citizen police it was like the city cops basically

01:03:01.680 okay and his job was stop people from revolutioning in the streets and like keep things non-violent 0.91

01:03:09.280 and okay which is a terrible fucking job to give a person because this was no one could have done 0.60

01:03:15.440 this job the revolution was going no matter the momentum is there it's happening yeah yes yeah 0.97

01:03:21.500 so like throughout all of this the the national assembly got everybody to sign off on the

01:03:27.640 declaration of the rights of man which would have been like the new constitution and they sent it to 0.97

01:03:31.680 the king and the king was like fuck this no i'm not doing this i am the king i i have a monarchy 0.97

01:03:38.000 for a reason so things just sort of keep getting tenser and worse um until later in go ahead 0.97

01:03:45.520 i was gonna say i've seen um just people posting things on instagram and stuff but one of the

01:03:55.800 phrases that i've seen come up a lot is something along the lines of like

01:03:59.380 you know society doesn't progress like people don't get cultural change like social justice

01:04:06.260 doesn't happen by asking politely like yeah like in all of human history it's always taken a

01:04:11.980 revolution to actually make any change happen so this is lafayette is like oh but if we do the

01:04:17.420 paperwork and ask politely maybe we'll get it's like no you never would the king never would

01:04:21.420 but this is what it took in this instance but it's like pretty extreme

01:04:25.340 and we're gonna leave it there it's a cliffhanger yes like you know when allison is here it's it's

01:04:36.080 not going to be a one-part episode generally. Next week, we're going to be back to learn more

01:04:41.020 about what Lafayette did next. And honestly, the way that this story combines what we talked about

01:04:48.240 in the first part of the series with what's happening in America, the American Revolution

01:04:52.520 with the French Revolution, it just fills in all these gaps. It fills in all these holes.

01:04:57.340 I like the way that this season is kind of starting to really weave itself together as

01:05:02.380 as a as a tapestry of just sort of the people we've talked about are starting to recur like

01:05:07.680 and I'm talking about this for me it's just like because this is a time of period that I've never

01:05:12.400 I've truly never studied before and so just when the people start to overlap with each other I'm

01:05:16.600 like oh that's that person or that's and then it's just it's all kind of building together in

01:05:20.820 the way that I hoped it would and I'm glad it's actually happening as we wander away towards the

01:05:25.500 ultimate goal of telling the story of Marie Antoinette so next week we'll be back with Lafayette

01:05:31.540 part two. And also I have to mention that Alison has a new book that's coming out February 25th.

01:05:40.260 So just a few months from now, it's her third book. It is called Fagin the Thief, and it is

01:05:46.120 a retelling of Oliver Twist. But well, it's like taking the character of Fagin the Thief,

01:05:51.100 who is, I best know from the musical Oliver. He has a lot of showstopping songs. He's a Jewish

01:05:56.900 character living in Victorian London and what Alison has done beautifully in this book, um, as

01:06:03.260 the, all the blurbs on the book say, and all the pre-release reviews are all saying, I haven't read

01:06:08.240 it yet, but I know it's amazing because Alison's books are always amazing, um, is to just kind of

01:06:12.700 refocus and kind of show what was life like for Fagin the thief. Um, anyway, this book comes out

01:06:18.420 in February. You can pre-order it now. Pre-orders are so helpful for authors like Alison because it

01:06:24.380 helps bookstores know that there's enthusiasm for these books so the bookstores know to buy

01:06:27.900 lots of copies and then when bookstores have lots of copies then other people will come in and see

01:06:32.220 them and buy them here's a quote from the one of the blurbs on allison's book fagin the thief does

01:06:39.080 for fagin what wicked did for the wicked witch of the west allison epstein is absolutely at the top

01:06:43.700 of her game that's a quote from the author julia fine anyway you can learn more about allison and

01:06:48.780 um about this book and also links to pre-order allison's book fagin the thief at allison epstein

01:06:54.340 dot com and allison also has of course a substack newsletter dirtbags through the ages

01:07:00.100 lafayette is there but that's kind of like a dirtbag brackets complimentary there's also just

01:07:04.880 some really shitty people there allison talks about it's so funny the puns the amazing puns

01:07:09.600 that she comes up with are just chef's kiss it's it's a real passion project for her um anyway so

01:07:15.520 dirtbags through the ages is allison substack and you can also find them on uh social media at

01:07:20.320 Rep Scallison. And you can also find me and the show on social media. We are on Instagram and

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01:08:26.600 you've ever listened to this podcast and you don't know who I am. I'm writing a book about

01:08:30.140 Caroline of Brunswick. I've been writing it all year. And it's kind of at this point, the only

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01:09:37.060 Who are these goddamn Dukes? 0.99

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01:14:11.460 there probably will be. Anyway, you can get in touch with me using the form at vulgarhistory.com,

01:14:16.160 which sends little emails to me if you have thoughts or feedback or whatever about this

01:14:20.620 season. Are there people who you want to make sure that I know about who are involved in this

01:14:26.240 whole Marie Antoinette situation? Like send me those suggestions as well. Do you live somewhere

01:14:29.880 or have you traveled somewhere where you've seen a plaque or a statue or a reference to any of

01:14:34.840 these people. Very exciting. I love to get pictures from people. I don't travel a lot. And so I like

01:14:39.680 people who do travel to send me pictures of their troubles. Anyway, and next week we'll be back with

01:14:44.580 Lafayette part two. And until then, keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

01:14:49.980 Vulgar History is researched, written, and hosted by Anne Foster. That's me. The editor is Christina 1.00

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Vulgar History - October 16, 2024

French Revolution： Witnesses (part 4)： Lafayette In America

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