Georges Washington Louis Gilbert de La Fayette (24 December 1779 – 29 November 1849) was the son of Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, the French officer and hero of the American Revolution, and Adrienne de La Fayette. He was named in honor of George Washington, under whom his father served in the Revolutionary War.
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Early life
La Fayette was born in Paris on Christmas Eve in 1779, while his father was on a one-year return to France. He was christened the next day and named after George Washington, the victorious commanding general of America's Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. The elder Lafayette said the gesture was "a tribute of respect and love for my dear friend."
From 1783, La Fayette grew up in the Hôtel de La Fayette at 183 rue de Bourbon, Paris. Their home was the headquarters of Americans in Paris. Benjamin Franklin, John and Sarah Livingston Jay, and John and Abigail Adams met there every Monday, where they dined with the La Fayette family and with the liberal nobility, including Stanislas Marie Adélaïde, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, Madame de Staël, André Morellet, and Jean-François Marmontel.
In 1789, the French Revolution began. After 10 September 1792, in the wake of the September Massacres, La Fayette went into hiding with his tutor, Félix Frestrel. His mother was put under house arrest and, later, in prison. On 22 July 1794, his great-grandmother, Catherine de Cossé, duchesse de Noailles, his grandmother, Henriette Anne Louise d'Aguesseau, duchesse d'Ayen, and aunt, Anne Jeanne Baptiste Louise, vicomtesse d'Ayen, were guillotined.