Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), soldier and statesman, was a lifelong supporter of liberty in America, beginning in 1777 when he was a volunteer in the Continental army under George Washington. He led an assault by American light infantry during the seige of Yorktown in 1781 and continued to support American interests in France while TJ was minister there. Lafayette was head of the Paris National Guard, 1789–91, and imprisoned from 1792–97 in Austria for his support of a constitutional monarchy in France. He spent most of the remainder of his life at Château La Grange forty miles east of Paris, where he provided a haven for European revolutionaries. Having lost his fortune during the Revolution, Lafayette declined TJ’s offer of the governorship of the Louisiana Territory but did solicit his aid in securing 11,520 acres of Louisiana land promised him by the United States Congress as recompense for his service during the American Revolution. His correspondence with TJ after 1804 frequently related to his desire to sell this land to repay his debts. At the invitation of President James Monroe, Lafayette toured widely in America in 1824–25. During this trip he was hailed as a hero, visited Monticello and, partly at TJ’s urging, received a gift of $200,000 and an additional land grant from Congress (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Gilbert Chinard, The Letters of Lafayette and Jefferson [1929]; Stanley J. Idzerda and others, eds., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 5 vols. [1977–83]; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States . . . 1789 to March 3, 1845, 1855–56, 8 vols. description ends , 2:236–7, 306, 4:320 [3 Mar. 1803, 27 Mar. 1804, 28 Dec. 1824]; Paul V. Lutz, “Lafayette’s Louisiana Estate: The Unusual Dealings between the Marquis and Three Wealthy Englishmen,” Louisiana Studies 6 [1967]: 333–60).