>> someone just asked me about putin but i would take a couple of hours to answer that. .. >> of the next laura auricchio recounts the life of marquis de lafayette and the role he played in the american and

french revolutions. this is about one hour. >> okay. i'm tim marshall the provost for the new school and i'm delighted to welcome everyone here for this wonderful event to launch laura auricchio's new book which is right here. [applause] "the marquis: lafayette reconsidered" which came out this month published by knox publishers. this is a research over the course of seven years at a major part of it the tilted personal life from the inside of the passion french hero become of the american revolution of several freshmen over several to watch the kids. there's an intimate depiction summit towering figures of the historical period while also eliminating and explore the new role of the press and

publication the politics of the time. the personal letters of marquis de lafayette which can be found in in the collection of elaborate of congress and at cornell university provides many of the books anecdotes. and now a few words about laura. she is a specialist in 18th century french history and art and she received her undergraduate degree from harvard and a ph.d from columbia university. sheep and recipient of major fellowships from the fulbright foundation, and columbia university. currently sheep serve as dean of the school of undergraduate studies at the new school for public engagement for which i'm extremely grateful. should done an amazing job. and four i close one of the reasons why i accepted her kind invitation to come and open this event is time still miffed that she never gave me a job that i applied for but she knocked me back on was to be her driver

around france is in shadows and councils. i don't think she took me seriously but i thought i was a great gig, and i'm still very disappointed you didn't take me up on the offer but nevertheless congratulations on a wonderful book. it's an incredible piece. i'm sure i'm looking forward to reading it but i just love the fact that it's actually a real heavy book. think that it's not electronic. solo work, keys up. [applause] >> thank you everybody, but especially tim. yes, as i explained to them at the time the reason that the job went to somebody else was it went to a scotsman who promised to wear a kilt as he drove me throughout the countryside, and he did. and when we -- [laughter] and when we stopped at a truck stop at one point in the middle

of the countryside i was the only woman in the truck stop and he was the only one in a skirt. so it made for quite the scene. but thank you. thank you tim. ii am sincerely in that detail in particular for all the support throughout my 12 years here at the new school. i'm also people grateful to the rest of leadership at the new school, david van zandt mary watson, and also today, particularly to pam tillis and brandon visher done a tremendous job of organizing this event, and luis jaramillo, the director of the graduate writing program at the new school with whom we will be in conversation later. i also want to take a moment just to issue a few personal and professional thanks to vicki wilson, my wonderful editor. britney more on jell-o, the wonderful publicist andres salomon the wonderful assistant

to vicki wilson as well as my family, husband and friends and colleagues of all turned out tonight to make a completely full house, which is absolutely flatters me. said let you we're going to be doing this evening the plan is for me to read for just about 15 minutes and then i look forward to speaking with you and with luis about the book at greater length. the book covers the lafayette's entire life which lasted from 1757-1834, so quite a long period of time. and lafayette lived a very tumultuous and exciting life. for that reason the book really focuses primarily on two large episodes of his life the two episodes that really defined him. this was history during the american revolution and during the french revolution. so today i'm going to read again

for no more than 15 minutes from a section about the french revolution. on october 5 1789, alarm bells sounded through the gray paris and on as thousands of market women streamed towards the hotel to the women known to their critics as fish lives wielded pikes and pitchforks as they held heavy cannons across the cobblestones of the town. were lafayette reached the scene later that morning, a national guard had just managed to roust the credit would be arsonist from the government building. the guardsmen strain to stem the people pouring in a long the adjacent streets. incensed by the sorting price of flour which left him unable to feed their families, the women were joined by husbands, brothers and sons, all of whom shouted for bread. a were certain that an

aristocratic plot was at the root of their starvation. to versailles, they clamored as lafayette struggled to prevent the march that was rapidly becoming inevitable. from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. lafayette refused to sanction a march to versailles command forbade the guard's loyalties were beginning to waver from undertaking any such action. back and forth he went alternating between closed-door meetings with elected representatives of the paris commune and high decibel debates with the crowd. convinced an attack on paris was imminent, a young lieutenant from the grenadier's cried out my general, making has fooled us all. you and everyone else. he must be deposed. us to lafayette refused. finally, between four and five, he came to understand any opportunity to prevent a march had passed. and as the intrepid contingents dominated by by women and men armed with knives, types, pics

and pitchforks start pulling cannons towards versailles but in the meantime the weather had grown steadily worse. powerful winds have sprung up at a chilling rain was falling. but the clouds determination showed no signs of flagging. after a command from the paris commune who authorized, even ordered him to transport himself to versailles, lafayette mounted his white horse and took charge of several national guard regiments. together lafayette and his troops accompanied a crowd of some 30,000 armed and angry parisians arranged six abreast on a seven hour trek along 14 miles of dark and muddy roads. according to marie antoinette's lady in waiting news of the national guard has said from paris reach to versailles vatican while the king was hunting about six miles away. and the queen was alone lost and painful thought in her beloved

gardens near the pavilion not far from the spot where lafayette's grandfather have taken a fatal flaw in 1736. the royal household left -- left into action. they set out on horseback to encourage louis the 15th to abandon that this hunt and returned to the palace. a government minister charged with overseeing the king's household sent a letter to marie antoinette urging the royal family to depart immediately to the château some 20 miles southwest. and servants begin packing bags and loading carriages so that the royal family could be whisked to safety. a few carriages were already on the road when an update arrived. the first parisian women were drawing near. versailles had not been designed to withstand a military attack, but now it's limited defenses were mobilized. gates that it stood open for century were folded shut and locked. the flanders regiment assembled

on the rounded plastic front of the château and the swiss guard made ready to stand its ground in the inner courtyard and garden. these and other preparations were in progress when louis the 15th and his entourage returned bearing new orders. a king have passed the parisian women as he made his way back from the hunt, indeed been gratified to hear cries of long live the king, from the crowds. reassured he would be safe at versailles, he called off the move, and worried a show of royal force would cause rather than prevent an escalation of violence he ordered the flanders regiment retired to its barracks. the men dutifully obeyed but as they made their way from their quarters they found itself held with rocks and gunshot. when louis heard the news begin to reconsider his decision but as they put it, the moment to flee was lost. lafayette and an abyss as he

made his way slowly towards versailles to meet a fate i was uncertain at best. as the governor described lafayette marched by compulsion guarded by his own troops who respected and threatened to this was the same lafayette who managed to keep his head up baron hill as the red coats bore down on his attachments from three sides. and now in 1789, he still possessed the composure that answered him so well in 1778. with scores of lives in his hand, not only his own and his companions but also the lives of the royal family, he did everything in his power to ensure a peaceful resolution. with the sound of drums and the flicker of torches heralding his approach lafayette hold the march around 11:00 the assembly hall in versailles. there he administered an oath to remind his troops of their allegiances. the men swore to our nation, the law and the king before continuing on.

while two officers were sent ahead to the château bearing assurances that lafayette came to protect the king and not to oust him, a representative of the king the. to inform lafayette that they saw his coach with pleasure and yet just accepted his declaration of rights. happily everyone was in agreement on one point. they wanted to see a little bloodshed as possible. cries filled the air as lafayette do closer to the palace. long live the king, long live the nation, long live lafayette and liberty shouted the parisians who had been driven by fear and desperation to slog through miles of mud on the road to versailles. leaving his troops off yet approached around midnight company by two civilians representing the paris city government. facing him from the other side of the padlock grow the swiss guard hesitated. wary though they were of lafayette's motives, they admitted him to the courtyard and from there into the château up the stairs and to the very

anti-chamber where he had waited the king in 1774 when he was presented at court. but on this occasion the room was filled with shouts instead of whispers. there's cromwell one cried. the lafayette rejected the comparison to the british general who helped orchestrate the execution of king charles i during the english civil war. mr. lafayette, cromwell would not have entered alone. still the acquisition struck a chord. lafayette knew all too well that with one false move, instead of being a guardian he would have been the usurper. as the marquis remembered the scene, lafayette's voice filled with emotion as he explained to louis the reasoning that compelled him to march. sire i thought it better to come here to die at the feet of your majesty man to die uselessly elsewhere. louis xvi was in no position to

argue. taketh lafayette rerun of versailles. by two in the morning some symbols of order had been established. with the king's guards manning calm inside the palace and national guardsmen patrolling the ground, marie marines when it felt secure enough to go to sleep with for latest station in shares pushed up against the bedroom door. at 4:30 hearing gunshots, they row star. giving the queen no time to dress, they hustled her through a narrow door and down the back passageway towards the king's chamber tossing a petticoat after. as though in a french farce gone grievously awry, the ladies reached the king store only to find it locked. and not inward let him but by then louis was gone. he had taken a more public route to the queen's bedroom at the first sound of alarm. in the adjacent room royal guards faced off against armed citizens while the queen

reunited with their children and retreated to the bedroom. at last an exchange was reached, and calm returned to the château. daybreak found lafayette conferring with the king and queen in their apartment where the parisian troops now fraternized with the royal guardsmen. from the marble courts below, the clamor grew louder and more menacing. the people were calling in angry tones for marie antoinette. at first i got only lafayette who arranges them from the balcony to little effect. he stepped back inside and speaking him with an easy monarch, he brokered another deal. if they came with him to paris as the crowd demanded he would guarantee their safety. they agreed. with that lafayette turned to the queen. come with me. what, alone on the balcony? yes madam, let us go.

together lafayette county murray and when it appeared before the angry crowd. unable to make himself heard lafayette resorted to a gesture that would be later decided by his enemies as a sign of doubledealing. he kissed the hand of the queen. with his galante pantomime lafayette bestowed his blessing on marie antoinette and change the hearts of the people. long live the general. long live the queen. to the sound of cheers, they left the balcony and begin preparing for the journey ahead. at approximately 1:00 in the afternoon of october 6, 1789, the royal family set out from versailles in a carriage. inside, marines went clutched her diamonds. outside lafayette road beside the monarch on in some way towards keeping pace with the coach. 100 carriages followed behind their international assembly deputies while thousands of

exhausted citizens and soldiers joined the historic journey on foot. it was six in the evening before lafayette reached the hotel and quite dark by the time the royal family moved into a rambling suite of hastily evacuated apartments in their new home which stretched along the banks of the river just west of the louvre. they are louis was fit to live by lafayette's rules and under lafayette's authority. on the morning of october 7 lafayette attended what could only have been a very awkward ceremonial event in the king's new gyms. for better or for worse it seemed that louis xvi would always have lafayette at his side. that the march to versailles ended so calmly with nothing short of extraordinary. october 5 had witnessed its chair fatalities. the heads of two royal bodyguards have been transported to paris. large-scale carnage have been avoided, and much of the credit he longed to lafayette.

is an accountability to think clearly under pressure and his unparalleled credibility with the crowd had allowed him to wrest control from him. jackknifed lafayette proved to the world that he deserved his repetitious washington's protégé. but the future would bring challenges that might depend too much for any man. thank you. [applause] >> can we hear this? oh, good. thanks everyone. as we are -- [inaudible] >> laura is sexing her

microphone slips were passed or no cards were passed out before the meeting with pencils. so please write down your questions and then we will collect them and ask them from up here. that was great laura. isn't working now? >> yes. >> excellent. so i was just struck yet again by a detailed that part was that you read and i know that every single bit of that was researched. so i wonder if you could just talk us through some of that research, like especially when lafayette turns to the queen and says come with me to the balcony. >> sure. thank you. and thank you for the question. so yes seven years of research you get a lot of detail. and a good deal of it ends up on the proverbial cutting room

floor, but the trick for me in actually writing this book was because lafayette did live so long, and his life was so full of adventure, the trick was figuring out which episode to focus on and then trying to bring those two light as fully as i could do as much detail as i could. so in some cases a detailed comes from newspapers or journals. in this case that particular piece the detail comes from memoirs of lafayette. there are many different accounts of that same event that were written by many, many different people. and so part of the trick also has been to sort out what seems most incredible and what doesn't. that section seems to be verified by a couple of different people, but it is presented exactly as lafayette

presented. >> when you're writing a book like this do you only put in elements that you verified? >> yes. and one thing when you're dealing with a figure like lafayette, for example, is been come who is so beloved by so many americans and has been so much written about, which find is in the secondary literature you find a lot of untruths or half-truths or partial truths or wishful thinking. all of the above really. so that it becomes i mean i became somewhat obsessive i would say about trying to verify the sources for each one of these anecdotes. >> i was taken by something you post on your facebook account, which was a picture of some building a lafayette college and the laureate says lockyer changed his model to why not? which is a very nice story. so i guess if you could talk over but about just give us

scope of what did his life look like? he came to the united states the colonies when he was 19. and then what did the rest of his life look like? >> or so i think it's important to think about why he came to the colonies when he was 19. it's one of things i think is not this is surely been really sort of fully understood. the fact that he was 19 and the fact that in fact, he had never seen a day of battlefield action before he came your. so it's not as though he was a general who is experienced in which is coming over to share his knowledge. he was also coming to america to reinvent himself in the same way that many millions of americans have before and since, in order to create a new life. the fact that he might want to create a new life is something that seems somewhat surprising, but it turns out that he was actually somewhat of a fish out of water where he was.

he was at versailles but he was married into the court nobility but is someone who came from the provinces, and he came from the very sort of rustic family and he did not have the graces that he needed to succeed in versailles. so we came here and then america found his second chance i say. and here george washington gave him an opportunity to really hone his skills as a military general. and he became a hero both in america and france for his great successes here. he went back to france and as an american hero, and part of his story that i think is so interesting is that in america he was beloved as a frenchman in america. but in france he was always sort of seen as an american in france. so he sort of lived his life almost between two worlds.

during the french revolution that really became apparent when he tried to chart a middle course between the radical republicans on one side, and the people who wanted to create an american sound republic in france it and on the other side the people who supported an absolute monarchy and did not want to give over any power. so he was trying to again chart this middle path ended up having to flee the french revolution for his life when his head was being called for when he fled. he lived for many, many years after the french revolution starts and 78 789. he lives until 1834 and he's involved with many many more episodes, many, many more political events, but none of them ever really compare i think to his moment in the american and french revolution which are the two that really came to

define his life and came to define his very different legacies on the two sides of the atlantic. >> how did you come to lafayette as a subject? >> well, he traveled in the same circles as the artist about whom i wrote my first book. nobody has only heard of her but they should have. because she's a wonderful painter and the metropolitan museum of art has what is probably her masterpiece, a very large self-portrait with two students. she's seated behind with this enormous the photos but anyway, she traveled during the french revolution in the same circles as moderate circle that wanted to reform but not abolish the french monarchy. that got been interested in this area of history because it seemed to me that that middleground has sort of dropped

out of the story. we know about the reign of terror and we know about marie antoinette and let them eat cake and so forth, but we don't really know that there were people in between. my particular approach to lafayette though came, the approach i took in this book really was formed by my interactions with people in france here that the book actually opens with my conversation with a curator at versailles who has very generously devoted a portion of an afternoon to bringing the to see a bust of lafayette. and of course the bust a lafayette does not get any place where anybody would ever actually go in versailles in an out building and to walk across the courtyard and to confine the right key. this is something he had not been asked to do before, to locate the bust of lafayette. so we get to the room and it's a

little dusty because no one has been there in a while. i'm looking at this bust and the curator says in french, why should we have a bust of lafayette? and i thought that maybe my french was faltering so i said hardened? and he said, he said it again but just louder and a little slower. [laughter] and so i started to tell him, naïvely, why we should have a bust of lafayette, that he was a hero. he was not impressed. even gestured to a plaque that was installed a few feet away, and this is a plaque that commemorated the lives of thousands of french soldiers and sailors who have died during the american revolution. and he said look, thousands of men died frenchman died for your revolution and you don't know their names. louis xvi bankrupted the country for the american revolution, and he received his banks from the

guillotine. shamwow led the french forces in america and nobody knows his name. why do you repair lafayette? that got me thinking. and when i started to understand was that lafayette's actions and reputation during the french revolution left him with a victory different legacies there and he has here. so that in france as i alluded to in that section he was really seen as sort of a double dealer. the monarchists, the wireless thought that he was a traitor to his class and nation because he after all, brought a murderous crowd to his door at versailles it at the other hand the republicans, small r republicans in france felt that he was too close to the monarchy, and actually either wanted to stir

up the market or perhaps replace it with himself. so the question of sort of how one man who actually had very similar principles around his entire life could have possibly the ballot to such different reputations is really what motivated me to write the book as i did. >> your story about the man who answered the question after reading it -- >> thank you for mentioning that the so yes i was at lafayette college last week actually the first place i spoke about lafayette two days after the book came out and a man in the audience came up to me afterwards, and it was extremely interesting to he said you know i came here because i was in france this summer, he said i was there for 10 days and it took one of those hop on hop off bus is that you take in paris. and he said as the hop on hop off bus went past the eiffel

tower, they said in a guide on hop on hop off the bus and said, this is the part where the town is situated and this is where lafayette fired on the people during the french revolution. and he sort of had a point to lafayette was the commander of the french national guard which due to a series of very unfortunate circumstances did, in fact, opened fire on a group of people who were clamoring to declare the monarchy abdicated in 1791 to now the man who came to my lecture at lafayette college came to find out if that was true. because it didn't seem to him possible that it could, in fact be true. but it is true and it's evidenced i think of the legacy that lafayette has left in france or two so tremendously different from any vision that we have of him in america.

>> look at the eiffel tower in a different way, too. it's a place it's like kent state happened below the eiffel tower. >> it really was actually. it really was the original kent state, true. the national guard fired on the people. >> how did your training as an art historian inform your writing of this book? >> i think a lot of the detail that you've noticed and to the people of also noticed, a detail that you find these details of what interiors look like, how furniture function and so forth. and i really wanted to i think pay attention to trying to bring to life the visual and material experience of actually being there. so i spent a lot of time driving through the countryside and visiting château's visiting different places and really trying to capture in words. and this is something i think

art historians are trying to do, to sort of translate from the visual to the verbal. so to capture in words and bring to life what a place look like or felt like, or what it might have been like to walk through the grand basis at versailles for example,. >> what was the most or what were some of the really exciting things you found when you are doing this? >> well, there were the dirty pictures. >> and the books will be for sale. [laughter] >> yes. that was one of the more surprising thing spent where did you find this? >> on the internet where one goes for dirty pictures. [laughter] but in this case it was the internet, it was the archives online. they digitized in recent years, they've digitized a large number of their manuscripts and their images. and there is a fair amount of

pornography from the air of the french revolution politically motivated pornography. arena to what is the focus of much of it and that i and that i had not at that event fairly well-written about because marie antoinette was not a popular character. but i did not realize the lafayette was often cast as her hair more than some of these episodes -- paramore. i don't think that i can describe them is i think that we are being taped for tv. but i will just say that some of them are eye opening. [laughter] >> you touched on this a little bit that because -- decide what to put in and not put them. there are still some disposal tidbits and so thousand and four fine like his wife, mother sister and grandmother were

killed. they had her head heads chopped off by the guillotine on the same day. but that's just one little moment. he must've had many moments like that. >> i have to say that when you're reading about and visiting the places of the french revolution, there's so many small details that when you learned about them in history classes, tends to seem like part of the grand sweep of history. but when you read them in personal narratives and you imagine what it might of been like for a woman to watch her daughter and then her mother-in-law executed before her eyes, and then knowing that she herself is going to follow in that path, there's so much that packs into that. in order to make the book a reasonably readable length, you

can't i couldn't find a way to go into great depth. i guess in some cases i hoped that maybe less was more and that simply stating these facts would be powerful enough to convey. i really tried to convey what it must have been like to really live through the tender, which was called the reign of terror at the time by the people who instituted it. that's something that we know what it's like to live with terrorism, and i guess i try to bring some of the details to life to give a sense of what it was like then and maybe something that we can relate to now. >> one thing that comes up often in the book is the issue of money. so lafayette starts off not well off in comparison to the people he's hanging around with, and then he inherits a lot of money

and then he loses a lot of money. did you think about money when you were writing this? >> yeah, a lot. so -- not my own personal money but i did. money actually plays a very large role in it and i think this is part of the american i can mythology of lafayette, is that lafayette bankrupted himself for the american cause. but it's not actually really true. he did clothe and feed district episodes this but that was entirely normal for generals in the 18th century. that's what they did. he bankrupted himself by living beyond his means, as many members of the nobility did in 18th century france. reading through this is one of those things where picking up tidbits the library of congress in d.c. has lafayette archives and these include account books and letters and so forth. one of the most interesting

things to look at was actually looking at his account books and realizing that his own personal expenses were things like his box at the opera, his hair his clothing, his habit of racing the carriages through paris and destroying the axis of his carriages in the process, that these things were actually so over the top that we actually have the letter from the person who kept his books saying excuse me i know that you're interested in becoming rising but the fact is that any economies to be made have got to start with you and you have to start tomorrow. and he says, that is the only way you'll find yourself in that happy state in which a man dies and bequeaths to his children some portion of his fortune. so the accountants had clearly

been sort of lost it with lafayette's expenditures. so all of this to me i share not because i want it all to make fun of lafayette, but really to make you human. i think that's really the point of the whole book and a sense is that when a lafayette as a statue. when the lafayette as a bust. we know him as a hero but before he was a hero and his stature and a bust he was a man and he made mistakes. and a lot of us do and i think that understanding that competition and the come is i think to really appreciating what he did, what he accomplished despite his human flaws. >> one of the characteristics that comes up often is what jefferson called his canine appetite for popularity. also come you could also call it

enthusiasm and then he's also very idealistic which is come when you think about a 19 year-old person, enthusiastic and idealistic and wants to be popular, that paints a very clear picture. it's also his personality that you portrayed throughout his life, too. it gets them into trouble over the course of his life. could you talk about that a bit? >> sure. lafayette comes to the thomas jefferson did, in fact, say that this was lafayette's greatest flaw, as his canine appetite for popularity. he really wanted to be liked and loved, and it was actually very important to him as a was too many people i think that this class and status in that period. his reputation was very important to him but it was important not only that a make a difference in the world but also that he be remembered for having made a difference in the world. and that sometimes he pursued in ways that backfired.

but on the whole i think it was actually a pretty noble desire ultimately that fueled it. i think he did want to be popular just for the sake of being popular, but i think he wanted to be popular because he had read the great books of greek and latin history and he had learned to emulate the heroes of antiquity. and he envisioned himself in, he was aware of the historic circumstances in which he lived, and he envisioned himself as taking the place in coming down to us through history, as he did. >> and then he was also very influenced by the ideas of the enlightenment. and where did he get those i just? >> it's actually interesting. he was born in as i said and the rural countryside, and originally he was really raised

on most an education that consisted of slightly overblown tales of his ancestors glory. some of these tales turned out to be less glorious. for example, he had an uncle who died young because during a war because he captured a soldier and put them on the back of his horse in the saddle behind him but he neglected to confiscate begun before he did that. so he was ready to go on these tales of military glory but he then went to paris to be educated. when he came into money. he was sent to paris to be educated and he attended schools that were really confused with enlightenment ideals. and he was very much influenced by this image of that influenced jefferson and washington and madison and monroe. he was someone who read all of

the documents that they had read, and then he read their documents. and then he went on to craft foundational documents for france to the declaration of the rights of man that were based on american documents and/or written really in dialogue literally with jefferson. we have copies of them. this is again the kind of strange thing you discover when you spend 10 years seven years weeding through these things. with documents of lafayette's draft with jefferson's handwriting. he took some of jefferson ideas and ignored others, but yes, he was very, very much a man of the french enlightenment. >> that's funny, that answers the first question we have from the audience. >> excellent. well done. >> here's another question from the ideas. do you think your book and the research you did will change how the french think of lafayette? >> no. [laughter] >> sorry. [laughter]

>> talk about turning to historical and biographical details into a narrative. >> is joe salvatori or? is that your question? [inaudible] i know my audience. say that again, talk about turning speed is historical and biographical detail into a narrative. >> that was one of the most i have to say the free that was one of the most challenging but also one of the most fun parts of writing this book. as an academic as a trained art historian, you're trained to care for slightly less about narratives. you were trained to give the facts and just the facts. and the fact is that nobody wants to read just the facts. so i actually took this opportunity since i was fortunate enough to be able to be writing for a trade publishing house. i was delighted to have the opportunity to actually write the book that i thought people might want to read. that i might want to read.

and that took all of these seemingly dry and potentially uninteresting details and really turned them into i was out of the, tapestry through which you can really start to understand the look and the feel of the place. to which i hope to try to help people to understand or to imagine what it might have been like to be lafayette are to be one of the people in lafayette circle although they were living so long ago but their lives are really very like ours in very many ways. it's different but also the same. so i really tried to bring those details together with the goal of sort of putting flesh on those statues. >> successfully. >> thank you. >> what contemporary political figures would you compare lafayette -- to what contemporary political figure? >> do we have any moderates

left? [laughter] he would be a moderate. a rockefeller republican. >> okay. but no. [laughter] >> what is your favorite memory our episode from the experience of writing this book? >> my favorite memory? aside from the scotsman in the truck stop, i think that my favorite moment was actually probably that which i recount at the very end of the book in an author's note in which i attempt to go and visit lafayette's grave in paris over which an american flag flies. lafayette's grave in pairs as you might imagine this and everything that i've already said is not a big tourist attraction. it's open for a few hours the

week when the custodian is home maybe. so needless to say i arrived on the day or a moment when the custodian was not home. so i found myself wandering aimlessly, and there was a chapel and i went in. and i sat down, and that's actually where i found myself looking at the walls, and that's where i discovered in grade in the walls in the marble judgment engraved -- the names and occupations and date of death and order of death everybody was executed on that one side one particular site in pairs. it turned out that they were all buried there but it was a mass grave and that's why lafayette is buried there. while i was looking at this wall and really thinking about this a 19 mean. i -- a non-gaming. i had this wonderful conversation with his wonderful

sister with him i spoke about this question of well, why do you think it is that lafayette is a hero in america and not in france? there was something, and her conclusion was basically that lafayette is a complicated figure, and the french revolution was a complicated time, and people don't like complicated stories and people don't like to remember the french revolution in its whole complexity. but there was something about that moment. it places a nice bookend to my experience, because the book starts where i started with this conversation with the curator at versailles, why does lafayette why should we have a bust of lafayette? then it ended with my turning the question around to a french sister and saying, why don't you have a bust of lafayette? there was something about those two modes that were really sort of beautiful to me.

>> you really take on the complexity of his life very well. one thing that stuck out to me it's a question i had at the very beginning was when is slavery going to rear its head? you take it on. could we talk about the? >> sure. slavery appears, the very first appearance and makes is in 1777 when lafayette arrives in south carolina. his ship is actually lost and the land and they are actually greeted by 4 enslavement are out fishing at that moment. so lafayette's very first encounter with anyone in america is actually with the slaves. he becomes an abolitionist and becomes a very active member of the abolitionist movement. and, in fact he even goes so far as to attempt an experiment

in gradual emancipation of slaves. this part really tied me up in knots as i think it tied him up because what he did was he purchased the plantation in french guiana and he purchased the slaves on the plantation, he purchased them with the intention of freeing the slaves. but when the french revolution game and all of his property was seized, the slaves were also seized as his property. so that he had purchased the plantation and the slaves intending to free them, but then he didn't. and the complexity of that kind of moral situation, i mean i think that takes up only a small portion of the narrative but it was probably the hardest part for me to write. because it was the single most

complex and morally difficult. >> this is a totally different topic. question from the audience but could you talk a lafayette's relationship with napoleon? he had liberated from austria after five years in prison. >> yet. so napoleon did have lafayette a liberated but only under extreme pressure from international governments. and from popular opinion around the world. went i think that lafayette liberator was his wife who was very very clever. and when lafayette was imprisoned, at a certain point once it became apparent that his wife was going to be able to survive the revolution, she took herself and her two daughters to the door of the prison in austria and said to the austrian

authorities, if you're going to keep my husband he will have to keep us, too. and they let her end but it became a cause célèbre throughout the world that the austrians were keeping three innocent women imprisoned, and he became a story that really circular in images and poems, debated in the house of parliament in england. and it really placed pressure on the polling to do something about getting lafayette out. that said napoleon had no love lost for lafayette. and he actually brokered a deal with lafayette's wife in 1799. the ball in brokered a deal in which he said, okay he can come back but he can't come anywhere near paris. he has to stay at a distance of some 35 miles around paris, because napoleon did not want to have a rival general around making trouble.

so for 15 years during the napoleonic era, lafayette we lived a very life of tremendous retirement the he created his own farm at his wife's family estate, and he really i think try to re-create their a george washington's mount vernon. so he created a farm that was an experimental farm becomes a place for agricultural improvements and he saw this as a way of contributing to the betterment of french peasantry by helping them to experiment with and learn about new and better ways of growing and harvesting their crops. so yeah, napoleon was really not a fan. >> just beside the. i love the kids names.

george washington lafayette is one of his kids but another one is virginia lafayette and after virginia. to the others have american and? >> those were the only two born after the american episode but there's a great quote benjamin franklin where for benjamin franklin lived in paris at the same time and they were quite friendly, lafayette nt, and benjamin franklin when he heard that lafayette had named a daughter virginia franklin wrote to him and it also got into the papers i think it was probably franklin who got into the papers, but he wrote sort of the quipping letter to lafayette saying that he hoped he and mrs. loft it would have 13 children so they could name one for each of the colonies. [laughter] but he also said that he did sort of feel sorry for ms. connecticut. [laughter] who might have to go go to life with a rather difficult name. >> so to go back to america.

you think america would've lost the revolution were without -- >> yes spent would have lost without lafayette. why? >> the americans really, i believe, that we won the revolution were in large part takes to french support, both naval and ground support from france. and that french support before lafayette, the french government had, in fact been very quietly sending guns and ammunition and a few engineers here and there to the american side but france did not want to come out in favor of the americans because they wanted to maintain the appearance of neutrality with great britain but they just ended a seven years war or the french and indian war with great britain and they want to maintain an appearance of neutrality with britain. so they did not at all want to come out publicly in support of

the americans. when lafayette left france, he did so with quite -- he made quite a splash when he left france and he made it sort of impossible for the french government to look the other way over to attend that they were not supporting the american cause. so anyway i think that lafayette really forced the french government out into the open with his support of america, and that in turn led to the support that led to the winning of the war. >> so just to finish things off what is your favorite story of a lafayette? >> what is my favorite story about lafayette? there are so many good ones. i think it's the one involving the great peonies dogs. -- pyrenees. because he was very active. so during this period of time when he was enacted in french politics and development after

that, he kept in constant contact with americans. and he was constantly exchanging things with americans. he was exchanging animals. he was exchanging plants. he was exchanging innovations in technology and so forth, and my favorite letter i think i've ever come across in this research was from a baltimore farmer who said, i have just received from the general lafayette 4 puppies of enormous size. [laughter] from the pyrenees region of france. and as a dog lover i love the image of lafayette with this great pyrenees doc fix i think that's my favorite. >> thank you so much. there are books for sale. it's a really great book you must buy it and read to you and those which were about the american revolution and the french revolution. thank you, laura. >> thank you luis. and thank you, everybody.

[applause] >> every weekend booktv offers -- offers program focus on nonfiction authors and books. keep watching for more here on c-span2 and watch any of our past programs online at booktv.org. >> rebecca frankel is the author of war dogs, tales of canine here with some. history and love. what's on the cover of your book? >> this is a handler and his dog and doing a training exercise permissions that they might have in afghanistan are a rock which does include the drop from a helicopter. >> what sport you to write about war dogs because i've always loved dogs and animals but my

job in foreign policy, i've been writing about the right for as long as it's been going on and tom loves dogs so as i was looking at photos come in off the water i saw this one for that sort of stood out from the ones that were did in afghanistan but it's because it was of these marines and the bomb sniffing dogs but everyone looked happy. a very stark contrast to hearing rpg blast that you see in the unfortunate photos that are more gory of civilians and servicemen and women with injuries. tom suggested we partner in a friday post edited out for about four years and then it turned into the book. >> how many dogs are used in the military? what's the cost of training one? >> the cost varies. and it varies beginning with how special the dog is but the breeders that the military gets the dog from our in your. special forces dogs are little bit more expensive as to the pedigree and train is all of it

more intense, we can say that. but they can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 depending, and the time and energy that invested in them after that. >> one thing that surprised you about what they learned? >> there's a lot of things actually because i think i realized we know dogs are incredible. if you have a dog at home you kind of understand the comedic asian between you and your dog is just there. they sort of understand what we say to them. but the intensity and sort of the focus they have on their handlers is multiplied in a lot of ways. their sense of smell is incredible. they have 200 million set receptors in their nose to we only have 5 million set receptors in our nose. the hearing and eyesight is better. they are incredible capability that we cultivated over the years but they also offer the other things, the companionship

the company. they do a lot. ..