Menu
  • Abous us
  • Search database
  • Resources
  • Donate
  • Faq

 

Details:

Lafayette's grave is beside his wife in the back of the cemetery adjacent to the walled off area that contains the two mass graves from victims of the French Revolution's guillotine.


Isolated Burial

Two gravestones, Marquis' wife on the left and Marquis de Lafayette on the right, etched in French text. The gravestones are decorated with different plaques from different organizations or associations. In the middle of the gravestones, from top to bottom, is a cross with the badge of The Society of the Cincinnati on the bottom, followed by the green circle plaque with laurel wreath from the The Raleigh Tavern Society of the Colonial Williamsburgh Foundation, then a smaller green plaque with laurel wreath by First Company Governor's Foot Guard of Hartford , Connecticut are placed. Two bronze plaques on the top right corner of Marquis' gravestone are from the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and The General Henry Knox Museum. Over the gravestones are more several plaques with a standing American flag in the middle that also holds another plaque. The Lafayette graves are enclosed with a low metal boundary gate. Marquis de Lafayette is buried here because his own sister and mother-in-law were victims of The Terror and are buried in the mass grave. He was buried in Picpus cemetery in soil brought back from Bunker Hill in 1825. Originally, Lafayette had planned his burial in soil brought back from each of the twenty-four states he had visited in 1824-1825. Unfortunately, toward the end of his American tour, the steamship Mechanic carrying Lafayette, his entourage, and the soil that Lafayette had collected, sunk in the Ohio River. The next best thing, Lafayette thought, was soil from Bunker Hill. His son, Georges Washington Lafayette, complied with his wish, spreading the American soil over his interred remains, filling his grave. The M. J. P. Y. R. G. D. inscribed on Marquis' gravestone is Marquis' full name, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette.

Other source of information: allthingsliberty.com

Source of images: findagrave.com

Monument Text:

Marquis de Lafayette’s gravestone:

 

M. J. P. R. Y. G. D.

 

LAFAYETTE

 

LIEUTENANT GENERAL MEMBRE DE LA CHAMBRE DES DEPUTES

 

NE A CHAVANIAC HAUTE LOIRE

 

LE VI SEPTEMBRE M DCCLVII

 

MARIE LE XI AVRIL M DCCLXXIV

 

A

 

M. A. F. DE NOAILLES.

 

______

 

Décédé a Paris le xx Mai

 

M DCCCXXVIV

 

______

 

Requiescat in pace

 

English translation:

 

 

M. J. P. R. Y. G. D.

 

LAFAYETTE

 

LIEUTENANT GENERAL MEMBER OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES

 

BORN IN CHAVANIAC, HAUTE LOIRE

 

ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1757

 

MARRIED ON APRIL 9, 1774

 

TO

 

M. A. F. DE NOAILLES.

(Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles)

______

 

Passed away in Paris on May 20

 

1834

 

______

 

Rest in Peace