Transcripts For CSPAN3 Mike Duncan Hero Of Two Worlds - The Marquis De Lafayette In The Age Of... 20221018

Welcome. I run events here at the strand. Before we move on to a discussion of mike duncans new book, a hero of two worlds. Id like to share some history. The strand was founded in 1927 by benjamin bass over at fort avenues book road, stretching from union square to asked replace before after 94 years the strand is the sole survivor now run by Third Generation owner. We want to thank all of you for your support. Without our Loyal Community of book lovers, authors, like mike and alexis, we wouldnt be here today and we are so appreciative of all of you. Mike duncan for a hero of two worlds, the marquee of lafayette in the age of revolution. Mike duncan is one of the most Popular History podcasters in the world and the author of the New York Times bestselling book, the storm for the storm. His Award Winning series remains a legendary landmark in the history of podcasting. Duncans ongoing series, revolutions, explores the great political revolutions that have driven the course of modern history. Joining mike in conversation tonight is alexis co, he is a president ial historian and the New York Times best selling author of, you never forget your first, a biography of George Washington now out on paperback. And a murder in memphis, soon to be a major motion picture. Alexis was a consulting producer on, and appeared in good winds washington series on the history channel, and she regularly appears on msnbc, and cnn. She has contributed to the new yorker, the New York Times, and many others. And so, without further ado, please joining me in welcoming mike and alexis to the stage hello hi hello first of all, congratulations to mike for this new book. Which, i know all of you have picked up because you are here tonight. But, if i can encourage you to overspend, i would recommend buying a second copy, or getting it from your library because one of the most rewarding things that i heard having also written a book on someone who was a part of the American Revolution, is that books on this topic can enable you to talk to family members, and friends, and other people who you have not been able to connect with on american history. I really find it to be a totally enriching i joined a family book recently, and so i am pushing everyone. I want to say to mike, congratulations on the book. But, also, congratulations on finding one of the very few rich and problematic white men. It is nearly impossible, so lets just start out with well done, good choice. God bless you, for having it mostly right. But i think that is the thing, not only did he have it mostly, right but he didnt die for having it mostly right. So, he is not a martyr, and he also have not disappeared into oblivion because he held these beliefs. I do not know what that is like, because i have written, as was reviewed, i have written about a murderer, and i have written about washington who is not an uncomplicated figure when you say hero. So whats that like to study someone who, it is almost like you have to pull back a little bit. Yes, i mean, in the course of doing both the history of rome and revolutions, i have met many, many different kinds of people, right . Julius cesar, augustas, these guys they are great men in the capital g, capital m trademark mode. But also did horrific things. And were able to be personally cruelty even close family members, and addition to committing acts of genocide as they were running around being capital g, capital m, great men. I have written about napoleon. So, one of the things that sort of lowkey drove me to him, is that he seemed more like a good man than a great man, right . People have asked me this before, is he a great man . Have you written a great man biography . I feel like he wrote a good man biography. He never got to that supreme level that even washington, or napoleon got to, or his contemporaries got, to because he did not quite have that really ruthless street and him to be like sociopathic, or narcissistic, or so blind to the damage that he was causing by his actions that he could go out and do the kinds of things that are required to make your mark in history. So he made his mark in history, he is heavily involved in so many really, really important events. I think he was a transformative figure. But, along the way, he was mostly a good person who is trying to make the world he lived in a better place. I think that was one of my thoughts about him going into it, that was more or less confirmed as i went through the details. There is stuff in there where i was like, oh man you should not have done that. But, i think in the main, he comes up very, very well from a detailed accounting of his life. And that is an important distinction. When people go really far into the great man history, it is often because they feel a defensiveness, and that is not something that i ever felt when i was reading this book. When you experienced something that was disappointing, you just delivered it straight. You are not apologizing, what was your relationship like with him over the years . You spent so much time with this person. He is my friend. At this point, you know. I heard once before, before i sat down to write a biography, someone said if you write a biography you either and updating your subject, or loving your subject. That is the two things that happened. I dont know how true that is, but if it is one or the other, i definitely skew on the side of, i basically like spending time with this guy. I have read so much of his correspondents, so much of the things that were said about him by people that were close to him, by people that were far away from him. He himself had a self deprecating sense of humor, he wanted to be taken seriously, but at the same time never took himself too seriously. He was willing to have a little bit of humility, and admit his own mistakes. I think that him having that personality, and him having that character made it very easy to just, describe the good things about him, and describe the bad things about. Him i think honestly, if he read the book that i wrote, the things that i said, this right here i am not sure that you should have done this, this is a sad ending to this story. I feel that myself, because nobody is going to be completely perfect. I have not read let my life mistake free. People would find things that are like, oh, mike really . I think that is what it is. My relationship is, i spent so much time with him for three and a half years that i am not sick of him, i still enjoy reading about him, i still enjoy talking about him, i love talking about this book. There is something that makes him an appealing person that was very present in his life at the time. I think just has continued on throughout the years. I think, they do stay with you. It is like what i imagine it is like to send a child off to college. They are all in the world, you saw them living their lives, they look happy, they are meeting you people, but you do not stop thinking about them. You dont stop even evolving in your thinking about them. That is what is really interesting. Something else i really liked that you, you know, i dont want to speak for you, but i dont think you consciously followed, or try to partake these rules of biography when it comes to these great men. It seems like you just naturally told the story, so you allowed yourself this freedom to engage with them as an actual person. A person in history, but a person nonetheless who was once 18, and no one wants to share their letters and diaries from when they were teens. Right, lafayette as a teenager is great. It is one of my favorite moments. I would love to write a sitcom about lafayette as a teenager. But, continue on. I was saying, we are going to get back to that, hold that thought. I was thinking that you often sort of will use these metaphors and analogies that you do not find in traditional biographies. People notice, right . There were moments like, i called the revolution in washington pregnancy, and then he had to take the baby to term, and he had to make sure that the baby had lived to survive on its own, and that is why they had to serve as president. You gave into that two. Did not just come natural to you, or did you think, it has always been described this, way but it really seems to me to be more accessible, and make more sense in this other way . When i sat down to write it. I did want to not just make it a sort of how would i put this at the time i didnt want to write a social studies report about the lafayette. That is when i was actively avoiding trying to do. Was just deliver a social studies report about lafayette, that did the work, and engage the facts, and analyze his place in history, and then just sort of leave it at that. I have gotten a lot out of biographies that have been written written in that style, when i was trying to do, i did want to give it a little more of a literary quality, and aim for metaphors and aim for ways of describing things, or trying to turn phrases that you would expect to find, like an oval, or in Something Like that. A lot of places i went to her inspiration, there were a lot of things that i was trying to grab. There are these kind of gentlemen biographies that come out of the 19 tens, and the 1920s. I read this one about who was one of the spanish American Revolutionaries, and it was by this guy who was a sometimes adventurer, a big game hunter slash member of parliament, slash navigator who also wrote books on the side, and the way that some of their language was used in those books, it was like i kind of like, this im not going to appropriate your attitudes necessarily but the language and the way that you are using language, i thought was very lively and interesting. I tried to bring that into the book. I think i succeeded for the most part in what i was attempting to do. I dont think it is a social studies report about lafayette. Definitely not. Wouldnt that be fun if that was a requirement of our social studies . So, now obviously we need to hear a little bit about lafayette as a teen i suggest that you write it is called the guillotines of course it is. Dont worry, it exists. Beautiful, beautiful. John quincy adams, having all his advantages neera, trying to secure loans. Give us his story. Lafayette his back story is that hes this rustic noble and a rich orphan who grew up in what is the equivalent of the sticks. He was a lord and lived in the manner house of a small village. But he is from this small village, even today not a particularly populated part of france. He moved to paris and winds up marrying into one of the richest and most powerful families in france. They are basically second only to the bourbon dynasty, the royal family themselves, in terms of wealth and power. And lafayette enters this world and he just doesnt quite fit in. And so he clearly went through a growth spurt where he was physically awkward and he was kind of a bigger guy. He comes into this world and he has to hang with, basically, the rich kid group. This is a tale we are familiar with. Somebody who has come into some rich high school. And hes gone to hang out with the captain of the football and the jocks and head hang out with a head cheerleader and he is really just not able to do it. When he gets drunk, he gets kind of falling down drunk. And he becomes the butt of peoples jokes. And there is definitely a moment in there that is reported from a couple of sources we are he does dance with maria internet and steps on her feet a couple of times. And shes just laughing at him. So he becomes this awkward laughing stock. And this is the super rich, super powerful teenagers they are kind of the same wherever you find them. The meanness that goes along with that, the jives and the gossip and trying to take him down. All of that existed. It is part of what moves him out of that scene, because of how uncomfortable he was. And its very strange that when he finally feels comfortable, he is in some crummy tenth in valley forge, thats where he as a person finally begins to feel comfortable, even though he was probably living in probably the most comfortable place on earth, versailles in the 18th century. And he just didnt like there. Its interesting, you bring up that washington and lafayette were good friends. Lafayette, of course, named one of his sons George Washington and lived with washington for a while. Sometimes, though, they are so different, right . He talked about lafayette losing himself in public. At the same time, they have so much their thoughts on slavery, which i want to get to, they are different. Right. But they do have a lot in common. Found love in their partners. And also felt most at home in these incredibly uncomfortable situations. Yeah. Thats something that i do think is true of both of them. Because by the time they get together, i mean, washington, he does marry into money. And washington grew up there used to being in a rustic setting. He was comfortable trumping through woods and comfortable and during the hardships of nature. All of the stuff that he was up to as a young militia officer, sort of before and after the french and indian war, which we in europe would call the seven yearswar. But they both and lafayette had that as well. Because he grew up trumping around in the woods. And trumping around in the hills and forests. And both of them had a physical endurance and an ability and a willingness and desire to put themselves in difficult circumstances and endure them. So even though washington winds up one of the richest people in the colonies, hes living in this plantation, and if he wanted to, washington could have spent his life enormously pampered. The same is true for a lot of lafayette. He could have been enormously pampered. Neither one of them quite ever wanted that. They wanted to go out on campaign. They preferred to be like, well, its 20 below, but im going to stand here in my coat and endure this. Even though washington did it with incredible stoicism, or at least his projected stoicism, and lafayette was never quite able to project that same level of stoicism, he still enjoyed being able to prove he can do all of the stuff. He maybe could not keep up guzzling wine with french aristocrats. But he could act salute lee keep up with a frozen winter in valley forge. And he did not ever complain about it. Thats a true thing about him. I think that he was much more comfortable enduring hardship than he was just sort of kicking around in a life of pleasure, which i think is probably mostly to do with washington as well. At least the things that they kept aiming for always put them in a world of hardship. Absolutely, absolutely. Washington was more i think because they both needed money but lafayette had a bit more of the perks. And washington felt it was denied him. Oh yeah. And so he was invested in his home. And also when your wealth is invested in people, its a whole different story. But before we go there again, another thing they have in common is, you call them a hero, no one is going to totally debate that with washington. Lets say he was a hero. But they are not considered great statesman. They are not considered great thinkers. They are sort of their contribution was to be born during the right time for their particular inclinations. And that they went hard. That sort of what they are known for. I push back against that in my biography of washington because i feel like he is completely ruled by the court of public opinion. Its so important to him during the revolution. Hes actively thinking about setting up america as a country, to enter the scene and look stable. He is inventive. He is a quick thinker. I would argue hes a little better at all that then maybe he would be on the battlefield. Did you think that thats an unfair rap that lafayette gets as well . Yeah. In the sense that, well, you know, lafayette and washington as well were surrounded by some pretty genius level people. Like, is washington an intellect compared to Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson . No. But that does not make George Washington, like, a tree stump, when it comes to his intellectual capacity. I think the same is true for lafayette. When you talk about the people who were running around late 18th century france, which is the this is the enlightenment. These are some world historical geniuses that are operating on a very high intellectual level. And i think it is true that lafayette is not, you know, hanging up there with condor, say. Or with well, maribel was kind of a bleep artist. Maybe not near rebel. I dont think that means then that he was then a dunce or that he constantly made mistakes. Or that he was in over his head i push back against the notion that lafayette was in over his head. Thats something that people say about him. Was he in a situation was where anyone would be in over his head . Yes, he was trying to accomplish something and we will move over to the french revolution now but he is trying to maintain order in revolutionary paris in 1789, when there are very few people who actually could have done that job and not wound up being ejected from the revolution the way that lafayette was. So, i think that lafayette was a very bright guy, unable guy. He was very aware of public symbols. Public perception of him. Of how to present stuff. And lafayette is also underrated. Because he gives the try color, the try color cockade, the uniforms of the National Guard. All these things that then become the permanent symbols of revolution. Lafayette is the one who gives this to everybody. So clearly he knew something was going on. And so, like, the thing that i will finish by saying about this is he doesnt write any great treaties. He doesnt write any great books. But he mostly succeeded at what he was trying to accomplish. And that cannot be said for most of the people he was. Around french person. Some french people are i know i love a period drama. I will [inaudible] oh yeah. I will find something to engage with and find something to enjoy even if i think it is there. But is it a little bit hard that with the popularity of lafayette, also comes Lin Manuel Mirandas conception of him as this kind of lusty frenchman with a jfk, a jfk frenchman . Yeah. Break that down for us. What would you tell us to be wary of . The thing about hamilton, when it came time for us to pitch the biography of lafayette, the fact that hamilton existed, it made it easy for people. The fact that the show existed, that it was such a cultural phenomenon, that it brings these people out into the forefront, that when i would walk around and say, i would say im writing a biography of lafayette, instead of saying, oh, who is that . A lot of them would say, oh, lafayette, hamilton, i love that guy. So that makes me a biographer and still does. And so it isnt over the top exaggeration of what a french teenager would be acting like. But i have to tell, you a lot of this did not make it into the book because i was trying to root through his whole life instead of just his exploits in the United States. Lafayette did very well for himself in the United States. Lafayette was a the royal 19 year old, 20 year old, who was very far away from his wife. He was not particularly faithful to audrey during the american war of independence. There are lots of little anecdotes about him, you know he is at some boarding house and he comes down the stairs and, you know, somebody is, well, how did you sleep . And he says, well, her bed was a bit short. Stuff like that. He gets called out, and almost gets captured by general how, and he is in bed with a local, probably, prostitute, is what he is doing at that point. So yes, lafayette did quite well. He enjoyed his time in the United States as a dashing french officer and made the most of it. So is whats going on in hamilton completely made up . Was he some sort of reserved, like, im super faithful to my know he was a french teenager who looked awfully sharp in a uniform and he knew it. Probably not far from it. Yeah, he is awfully often described as a clothes horse. He liked buying when he got into frivolous spending, the big thing he would frivolously spend on was his clothing. So he then that, he didnt look like the joker. But he looked good. Thats the thing we should emphasize that while they loved being in their tents in the wilds of the ohio, they very much loved to look good. Yes. And washington loved this black velvet suit. They were always bringing up bills. And you mentioned something that i think is important, that surprises people, both of them were very into designing military uniforms. Into those details. The sartorial inclinations were not limited to their leisure wear. But their biggest difference, of course, was that they had their own stories. And washington, i dont think, he was ever unfaithful. Theres been a suggestion that it was unlikely. Lafayette is what so many president ial biographers and president ial homes want their subject to be. He talked about things and did them. He actually evolved over time the more he learned, the more he interacted with the world. He wasnt perfect. He wasnt an angel. As we have reviewed. But in all kinds of ways, lafayette, his claims tend to match his actions. So talk to me about his evolution. This yeah, this is probably one of the things that i change the most in my thinking about him before i went into the book and then as i was researching the book. Because, the thing that is said about lafayette, especially in his later years as people start to do retrospectives of his life, but the thing about lafayette that was consistent is that he started to believe at the beginning of his life and then he just talk with it his entire life. It is true that he identified with this word and this concept of liberty. We always associate him with that. And that is consistent. But as i was reading him, i watched him change several times. I watched him adapt several times. And it was often because he had this sort of north star of this concept of liberty and this concept of equality. But he didnt start his life as an abolitionist. That is something that we want him. He didnt start his life believing in democracy. And for most of his life, he is not really an out and out small the democrat. By the end of his life, by 1833, he is giving speeches about how, like, just because i am rich does not mean i should be allowed to vote. And at every step of his career, he is always looking at whatever the status quo is. Right . And at any given year and place and time he is looking at the status quo and trying to figure out what he can make better. Like, what can we reform . What can we improve on . He was never going to just sink in i contrast this when i get to the end of the book, with francois, who is, for us, an obscure french politician but was quite a major figure in french history who had a rigid idea of what things needed to be and he did not want to go further than that. Lafayette was always ready to change and evolve and grow. And that was something that was consistent about him in his whole life. The knock on him was that he had this one idea when he was 19 years old and stuck with it for the next 60 years is not something i actually encountered in the human being i ended up studying. It is just its this lazy defense where its funny, they think, they want to think this man was destined to do this. And denies them all this interesting work. And the complexity, it is not a liability. It just makes for a great read and a lot of lessons. Yeah. And when lafayette was developing as an early abolitionist, like, in the early 1780s, there is a moment when he is writing to john adams, the ambassador to great britain, saying that work in abolitionist literature was most advanced he was saying, please send me a crate of books, please send me every book that has ever been written on the emancipation of the slaves because i want to read them all because i have the suspicion in the back of my head that maybe slavery is not actually compatible with liberty. But i need to learn more about it. And so he does. And this is something that he does for the rest of his life. He, at the same time, you know, remains close with washington for the rest of washingtons life. He goes to mount vernon. The only times i have found accounts of washington getting drunken going around mount vernon late at night is with lafayette. Yeah. [laughs] hes define, juan the good friend. And lafayette spent a lot of time talking to washington about slavery. This is at the forced labor camp. He owned hundreds of people. His longest occupation was being a master, almost his entire life. And lafayette would write to him and say, my dear friend, what if i go in with you and what it could look like for america if we had this example . Maybe we will go hasse on some property and lieutenant farming. And washington writes, back you are so sweet, i love you, your such a good person, lets talk about this when you visit in the next five to ten years. Totally. Literally nothing happened. How did lafayette reconcile this great love and adoration he had for washington with whats john brown would call crippling disappointment . Yeah. It wasnt a deal breaker. But how much did he struggle . I think his relationship with those like, not just washington, who is obviously the closest. Washington is the most powerful e president. The most powerful presence in lafayette life, someone he is going to try to emulate for his entire life and ive actually written in the book when it comes out that lafayette is always trying to emulate washington in every way. But in this case, washington should have been emulating lafayette. Right . In this instance, lafayette has it right. He is trying to do the right thing and washington is the one who is thinking back and actually not following through on his moral duty as a human being. And this is true of his very Close Friends with jefferson. Hes going to be Close Friends with madison, with james monroe. And its one of those things where, you know, youve gone through a lot with people and you do form these very close connections that then you are thinking go off in a different direction. And lafayette spent his whole life thinking that his friendship with his people, hoping that this would convince them to change their ways. He didnt do the thing where he is like, i dont believe slavery is right, and therefore i can no longer be associated with you and no longer be your friend. He never did that. And i think some people could reasonably criticize him for that. Like, you gave your pitch. Slavery is an evil in the world. And then when they said no, you just kept going to their house and hanging out with them and treating them like everything is fine. But the thing we are getting from lafayette though, and this is true of all of them, they would say, yes, you are obviously a great person for suggesting that we end slavery. And we all know that slavery is bet. We hope that in ten, 15, 20 years, it will naturally go away. We cant do it right now, it will be too disruptive. But down the road, yes, we are all aiming in the same direction. And i think that lafayette he can be naive about the United States. And naive about the direction things were headed. And he believed about the country the same thing he believed about his friends. There were something wrapped up in the ideals of the country, that there was something in his, mind these principles of liberty and equality that it was moving in this direction even though they were not moving as fast as he would have liked. Ultimately, i will keep pushing them, i will suggest it, i will not rocked about too much. Because they are my friends and i dont want my friendship to fall apart. But then they will get there eventually. And the thing is, in none of their lifetimes, they actually get there eventually. So you look back and you are like, well, they never did it. They kept saying they would, they kept saying you are a great guy for suggesting it. They kept hearing you out. He kept bringing it up and they werent like, dude, shut up. This is how i make a living. And i dont think its that big of a deal. And your are copying about it. They just maintain those relationships. I think thats a fair criticism, if someone wants to make it. But i just think it comes from a place of a slight lowgrade naivete about both they are entrenched economic interest and the social, political and economic reality of the United States at the time. Yeah. Im going to have to turn to questions soon. Im afraid i have to share a mic with the audience. But you hand to kranz. I did. You had to research this. Which means that you know a community that i dont. You know washington world, the players and the perception of lafayette here and the founders. And George Washington is this and the british are widely obsessed with him. Its like he left deal. But lafayette is not the same in france. Can you talk about that duality . Yeah. And i think, you know, one of the other things, probably the first most interesting thing that i ever discovered about the marquee lafayette is the two different ways that he is treated in the historiography of the American Revolution and the french revolution. Because i did this podcast, the revolutions podcast about the revolution. Lafayette showns shows up, he is a great friend of washington, a great friend of liberty, he helped bring france into the war. So its all good stuff. And then i knew that lafayette was going to show up in the next year, in the third season of revolutions, all about the french revolution, and so as i was reading about the french revolution, i was reading about history, and i was like, oh, here comes this bleep lafayette, he couldnt do anything. Right and well, he will be gone soon, we dont have to worry about him. And lafayette, who was famously, constantly asleep at the switch. And i was like, are we even talking about the same guy . Here it was only a couple of years later. I dont feel he dramatically changed as a person. And to be perfectly frank i dont feel that he did. And so that sort of portrayal of him made him interesting to me in person. And what i try to do in the book is mostly create one single continuous personality that progress through the American Revolution and french revolution. He didnt change dramatically or suddenly become incompetent. He never was incompetent. And i think that is very true that french historical memory does not remember or write lafayette as highly as american historiography does. And i think the french have a tendency to underwrite him. It is not because they are french and they know their own history and theyve got it right, which is often something that i would feel and talk about this. It is more the case that the french have their own running battles about the french revolution that are ongoing to this very day. The french revolution continues to be alive thing in french politics. And these other people, like ropes pierre, they have a home inside of that debate. Like what you think about robespierre he is very much alive figure, people will defend. Him and he is simultaneously trying to impose a Constitutional Monarchy on france in opposition to conservatives, monarchies, traditional catholics, who dont like any of this. So, they didnt like lafayette, whos trying to impose these things. But he is also sort of running against the populist jacket bins. And he is against robespierre, and others to become the heroes of leftwing historiography. And he becomes homeless. He becomes homeless after his death. When he died, its distinct, well, the french hated lafayette and didnt care about him. He was enormously popular all through his life. When he died, literally hundreds of thousands of people turned out for his funeral. Louis philippe and his ministers were afraid his funeral procession through paris and 1834, they were afraid it would spark a revolution. It wasnt that he lost his popularity or wasnt an influential figure or wasnt treated as a serious person, its just that over the years he didnt really have an active party or an active faction inside the ongoing french discourse. And so he just has sort of fallen by the wayside. Hes liken eric foner, or duncan, he just needs a [inaudible] right, im just some american. And i remember this, a couple of times. I would go to a library and i would say, im here, im american, im doing this all in french by the way and i am writing a book about the french revolution and the revolution. And they would say, cool, whats the topic . And i would say, Marquis De Lafayette. And they would say, oh, you are an american, of course its about Marquis De Lafayette. You are the only people who ask about material on Marquis De Lafayette. Right. And the rest of them get zero credit for assuring us on. Yeah. Which they did do. I hope weve established that in the book. We were not winning that war without the french, guys. No, we keep saying that. But they were like, freedom fries. Okay, so i will turn this over. This is from joe will. Considering how fast everything moved in the french revolution, does lafayette feel like he failed france . Or that it was out of his control . Would be possible to emulate washington from france . Okay. There are a couple of questions in there. One of them is that, ive got to say, by 1791, when lafayette has gone through this series of debacles, as he is trying to be commander of the National Guard and he winds up resigning from the National Guard in late 1791 by this point, you really get the sense that lafayette feels like it is not that he failed, it said the people failed him. That he was doing the right thing and they just kind of wouldnt get on board with him. And he was being treated unfairly. Because he was being attacked by both the right and the left. And he was playing whackamole with everything that was going on at this time. And i do get the sense that and, you know, he has reflections on the course of the french revolution. He writes theres later in his life. And you get the sense that he doesnt feel like he made mistakes. He feels that the situation was out of his control and there were these rabble browsers and whether it is all travel royalist like the mid comte de artois who are making his life a living heck he doesnt go to town for that trail. And washington has succeeded in the french revolution, the way the and that kind of feels like, no there is a great quote that i can chime in with for sure, which is bonaparte maybe back on the french revolution and saying, well, if i had been in the United States when George Washington was, there i would have been George Washington as well because washington would have had to deal with foreign invading armies and civil wars and social unrest. I am like, did you ever read a single book about the american war of independence . Thats all it was, was civil war and people invading and trying to undermine him. Washington succeeded in the situation that he had. I do not see him making it out of the french revolution one piece. No. No. Totally. He also did not really go anywhere. He went to barbados once. He also does not speak french. That definitely wouldve held him back in the french revolution. He was not. Did not indulge. He wasnt hedonistic into many important ways to french people, but not stereotype. I. Hypotheticals, i think you do to. What would washington think if he walked onto the street today . Oh my gosh, that is a street. It is so noisy i can stand a hypothetical when its actually about the time period and it something couldve happened. I think this interesting. Because we hinted. We bothered upon ourselves to talk about washington, slavery and lafayettes conversations with him. Could he have really made a difference. Do you have a sense of what role lafayette could have excelled that if he had stayed in america . Was there potential for him to actively shape the u. S. And government, either as a senator or cabinet member . Steve would like to know. He got a couple of offers along the way. Really from both sides. The most famous after he got was one Thomas Jefferson completed the louisiana purchase, he asked for lafayette to be the governor of the louisiana territory. Bring him over here, well set you up in new orleans and have you be the governor. We just inherited all of these crazy french catholics from the bayou. We dont quite know what to do with them. It sure would be nice if you were here. Which he turned out because there were health reasons, a personal reasons why he didnt want to leave france at that point. Left buyouts great role in american politics in general, was in being a unifying figure. We know american politics at the time was incredibly factional. It was very, very cutthroat between the federalists, between jeffersons party, whatever you want to talk about, at the democratic republicans. Lafayette existed above all of that. He was loved by both hamilton and jefferson, who were arch enemies of each other. While a fiat goes on his tour in 1824 and a 25, the election of 1824 was one of the most insane president ial elections in history. It was a fourway race. It ends with nobody having secured a majority in the electoral college. He lands in the middle of it. But all four of the president ial candidates, all of whom who would love to stick a knife in each others ribs, are coming to dinner to share the table with this one guy, the Marquis De La fiat. So, the thing is, when you say what if he had seen it become a senator, tried to run for president , done any of these things, i think what he does, he loses that reputation, loses that role, no longer has the moral authority, personality authority, that he was able to, that he was able to engender. To be this precip coming from the fire was able to unify everything. And then i think he just winds up in the same factional struggle but he got caught up with in france. Probably wouldnt then try to stay aloof from a bit, and ends up in retirement someplace in ohio. So, if he had actually been successful in mixing it up in american politics in those years, he would not have been as successful or as beloved as he is today. Yeah. Washington didnt want to be president. You know, when the revolution started, he was in philadelphia. He couldnt possibly be the general. But, i dont think he wanted to be president. He had nothing to lose, he was marching to his funeral. He called the procession to the integration. He was universally loved. It was obviously going to go terribly. It did. He ended up estranged from almost every founder. Absolutely. The things that people forget about, both washington and lafayette, they werent driven by power. They wielded it, and when they didnt, in the lake, i am good. Yeah. I think that is what heart of what makes lafayette a good man, more than a great man. It is that he was not driven by a lust for power. He wanted to be renowned and he wanted to be famous. He had very great ambitions. He loved listening to a good speech talking about how great he was. He loved all of that stuff, but he did not have the kind of power hungry drive that many of the people around him get. This is a guy whos alongside napoleon bonaparte. The contrast between them and him is quite clear. I happen to completely agree with that interpretation of washington. I think that he absolutely wanted to be commander chief chief of the continental army, that was a straight dream. And then when it came time for him to become president , they were like, he was dragged from mount vernon. But he was kind of dragged from mount vernon. He didnt want to do it. And so, i think that because of that, that is where lafayette is simultaneously a more appealing person to think about and talk about, but also would have been one of his. A persistent defect about him, is that he didnt quite, there were other political mistakes that he made, but one of them is that he was always kind of, like if somebody offers in the presidency, i dont want to be president. I dont want that job. He was not president in the way that his old mentor, George Washington, failed and not being president. Twice. Yeah, fail to not be president. Talk about filler. I would be remiss if i did not ask you an oft repeated question. Jaden, hey, brother. Love the podcast. He wants to know. Youve alluded to new projects. What is next . The one and only mike pimping dunkin . Im not saying. Im not telling anybody. I know. The thing is, im wrapping up revolution. So, ive got a lot of incredibly nervous and is out there who dont know what im going to do next. I will continue to pad cast. Im leaving revelations aside, but ive got a very nice thing going here that i really love to do. I just have other interest that i watch explore. There is a leader in the clubhouse, in terms of what im going to do next. Im not going to say but it is quite yet. If i change my mind, i dont want people to come back around and say, you said that one time when you are at the strand of elections that you are going to do this. So, im keeping it under wraps. At the next book, i am blessed cagey about what the next book will be. I want to go back to rome in history. There is a very particular period that i got out of the history of rome, about the crisis of the third century, about that has been a book that im going to fight. Hopefully, everybody preorder the book and bought the book. And i publish will be like, yeah. Well let you write this other book about the crisis of the third century, which i will go to next. Will you move there, to . No. No. We did our run through europe, spent covid in a 500 square foot, tiny european apartment. No, we are good. Youre good. I will go down to the library and read all about it. Yeah. Okay. I will ask one more fan question will go back to lafayette. Okay. People want to know, gentleman johnnys Party Training shirt coming back . I get that one a lot. I think the answer to that question is, when the show actually ends, whatever it ends, anybody whos listening in realtime knows that i am marching through the russian revolution. More or less in realtime, more like every week, im covering. Week lord knows when the revelation is going to. And there will probably be a big blowup fundraiser to end the show. And the olivia shirt, and the party tshirt will be most consistently beloved shirts, i will probably bring both of them back for that. Well, they will be very excited. So, speaking to your earlier, point i dont like to talk about my next project because i think that the more people talk about, it the sort goes. The less likely it is to happen. Also, im not sure about everything. One person wants to know, originally, the title was going to be citizen lafayette. Yeah. Never say the title of your book before. Never. Huge mistake. So, you felt like heroes a revolution where a better description of . It yeah. There were a couple of things that fit into it. I think that the two things happened simultaneously. One of them, just to get this off the plate, the Marketing Department came back and said, we would prefer something a little punch here, right . But when the sales and Marketing Departments said, its fine. But can we think of something a little punch here, something that jumps off the shelf, as sales and Marketing Departments are want to do, i was not at all opposed to. It i had named the book really before i turn on the research on it. When i went back to, even as i was writing it, there was no time in lafayettes life where he was called citizen lafayette. When they moved to that nomenclature, one may get rid of the aristocratic titles, his aristocratic title is the marquee vilify. His family name was djibouti. He would be citizen mutate not citizen rafael. There was no time where you are combines the citizen with the law. One of them would get chapped. The other thing is that the people who are really pushing for that citizen monte, that kind of stuff, where his political enemies. Right . That face of the french revolution, one it was all that citizen this, citizen that, with red liberty calves, in 1792, 1790, three 1794, lafayette has been rejected by the revolution by that point because the people who were who were doing that in the french revolution, where his enemies. So, i was already, by this point, feeling that i dont think that this title fits with what the book im writing. Also the facts that im a countering with. And then system lafayette, its a little. Drive i said, okay. We can just settle. Its a great. Title a great. Title i like the cover a lot. These titles and these books do tend to look like. It is really need to see something that is a bit bold. Yeah. The tight phases they used. We wanted to get a more modern. Look the same way that i wasnt trying to write a social studies report on the fire, we were not trying to do this looks like every other founding father biography, or great man biography, that you are going to see on the shuttle there. Im going to combine two questions because we are running out of time. There are a lot of questions about the process. Writing this book was different than the last. And also, related to this, im combining mass. When you are in france and you are going to all these places that you talked about, that youve written about, what was that like . So, those are two process questions. So, the first one, it is very. It happened with the history of around, going into the revolutions. It happened with the storm going to the storm with writing here of two worlds. When youre dealing with roman history, you are dealing with a very small pile of fragments. Right . You have to take these fragments and tease out of them information. You have to do so much reading between the lines. Taking some little snippet here, some inscription over, here and trying to build like a mosaic out of incredibly tiny amounts of fragmented sources. Like, that is the great challenge of people who study ancient history. That is the challenge that they face. When you move to the modern world, when you moved to Something Like the french revolution, it is exactly the opposite. It is just, literally millions of pages of primary source documents about everything that happened at this time. And there is such an enormous pile of things to sift through that it is, how can i, from this, figure out what i need to read, how do i need to read it, one of the things that i need to be bringing out of this to bring the story together. So, it was two very different problems. Right . Which, you know, i think wound up. Both of them are good and bad in their own ways. There is a nice thing about roman history where when you sit down you can go for. You can literally Read Everything we know about ramen history. Which you cannot do. You do washington, right . How many volumes of washington papers are there . There are 50 volumes. You can go through all of. That. Its insane. So the other question, what was it a question what was like to be in france . So, i am in paris. I lived not too far from the hotel to feel, not too far from my own. I was able to go and take my laptop. Right chapters in the places that i was writing about, right . The atmosphere, the philbin. Im a great believer in the power of inhabiting spaces, where the history actually happened. When we used to these tours, hopefully, covid may go away at some point we detours again. I would take people out to the battlefield at canning in italy, which is just a field, right . But just to be in that place is a special thing. I think that it did. If i wrote the book in the United States, i think it wouldve been very good. I think the fact that i wrote it in paris, in the places of these things are actually happening, i just think that it gave the pros, gave me, gabe. There is a sensuality to what im describing but doesnt exist if im not there i love what i did. I still appears. It was lovely city. Its a lovely city. A lovely city, im good. Its a lovely city. Im good. Yeah, yeah. I want to go back. Sara is here. And she is famous in our world. An archivist at the massachusetts historical society. And an expert on the adams family john adams, Abigail Adams more tissue, up ugly, the whole group. Shes got her hands in that. I want to expand on that. We know about we know a lot of these things. But what are the other voices. The other relationships . People who havent read the book. People who want to get away from that. You were really interested in that. I think the first thing is, it almost important impossible to overestimate the importance of washington for lafayette. Its a thing he had in front of his mind always. But there were others, right . There is renaud, an enlightenment philosopher when he was very young and when you are trying to picture this obvious question like, when does lafayette first latch on to the notion of equality and liberty as something that someone should strive for. I think some of it comes from , who wrote this huge thing, the history of the two , which is ostensibly a very boring history of French Colonial French Colonial counties in the americas. But he smuggled in all of these incredibly seditious materials and thinking about the way europeans were thinking about the world. And lafayette was reading this and i think a lot of this got into his head. And he went into the United States with these ideas formulated in his mind. And obviously they bloomed when he arrived in the United States. But he didnt go as some near mercenary who was trying to win battlefield glory for himself, like most of the other french officers. He was nihilistic from the start. I think he gets stuff out of masonic meetings. He wasnt a huge mason. Like, George Washington was obviously a pretty brig mason and he inducted lafayette into his Masonic Lodge and thats what allowed him to be very close. But i think it is nice to look at another person would be the marquee did condor say one of these early enlightenment early reformers. And he was writing critiques of african slavery that lafayette would have been reading so those are a couple, and marquis of condorcet, things that were said in Masonic Lodges. Its not like he just went to the United States and learned all of this. Yeah. I want to ask a few questions. But one i will ask you to tweet. Because its a followup. Devin wants to know, he said, you mentioned on a podcast, about adams, john adams okay. And john adams never said anything about lafayette that was bad. He was always a burn, tweet that, out jessica spencers question. Our time. Are there any lessons or takeaways for our politics that you took from lafayette . Sure. Question. Just a very small thing because we dont have much time. The thing about okay, im going to go off on a thing here. There is a tendency that people often have to subconsciously believe that things like progress and reform change for the better, that they are just sort of things that happen. Like, look back on history. History is a story of progress. So dont worry about things. Things will get better because progress will take care of that. This capitol are progress or this capital r reform. Look at this group in that group. Yes, and you want to know why . Because people fought for it. Because people got out and did something about it and the very people that you think are, like, radicals today, you would say to them, like, why are you making such a big deal . Just come down. We will do incremental reform. Even incremental reform doesnt happen without lots of people making it happen. It is something that human beings do themselves. And lafayette was somebody who from the very beginning of his life to the very end of his life, was constantly using his money, he was a very rich guy, and he was constantly spending money on noble, just causes, what he considered to be good causes. His time, his energy, he patronized rioters and he patronized printing presses. He is always trying to spread his ideas. If it got to the point where he believed that things were not progressing fast enough for well enough, he was willing to go to revolution to achieve his aims. So i think that, really, that lesson is to constantly look at the world who are living in, which he always, did as i said. And to think about the things that can be made better. Because there are always things that can be improved. And then work to improve them and dont just assume that it is going to happen by some mystical force of history or mystical force of progress. I actually believe that those things exist. Lafayette didnt believe that they exist and to get back to something that we talked about earlier, like, did washington or lafayette really write some groundbreaking philosophical treatises or the came right some book that changed everyone s thinking . No, a woman of action. Right . And they believe that their actions were the things that were going to change the world. And both of them focused on things that were going to change the world. Not mentalities, not, you know, dishing some witty bar in a salon setting. But to go out and do these things. And we have got a lot of problems right now. Like, we have humanity in the 21st century, it is about to face a very troubling and trying time. If we are going to make it through this and succeed we are going to have to not just sit back and have it happen for us. Id love to just take control here and keep going for another hour. Well, the guy is not coming back. Oh, there he is. I want to thank you for this, everyone enjoyed, it i enjoyed it. I congratulate you on the book. Thank you very much. I encourage everyone again to read these books and to talk about them, they are a great way to make these connections. And thank you to the strand