Who was Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier?

Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, Lafayette (initially the Marquis de Lafayette till June 1790) (September 6, 1757–May 20, 1834) was a French military officer and former aristocrat who participated in both the American and French revolutions. He permanently renounced the title "Marquis" before the French National Assembly in June, 1790. Even though he was already adopted by George Washington, in 2002, he was posthumously made an Honorary Citizen of the United States; one of only six persons so honored.

Lafayette served in the American Revolutionary War both as a general and as a diplomat, serving entirely without pay in both roles. Later, he was to prove a key figure in the early phases of the French Revolution, serving in the Estates General and the subsequent National Constituent Assembly. He was a leading figure among the Feuillants, who tried and failed to turn France into a constitutional monarchy, and commander of the French National Guard. Accused by Jean-Paul Marat of responsibility for the "Massacre of the Champ de Mars", he subsequently lost his leading role in the Revolution. On August 19, 1792, the Jacobin party seized control of Paris and the National Assembly, ordering Lafayette's arrest. He fled France and was arrested by the Austrian army in Rochefort, Belgium. Thereafter, he spent five years in various Austrian and Prussian prisons. He was released in 1797; however, Napoleon Bonaparte would not allow his return to France for several years. He continued to be active in French and European politics until his death in 1834.

His full name is seldom used in the United States, where he is usually known as "General Lafayette" or simply "Lafayette" (his preferences and as written on his birth certificate), but sometimes is called "the Marquis de Lafayette" (mistakenly or maliciously, in references after 1790 since he permanently renounced the nobility title in 1790). After the Bourbon Restoration, Lafayette's enemies viciously taunted him in the press by continually referring to him as "Marquis" and thereby using this propaganda to give Lafayette's supporters the false impression that he gave up on his life-long belief that "ALL men are created equal". Note that Lafayette may be written as one word or as two; one word is more typical in American usage and Lafayette's preference and as it appears on his grave stone, while the two-word form is preferred in contemporary British and French. Many places in the United States are named Lafayette, Fayette, or Fayetteville in his honor.

He was the father of Georges Washington Motier Lafayette (1779–1849) and grandfather of Oscar Thomas Gilbert Motier Lafayette (1815–1881).