The National tribune., 1908-04-09
LAFAYETTE'S FAMILY.
The Only Survivors Are Descendants In
the Female Line.

Editor National Tribune: In the "An-
swers to Correspondents in The Ma
tional Tribune of the 9Th inst. your as
sociate editor has made an unintentional
misstatement of fact, and with your per-
mission l may be permitted to correct
the same for the benefit of I'd. NJ. r.,
| Providence, r. L." primarily, and for
/ the good of your subscribers in general.
The Marquis de Lafayette and Adrienne
de Noailles were married April IL, 1874.
| Their first child was daughter, but on
Dec. %, 1879, the long -hoped-for son
and heir was born, and he was chris
tened George Washington. In 1902
George married Emelie Destutt de
Tracy, by whom he had five children
three girls and two boys. oscar Thomas
Gilbert de Lafayette, the elder of these
two sons, married a de Pusey, his sec
ond cousin. She died childless and he
remained a widower to the day of his
death in 1881. The other son was Ed
mond de Mortier de Lafayette, who for
several years, while / lived in Paris
was my friend. He reached the age of
~ years, died after an illness of six
weeks and was buried in the cemetery
of Pere la Chaise. He was never mar
ried, and so he was the last of the La
fayettes in the direct male line. Since
his death a descendant b. the female
line has, by permission of the French
Government, taken on the family and
distinguished name. Probably il was he
who was the guest of our Nation at the
unvailing of the Rochambeau Statue in
1902
1t may further interest your many
readers to know that Gen. de Lafayette
sleeps with his beloved wife in the little
out-of-the-way cemetery of Picpus. On
the last day of May, 1889, small party
of Americans, then residing in Paris
IN af ID
flowers on the graves of the illustrious
couple. The United States Minister was
with us, as also was Senator Edmond
de Lafayette, the last of the family in
the direct line. 1t was thus that we
estab blished Memorial Day exercises in
a foreign graveyard, where some 1,300l
men and women who had been behead-
ed by the guillotine during the reign of
terror lay buried, not for their sakes,
however, but because Lafayette, the
friend of Washington, the man Yho
helped our forefathers to win our free !
dom, is there. The remains of his wife,
who had died on Christmas eve, 1907, |
were borne to Picpus where already
reposed her grandmother, her mother
and her sister, all three victims of the |
guillotine, and this is why her beloved
husband, who survived her 27 years, |
was buried there in 1884. Following a |
custom established by the late Capt |
Nathan Appleton and three other Grandt
Army comrades, including myself, pa
triotic Americans in Paris go every year
to strew flowers over the graves of the
Lafayettes on Memorial Day.-Henry
Haynie, 18th ILL.,, that always fought /
under the only Commanding General of
an army on either side who was not de-
feated during the war of the rebellion,
Newton Center, Mass.
p. S.-Dear old-Tommy Lawler, I
am sorry that he is gone. He was in
the next company to mine on the firing
line or in camp, and 1 often touched
elbows with him, so to speak; but after
the war our ways separated and / did
not see him again for 3S years We
met then at the National Encampment
in Boston, and at first he could not re-
call my face or name; but when he
knew who it was, we threw our arms
around each other, and we patted each
other On the shoulders, and we gfinned
our joy over the reunion, and the tears
were in our eyes in the sight of all men.