I

Lafayettes own words and those of his contemporaries help to create this narrative non-fiction in the form of an autobiography. Lafayette recounts his life as it happens, tracing his path through three revolutions, the Napoleonic years and the Restoration. We see what he sees; we experience events as he experiences them; we know only what he knows. Factual, detailed, often dramatic, historically accurate, his conversations, thoughts and actions are

always referenced from original sources in English and French. The present tense ensures a vividness of time and place. It is history but it is happening now. A son of the wild Auvergne, he wants to follow in the footsteps of Vercingetorix who took up arms for the liberty of all. He sees Washington as his adopted father and the United States as his adopted country; in death he has his grave covered by earth from Bunker Hill. He espouses the cause of liberty for the whole of his life.