[1] The family of La Fayette, to the cadet branch of which he
belonged, received its name from an estate in Aix, Auvergne, which
belonged in the 13th century to the Motier family.
LA FAYETTE, MARIE-MADELEINE PIOCHE DE LA VERGNE, COMTESSE DE
(1634-1692), French novelist, was baptized in Paris, on the 18th of
March 1634. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, commandant of Havre,
died when she was sixteen, and her mother seems to have been more
occupied with her own than her daughter's interests. Mme de la Vergne
married in 1651 the chevalier de Sévigné, and Marie thus became
connected with Mme de Sévigné, who was destined to be a lifelong friend.
She studied Greek, Latin and Italian, and inspired in one of her tutors,
Gilles de Ménage, an enthusiastic admiration which he expressed in verse
in three or four languages. Marie married in 1655 François Motier, comte
de La Fayette. They lived on the count's estates in Auvergne, according
to her own account (in a letter to Ménage) quite happily; but after the
birth of her two sons her husband disappeared so effectually that it was
long supposed that he died about 1660, though he really lived until
1683. Mme de La Fayette had returned to Paris, and about 1665 contracted
an intimacy with the duc de la Rochefoucauld, then engaged on his
_Maximes_. The constancy and affection that marked this liaison on both
sides justified it in the eyes of society, and when in 1680 La
Rochefoucauld died Mme de La Fayette received the sincerest sympathy.
Her first novel, _La Princesse de Montpensier_, was published
anonymously in 1662; _Zayde_ appeared in 1670 under the name of J. R. de
Segrais; and in 1678 her masterpiece, _La Princesse de Clèves_, also
under the name of Segrais. The history of the modern novel of sentiment
begins with the _Princesse de Clèves_. The interminable pages of Mlle de
Scudéry with the _Précieuses_ and their admirers masquerading as
Persians or ancient Romans had already been discredited by the
burlesques of Paul Scarron and Antoine Furetière. It remained for Mme de
La Fayette to achieve the more difficult task of substituting something
more satisfactory than the disconnected episodes of the _roman comique_.
This she accomplished in a story offering in its shortness and
simplicity a complete contrast to the extravagant and lengthy romances
of the time. The interest of the story depends not on incident but on
the characters of the personages. They act in a perfectly reasonable way
and their motives are analysed with the finest discrimination. No doubt
the semi-autobiographical character of the material partially explains
Mme de La Fayette's refusal to acknowledge the book. Contemporary
critics, even Mme de Sévigné amongst them, found fault with the avowal
made by Mme de Clèves to her husband. In answer to these criticisms,
which her anonymity prevented her from answering directly, Mme de La
Fayette wrote her last novel, the _Comtesse de Tende_.
The character of her work and her history have combined to give an
impression of melancholy and sweetness that only represents one side of
her character, for a correspondence brought to light comparatively
recently showed her as the acute diplomatic agent of Jeanne de Nemours,
duchess of Savoy, at the court of Louis XIV. She had from her early days
also been intimate with Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, under
whose immediate direction she wrote her _Histoire de Madame Henriette
d'Angleterre_, which only appeared in 1720. She wrote memoirs of the
reign of Louis XIV., which, with the exception of two chapters, for the
years 1688 and 1689 (published at Amsterdam, 1731), were lost through
her son's carelessness. Madame de La Fayette died on the 25th of May
1692.
See Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits de femmes_; the comte d'Haussonville,
_Madame de La Fayette_ (1891), in the series of _Grands écrivains
français_; M. de Lescure's notice prefixed to an edition of the
_Princesse de Clèves_ (1881); and a critical edition of the historical
memoirs by Eugène Asse (1890). See also L. Rea, _Marie Madeleine,
comtesse de La Fayette_ (1908).
LAFAYETTE, a city and the county-seat of Tippecanoe county, Indiana,
U.S.A., situated at the former head of navigation on the Wabash river,
about 64 m. N.W. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1900) 18,116, of whom 2266 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 20,081. It is served by the Chicago,
Indianapolis & Louisville, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St
Louis, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wabash railways, and by the
Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern (electric), and the Fort Wayne &
Wabash Valley (electric) railways. The river is not now navigable at
this point. Lafayette is in the valley of the Wabash river, which is
sunk below the normal level of the plain, the surrounding heights being
the walls of the Wabash basin. The city has an excellent system of
public schools, a good public library, two hospitals, the Wabash Valley
Sanitarium (Seventh Day Adventist), St Anthony's Home for old people and
two orphan asylums. It is the seat of Purdue University, a
co-educational, technical and agricultural institution, opened in 1874
and named in honour of John Purdue (1802-1876), who gave it $150,000.
This university is under state control, and received the proceeds of the
Federal agricultural college grant of 1862 and of the second Morrill Act
of 1890; in connexion with it there is an agricultural experiment
station. It had in 1908-1909 180 instructors, 1900 students, and a
library of 25,000 volumes and pamphlets. Just outside the city is the
State Soldiers' Home, where provision is also made for the wives and
widows of soldiers; in 1908 it contained 553 men and 700 women. The city
lies in the heart of a rich agricultural region, and is an important
market for grain, produce and horses. Among its manufactures are beer,
foundry and machine shop products (the Chicago, Indianapolis &
Louisville railway has shops here), straw board, telephone apparatus,
paper, wagons, packed meats, canned goods, flour and carpets; the value
of the factory product increased from $3,514,276 in 1900 to $4,631,415
in 1905, or 31.8%. The municipality owns its water works.
Lafayette is about 5 m. N.E. of the site of the ancient Wea (Miami)
Indian village known as Ouiatanon, where the French established a post
about 1720. The French garrison gave way to the English about 1760; the
stockade fort was destroyed during the conspiracy of Pontiac, and was
never rebuilt. The headquarters of Tecumseh and his brother, the
"Prophet," were established 7 m. N. of Lafayette near the mouth of the
Tippecanoe river, and the settlement there was known as the "Prophet's
Town." Near this place, and near the site of the present village of
Battle Ground (where the Indiana Methodists now have a summer encampment
and a camp meeting in August), was fought on the 7th of November 1811
the battle of Tippecanoe, in which the Indians were decisively defeated
by Governor William Henry Harrison, the whites losing 188 in killed and
wounded and the Indians about an equal number. The battle ground is
owned by the state; in 1907 the state legislature and the United States
Congress each appropriated $12,500 for a monument, which took the form
of a granite shaft 90 ft. high. The first American settlers on the site
of Lafayette appeared about 1820, and the town was laid out in 1825, but
for many years its growth was slow. The completion of the Wabash and
Erie canal marked a new era in its development, and in 1854 Lafayette
was incorporated.
LA FERTÉ, the name of a number of localities in France, differentiated
by agnomens. La Ferté Imbault (department of Loir-et-Cher) was in the
possession of Jacques d'Étampes (1590-1668), marshal of France and
ambassador in England, who was known as the marquis of La Ferté
Imbault. La Ferté Nabert (the modern La Ferté Saint Aubin, department of
Loiret) was acquired in the 16th century by the house of Saint Nectaire
(corrupted to Senneterre), and erected into a duchy in the peerage of
France (_duché-pairie_) in 1665 for Henri de Saint Nectaire, marshal of
France. It was called La Ferté Lowendal after it had been acquired by
Marshal Lowendal in 1748.
LA FERTÉ-BERNARD, a town of western France, in the department of Sarthe,
on the Huisne, 27 m. N.E. of Le Mans, on the railway from Paris to that
town. Pop. (1906) 4358. La Ferté carries on cloth manufacture and
flour-milling and has trade in horses and cattle. Its church of Nôtre
Dame has a choir (16th century) with graceful apse-chapels of
Renaissance architecture and remarkable windows of the same period; the
remainder of the church is in the Flamboyant Gothic style. The town hall
occupies the superstructure and flanking towers of a fortified gateway
of the 15th century.
La Ferté-Bernard owes its origin and name to a stronghold (_fermeté_)
built about the 11th century and afterwards held by the family of
Bernard. In 1424 it did not succumb to the English troops till after a
four months' siege. It belonged in the 16th century to the family of
Guise and supported the League, but was captured by the royal forces in
1590.
LA FERTÉ-MILON, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne on
the Ourcq, 47 m. W. by S. of Reims by rail. Pop. (1906) 1563. The town
has imposing remains comprising one side flanked by four towers of an
unfinished castle built about the beginning of the 15th century by Louis
of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. The churches of St Nicholas and
Notre-Dame, chiefly of the 16th century, both contain fine old stained
glass. Jean Racine, the poet, was born in the town, and a statue by
David d'Augers has been erected to him.
LAFFITTE, JACQUES (1767-1844), French banker and politician, was born at
Bayonne on the 24th of October 1767, one of the ten children of a
carpenter. He became clerk in the banking house of Perregaux in Paris,
was made a partner in the business in 1800, and in 1804 succeeded
Perregaux as head of the firm. The house of Perregaux, Laffitte et Cie.
became one of the greatest in Europe, and Laffitte became regent (1809),
then governor (1814) of the Bank of France and president of the Chamber
of Commerce (1814). He raised large sums of money for the provisional
government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII. during the Hundred Days, and it
was with him that Napoleon deposited five million francs in gold before
leaving France for the last time. Rather than permit the government to
appropriate the money from the Bank he supplied two million from his own
pocket for the arrears of the imperial troops after Waterloo. He was
returned by the department of the Seine to the Chamber of Deputies in
1816, and took his seat on the Left. He spoke chiefly on financial
questions; his known Liberal views did not prevent Louis XVIII. from
insisting on his inclusion on the commission on the public finances. In
1818 he saved Paris from a financial crisis by buying a large amount of
stock, but next year, in consequence of his heated defence of the
liberty of the press and the electoral law of 1867, the governorship of
the Bank was taken from him. One of the earliest and most determined of
the partisans of a constitutional monarchy under the duke of Orleans, he
was deputy for Bayonne in July 1830, when his house in Paris became the
headquarters of the revolutionary party. When Charles X., after
retracting the hated ordinances, sent the comte d'Argout[1] to Laffitte
to negotiate a change of ministry, the banker replied, "It is too late.
There is no longer a Charles X.," and it was he who secured the
nomination of Louis Philippe as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. On
the 3rd of August he became president of the Chamber of Deputies, and on
the 9th he received in this capacity Louis Philippe's oath to the new
constitution. The clamour of the Paris mob for the death of the
imprisoned ministers of Charles X., which in October culminated in
riots, induced the more moderate members of the government--including
Guizot, the duc de Broglie and Casimir-Périer--to hand over the
administration to a ministry which, possessing the confidence of the
revolutionary Parisians, should be in a better position to save the
ministers from their fury. On the 5th of November, accordingly, Laffitte
became minister-president of a government pledged to progress
(_mouvement_), holding at the same time the portfolio of finance. The
government was torn between the necessity for preserving order and the
no less pressing necessity (for the moment) of conciliating the Parisian
populace; with the result that it succeeded in doing neither one nor the
other. The impeached ministers were, indeed, saved by the courage of the
Chamber of Peers and the attitude of the National Guard; but their
safety was bought at the price of Laffitte's popularity. His policy of a
French intervention in favour of the Italian revolutionists, by which he
might have regained his popularity, was thwarted by the diplomatic
policy of Louis Philippe. The resignation of Lafayette and Dupont de
l'Eure still further undermined the government, which, incapable even of
keeping order in the streets of Paris, ended by being discredited with
all parties. At length Louis Philippe, anxious to free himself from the
hampering control of the agents of his fortune, thought it safe to
parade his want of confidence in the man who had made him king.
Thereupon, in March 1831, Laffitte resigned, begging pardon of God and
man for the part he had played in raising Louis Philippe to the throne.
He left office politically and financially a ruined man. His affairs
were wound up in 1836, and next year he created a credit bank, which
prospered as long as he lived, but failed in 1848. He died in Paris on
the 26th of May 1844.
See P. Thureau-Dangin, _La Monarchie de Juillet_ (vol. i. 1884).