LAFAYETTE, Marie Joseph, Marquis de (1757-1834). French statesman and officer.
Autograph Letter Signed ('Lafayette') to Mr Charolais in Clermont-Ferrand, 1 page 4to with integral address-leaf, Paris, 9 March 1826 [April added in another hand]. Recipient's annotation at the head 'Rép. le 15 avril 1826'.
Announcing his intention to claim the financial compensation which was being offered to the emigrés despite having opposed the idea on principle because no distinction had been made between those who had emigrated of their own free will and those who had been exiled on political grounds:

'... personne n'a blamé plus hautement que moi le privilege de compensation accordé aux émigrés, parmi lesquels les patriotes proscrits se trouvent à cet égard confondus, à l'exclusion et même aux dépends des autre classes de cito‹ens, tels les rentiers cultivateurs etc. qui auraient pour le moins autant de titres à des dédommagements. ...'

He states that he will claim any compensation owing to him, since to do otherwise would simply enrich his political enemies, and that he is counting on his friends in various departments (Mr Charolais for the Puy-de-DÔme) to assist him in this endeavour
 Lafayette, as the last surviving general of the American Revolution, had recently returned from a triumphant progress through the United States at the invitation of President Monroe, to mark 50 years of independence from Britain. He would never again set foot on American soil. Although by then comfortably off, he determined to claim his share of the compensation which had been agreed for the (generally Royalist) émigrés who had suffered at the time of the French Revolution. 'He had always denied being an ‚migr‚, since they had been prepared to fight their own countrymen. He had been a proscribed exile.his property had been sold and the money had gone to the State.' (P. Buckman, Lafayette , 1977). In the event he received 325,767 francs and 90 centimes in compensation.
Provenance: from a collection formed by A.M. Broadley in 1903.
[No: 24790]