Marquis de Lafayette faced hatred and arrest threats from Jacobin authorities and hostile monarchies after advocating constitutional moderation. He appealed to 50,000 troops to march on Paris to free the imprisoned king and preserve the Constitution, but key battalions refused to recite their oaths, revealing a collapse of support. Anticipating personal danger, he secured the army’s command structure and its defensive position against Prussian and Austrian invasion. On 19 August 1792 he departed the camp at Sedan with fifty-two followers, including close allies, and fled into enemy territory with plans to resettle in America.
"Outlawed in my own land for having served her with courage," the Marquis de Lafayette wrote to his wife, Adrienne, "I have been forced to flee into enemy territory from France, which I defended with so much love. To the very last minute I fought for the Constitution I swore to uphold...let us resettle in America where we will find the liberty that no longer exists in France."
The August rains fell cold and gray, as the riders absconded from the camp like traitors in the night. Indeed, traitors they may very well have been. Mere hours before, their leader, the Marquis de Lafayette, had stood before an army of 50,000 men, imploring them to turn and march on Paris, to liberate their imprisoned king and save their Revolution from itself. The soldiers were unmoved by their general's impassioned words.
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