Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), often known as simply Lafayette, is a French aristocrat and military officer born in Chavaniac, in the province of Auvergne in south central France.

Lafayette is a general in the American Revolutionary War and a leader of the Garde nationale during the French Revolution.

In the American Revolution, Lafayette serves as a major-general in the Continental Army under George Washington.

Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still manages to organize a successful retreat.

He serves with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island.

In the middle of the war, he returns to France to negotiate an increase in French support.

On his return, he blocks troops led by Cornwallis at Yorktown while the armies of Washington and those sent by King Louis XVI under the command of General de Rochambeau, Admiral de Grasse, and Admiral de Latouche Tréville prepare for battle against the British.

Back in France in 1788, Lafayette is called to the Assembly of Notables to respond to the fiscal crisis.

Lafayette proposes a meeting of the French Estates-General, where representatives from the three traditional orders of French society—the clergy, the nobility and the commoners—meet.

He serves as vice president of the resulting body and presents a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Lafayette is appointed commander-in-chief of the Garde nationale in response to violence.

During the French Revolution, Lafayette attempts to maintain order—to the point of ordering the Garde nationale to fire on demonstrators at the Champ de Mars in July 1791—for which he ultimately is persecuted by the Jacobins.

In August 1792, as the radical factions in the Revolution grow in power, Lafayette tries to flee to the United States through the Dutch Republic.

He is captured by Austrians and spends more than five years in prison.

Lafayette returns to France after Napoleon Bonaparte secures his release from prison in 1797.

He refuses to participate in Napoleon's government, but is elected to the Chamber of Deputies under the Charter of 1815, during the Hundred Days.

With the Bourbon Restoration, Lafayette becomes a liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1815, a position he holds until his death.

In 1824, President James Monroe invites Lafayette to the United States as the "nation's guest"; during the trip, he visits all twenty-four states.

For his contributions to the American Revolution, many cities and monuments throughout the United States bear his name.

During France's July Revolution of 1830, Lafayette declines an offer to become the French dictator; instead he supports Louis-Philippe's bid as a constitutional monarch.

Lafayette dies on 20 May 1834, and is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil from Washington's grave at Mount Vernon.

He becomes a United States citizen during his lifetime, and receives honorary United States citizenship in 2002.