Key to the Bastille: Lafayette, George Washington & Mount Vernon
- KEY TO THE BASTILLE: Central Hall, Mount Vernon, Alexandria, Va.
"Give me leave, my dear General to present you with a picture of the Bastille, just as it looked a few days after I had ordered its demolition,- with the main key of the fortress of despotism. It is a tribute, which I owe, as a son to my adoptive father, as an Aide-de-Camp to my General, as a Missionary of liberty to its Patriarch." - Marquis de Lafayette to George Washington, March 17, 1790
The storming of the Bastille by a Parisian mob on July 14, 1789, marked the beginning of the French Revolution. As commander of the Paris National Guard in 1789, the Marquis de Lafayette received the keys to the loathsome political prison and symbol of absolute monarchy.
In 1790, he sent this key and a drawing of the prison in ruins to George Washington, his former commander, who was serving his first term as America's first president in New York City. Washington prominently displayed the key as a "token of victory by Liberty over Despotism" in a custom-made, carved and gilded case in his Philadelphia executive residence and then in the Central Passage at Mount Vernon, where both objects remain to this day.
- Description: Solid iron key with conical-tipped cylindrical shank, hammer-like handle, and thick wards with raised ogee-profile edges. Date 1789, made in France, iron. ~ Check Mount Vernon Gift Shop for reproductions.
.. The Bastille main prison key was turned over to Lafayette shortly after the Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789 by angry citizens rioting in the streets of Paris. Long a symbol of royal despotism, the Bastille was a natural target when violence erupted after severe shortages of bread led the populace into the streets. Lafayette was optimistic about the fate of the revolution when he prepared to ship the Bastille key to George Washington in March of 1790.
Several months passed before the gift finally arrived at its destination. On the first leg of the journey Lafayette entrusted the key to Thomas Paine, well-known for his participation in the American Revolution. The actual presentation to George Washington late in the summer of 1790 was an honor that fell to John Rutledge, Jr., a South Carolinian returning to the United States from London.
The principal key to the Bastille is made of wrought iron and weighs one pound, three ounces. Washington's prominent display of this celebrated souvenir in the presidential household illustrated his appreciation to his French pupil as well as recognition of its symbolic importance in America. Shown first at a presidential levee in New York in August, the key continued to be showcased in Philadelphia when the seat of government moved there in the fall of 1790.
Shortly before Washington's retirement from the presidency in 1797, the key was taken to Mount Vernon and given a place of honor in the first floor passage. Washington's death in 1799 brought little disturbance of the Mansion's interior. However, that changed upon Martha Washington's death in 1802. With her passing, only a few original furnishings—those acquired by Bushrod Washington—were left in the mansion. The key remained in place in the mansion's passage during the next three generations of Washingtons who occupied Mount Vernon.
In 1824 a special reunion took place at Mount Vernon. The Marquis de Lafayette and his son George Washington Lafayette began a year-long tour of the United States. At Mount Vernon they found the principal key of the Bastille. For Lafayette it was a highly charged moment of sentimental reflection on past events of international significance and personal triumph.
Lafayette and his son were but two of the thousands of pilgrims who made their way annually to Mount Vernon to view the home and tomb of George Washington. This tribute was an ever-increasing burden to the Washington family who frequently accommodated their domestic comfort to visitors' schedules. In 1858, John A. Washington III, the last of the family to reside at Mount Vernon, sold the property to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. His gift to the Association of more than a dozen objects once owned by George Washington included the Bastille key that held such a prominent place in the mansion and amongst Washington's possessions.
https://www.mountvernon.org/preservation/collections-holdings/browse-the-museum-collections/object/w-14a/
- Storming the Bastille, Paris July 14, 1789.
More, https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/bastille-key/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storming_of_the_Bastille
- Marquis de Lafayette by Charles Willson Peale, 1779.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Washington_de_La_Fayette
- Marquis de La Fayette, standing, with son Georges Washington de La Fayette at the Fete de la Federation, July 14, 1790.
= new reply since forum marked as read
for Lafayette (1757-1834) and it appears he served as an officer in America in the Continental Army and at one point was given a division of Virginia infantry to command. Nothing I read indicates that he brought any French forces with him, but that he served in the American Colonial Army.
In France at age 16 he had been commissioned into the Black Musketeers, his grandfathers unit, and years later during the French Revolution he was in the National Guard.
>So I wonder what military unit was illustrated in the pictures your French comrades were pointing to? Was it definitely an 18th century unit?
Lafayette was given many later honorary associations and also was the namesake of the 1916 US military unit, the 'Lafayette Escadrille' that was comprised of volunteer Americans who joined up to fight for France in the First World War.
In any case, looking into more about the young French marquis who aided America so much in our revolution renewed my appreciation of him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honors_and_memorials_to_the_Marquis_de_Lafayette
..His father was killed in action at the Battle of Minden on August 1, 1759, fighting against British officers — including Cornwallis, who would later become his son's enemy in America. la Fayette was educated by tutors at home and then at the Collège du Plessis before moving to the Académie de Versailles for military training. He was heir to a vast fortune that he expanded at age 16 by marrying a relative of the French royal family.
He was also 16 when he received his first commission in his grandfather's regiment, the Black Musketeers. By 1776 la Fayette was a captain of cavalry and enthralled with the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and equality contained in Declaration of Independence. He arranged a meeting with Silas Deane, the Continental Congress' clandestine representative in France, who was eager to obtain whatever support he could for the colonies' fight. Deane wrote a letter of introduction for la Fayette, who purchased a ship and left for America in April 1777 in open defiance of his own family and of France's king.
Although la Fayette had no battlefield experience, the Continental Congress appointed him a Major General in the Continental Army on July 31, 1777—a decision made considerably easier when la Fayette made it clear he did not expect pay or a command. He reported to George Washington's staff, and the two formed a close, remarkably affectionate bond that would last the rest of their lives.
la Fayette first saw field action at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, when the young Frenchman helped stave off a complete rout and was wounded in the left leg—which gave him credibility in the eyes of his American compatriots. After he recovered, he commanded a reconnaissance force that defeated a force of Hessians near Gloucester, New Jersey, on November 25. A week later Congress gave him his own command: a division of Virginia infantry...
http://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/people/view/pp0044
