Stand By Your Man

images I was perusing through a book about the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), and the page I opened to, was about his wife, Adrienne.

During France’s revolution, called the Reign of Terror (1793-1794), that didn’t do justice to the horrors that went on, after just doing his job of trying unsuccessfully to protect the King and Queen (both were executed), Lafayette was thrown in jail.

Not just any jail mind you, but Olmutz, the worst jail in Austria.

Adrienne, also arrested, but placed in another prison (La Force then College du Plessis), before Sally Monroe, wife of James who was our diplomat in France at the time, advocated for the Marquis de Lafayette, until they finally let her out a year later.

Instead of going home, Adrienne went to the Emperor of Austria to say, she wanted to be with her husband.

Go home Madam Lafayette, he told her, go be with your children.  You cannot come out once you go in, but taking their two daughters, went anyway, saving her husband’s life since he was failing so…his legendary spirit all but gone.

Finally after two years, Napoleon released them, but sadly, Adrienne, at 48, the experience diminishing her, died, buried alongside her family who were executed as members of the aristocracy, thrown into a mass grave in Paris’s Picpus Cemetary where Lafayette, outliving her by 27 years, also rests.   images-1

I can’t say enough how much Adrienne’s story moves me.  The selflessness, determination and sheer will to be with the man she clearly lived for.

On her death bed, her last words to him were…

Je suis toute a nous….I am all yours.

Women, when we love, we love big.



Marie Adrienne Francois de Noailles, Marquise de Lafayette (1759-1807)




About Susannah Bianchi

This entry was posted in Books, Family, History, Home, humanity, Love, Politics, readng, violence, Women and men and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

29 Responses to Stand By Your Man

  1. Coyote from Orion says:

    Yep, and you ladies often go for the wrong guy 🤣😅😄

    Liked by 1 person

  2. skinnyuz2b says:

    What a love story. Why hasn’t a movie ever been made about them?

    Liked by 2 people

  3. Sounds like a Nicholas Sparks story.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Coyote from Orion says:

    Nowadays all we get are idiots on Facebook making wild claims of Michelle Obama being a transvestite. I had to draw the line at that one. Don’t get me wrong… I love good slander but some people in your country don’t know when to stop. I guess we could say we are in a current terror of our own. If Mrs Obama were a tranny you would have to say that Barack has done pretty well for himself still. Technology has produced a dumbing down terror effect for the morons. Publishers were once gateways. Hell… my reading of Shakespeare and Hemingway by 18 wasn’t considered a mental illness. It still wasn’t in a university though several professors fought very hard for me


  5. We sure do Marie, we sure do. Please tell me that he mourned her for those 27 years and didn’t remarry because he struggled being alone or couldn’t cook for himself.

    Liked by 1 person

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