ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060071
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: SARAH CAGLE THE (CHARLOTTESVILLE) DAILY PROGRESS
SECRETED BEHIND a false bookcase in a 15th-century chateau, the papers were discovered in 1955. It was not until 40 years later that the Library of Congress won permission to copy them.
Thomas Jefferson considered the Marquis de Lafayette not only a dear friend but also a symbol of the bond between their two nations.
That is why a long-hidden cache of the French aristocrat's personal papers is generating such interest among scholars of both American and French history.
Secreted behind a false bookcase in Lafayette's 15th-century chateau until their 1955 discovery were 90 boxes of papers coveted by historians, Library of Congress manuscripts chief James Hutson said recently in a lecture at the International Center for Jefferson Studies.
It was not until 40 years later that the Library of Congress won permission from a Lafayette descendant to copy the papers at LaGrange onto microfilm for research, Hutson said. The collection, which contains 64 reels of microfilm, is now available at the library.
``It's really a coup for scholarship,'' said Doug Wilson, director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, a division of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. ``We will learn not only about Lafayette, but also about our countrymen who he knew.''
Considering the close relationship between Lafayette and Jefferson, scholars expected the Lafayette manuscripts would reveal more correspondence between the two.
But among the 90 boxes of papers, there were no new letters from Jefferson - only about seven or eight copies of letters, Hutson said.
``Reading news accounts in 1955, you would have thought the walls were papered with Jefferson manuscripts and Washington manuscripts,'' Hutson said. ``We didn't know what to expect. We were trembling with excitement.''
Hutson surmises that Lafayette stored many of his early papers at another residence south of Paris, where his wife burned some papers in 1792. A search of that home by political enemies the following year likely destroyed some of the documents, Hutson said.
A wealthy French nobleman, Lafayette joined America's war for independence in 1777 and persuaded the French king to provide the colonies military support.
Jefferson's friendship with Lafayette continued while the Virginian served as minister to France in the late 1780s.
The Lafayette papers include a code that George Washington and Lafayette used during the Revolutionary War, as well as Lafayette's accounts of Revolutionary battles and personal anecdotes about Napoleon and Robespierre, Hutson said.
Behind another false bookcase covered with the spines of cheap French novels of the 18th century were Lafayette's prized volumes, he said.
Until the end of this month, Monticello's winter tours will spotlight Jefferson and Lafayette's friendship and the winter of 1824-25, when Lafayette visited Monticello and Montpelier.
As part of the ongoing event, Monticello tours showcase Lafayette memorabilia and a 1779 portrait of the man on loan from Washington and Lee University.
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