The man who had the most to do with the elevation of Louis Philippe was the Marquis de Lafayette, who as far back as the first revolution was the commander of the National Guards; and they, as the representatives of the middle classes, sustained the throne during this reign.  Lafayette had won a great reputation for his magnanimous and chivalrous assistance to the United States, when, at twenty years of age, he escaped from official hindrances at home and tendered his unpaid voluntary services to Washington.  This was in the darkest period of the American Revolution, when Washington had a pitifully small army, and when the American treasury was empty.  Lafayette was the friend and admirer of Washington, whose whole confidence he possessed; and he not only performed distinguished military duty, but within a year returned to France and secured a French fleet, land forces, clothing and ammunition for the struggling patriots, as the result of French recognition of American independence, and of a treaty of alliance with the new American nation,—­both largely due to his efforts and influence.

When Lafayette departed, on his return to France, he was laden with honors and with the lasting gratitude of the American people.  He returned burning with enthusiasm for liberty, and for American institutions; and this passion for liberty was never quenched, under whatever form of government existed in France.  He was from first to last the consistent friend of struggling patriots,—­sincere, honest, incorruptible, with horror of revolutionary excesses, as sentimental as Lamartine, yet as firm as Carnot.

Lafayette took an active part in the popular movements in 1787, and in 1789 formed the National Guard and gave it the tricolor badge.  But he was too consistent and steady-minded for the times.  He was not liked by extreme Royalists or by extreme Republicans.  He was denounced by both parties, and had to flee the country to save his life.  Driven from Paris by the excesses of the Reign of Terror, which he abhorred, he fell into the hands of the Prussians, who delivered him to the Austrians, and by them he was immured in a dungeon at Olmutz for three and a half years, being finally released only by the influence of Napoleon.  So rigorous was his captivity that none of his family or friends knew for two years where he was confined.  On his return from Austria, he lived in comparative retirement at La Grange, his country-seat, and took no part in the government of Napoleon, whom he regarded as a traitor to the cause of liberty.  Nor did he enter the service of the Bourbons, knowing their settled hostility to free institutions.  History says but little about him during this time, except that from 1818 to 1824 he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and in 1825 to 1830 was again prominent in the legislative opposition to the royal government.  In 1830 again, as an old man, he reappeared as commander-in-chief of the National Guards, when Charles X. was forced