A Novel of Lafayette-A Lafayette, Book I

This is the first book in the A Novel of Lafayette series. It tells the story of a young idealist who gambled his family's vast fortune and court connections to help a most dubious, distant cause, fighting in the New World against the English monarchy with a rag-tag band of rebels. The book follows him to the king's court in Versailles after a free-rein childhood in the far province of France. Married and set on a military career, Lafayette hears of the rebellion in America and becomes obsessed with it. Defying his family and his king, he buys a ship and flees to the troubled continent where he becomes a dear member of Washington's military family. Not even his injury on the battlefield deters him from pursuing his dream of achieving victory for the Americans, despite a series of humiliating defeats for the unprepared Continental army. He uses all the tools in his power to lead his new country to build the first modern republic.