Sites of Lafayette's German Captivity, 1792-97 By Professor Paul
Spalding, Illinois College, assisted by Almut and Eckhart
Spalding Cornell Library thanks Professor Spalding for allowing
us to make his research and his collection available on this
site. All images are from the personal collection of Professor
Paul Spalding. Note: please click on numbered footnotes to view
accompanying images. At the beginning of August 1792, Lafayette
commanded the French Northern Army with headquarters at Sedan.
He had a critical task: to defend France from imminent invasion.
The “old regimes” of Prussia and Austria, with some French
emigrant support, were determined to crush the new
constitutional order that Lafayette had done so much to
establish. Large forces of this counter-revolutionary Coalition
had drawn up along the northern and eastern borders of France.
From the other side of the political spectrum, inside France,
radical Jacobins also sought to abolish the constitution. On 10
August, they carried out a coup that s