Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette

Born in 1757 into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac, Lafayette was commissioned an officer at 13 and became convinced the American cause was noble enough to cross an ocean for. Made a major general at 19, he was wounded at Brandywine, lobbied Paris for more support, and returned in 1780 to corner Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 - the siege that ended the war. Back in France, he helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen with Jefferson's assistance, commanded the National Guard after the Bastille fell, and tried to steer a middle course until radicals ordered his arrest in 1792. He spent over five years in Austrian prisons before Napoleon secured his release in 1797, though he refused to serve the emperor. He became a liberal deputy after the Bourbon Restoration, toured all 24 American states to wild acclaim in 1824, and helped spark the July Revolution of 1830 - only to turn against Louis-Philippe when the king went autocratic. He died in Paris in 1834 and was buried under soil from Bunker Hill.