Michel du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette

Michel Louis Christophe Roch Gilbert Motier, Marquis de La Fayette

The marquis title and Lord of Chavaniac passed to him from his elder brother, Jacques-Roch du Motier (1711–1734), upon his death on January 18, 1734 while fighting the Austrians at Milan in the War of Polish Succession.

Career The Marquis de La Fayette was a colonel in the French Grenadiers and was a Knight of the Order of Saint Louis. On 9 July 1759, he was killed by a cannonball at the Battle of Minden during the Seven Years' War.

Personal life The marquis' wife, Marie Louise Jolie de la Rivière On 22 May 1754, he married Marie Louise Jolie de la Rivière (1737–1770), the daughter of the Marquis de la Rivière, a rich nobleman from Brittany. She was a heiress of an ancient line of powerful nobles with vast estates and her family had ties to the "noblesse de la robe",the royal family's inner circle of courtiers. Her maternal grandfather was the Comte de La Rivière, until his death in 1770 commander of the Mousquetaires du Roi, or Black Musketeers, King Louis XV's personal horse guard. Together, they were the parents of a son who was born at the château de Chavaniac, in Chavaniac-Lafayette, near Le Puy-en-Velay, in the province of Auvergne (now Haute-Loire):

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), who played a significant role in the American and French Revolutions.

The death of his father has been argued to be a factor in Gilbert du Motier's decision to fight against the British in the American Revolutionary War. Only two years old when his father died, Gilbert du Motier became marquis and Lord of Chavaniac, but the estate went to his mother. His widow and her father died in 1770, leaving Michel's 12-year-old son orphaned.