The strange odyssey of Herr Latzko’s biography of Lafayette continues. This work first appeared in a French edition which was followed shortly by editions in Dutch, German, and English. It was a 1936 Literary Guild selection in the United States and now more than twenty-five years later appears in a Spanish translation by Juan Manuel Castilao. The author, a Hungarian who has lived most of his life in Germany, is a novelist and playwright. Lafayette, apparently, is his only venture into the field of biography.
Lafayette appears in this volume as an effective champion of freedom despite a woodenness of mind and personality. Latzko describes the sheltered boyhood of the Marquis, the difficult and unsatisfactory adjustment to life as a courtier of Louis XVI, the opportunity to fight for liberty in America, the failure of Lafayette’s moderate policies during the early years of the French Revolution, his long imprisonment as a victim of the animosity and fears of the royalists of Europe, and, finally, the duping of the old revolutionary by the backers of Louis Philippe in 1830. Lafayette is portrayed in all ways as the spotless defender of liberty and as a faithful and devoted family man. Really basic questions of act and motivation are ignored or glossed over.
The reason for the appearance of a new edition of this particular life of Lafayette is difficult to comprehend. Gottschalk’s multi-volume set provides a definitive analysis of the early years; Whitlock’s life is just as readable and more complete, and Roth’s popular account is more insightful.
