-Christophe-Roch-Gilbert Dumotier, Marquis de Lafayette,
Baron de Wissac, Seigneur de Saint-Romain and other places, and of the
very high and very puissant lady Madame Marie-Louise-Julie de la
Riviere."

But it was only on official documents that Lafayette's full name,
terrifying in its length, was used. Reduced to republican simplicity,
the Marquis de Lafayette's name was Gilbert Motier, although he was
always proud of the military title, "General," bestowed on him by our
country. To tell the truth, imposing names meant little to this friend
of liberty, who was a true republican at heart and who, during the
French Revolution, voluntarily resigned all the titles of nobility he
had inherited.

During his earliest childhood Lafayette was somewhat delicate. The
child first opened his eyes in a sorrowful home at the old Chateau
Chaviniac, for word had come, only a month before, that Lafayette's
father had been killed at the battle of Minden, leaving the young
mother a widow. The boy, however, grew in strength with the years.
Naturally, all was done that could be done to keep him in health. At
any rate, either through those mountain winds, or in spite of them, he
developed a constitution so vigorous as to withstand the many strains
he was to undergo in the course of his long and adventurous life.

The supreme characteristic of the man showed early in the boy when, at
only eight years of age, he became possessed of an unselfish impulse
to go out and perform a feat which for one so young would have been
heroic. It was reported in the castle that a dangerous hyena was
prowling about in the vicinity of the estate, terrifying everybody.
The boy's sympathy was roused, and, from the moment he first heard of
it, his greatest longing was to meet the cruel creature and have it
out with him.

It is not recorded that the eight-year-old boy ever met that wild
animal face to face, and it is well for the world that he did not. He
was preserved to stand up against other and more significant spoilers
of the world's welfare.

His education was begun under the care of his mother, assisted by his
grandmother, a woman of unusually strong character; these, together
with two aunts, formed a group whose memory was tenderly revered by
Lafayette to the end of his life.

The boy Lafayette cared a great deal for hunting. Writing back to a
cousin at home after he had been sent to Paris to school, he told her
that what he would most like to hear