{"id":3794,"date":"2023-05-01T15:17:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T19:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/?p=3794"},"modified":"2023-07-18T06:06:01","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T10:06:01","slug":"marquis-de-lafayette-cartographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/artists-cartographers\/marquis-de-lafayette-cartographer\/","title":{"rendered":"Marquis de Lafayette’s Cartographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo:<\/strong> Fort Carillon \u2013 Detail of the map of Lake Champlain drawn by Lafayette\u2019s cartographer
\nCredit:<\/strong> Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division<\/em><\/p>\n

I love maps with great details and colors. Surfing the archives of \u201cFrance in America<\/a>\u201d, I came across this nice map of Fort Ticonderoga in 1777<\/a>, also showing Mount Defiance and Mount Independence, which all played a role in that campaign.<\/p>\n

It has tons of details and lovely colors! It also shows the famous bridge which had been built across Lake Champlain by the Americans. Interestingly, the legend is a strange mix of French and English words!<\/p>\n

Then it led me to want to learn more about the map’s author, Mr. Capitaine, the \u201caide de camp\u201d of Marquis de Lafayette. I found a long and excellent article on this cartographer (and on de La Fayette\u2019s participation in the American Revolution): Chesnoy: Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, the Marquis de Lafayette\u2019s cartographer<\/em> \u2013 Paul E Cohen (Magazine Antiques, Jan. 1998) (the article used to be available online, but is not anymore, unfortunately. You can get a back issue by contacting the Magazine Antiques<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Additionally, some of these maps can be seen at the Library of Congress, as it received six rare maps as a gift in 2000<\/a>. Go to the Geography and Map Division, basement floor, and ask for it. The librarian will get it out of the vault for you. It is quite a treat! I experienced it myself.<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: He is known as Marquis de Lafayette in the US but was actually Marquis de La Fayette.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, the Marquis de Lafayette\u2019s cartographer, produced gorgeous watercolor maps of the military campaigns of La Fayette during the American Revolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists-cartographers","category-roles-maps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cartaexplora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}