Talk:Adrienne de La Fayette/Archive 1

Archive 1

Georges or George

Unger says:

Although the baby's full name at baptism grew to Georges Louis Gilbert Washington de Mortier, marquis de La Fayette, the younger Lafayette would always call himself, and be called George Washington Lafayette, and his American namesake happily became his caring godfather.

(p.108) the sources have it both ways, I had it George, but Georges is fine too.pohick (talk) 02:40, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Whenever I run into the French text that discusses George vs Georges spelling for LF's son, I shall bring it here. Cordialement, FW

thanks FW, i think we may have an American vs. French source conflict here, which i thought worthy of a note on the talk page. (given the American version of La Fayette - Lafayette in the same sentence, i will use Georges given his life predominantly in France) pohick (talk) 18:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Pohick, I am sure we'll figure it out. Bonne continuation on the work your are doing on our chère Adrienne. FW Frania W. (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Lafayette/La Fayette/la Fayette

The name is used inconsistently through the article. The title is Adrienne de La Fayette and the marquis is referred to as marquis de La Fayette, but elsewhere in the article Adrienne is referred to as Lafayette. Could you standardize the names that are used? Or, if there's a reason why different names are used, could you elucidate that in the article? Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

On a side note (forgot to mention this earlier), she is referred to throughout the article as "Adrienne," and probably should be referred to by her last name. (I know I called her "Adrienne" in my above post, but that was specifically because I was contrasting her with the marquis de La Fayette.) Politizer ^talk/_contribs 19:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Why should she be referred to by her last name and not *Adrienne*?
2. The name *de La Fayette* has gone through transformations & the Americans have adopted the one word spelling of *Lafayette*. However, in the history of the family & in France, *de La Fayette* is the spelling (check the Larousse, Robert & others). So, you can do what you please with the marquis in en:wiki, but you must accept what seems to you to be an inconsistency & respect the spelling for other members of his family because they never changed the spelling of their name. Frania W. (talk) 19:42, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

As for "Adrienne": It's customary to refer to the article subject by his/her last name, not first name—since we're not writing about them like they're our buddies. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 19:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

As for "de La Fayette": I just meant that we should be consistent in how we refer to Adrienne de La Fayette herself. In the article right now, the article title uses a different naming convention than the rest of the article does, so maybe it would be appropriate to move it to Adrienne de Lafayette (currently a redirect to here). Politizer ^talk/_contribs 19:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Politizer: We just had an editing conflict. Here is what I was writing:

1. At time of their marriage, Adrienne became *de La Fayette*, not *Lafayette*.
2. The hôtel which was a meeting place for Americans in Paris was *Hôtel de La Fayette*, not *Hôtel Lafayette*,
3. Family tree http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:TCsBGshiGOAJ:www.decarne.com/gencar/dat131.htm+descendance+du+marquis+de+La+Fayette&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a in which by scrolling down you will find the name of the son of LF as *Georges* Washington de La Fayette.

What I am trying to say is that, except for Gilbert de Lafayette (English spelling) the spelling for the rest of his family, wife & children included, should be respected. Frania W. (talk) 20:10, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I had been under the impression that the article was inconsistently referring to Adrienne de La Fayette as "Lafayette." Now that I've looked more, it appears that all mentions of "Lafayette" are in fact referring to some man (although I don't know whom; the person is never identified.... the first appearance of "Lafayette" is in "The duc de Noailles attempted to forestall Lafayette's citizenship," before which there was no mention of anyone named Lafayette). So it looks like the article is in fact being consistent...it's just very confusing. Much of the article appears to be about this Lafayette guy, rather than Adrienne de La Fayette, and in any case I don't know who "Lafayette" is. I can safely assume that "Lafayette" is the marquis de La Fayette, but that's never made clear in the article. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 20:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Politiker: OK, I see your point: in the introduction: *... married Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette.*; then in the article, there is no mention of the change of spelling. A sentence at beginning of article, or a footnote, would fix this problem easily.

Referring to Adrienne de La Fayette/Lafayette by only her surname within an article which constantly mentions her husband would make it difficult to know if we are talking about she-Lafayette or he-Lafayette. So, in my opinion, she should be referred to as Adrienne or Adrienne + surname, but not by surname only.

As for her surname, personally, I am not in favour of *de Lafayette*.

I do not know if you realise that this article was begun not even one month ago by Pohick2 who (single-handedly) is doing quite a bit of work on it. It is certain that more editing will have to be done, such as clarifying the La Fayette/Lafayette controversy. Frania W. (talk) 21:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I realize the article is relatively new and still under constant development. I'm not trying to attack the article; I just came here to point out an area for improvement that I noticed. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Politizer: I believe we are working in the same spirit. My one problem is that the Anglos (or the marquis himself?) at one point decided to adopt a certain spelling for LF, which makes it confusing when mentioning other members of his family. And with my French background, it irks me that, in order to make it convenient for en:wikipedia readers, an old French family name gets scraped. Frania W. (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. I'm fine with however his name is spelled, as long as a) it's spelled consistently throughout the article (even if it's different than the names of the other La Fayettes...the main thing is that it's just consistent for him), and b) the article makes it clear who's being talked about. As evidenced by how much of this conversation was us pretty much talking around each other (since I didn't realize who we were talking about), the article is currently not very clear about who "Lafayette" is. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 00:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Politizer: Since we seem to agree, let's just keep an eye on the article as Pohick develops it & correct things as we go along. If we have a problem, we'll simply go to this talk page & discuss it. Pohick will probably agree with us, although I cannot speak for anyone but me! Frania W. (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• thanks for the comments, well the two spellings are because of conflicting source spellings which i reflected, (note the Unger book quote above, that has both spellings in the same sentence!). Americans tend to spell Lafayette, French - de La Fayette, there was much contention on this issue at [1]. i tend to agree with the comment about "anglicising" French spellings, especially for members of the family who remained French speakers. so right now, it's marquis de "Lafayette", given his article consensus, and "de La Fayette" for everyone else, i could add a note to this effect. i don't have strong feelings one way or another, or even as compromise - both ways per source.
• i believe i linked to Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, the first time, and then subsequently used "Lafayette".

But remember, one basic guideline is to write articles under the assumption that people won't follow the links :). It seems to be ok now, as you've changed his spelling in the lead from "de La Fayette" (which was there originally) to "de Lafayette," so now we can see that name without having to follow the link. Thanks, Politizer ^talk/_contribs 13:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

good point, after reading all the sources i tend to glide over the variant spellings; good catch, i missed the spelling in the lead. pohick (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

• i tended to say "Adrienne" to keep from confusing her, from marquis de La Fayette. i think it tends to make it more immediate, if less reverential. i am open to something like "M de Lafayette" et "Mme de La Fayette", but in family trees that can get confusing too: it could refer to Mme Georges Washington de La Fayette, or the literary ancestor Madame de La Fayette.
• bonne inauguration pohick (talk) 13:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

In this article, and in keeping with the spelling adopted (by the Anglos) for the marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, I would opt for using *Adrienne de Lafayette*, thus keeping *Adrienne* but adding last name. However, I would avoid *Mme de La Fayette* or *Mme de Lafayette*, because of the possible mix-up with ancestor.

Oui, bonne inauguration and to you Pohick bonne continuation on this article. Cordialement, Frania W. (talk) 18:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Formatting

Also, there's some bad template formatting above the La Fayette Family Tree. I don't know anything about that template so I can't fix it myself, but someone should clean it up. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 17:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I believe that Pohick2 is working on the family tree right now. So, let it be for a while. Frania W. (talk) 19:08, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

yes, help, how did that template problem get in there? i was editing an example of julio-claudian family tree. the picture does clarify all that verbiage. is this worthy of a separate article? say de La Fayette Family tree pohick (talk) 13:38, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Pohick: The whole descendant paragraph could be worthy of a separate article. However, before deciding, you first must get help with this template, but it will not be from poor little old me totally ignorant in wiki template manipulation. Bonne chance! Frania W. (talk) 18:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

yes, like the ball of string, i kept finding more web references to de La Fayette genealogy, and havn't read the French reference book yet, (funny, my genealogy is all in the musty archives, far from public view) i'm afraid i know just enough about templates to be dangerous, witness the red links i don't know how to edit out.

Btw, Lazu mentioned you were doing something about French noble articles? i commented elsewhere, that they seem less well developed than the English, for example List of French marquisates compared with Peerage of the United Kingdom. is there a group trying to put in "heraldica" into wiki? it would make a nice to do list at Wikipedia:WikiProject France pohick (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Pohick: No, I am not working on any "List of French whatever" or doing any "heraldica". All I do here is read, edit & follow up on articles that are of interest to me, usually on people & events connected to the history of France. One leads to another & the ball starts rolling. Besides, I have a non-wiki profession & do this wiki thing simply for leisure, in order to relax. Voilà! Frania W. (talk) 20:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

no problem, (oh found the error message) "Any instance of |}} will cause a redlink at the top of the chart such as Template:Chart/cellb." now if i could just find the errors (this is worse than fortran) pohick (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Pohick: I clicked on *edit page* in order to get LF family tree & checked every sign but could not see "any instance of |}}". We may have to go out & find help ! Ne vous découragez pas! Frania W. (talk) 03:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

For some template stuff I might be able to help, but I've never worked with this particular template before and I can't really tell what the problem is. If you can narrow the problem down to one specific thing I might be able to look into it. Otherwise, I bet someone at WP:VP/T can figure it out. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 04:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

thank-you Gadget850, for the code fix! pohick (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

He and His

Although an article ostensibly about Adrienne, much of the text is clearly about Gilbert - "he" and "his" being used throughout. This also makes it probable that most of the times "Lafeyette" is referred to it is not the subject of the article but her husband. This should be clarified thoroughly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:AF00:2699:845F:DDED:7A3F:135 (talk) 12:37, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

sub-article

Pohick: I believe that once the family tree is done (and formatted properly!), the section should be made into a sub-article to both Gilbert & Adrienne articles, with title that would mention both monsieur & madame, as her descendants are also his. Frania W. (talk) 14:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

ok, done - Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette and Adrienne de La Fayette Family Tree pohick (talk) 21:14, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Généalogie de la Maison Motier de La Fayette

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:tBJMKfj3magJ:parbelle.free.fr/aixlafayette/genlafayette.html+g%C3%A9n%C3%A9alogie+de+La+Fayette&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Frania W. (talk) 01:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)