More things I never knew..............

 

     Many Frenchmen served in America during the Revolution.  There were more French combatants at Yorktown than Americans.*  Lafayette personified all his countrymen in the American mind because he had come early, before the formal alliance, and stayed late.  His French comrades were professionals and, to the extent they had opinions, realpolitikers, serving in obedience to orders and to advance French interests, Lafayette was a volunteer and an enthusiast.  He had the ability to engage and impress people, which might be called a talent if that did not suggest skill and practice, whereas with him the effect was as artless as his intentions were sincere.

-Richard Brookhiser, The Hero Returns: Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution

*If one queries ChatGPT, one reads that the numbers of foot soldiers at Yorktown were fairly even between French and American (and, combined, significantly outnumbered the British).  When adding the number of French sailors, who blockaded the British and prevented their escape, then ChatGPT says the statistic is correct.