Because tomorrow is 4 July, today's trivia is about a Frenchman.... (wait, it turns out OK).
Marquis de Lafayette was an aristocrat born in France to nobility. Despite that, he was very much taken with the American Revolution, the founding fathers and the spirit of the new country. He fought in the revolution as a major general and was a hero of both the American revolution as well as the French revolution shortly afterward. He gained American citizenship while here and when he died he was given the same honors as Washington and Adams had received upon their deaths. Lafeyette was buried in Paris, France, under soil from Bunker Hill, MA, USA (the site of a famous American revolutionary battle, more or less (OK, it was Breed's hill but hey, history is full of 'close enough')).
This bond between the Americans and Lafayette is so great that when some of the first Americans arrived in France upon the US's entry into World War I, at a point when the country of France had been bled nearly white, the American Colonel Charles Stanton (nephew of A. Lincoln's Secratary of War) visited Lafayette's tomb on July 4, 1917, and said:
“America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here.”
And placed an American flag at Lafayette's tomb. That flag has been changed daily ever since, always standing over the grave from that day forward, even during the German occupation of Paris from 1940 to 1944.
Brian