French Twist: Americans Can Buy $100 Toeholds in Lafayette’s Neighborhood

PARIS —  A multimillion-dollar plan to sell “souvenir” parcels of land near the chateau where the Marquis de Lafayette was born has infuriated a group seeking to preserve the name of the hero of the American Revolution.

“It’s nothing short of a land scam, destined to fool people into thinking they’re buying a piece of history, and they are not,” said Christian Malagies, secretary of the Memorial Lafayette, the nonprofit foundation that owns Lafayette’s birthplace and promotes Franco-American friendship.

The land venture was launched earlier this year by a private company with a name similar to the foundation’s, L’Immemorial Lafayette. It is one of the most controversial of thousands of commercial operations formed to capitalize on the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution.

“The name itself could mislead potential customers who might think they were contributing to the foundation,” Malagies said in a telephone interview.

L’Immemorial Lafayatte is the brainchild of Caroline d’Amphernet, 29, a marketing consultant.

“The idea comes from a well-known anecdote about cutting up the Marquis de Lafayette’s embroidered handkerchief and selling the pieces. The story circulated in Paris for years,” d’Amphernet said in a telephone interview. “After doing a market study (on Lafayette) in the United States, we decided to do something about it.”

She said the survey found that one in 10 Americans knew that Lafayette was the French general and statesman who fought the British alongside American revolutionary forces.

“About 50% of the people polled had heard of him, but many thought he was a notorious pirate,” she said.

Marquis Gilbert du Mortier de Lafayette (1757-1834) was born in Chateau Chavaniac Lafayette and spent his youth there. He left for the United States at age 20, served with American forces at Brandywine and Yorktown and became a close friend to George Washington.

In January, L’Immemorial Lafayatte bought 25 acres of untilled farmland near the chateau. D’Amphernet said she told the farmers why she wanted the land and why she was ready to pay $900 an acre--more than three times the going price.

Since then, other farmers have expressed interest in selling land in the village, she said.

“There is certainly no way we can prove that the land once belonged to Lafayette, since the regional archives were burned in 1860,” d’Amphernet said, “but the history books all agree that the entire village of Chavaniac Lafayette was part of the domaine that had belonged to the Lafayette family since medieval times.”

L’Immemorial Lafayette plans to divide the land into pieces of roughly one foot square each. Priced at about $100, they could bring in the equivalent of $16.7 million.

Malagies maintains that such a venture is “too juicy to be honest.”

“The whole operation is completely immoral,” Malagies said. “First, there is no evidence to support their claim that the land belonged to Lafayette. The land is not contiguous to the chateau, but is farther away, in the village itself.

“Secondly, it’s using the bicentennial of the French Revolution to take advantage of people who are gullible because they’re far away and have never laid eyes on Chateau Chavaniac Lafayette.”

D’Amphernet said she has already sold a few pieces in France, but expects to sell the majority of the “souvenirs” to Americans and Japanese. She plans to contact American cities named for Lafayette, and historical societies of both the American and French revolutions.

Each purchaser will get a hand-painted deed, a diploma-sized certificate edged in blue, white and red decorated with a seal in the form of Lafayette’s profile and bearing the number of the “lot” and the owner’s name.

“It’ll will be decorative--the ultimate bicentennial souvenir for history buffs and francophiles,” d’Amphernet said.