Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette, was a French aristocrat, politician and liberal thinker. He believed in Enlightenment and played an important role both in the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. In 1789, he presented a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He worked on the document with Thomas Jefferson who was then the American ambassador in Paris.