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 the Age of Enlightenment and played an important role during 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 the American ambassador in Paris.