They began as courtiers in a hierarchy of privilege, but history remembers them as patriot-citizens in a commonwealth of equals. On April 18, 1775, a riot over the price of flour broke out in the French city of Dijon; that same night, across the Atlantic, Paul Revere mounted the fastest horse he could find. So began what have been called the "sister revolutions" of France and America. In a single narrative, this book tells the story of those revolutions and shows just how deeply intertwined they actually were. Their leaders, George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, were often seen as father and son, but their relationship, while close, was every bit as complex as the long, fraught history of the French-American alliance. Vain, tough, ambitious, they strove to shape their characters and records into the form they wanted history to remember.--From publisher description.

The quest for glory -- Lexington and Versailles -- Endgames of the old regime -- La Victoire -- To Brandywine -- Another kind of crucible -- Enter France -- The beauty of a draw -- Showing their colors -- The ally and the traitor -- Into Virginia -- Yorktown -- The dark side of liberty -- Entr'acte -- Movements west and left -- Forms of bankruptcy -- Two conventions -- First blood -- Experiments in democracy -- Acts of defiance -- The spring of 1789 -- Come the revolution -- Front lines -- Works of the guillotine -- Between Scylla and Charybdis -- Farewells -- Epilogue.