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During the next five years, Lafayette became a leader of the liberal aristocrats (dubbed the Fayettistes) and an outspoken advocate of religious toleration and the abolition of the slave trade. A republican at heart, Lafayette nonetheless remained an aristocrat with strong ties to many members of the ruling royal family. Though he was torn between those two worlds, his friend Thomas Jefferson predicted that Layfayette’s strong republican sympathies would win out. Nevertheless, as the French Revolution unfolded, Lafayette continued to support the government of Louis XVI and the idea of a constitutional monarchy. Elected as a representative of the nobility ...(100 of 1187 words)