France

Both Lafayette’s career and the legend bound up with it have had important effects on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.

In the struggle for the New World, writes Arnold Whitridge, France had no more gallant soldier.

Centuries after the death of Montcalm, writes Arnold Whitridge, the French presence still dominates Quebec.

Twenty years after the Declaration of Independence, writes Louis C. Kleber, the Americans, now at peace with Britain, were involved in tortuous negotiations with the Directory of the French Republic.

Besides La Fayette, writes Arnold Whitridge, many French volunteers joined the American forces to fight for a freedom they had not yet won in France.

Arnold Whitridge introduces a musician, a financier, and a playwright who was also a secret agent; Beaumarchais believed in the success of American arms, and organized a flow of supplies and munitions from France to the hard-pressed colonists.

In 1513 the Spaniards reached Florida; Louis C. Kleber describes how fifty years later the French followed them.

Roger Hudson describes the destruction during the Paris Commune of the memorial to Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz in 1805.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, writes Patricia McCollom, the French made a resolute attempt to seize the rich Canadian fur-lands.

Does the death of French medievalist Jacques Le Goff mark the end of an era in historical scholarship, asks Alexander Lee.