France

Spain and England in Florida

Louis C. Kleber writes how Florida was ceded to Britain in 1763; retroceded to Spain after the American Revolution, and acquired by the United States in 1819.

The XYZ Affair

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.

Washington’s French Volunteers

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.

Beaumarchais and the American Revolution

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.

The Vendôme Column, 1871

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