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This is the third volume of a series published during the 1920s
that was prompted by the 100th anniversary of the visit of the
Marquis de Lafayette to America at the end of his life to farewell
the country he had helped establish, and his presence at the
dedication of the Bunker Hill monument. Long out of print, the set
has been difficult to acquire. More than two million Americans
speak French as a first language, and more than eleven million
Americans are of French descent. In Maine (which at one time was a
part of Massachusetts) there is a French-American Day when the
legislature conducts business in French, says the Pledge of
Allegiance in French, and sings the Star Spangled Banner in French.
Prejudice has been replaced by appreciation and reacquisition
classes conducted in public libraries to help French Americans
recover their language. One challenge is that New England French is
different from modern Parisian French. It would be readily
understood by Louis XIV, and Yvon Labbe, director of the
Franco-American Center at the University of Maine illustrates this:
"French-Americans may say "chassis" instead of "fenetre" for
window, "char" instead of "voiture" for car... many
French-Americans pronounced "moi" as Moliere did: "moe." A saying
illustrates French-Americans' inferiority complex about their
language: "On est ne pour etre petit pain; on ne peut pas
s'attendre a la boulangerie" ("We are born to be little breads; we
cannot expect the bakery"). This trilogy on the links between
France and America that Westphalia has now published should help in
some small way to fill a gap in knowledge about an important part
of American history, and of the advantages of having such sturdy
foundations for the continuing friendship between the two
countries. The nearness of Quebec and the Maritimes to New England
should guarantee that the French connection will remain
significant. It has been the quietest of histories for too long.
French spoken in New England over the centuries is a dialect
related to Canadian French, but the culture is distinctive and
concern over its existence was one reason for the documentary film
Reveil This cinema study by Ben Levine examines the persecution of
French Americans by the Ku Klux Klan, and the struggles to preserve
a proud heritage in a monoculture America, and should be seen along
with reading the books in this trilogy. One asset in that long
struggle has been the American respect for the memory of the
Marquis de Lafayette. His friendship with Washington and his
exploits in the American Revolution are a permanent foundation for
Franco-American ties. After his service in the American Revolution,
Lafayette fell on hard days as the French Revolution involved him
trying to prevent excesses and for his pains he was imprisoned for
five years. Bonaparte obtained his freedom and he served until his
death in the French Chamber of Deputies. As Lafayette neared the
end of a notable life, in 1824, President James Monroe invited him
to be the guest of the American nation in a gesture of thanks for
his role in American independence. He accepted and visited New
England in 1824, including New Haven and Providence, as well as
Lexington, Concord, Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport. In late
August that year he was received in Boston with enormous
excitement. He then toured all existing twenty-four states. On
returning to Boston in June 1825 towards the end of his American
travels, he laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument on
June 17. After a final dinner with President John Quincy Adams in
Washington, he sailed for to France on September 7. He died in 1834
and is buried in Paris under soil from the Bunker Hill battlefield.
The series of which this title is part is a reminder of the
friendship between the two countries that he so embodied,
commemorated as well by the American Friends of Lafayette, the
Massachusetts Lafayette Society, the Society for French Historical
Studies, and the French Heritage Society. It is very much a living
tradition. Eventually Union Bank merged with the State Street Trust
Company, which had been established in 1891. In time the name was
shortened to the State Street Corporation, which today is custodian
for over six trillion dollars in assets. But it retains a clipper
ship as its logo, and is still headquartered in Boston. Connections
with the founding of the United States made the bank very conscious
of its history, and it not only supported scholarly publications
but actively collected prints, maps, hanging lanterns, even
harpoons - becoming a historical museum about old Massachusetts.
For many years, the prime mover in the bank's vigorous collecting
was Allan Forbes, a scion of the celebrated Brahmin family of
Forbes. Graduating from Harvard, he went to work for State Street
in 1899 and became president in 1911, then chairman of the board
until his death in 1955. He was eclectic in his antiquarian
interests and even produced a highly useful study of clipper ships
on sailing cards. If one asks why the head of a large financial
concern would take time for such esoteria, perhaps it suffices to
say he was a real Bostonian and a quote from Fortune Magazine in
1933 is apt: "The more or less romantic individuals who delight to
discover in any community its sources of real power would find this
whole Boston hierarchy - social, financial, and political - very
little to their taste. At the top, but in another dimension
altogether, are the Bostonians. Time cannot wither nor custom scale
their infinite variety of sound investments. Social power is
theirs. Civilization is theirs." Three volumes about France and New
England are thus easily understood.
Presenting Reproductions In Color Of The Paintings Of The Foremost
Artist In That Field.
Also Includes The Story Of Clipper Ship Sailing Cards, The Story
Eighteenth Century Medicine In America.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain
imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed
pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger
Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and
hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!
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