The United States of America by Pierre Salinger

"Every man," said Thomas Jefferson, "have two homelands, his country and France." "Jefferson, editor of the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and spiritual father of the American Revolution, was right. There are no two countries whose relations are so close, and the reciprocal understanding as fundamental, despite some occasional misunderstandings, as the United States and France. But if the relationship between French and Americans begins in the early days of the American Revolution, we must trace the history of the French in North America to more than two hundred years, before the United States gains their independence. More than four hundred years, therefore, during which the French first participated in the discovery and settlement of the New World,

The United States of America by Pierre Salinger

This magnificent work by Illustration, a magazine of very high quality without any real equivalent today, makes us discover the United States through the eyes of France from 1843 to 1939. And although we are talking about a period of history of USA after the independence of the United States, Illustration does not fail to recall the historical links, the discoveries of Cavalier de La Salle and Father Marquette, and the founding of Louisiana, which is still day the most francophone region of the United States.

But certain sadness shows through the historical facts. Because the French were the true pioneers of the North American continent. They penetrated inland far beyond any other people. The memory of their presence is everywhere, especially in Midwestern town names such as "Eau Claire", "Prairie du Chine", "Joliet", Marquette ", or" La Salle ". There is a "Paris" in Kentucky, and a "Lafayette", a "Terre Haute", and a "Vincennes" in Indiana. But most French people were not interested in this wave of colonization. And the defeat of France at Plains of Abraham near Quebec marked the end of French hopes for the conquest of the American continent.

The United States of America by Pierre Salinger

But, as history shows, this unfortunate defeat did not destroy Franco-American ties. France played a major role during the American Revolution. And it was Montesquieu's influence that led the Americans to adopt the philosophy of the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. In return, one of the initiators of the French Revolution was an American, Thomas Paine; whose book "Common Sense" had triggered the American Revolution. He settled in France and wrote "The Rights of Man", a book that strongly influenced the French revolutionaries who wanted to overthrow the monarchy. And when the French drafted their own Declaration of Human Rights, La Fayette consulted Jefferson,

With such a backdrop, this book is a valuable aid to a better understanding of the evolution of American history, culture and society since the revolution. One of the most interesting chapters is the one dealing with the American Civil War, probably the most dramatic episode in American history, during which the country was brutally cut in two between the North and the South, and where a bloody war broke out, triggered by Abraham Lincoln's decision to abolish slavery. The French had long been aware of the problems that led to the American Civil War. In 1788, a year before the adoption of the American constitution, Jacques-Pierre Briscoe, following his stay in America, had created the "Society of Friends of the Blacks" to which he had associated Mirabeau, Condorcet and La Fayette. France had abolished slavery in all her possessions on April 27, 1848, and anti-slavery convictions were very strong in the country. The publication in the United States of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin", a novel about the trials of a family of slaves, was an immediate success in France and ten editions were exhausted in the space of two years. But despite this movement, opinion in France was divided over the war. Napoleon III would have preferred to see the victorious South. His cousin, Prince Napoleon, attributed these words to the Emperor: "If the North is victorious, I shall be happy. If the South wins, I'll be delighted. "The Napoleon III's attitude irritated many Americans who supported Prussia when it invaded France in 1870. Many Frenchmen took part in the American Civil War, including members of the upper aristocracy. But the majority of them rallied to the North, the best known of them being General Count Regis de Trobriand.

The United States of America by Pierre Salinger

The reading of Illustration then leads us into the cruel tales of the wars between Americans and Indians in the late 1860s.

But this book does not only show the tragic sides of American history. He also took us to New Orleans in 1847 and introduced us to the evolution of this territory that so many link to France. We live the wonderful epic of gold discovery in California in 1849, which drew hundreds of thousands of Americans to the West Coast, until then virtually uninhabited. We discover the emergence of new religions in the United States, including Quakers and Mormons in the mid-19th century. And we are experiencing one of the major American phenomena, the massive immigration of Europeans to the United States. The arrival of Italians, Germans, Irish, and other Europeans in the United States, and their integration into American society is probably the

Of course, we relive the story of the construction of the Statue of Liberty. The first report of Illustration was published in 1875, when a committee called "Union Franco-Americana" was founded by Eduard de Laboulaye, the man who had pushed Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the famous French sculptor, to implement his incredible project. They had dined together at Versailles in 1865. "I dined at my illustrious friend, Mr. de Laboulaye," noted the sculptor Bartholdi, then a little over 30 years. The conversation had fallen on international relations. We were then a few years from the hundredth anniversary of American independence. Laboulaye, professor and eminent historian, liberal and convinced Americanophile, then launched the idea of a monument that would be built in America, fruit of a joint effort of the two nations. Illustration’s article shows an engraving by Bartholdi representing his project at the entrance to New York Harbor. The statue was finally built and inaugurated only on October 28, 1886, more than 10 years after the centenary of the Declaration of Independence. But 100 years later, on July 4, 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and French President François Mitterrand celebrated the centenary of the Statue of Liberty, showing the major role it continues to play in the relations between our two nations. Country. More than 10 years after the centenary of the Declaration of Independence. But 100 years later, on July 4, 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and French President François Mitterrand celebrated the centenary of the Statue of Liberty, showing the major role it continues to play in the relations between our two nations. Country. More than 10 years after the centenary of the Declaration of Independence. But 100 years later, on July 4, 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and French President François Mitterrand celebrated the centenary of the Statue of the Liberty, showing the major role it continues to play in the relations between our two nations. Country.

And this Bartholdi engraving brings me to another commentary on our book. It is not only the texts, but also the illustrations and photographs of this important period that make this book so attractive. We do not just read the story; we see it come alive before our eyes. This is the main point that made Illustration one of the greatest weekly newspapers of his time.

The United States of America by Pierre Salinger

I was particularly touched by the fire chapter of 1906 that destroyed much of San Francisco. San Francisco is my hometown; I was born there in 1925, at a time when the reconstruction work was not finished yet. My mother, born in France in 1897, was editor-in-chief of French daily. My aunt was the star actress of one of the French theaters. Many hotels in the city belonged to French emigrants in California. Had it not been for this French influence and the fact that my mother was born in France, I would probably have joined the many young Californians of that time who were directing their eyes on the other side of the Pacific to Asia, where they foresaw the future. Me, on the contrary, I looked beyond the America, beyond the Atlantic, to Europe, to France. And although during the Second World War I fought in the Pacific against the Japanese, my gaze was always on the east, with the deep hope that France and Europe would be liberated from Nazi Germany.. The chapters of the book written after my birth retrace the story of my youth: the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency of the United States in 1932. And this book could not find a better conclusion that the splendid article written in 1939 by Henri Malherbe, Price Goncourt 1917 and veteran of the war of 1914-18, in which he expresses the rise of fear in America in the face of European events, the "European cataclysm" as he calls,

But history tells us that the United States renewed this alliance. Once again the Americans crossed the Atlantic to liberate Europe and France. Not only did they take European countries out of the catastrophe of the Second World War, but they played a major role in their reconstruction. When American troops entered Paris in 1944, the reception was delusional. Events once again confirmed the friendship between our two countries.

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