When Jacques Cartier landed on the North American continent in 1534, it marked over two centuries of French presence on this new land. France found itself alongside its enemy and rival, England, in the conquest and control of these new lands. Although it was numerically inferior, it held the majority of the lands. However, in Paris or Versailles, there was no attempt to ensure supremacy. The king and his council were more interested in Europe, in defeating the Habsburgs, and Spain.
These were immediate concerns, and nobody seemed to have any significant interest in these inhospitable lands. A few financiers thought of beaver pelts, others of rum from the West Indies, or even tobacco. But none made a strategic argument about these distant lands populated by ‘savages,’ the name given with a certain disdain to the indigenous people.
Thus, under Louis XV, France would let Canada slip away to the English, and under Napoleon, it would sell off Louisiana to the young independent America. When we consider, with the hindsight of history, that these lands could have been French, we might regret the short-sighted policy of our kings and Napoleon’s bargaining over Louisiana.
We held the majority of the North American continent; what would France be today with these possessions? Through his work, Alain Dubos paints us the saga of France, where we bitterly measure the lost opportunities for our grandeur. This epic was the work of sailors and captains who, even today, have left their names in these lands.
Thierry Jan, writer
