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THE FRENCH IN THE HEART OF AMERICA
BYJOHN FINLEY
PREFACE
Most of what is here written was spoken many months ago in theAmphithéâtre Richelieu of the Sorbonne, in Paris, and some of it in Lille,Nancy, Dijon, Lyons, Grenoble, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Poitiers,Rennes, and Caen; and all of it was in the American publisher's handsbefore the great war came, effacing, with its nearer adventures, perils,sufferings, and anxieties, the dim memories of the days when the Frenchpioneers were out in the Mississippi Valley, "The Heart of America."
As it was spoken, the purpose was to freshen and brighten for the Frenchthe memory of what some of them had seemingly wished to forget and tovisualize to them the vigorous, hopeful, achieving life that is passingbefore that background of Gallic venturing and praying. It was plannedalso to publish the book simultaneously in France; and, less than a weekbefore the then undreamed-of war, the manuscript was carried for thatpurpose to Paris and left for translation in the hands of Madame Boutroux,the wife of the beloved and eminent Émile Boutroux, head of the FondationThiers, and sister of the illustrious Henri Poincaré. But wounded soldierssoon came to fill the chambers of the scholars there, and the wife andmother has had to give all her thought to those who have hazarded theirall for the France that is.
But it was my hope that what was spoken in Paris might some day be read inAmerica, and particularly in that valley which the French evoked from theunknown, that those who now live there might know before what a valorousbackground they are passing, though I can tell them less of it than theywill learn from the Homeric Parkman, if they will but read his immortalstory.
My first debt is to him; but I must include with him many who made theircontributions to these pages as I wrote them in Paris. The quotation-marks, diligent and faithful as they have tried to be, have, I fear, notreached all who have assisted, but my gratitude extends to every source offact and to every guide of opinion along the way, from the St. Lawrence tothe Gulf of Mexico, even if I have not in every instance known orremembered his name.
As without Parkman's long labors I could not have prepared these chapters,so without the occasion furnished by the Hyde Foundation and thenomination made by the President of Harvard University to the exchangelectureship, I should not have undertaken this delightful filial task. Thereaders' enjoyment and profit of the result will not be the full measureof my gratitude to Mr. James H. Hyde, the author of the Foundation, toPresident Lowell, and to him whose confidence in me persuaded me to it.But I hope these enjoyments and profits will add something to what Icannot adequately express.
That what was written could, in the midst of official duties, be preparedfor the press is due largely to the patient, verifying, proof-readinglabors of Mr. Frank L. Tolman, my young associate in the State Library.
The title of this book (appearing first as the general title for some ofthese chapters in Scribner's Magazine in 1912) has a purely geographicalconnotation. But I advise the reader, in these days of bitterness, to gono further if he carry any hatred in his heart.
JOHN FINLEY.
STATE EDUCATION BUILDING, ALBANY, N. Y.
Washington's Birthday, 1915.