France

Western European nation, with a history reaching back to the Iron Age, but becoming a major power with its victory of the Hundred Years' Way in 1453 when it was established as a monarchy.[1]

Under the reign of Louis XIV (May 14, 1643 – September 1, 1715), France achieved political, military and cultural dominance.[1] Under his rule, France began its expansion into the interior of North America from its territories in Canada. In 1682, French explorer Cavelier de La Salle and Italian Henri de Tonti reached the Mississippi River delta and named the entire Mississippi Valley Louisiane after Louis XIV. In 1763, France ceded it's land west of the Mississippi River to Spain with the Treaty of Fontainebleau and renamed it New Spain.[2]

Louis XIV's monarchy was overthrown in the French Revolution in the late 18th century and replaced by the short-lived First Republic (1792 – 1804). In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the government by rewriting the new constitution, preserving the appearance of a republic but establishing a dictatorship.[1]

In 1800, Napoleon secretly regained New Spain for France with the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, and sold it to the United States in 1803 as the Louisiana Purchase.[2]

Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815). Over the next 55 years, France bounced between monarch, republic and empire until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, which established the French Third Republic.[1]

Hostage: In April of 1879,[3] Henri Devereaux bemoaned the fact that France had foresaken the Creole, but remained proud that it was still the dominant culture of New Orleans.[4]

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