The More Things Change…

Two hundred years ago today, France continued its centuries-old tradition of running away with its tail between its legs rather than put up an honest and forthright fight.

Two hundred years ago today, the young United States broke its own constitutional laws in ratifying a treaty with France.

Things haven’t changed much, have they?

Napoleon’s colony at Santa Domingo revolted, Haiti expelled the French troops, a war with England was potentially around the corner, and the United States was breathing down the neck of the French colonies. The French government was running out of cash, the Americans were growing less enthusiastic about having French neighbors, and Napoleon wanted to strengthen the United States in order to provide a viable rival to England’s dominance of the seas in an effort to “lessen her arrogance.”

An amazing move for France, considering France’s mighty military history:

• France lost the Gallic Wars to Italy;
• France lost the Italian Wars, becoming the only country to ever lose two wars to Italy;
• France lost the War of the Augsburgs;
• France lost the War of the Spanish Succession;
• France won the French Revolution — which almost doesn’t really count since the Frenchmen who won had been fighting Frenchmen who lost;
• France lost the Napoleonic Wars;
• France lost the Franco-Prussian War;
• France almost lost World War I except by the intervention of the United States;
• France almost lost World War II except by the intervention of the United States and England;
• France lost the war in Indochina; and
• France lost the Algerian Rebellion.

Two hundred years ago today, France and the United States signed a purchase treaty to sell the Louisiana Purchase to the fledgling colony for 80 million francs, a sum more than one and a half times the Gross Domestic Product of the United States at the time.

The barely solvent New World colony had to make the purchase on credit.

Man, things just really don’t change, do they?!

Author’s Note: Before anyone gets their bikinis in a twist, I am patronymically French — I am therefore allowed to tweak le nipples of the French.