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6 Settling in America It must be acknowledged that this country is favored by everything that could be desired, and that it has before it an immense future of happiness, tranquility and prosperity. If this spectacle alone were not sufficient to make these regions pleasant for me, the welcome and the consideration I received in all my travels would themselves be enough to make up for the sadness felt by a virtuous heart far from a Homeland that witnessed its birth. Nevertheless, while admiring the beautiful country that has accorded me its hospitality, while serving it with thankfulness and a most devoted zeal, my wishes are and will always be for the happiness, peace and glory of France. —General Simon Bernard, New York, April 15, 1818 After eighteen months in America, General Bernard expressed his gratitude for a welcoming country, blessed by the gods and destined for a bright future. Even if his heart remained in France, like that of his compatriots in exile, his abilities were so exceptional that they could not model their integration on his. The French arriving in the United States, thought Hyde de Neuville, were a second-­ rate population in which there were relatively few decent people: royalists, the carefree, merchants , artists and artisans, more concerned with their own interests than with politics. On the other hand, there were countless fools, as well as dangerous individuals , ill, incurable, and fanatical, whom the ambassador divided into three main groups: one-­ third were unmasked Bonapartists or Jacobins, one-­ third had declared fraudulent bankruptcy or were thieves, and the final third were peddlers carrying their commercial firms in their bags, “adventurers without means of existence , without fortune, young men without education, most of them draft dodgers under Bonaparte.”1 With few exceptions, Hyde lumped the émigrés with the dregs of France, crooks fearing neither God nor man, street peddlers without assets or prospects, deserters defying society. As his convictions coincided with equally negative official instructions, he hoped to reduce personal contacts to an absolute minimum, and the consuls were to do the same. This did not mean they were not to pay attention to them or watch their every move: spying on them was a daily task for the French agents. A good many émigrés, who owed their fall from favor to the Bour- Settling in America • 99 bons, were no more eager to spend time with their representatives in the United States—all the less so because the ambassador’s reputation left little hope for compassion . It was not here that they sought aid and comfort, but from their Ameri­ can hosts and from the Franco-­ Ameri­ cans who had been living in the country for some time. Hospitable America The emigrants were not equal before American hospitality. The degree of fame and fortune of an ex-­ king of Spain or an ex-­ marshal of France was a huge advantage unavailable to the mass of anonymous men banking on their courage, the exercise of a trade, or the aid of contacts made with foresight before their departure. Here too, there was a great disparity between those who benefited from important connections and the ordinary people who were helped in the best of cases by simple family and geographic ties. Though furnished with addresses, Jacques Lajonie nonetheless experienced difficult beginnings. A first Philadelphia merchant did indeed receive him, but being a secondhand correspondent, he admitted he scarcely knew the French family that had directed Lajonie to him. A visit to shipowner Andrew Curcier, a native of Bordeaux naturalized years earlier in Philadelphia, was scarcely more promising . Lajonie was lamenting those letters of recommendation that led to expense without compensation from their addressees and supposed protectors, when he finally met John Latour.2 A commission merchant in Baltimore since at least 1795, this Domingan refugee belonging to a family with roots in Gensac and Juillac was the ideal compatriot for Lajonie. Very wealthy, he showered Lajonie with “kindnesses ,”3 offered him bed and board, and entrusted to him, for his first steps in business, jewelry and watches to sell on his way to New Orleans, where he had decided to go. Regional solidarity made up for lack of assets or a ready trade. Based on the confidence that came from belonging to the same soil—“our dear homeland,” wrote Latour—and having relatives or friends in common, such solidarity was natural, often effective, and widely used from Pennsylvania to Louisiana, where the Francophone community was strongest.4...

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