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7 Grape Harvests in America The mulberry tree grows very well there. Cotton fibers are thick and silk very strong. In the two Carolinas, Georgia and Florida there are rice fields. They formerly traded in cotton. Fog and rain prevent wine-­ growing. —Napoleon Buonaparte, ca. 1786–89 We hear of the conversion of water at the marriage, in Cana, as a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain, which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which enters into the vine-­ roots to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us. —Benjamin Franklin Lieutenant Buonaparte’s reading notes prove that his interest in the United States, a new but harsh country, began very early. In France, he wrote, four acres of land are enough for a living; there over forty are needed, and fishing besides. There is plenty of wood, but it would not pay to export it. The fur trade is declining. Tobacco grows well in the central part of the country, but it depletes the soil. On the other hand, rice grows well, cotton fibers are thick, and silk is strong. As for grapevines, only the climate prevents growing them. “This summary of America’s products comes from a letter from Monsieur Kerguelen and seems quite inaccurate ,” concluded Buonaparte, without trying to ascertain what was true and what was not.Thirty years later, Napoleon would have been able to see for himself, surrounded by his banished soldiers. “If I had gone to America, I would have farmed, I would have cared for my garden, I would have taken in some old remnants of my army who would have come to be with me and we would have lived together,” he is supposed to have said to Dr. O’Meara on St. Helena.1 The veterans were there all right, but without him.They did not read his notes, but listened to the advice of those who were encouraging them; otherwise they would not have grown grapevines and olive trees in places where this had never before been tried. Exiled military men who wanted to become soldier-­ farmers considered the growing of olives and wine grapes a noble task with symbolic values going back to antiquity. Associated with wheat farming in the Mediterranean area, olives and 126 • Chapter 7 wine grapes had been grown by veterans of the Roman army in their retirement. By simply replacing wheat with cotton in this trilogy, warriors who had followed the eagle standards of two great empires came together at a distance of two millennia .This is how General Lefebvre-­ Desnoëttes had seen it. In Sep­ tem­ ber 1816, preparing to go to the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi to find suitable land, he wrote to Stephen Girard: “We want to be independent of events and if we can no longer serve our country, we still want to be useful to society as well as to ourselves and our families by working in the fields as did the former Roman warriors and as we find models in this very country.”2 Aside from the link with this glorious imperial past, the vine and the olive tree were associated with essential virtues that Simon Chaudron expressed in an apologue , dedicated to émigrés of all classes, in which the vine (representing abundance ) and the olive (representing peace), by their example and their counsel brought an end to a dispute between the oak (strength) and the laurel (valor): “And in a harsh exile, we share [say the olive and vine to the laurel and oak] Both our weal and our woe. Of the work of proud error beware. Out of love and need, become equals, so Your strength and courage you can pool with care. Imitate our ties, and our work also, Make a pact as a rival—not as a foe, And may esteem be its guarantee fair.” The Oak and the Laurel heard the words of this pair: The counsel of a sage is a treasure rare. Eternal aid and love they swore; They took as companions the inseparable ones; And thus were united, by durable bonds, Abundance and Peace, Strength and Valor.3 The appeal to unity and solidarity was clear: Napoleon’s officers knit to the plow in the face of adversity. But the significance of the vine and the olive was not merely symbolic; along with the mulberry tree, they had their place...

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