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8 The New Thebaid Will we not prove that we are worthy of tilling the soil together, of making our trees bear fruits that are the most exquisite food . . . ? Why do you not take each other by the hand to go together to a pleasant region and found a new Thebaid? —L’Abeille Américaine, Philadelphia, August 22, 1816 In August 1816, the Abeille Américaine published a letter from a subscriber who preferred to remain anonymous so as not to influence anyone and to welcome all initiatives, since the common interest should come before his personal ambition. After a glowing tribute to the superiority of Ameri­ can republican institutions over those “dictated by the governments of old, rundown Europe,” the author wondered how the exiles,these “new children of Israel,” could take advantage of them, if they had no lands of their own, no homeland to cherish, no place of rest where they could ease their homesickness and weep together. He proposed a project centered on winegrowing in a region they would turn into a sec­ond Pennsylvania, the refuge of exiles, or a new Thebaid, in reference to the ancient Thebaid of upper Egypt, where people had lived far from the world in secluded solitude.1 Often looking over the map of the United States, the author saw places that were still uninhabited, particularly along the Mississippi, where nature seemed to have prepared everything, combining a temperate climate with healthy air, clean water, and fertile soil, promises of peaceful enjoyment. But this location where the exiles would implant their mores, habits, and customs could only be located far from large cities,“these po­ liti­ cal Sodoms, where needs create vices, and where corruption forges the chains of servitude.” In the meantime, it was imperative to have a subscription in order to know how many families were interested in the project and how much land each would like to acquire, and to elect the three individuals in charge of exploring the country and choosing the appropriate location. It has been suggested that Garnier de Saintes was the author of this letter to the French living in the United States,2 but in August 1816 he was at sea, only disembarking in Philadelphia with his son and Jean Guillaume Taillefer, his ex-­ colleague from the Convention, on Sep­ tem­ ber 10, 1816—the Abeille reported this two days later.3 Of the two other former Convention members who might have written the letter, Pénières can be eliminated and, although quite plausible, it is doubtful that it was Lakanal. The author seems to have been Jean Simon 142 • Chapter 8 Chaudron, the Abeille’s editor himself. As one argument among many, there is the following passage from a letter to Lakanal, expressing the same theme of rejection of cities that we find in the anonymous text: “I want to get out of the mire of large cities where nothing is fashionable but prejudice and pride, and where liberty and civic equality would soon die if republican colonies were not founded in the country ’s interior. I want to go ask nature’s forgiveness for having robbed her of forty years of my existence, and expiate on her maternal breast this error which I shall always regret.”4 Regardless of who wrote it, the letter touched many émigrés, both older and recent ones. Lakanal had led the way by settling on the banks of the Ohio, in Kentucky, where, as we have seen, many French people had already headed; others were thinking of going on toward the South. Desnoëttes is said to have discussed with Stephen Girard the possibility of founding a colony in Louisiana,5 where Clauzel had written, even before leaving France, that he wanted to go. The response to the call was therefore as strong as its author’s convictions, or as those that others had already formed. So a general partnership was created in Philadelphia that had vari­ ous names as it evolved: Colonial Society of French Emigrants; Tombigbee Agricultural and Manufacturing Company; Society for the Cultivation of the Vine and the Olive.6 The Colonial Society of French Emigrants As the subscription call was issued in August,preparatory meetings took place that month and in Sep­ tem­ ber, but no trace remains of their agendas. It is known that the officers of the committee of the whole were elected and that the venture was advertised among French and foreign exiles present or to...

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