_The speech at the White House was followed by many others. Little enough accustomed, up to then, to addressing any assembly at any time, I did not expect to have much to do in that line; but I had. I soon found that it was not a question of taste and personal disposition, but one of courtesy and friendliness. The quick-witted, kindly-disposed, warm-hearted audiences of America, ever ready to show appreciation for any effort, greatly facilitated matters._ _I was thus led by degrees to address gatherings of many kinds, in many places, on many subjects, from the origins of the War of Independence to reforestation in America, and from the Civil War to infantile mortality. Many such speeches had to be delivered impromptu; others, luckily for both orator and listeners, were on subjects which the former had studied with as much care as the fulfilling of a variety of tasks and duties had allowed him._ _An examination of the development of the two countries will, I believe, lead any impartial mind to the conclusion that, with so many peculiar ties between them in the past, a similar goal ahead of them, and, to a great extent, similar hard problems to solve, it cannot but be of advantage to themselves and to the liberal world that the two Republics facing each other across the broad ocean, one nearly half a century old, the other three times as much, should ever live on terms of amity, not to say intimacy, comparing experiences, of help to one another whenever circumstances allow: this they have been on more than one occasion, and will doubtless be again in the future. During our present trials the active generosity of American men and women has exerted itself in a way that can never be forgotten._ _The dean now, not only of the diplomatic corps in Washington, but of all my predecessors from the early days, when, on a raised platform in Independence Hall, my diplomatic ancestor, Gérard de Rayneval, presented to Congress the first credentials brought here from abroad (and Gérard was then, he alone, the whole diplomatic body), I have presumed to gather together a few studies on some of the men or events of most interest from the point of view of Franco-American relations. Three addresses are added, just as they were delivered. May these pages find among readers the same indulgent reception their author found among listeners._ _And so, having now lived in America thirteen years, offering good wishes to the forty-eight of to-day, I dedicate, in memory of former times, the following pages_ TO THE THIRTEEN ORIGINAL STATES. J.J. JUSSERAND. Washington, February 7, 1916. CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION v ROCHAMBEAU AND THE FRENCH IN AMERICA, FROM UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS 3 MAJOR L'ENFANT AND THE FEDERAL CITY 137 WASHINGTON AND THE FRENCH 199 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 277