ABSTRACT

Historical interpreters of the first French colonial empire have viewed its evolution in the context of the ultimate collapses of 1763 and 1815. Especially for the historians of the French Third Republic (1870–1940), committed to the forging of a stronger, contemporary overseas empire, the strengths and particularly the flaws of the earlier effort were the natural targets of scholarship. And because of their methodological approach which assumed that the initial shaping of an institution, policy, or idea leaves a permanent stamp, historians have emphasized the embryonic weaknesses of the imperial structure. Naturally, their interpretations reflected their contemporary concerns, their ideologies and, occasionally, their prejudices. Leaving aside the pertinent philosophical question about the linkage of causes and long-term effects, it must be said that an evaluation of the empire from the vantage point of 1763 has clouded as much as illuminated the central issues.