ABSTRACT
Traces of the first French to set foot in the port of Shanghai 1 date back to January 1849. They arrived on board La Bayonnaise from Macau (Grave 1104). At the mouth of the Yangtze Delta and at the intersection of the Wu Song River, which serves as its outer harbor, this hamlet of fishermen and common people is distinguished from any other French colony in Asia by its prime location. Not only is Shanghai at the crossroads of the North-South axis of the Middle Kingdom but, overlooking the sea, it is a maritime relay point between France and Asia, so that immediately after the signing of the treaties, it transformed quickly into a site of coexistence, creating an early model of mixed cultures. The prodigious nature of Shanghai lies in its transformation. A dilapidated port since the sixteenth century, it had nothing but junk and a few miserable sailboats before the Europeans and French arrived. The port then rapidly became the ‘Paris of the East’, embracing French culture and agreeing to cohabitate with European civilization. Located at the confluence of the crossroads of rivers that flow from the center of the Middle Kingdom, Shanghai thus had all the assets to become a foremost relay point between Europe and Asia.
