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Gabor Gelleri, A history of the French in London. Liberty, equality, opportunity, French History, Volume 28, Issue 4, December 2014, Pages 561–563, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/cru098
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Extract
According to its introduction (Cornick), this collective volume fills a gap in the history of the French presence in London, and hopes to offer a ‘study in time and space’. Admittedly, the relationship between France and England has been studied more in terms of movement (travels, exile) than in terms of presence. And while some aspects (such as Huguenot presence) are better known, there is indeed no work to offer a longer overview.
Several chapters are devoted to French exiles, in line with Bertrand Cottret’s Terre d’exil (1985). Cottret’s seminal study ends around 1700, and is here continued. Fewer, possibly not enough, essays consider economic migrants. The volume might also have taken a clearer stance as to whether French travellers are part of the French presence in London. As it is, one assumes that the title refers to long-term residents.
Thus we wonder whether Máire Cross’ excellent essay, on the travels of Michelet, Tocqueville and Flora Tristan, should belong in this volume. Under the fascinating heading of ‘multidimensional occupancy’, it discusses French presence in London only as seen by these visitors. More convincingly, Michel Rapoport first gives a complex sociological and historical portrayal of Belle Epoque and interwar French presence (mostly economic migrants), to which he then adds a study of visitors.