Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from With Americans of Past and Present Days
All wanted to take part. There was a prospect of crossing the seas, of succoring a people fight ing for a sacred cause, a people of whom all our volunteers praised the virtues; the people led by Washington, and represented in Paris by Franklin. An ardor as of crusaders in?amed the hearts of French youths, and the intended expedition was, in fact, the most important that France had launched beyond the seas Since the distant time of the crusades. The cause was a truly sacred one, the cause of liberty, a magical word which then stirred the hearts of the many. Why is liberty SO rare t Voltaire had said Because the most valuable of possessions.
All those who were so lucky as to be allowed to take part in the expedition were convinced that they would witness memorable, perhaps unique, events, and it turned out, indeed, that they were to witness a campaign which, with the battle of Hastings, where the fate Of England was decided in 1066, and that of Bouvines, which made of France in 1214 a great nation, was to be one of the three military actions with greatest consequences in which for the last thousand years the French had participated.
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