Lafayette, there was Rochambeau, and the great service France did us then
against England. Hence from our school histories we have a pro-French
complex. Under its workings we automatically remember every good turn
France has done us and automatically forget the evil turns. Again try the
experiment yourself. How many Americans do you think that you will find
who can recall, or who even know when you recall to them the insolent
and meddlesome Citizen Genet, envoy of the French Republic, and how
Washington requested his recall? Or the French privateers that a little
later, about 1797-98, preyed upon our commerce? And the hatred of France
which many Americans felt and expressed at that time? How many remember
that the King of France, directly our Revolution was over, was more
hostile to us than England?



Chapter X: Jackstraws


Jackstraws is a game which most of us have played in our youth. You empty
on a table a box of miniature toy rakes, shovels, picks, axes, all sorts
of tools and implements. These lie under each other and above each other
in intricate confusion, not unlike cross timber in a western forest, only
instead of being logs, they are about two inches long and very light. The
players sit round the table and with little hooks try in turn to lift one
jackstraw out of the heap, without moving any of the others. You go on
until you do move one of the others, and this loses you your turn.
European diplomacy at any moment of any year reminds you, if you inspect
it closely, of a game of jackstraws. Every sort and shape of intrigue is
in the general heap and tangle, and the jealous nations sit round, each
trying to lift out its own jackstraw. Luckily for us, we have not often