This readable and thoroughly documented volume relates the fascinating story of the French Legation in Austin. The oldest house in the city, it was built in 1840-1841 as the residence of the French chargé d'affaires to the fledgling Republic of Texas. Alphonse Dubois, the self-styled "Count de Saligny," dazzled frontier Texans with elegant parties until he was recalled after less than a year in Austin.

This readable and thoroughly documented volume relates the fascinating story of the French Legation in Austin. The oldest house in the city, it was built in 1840-1841 as the residence of the French chargé d'affaires to the fledgling Republic of Texas. Alphonse Dubois, the self-styled "Count de Saligny," dazzled frontier Texans with elegant parties until he was recalled after less than a year in Austin.

You have before you a truly historic correspondence wiyh my Department, Wrote the French Foreign Minister to his first charge d' affaires to the Republic of Texas.

State capital and home of the University of Texas, Austin is the one city that belongs to all Texans. This finely written book, illustrated with historic photographs, tells the story of Austin’s transformation from an “Indian haunted” frontier village into a residential mecca and high-tech hot spot. Called by Sam Houston at its founding the “most unfortunate site upon earth for the seat of government,” the infant community struggled for three decades against political enemies and competing towns before winning recognition as the permanent capital. The founding of the University of Texas turned the seat of politics into the seat of education, but Austin’s nineteenth-century dreams of becoming a river port and a factory town came to naught. A slave city in a slave state, Austin cast its lot with the Confederacy. Retaining a frontier flavor into the 1890s, post–Civil War Austin became the headquarters of the Texas gambling fraternity and a magnet for cowmen seeking “booze and women of the night.” Turning the nineteenth-century frontier town into an appealing twentieth-century residential community taxed the energies of civic leaders for several decades. Virtually parkless and with no paved streets in 1900, Austin by the 1940s boasted tree-lined boulevards, a cornucopia of parks and pools, and a leisurely lifestyle. But for African American residents these were years of oppressive segregation. Mexicans encountered similar treatment as Austin became a tri-ethnic community during the 1920s and 1930s. Segregation gradually gave way in a divisive but nonviolent struggle. While adjusting to this, Austin experienced eye-popping expansion. Fearful that Austin would become “another Houston,” residents sought to preserve the lifestyle that had made the capital city such an attractive place to live.

You have before you a truly historic correspondence wiyh my Department, Wrote the French Foreign Minister to his first charge d' affaires to the Republic of Texas.

You have before you a truly historic correspondence wiyh my Department, Wrote the French Foreign Minister to his first charge d' affaires to the Republic of Texas.

A surprising history of explorers, pirates, priests, artists, and more: “The best overall study of the French experience in Texas ever assembled.” —Jack Jackson, editor of Texas by Terán The flag of France is one of the six flags that have flown over Texas, but all that many people know about the French presence in Texas is the ill-fated explorer Cavelier de La Salle, fabled pirate Jean Lafitte, or Cajun music and food. Yet the French have made lasting contributions to Texas history and culture that deserve to be widely known and appreciated. In this book, François Lagarde and thirteen other experts present original articles that explore the French presence and influence on Texas history, arts, education, religion, and business from the arrival of La Salle in 1685 to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Each article covers an important figure or event in the France-Texas story. The historical articles thoroughly investigate early French colonists and explorers; the French pirates and privateers; the Bonapartists of Champ-d’Asile; the French at the Alamo; Dubois de Saligny and French recognition of the Republic of Texas; the nineteenth-century utopists of Icaria and Reunion; and the French Catholic missions. Other articles deal with French immigration in Texas, including the founding of Castroville; Cajuns in Texas; and the French economic presence in Texas today—the first such study ever published. The remaining articles look at painters Théodore and Marie Gentilz; sculptor Raoul Josset; French architecture in Texas; French travelers from Théodore Pavie to Simone de Beauvoir who have written on Texas; and the French heritage in Texas education. Includes more than seventy photos and illustrations