Phillippe
Charles Tronson du Coudray (1738-1777)
If
you are American you’ve probably engaged in some mockery of the French at some
point in your life. Americans love to hate on the French (and vise versa!) but
way back when, our newly formed country was very chummy with France. In fact,
we owe a lot to France—but more on that later.
This
story takes place in Philadelphia, 1777. The Continental Congress had declared
the independence of the United States of America one year earlier, and had
since been getting their butts kicked by the British. Hope was not lost, but
things weren’t going well. So Benjamin Franklin joined his Patriot friend,
Silas Deane, over in France to ask for help. At this point, France and England
had been fighting each other for centuries and were colonial rivals. Franklin
and the Congress believed they could bond with France over their common enemy
and they were right. King Louis
XVI loaned them an initial $200,000 (in today’s monetary value) and shipped
11,000 muskets and 1,000 barrels of gunpowder to the United States.
America’s
revolution caused quite the hullabaloo in France’s military. Many officers
wanted to experience the adventure and glory of fighting for the American cause
and hoped the new American government could pay them for doing so. While the
Patriots did need some engineers, they weren’t offering positions to French
wannabees and the influx of French men to the colonies was mostly an annoyance.
In
comes du Coudray. He was a high-ranking artillery officer who had a reputation
for being extremely arrogant. He had made a deal with Deane shortly before
Franklin’s visit: he would use his influence to bring over 100 skilled French
officers with the stipulation he be
given a ranking over all American forces and government positions except, or
equal to George Washington. He thought he could just waltz into America, tell
everyone what to do, and receive all the glory for a cause than wasn’t his own.
Deane
had agreed to this because of the needed engineers, but his peers in congress
were outraged. After du Condray sailed to America, some of the more influential
members of congress threatened to resign rather than have this annoying foreigner
as their superior. Congress tried to propose a compromise and offered du
Coudray a lower-ranking post as Inspector General. Du Coudray was insulted and
he raised quite a stink about it, further insisting that he be the equal of
Washington.
Before
any further steps could be taken, du Coudray got what was coming to him. He was
attempting to cross the Schuylkill River on a ferry with his horse. Before the
boat left the shore, the ferry operator asked du Coudray to dismount from his
horse, as it was a safety hazard. But du Coudray was all like “A general does
not take orders from common boatmen!” (Imagine that phrase with a French
accent). As soon as the boat started moving, his horse promptly jumped
overboard and du Coudray drowned.
“Monsieur du
Coudray has just put Congress much at ease by his death”, wrote retired
officer, Johann Kalb.
Du Coudray was
buried in Philadelphia but his grave cannot be found today. Just think—if he
hadn’t had such a bad attitude, you would have learned about him in your high school
history class. Instead he fell into such obscurity after his death that his
grave is now unmarked.
Now before you
use this bad egg to characterize the French, I have to mention the fact that
France kept on giving us money and arms. The total sum of their aid was worth
$1.4 BILLION! (In today’s monetary value). Furthermore, the following year,
France was the first to recognize the United States as a country AND they
declared war on England shortly after (they wanted to take over the West Indies
and also taunt the British by sailing around the English channel acting like
they might invade England) which further strained the British army. Could we
have stood a chance against the British without France?
Sources:
The American Revolution: A Concise History by Robert Allison
and The Original Catholic Encyclopedia: oce.catholic.com
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