On Exhibition

France in the American Revolution

October 19, 2011 – April 14, 2012

Two hundred and thirty years to the day after the British army surrendered to joint French-American forces at Yorktown, the Society of the Cincinnati honors America’s French allies with the exhibition France in the American Revolution. The alliance forged between France and the United States early in the war -- and formalized in a treaty in 1778 -- was one of the defining events of the eighteenth century. French shipments of arms and equipment sustained the Continental Army. French officers provided expertise in engineering, artillery, and fortification. The French navy was critical to the Yorktown campaign in 1781, which delivered the final blow to Great Britain’s hold on the American colonies.

France came to America's aid in an effort to redress the balance of power with Britain and recover the prestige it had lost in the Seven Years' War. French soldiers and sailors who served in the American theater had more personal reasons. Some volunteered to gain experience and glory as professional soldiers. Others were motivated by duty to their king. And a small group of Frenchmen, most famously the marquis de Lafayette, were inspired by the Americans' fight for liberty.

France lost more than three thousand men on American battlefields and many more in the war at sea. The effort nearly bankrupted the French treasury. The French commitment to the achievement of American independence has bound the two nations together for more than two centuries. It also helped forge the identity of the Society of the Cincinnati, which, from its founding in 1783, has included a French branch in recognition of those foreign officers who fought for the American cause. The exhibition features about forty rare artifacts, works of art, and documents drawn from the collections of the Society and private lenders. France in the American Revolution is the fourteenth and final exhibition in a series begun by the Society in 1997 to examine the individual contributions of the original thirteen states and France to America's Revolution. An illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition. Image credits: (1) Landung einer Französischen Hülfs-Armee in America, zu Rhode Island. am 11ten Julius 1780 engraved by Daniel Chodowiecki (1726-1801). [Berlin, 1783]. The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection. (2) Portrait of Claude, chevalier de Chavagnac by an unknown French artist, ca. 1784-1785. Oil on canvas. The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection.

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