The Magical Realism of the American Dream

Once upon a time, the French were the most enthusiastic aspirational Americans. Inspired by the revolution of 1776 as well as the victory of the Franco-American alliance over the British in the 1781 battle of Yorktown, French polemicists, patriots, philosophers and plebs waxed idealistic about migrating to the brand new nation to share in its promise — la félicité publique of the Enlightenment transformed into “the pursuit of happiness” of the US Declaration of Independence. The vast possibiliti