A history of the French in London: liberty, equality, opportunity

 

From the publishers:
 
This book examines, for the first time, the history of the social, cultural, political and economic presence of the French in London, and explores the multiple ways in which this presence has contributed to the life of the city.
The capital has often provided a place of refuge, from the Huguenots in the 17th century, through the period of the French Revolution, to various exile communities during the 19th century, and on to the Free French in the Second World War.It also considers the generation of French citizens who settled in post-war London, and goes on to provide insights into the contemporary French presence by assessing the motives and lives of French people seeking new opportunities in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It analyses the impact that the French have had historically, and continue to have, on London life in the arts, gastronomy, business, industry and education, manifest in diverse places and institutions from the religious to the political via the educational, to the commercial and creative industries.
 
Table of contents:
– Introduction: ‘The French in London: a study in time and space', Martyn Cornick & Debra Kelly
– ‘A special case? London's French Protestants', Elizabeth Randall
– ‘Montagu House, Bloomsbury: a French household in London, 1673-1733', Paul Boucher & Tessa Murdoch
– ‘The novelty of the French emigrés in London in the 1790s', Kirsty Carpenter
Note: French Catholics in London after 1789
– ‘Courts in exile: Bourbons, Bonapartes and Orléans in London, from George III to Edward VII', Philip Mansel
– ‘The French in London during the 1830s: multidimensional occupancy', Máire Cross
– ‘Introductory exposition: French republicans and communists in exile to 1848', Fabrice Bensimon
– ‘The French left in exile: Quarante-huitards and Communards in London, 1848-80', Thomas C. Jones & Robert Tombs
– ‘”Almost the only free city in the world”: mapping out the French anarchist presence in London, late 1870s-1914', Constance Bantman
– ‘Experiencing French cookery in nineteenth-century London', Valerie Mars
– ‘The London French from the Belle Epoque to the end of the inter-war period (1880-1939)', Michel Rapoport
– ‘French cultural diplomacy in early twentieth-century London', Charlotte Faucher & Philippe Lane
– ‘Mapping Free French London: places, spaces, traces', Debra Kelly
– ‘”The first bastion of the Resistance”: the beginnings of the Free French in London, 1940-1', Martyn Cornick
– ‘Raymond Aron and La France Libre (June 1940-September 1944)', David Drake
– ‘From the 16ème to South Ken? A study of the contemporary French population in London', Saskia Huc-Hepher & Helen Drake
– Conclusion: ‘A temporal and spatial mapping of the French in London', Debra Kelly