Microscopic History: a Meeting of Influences

Extract

Since 1940 I have been attempting to give a new orientation to the study of the early relations between Brazil and France. Preceding works have been limited to the examination of grandiose or picturesquely dramatic events—the piracy of the Normans in the Northeast, the Brazilian festival at Rouen, the repercussion of the French Revolution upon certain Brazilian revolutions such as the Inconfidencia Mineira or Villegaignon at Rio de Janeiro, the mission of French artists at the Brazilian court of Don João VI. Finally some interest has been shown in contacts with French scholars, among them Saint-Hilaire, and with Portuguese America; further interest has been evidenced in the influence which French scholars and artists exerted during the course of the nineteenth century upon the most cultivated people of Brazil.