Louis Capitaine du Chesne
33 x 50 cm
French map of Northeastern USA covering the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland and Massachusetts. Extends north to include Lake Ontario and parts of Ontario and Quebec, and west to show part of Lake Erie.
This map was produced to accompany Voyage dans les États-Unis d'Amérique, fait en 1795, 1796 et 1797 by François de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, a French social reformer. Based on the author's own travels through the newly-independent United States, the book focuses on the economic and social conditions of the US and Canada.
A curious detail on this map is 'Asylum Township' in northeast Pennsylvania, a new settlement established to provide refuge for noble exiles from the French Revolution and from the slave insurrection in Haiti. The developers of the town even envisioned Marie Antoinette and her two children living in Asylum had they managed to escape France. The proposed town plans included a grand house specifically built for the queen called 'La Grand Maison'. This house and many others were built, but the town of Asylum lasted less than 10 years before most residents moved back to larger cities or returned to France under Napoleon Bonaparte's rule.
[USA9926]

