L'HERMIONE

the frigate of enlightenment

• About the book

The frigate L'Hermione's adventurous odyssey, under Chevalier de La Touche's orders will last one year, eleven months and fifteen days. On board, young marquis de La Fayette is to join general Washington and the American settlers rebelling against British tyranny. L'Hermione's adventure is that of the generous commitment of the men living in the age of "enlightenment". That commitment was the cause which mainly brought about American Independance. At the beginning of our XXIst century, the famous frigate of liberty, comes to life again, as it is being replicated in a dry dock in Rochefort...

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• L'Hermione, La Fayette and America

L'Hermione stands for the most concrete and most symbolic vector and conveyor in the secret mission La Fayette was entrusted with by the King of France. In the whole history of French monarchy, Louis XVI was the only king to demonstrate his real and keen interest in his "navy". He was also the only French sovereign to realize and take into account its political and geostrategical meaning, at a time when overseas, the War for Independance was brewing . Ceorge Washington, a planter from Virginia, who - some 15 years earlier - had taken part in the fight against French influence, had realized that he most urgently required an ally whose maritime power at sea could possibly affront and dismiss the British fleet which - at the time - was setting up a blockade of american havens so as to defeat the "Insurgents"...

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• Agenda

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• The rebuild of l'Hermione

Two centuries later, the descendants of those craftsmen, fellow-crafts and architects in Rochefort, who conceived, built and launched The Hermione, in association with American citizens whose ancestors had benefited from the French intervention in their fight for Independance, have come together to undertake the realization the apparently mad project of replicating the initial L'Hermione, while using XVIIIth techniques and material...

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• Around the book

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