Richard Brookhiser writes a nice essay for American Heritage called "France and Us." It is a nice recollection of our early, albeit difficult, connections; of two revolutions that went in divergent directions (although he doesn’t try to explain why the French Revolution became so extreme and bloody, yet notes that it ended with a Napoleon who understood that his people wanted him to be a Washington, but his gloire couldn’t do it); and above all asks us to recollect the virtues of our true friend, the Marquis de Lafayette. Good read.