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15 Because significant numbers of French politicians maintained business associations with the press, and because a striking number of French diplomats were writers whose contributions either appeared in, or were covered by, the press, a word about French journalists is in order—especially considering the role that politicians and diplomats expected them to play in the propagation of France’s image abroad. Typically lower-middle-class and therefore urban in origin, typically well educated by the standards of the day, and again, typically male, here was yet another instance of elite formation.

More to the point, in the European cockpit it had the potential to be either a powerful ally or a mighty enemy. And if further evidence were needed that it had come of age, filled out, made itself desirable, there were unmistakable signs of German courtship. Indeed, the truth was that the turn of the century marked a heating up of an old Franco-German rivalry, this time not only on land and sea, but also in the minds of America’s educated elite. Here, there was a prize to be won, by whichever foreign ministry managed most successfully to insinuate its way into America’s affections.

Indeed, the truth was that the turn of the century marked a heating up of an old Franco-German rivalry, this time not only on land and sea, but also in the minds of America’s educated elite. Here, there was a prize to be won, by whichever foreign ministry managed most successfully to insinuate its way into America’s affections. 27 In the American context, it was the steady promotion of German language and culture in the United States in the 1870s and 1880s that prompted a French counteroffensive on the same linguistic and cultural terrain.