Among Compatriots and Savages: The Music of France's Lost Empire.

The article discusses music in North American French colonies, focusing on the accounts of the French writers and travelers Vicomte François-René de Chateaubriand and Alexis de Tocqueville. It is said that both writers saw music as a remnant of French empire in the areas that formerly constituted New France. Topics include elements of nostalgia, Chateaubriand's ambition to be an explorer and find the Northwest Passage, and the teaching of French dance to Iroquois Indians by a man named Violet. Also noted are Tocqueville's book "Democracy in America," the purported nobility of Native Americans, and the French Second Empire.