Prologue

I became a French citizen in 2017 as I was writing this book. There was no pomp and circumstance, no singing of the Marseillaise in a tearful ceremony attended by joyful relatives eager to welcome me into the folds of France. None of my relatives are French. The plain white envelope that arrived in the mail from the French consulate contained a red, white, and blue folder bearing the image of Marianne swinging the tricolor, an image taken from Eugène Delacroix’s famous nineteenth-century painting ...