The apostrophe is because the French like to run words together. So the word of (de) which is pronounced more like “duh” than “day” gets shortened to “d’” and contracted with état where the accent mark tells you to pronounce it “ay”.
Source: high school French because Washington and Lafayette. It’s an important part of our history. Especially how ultimately wrong our founding fathers came to view the subsequent French Revolution.
The oft-quoted "tree of liberty" from Jefferson was in a letter he wrote in 1787 while ambassador to France, and although it's part of his critique on the as-yet-adopted Constitution of the United States, particularly with respect to the Executive branch, many historians consider the colorful language to be basically a comment cheering on the French Revolution which was then taking place and of which he was then quite fond. He thought the French were following his ideals and freeing their own country as we had freed ours.
That is until less than two years later when Jefferson damn near got his own head chopped off by the guillotine for not toeing the political line.
He realized that liberté and egalité only applied to the people who were friends of the revolution, the fraternité. Meet the new boss... same as the old boss. So he got the hell out of there and started writing stuff about it that stayed private until the U.S. was on a much more solid footing in the world and didn't need France anymore.
That’s a coup d’état. Literally a shot of state.
Our country is Les États Unis. The states united.
The apostrophe is because the French like to run words together. So the word of (de) which is pronounced more like “duh” than “day” gets shortened to “d’” and contracted with état where the accent mark tells you to pronounce it “ay”.
Source: high school French because Washington and Lafayette. It’s an important part of our history. Especially how ultimately wrong our founding fathers came to view the subsequent French Revolution.
Things change with time, however can you go over the points you're considering on the views of the French Revolution?
The oft-quoted "tree of liberty" from Jefferson was in a letter he wrote in 1787 while ambassador to France, and although it's part of his critique on the as-yet-adopted Constitution of the United States, particularly with respect to the Executive branch, many historians consider the colorful language to be basically a comment cheering on the French Revolution which was then taking place and of which he was then quite fond. He thought the French were following his ideals and freeing their own country as we had freed ours.
That is until less than two years later when Jefferson damn near got his own head chopped off by the guillotine for not toeing the political line.
He realized that liberté and egalité only applied to the people who were friends of the revolution, the fraternité. Meet the new boss... same as the old boss. So he got the hell out of there and started writing stuff about it that stayed private until the U.S. was on a much more solid footing in the world and didn't need France anymore.