Hi, y'all. At the beginning of this book, Louis talks about the multiple series he's
planning on writing, and he mentions the Talons. I have coincidentally been reading
"A Few Acres of Snow" by Robert Leckie, which is about the French-Indian Wars. This
isn't a book I bought; I ordered it from Recording for the Blind a few weeks ago,
before I even knew what the August selection was. (If you go to Amazon, you will see
that the book is not universally admired.)Anyway, this is one of those books I listen to to put myself asleep at night, LOL. Last
night I happened to hit the passages that mention Jean-Baptiste Talon, who was a sort
of French wilderness bureaucrat who came to Canada and handled the original
settlement of French citizens there in the mid-1600's. The French king spent about a
decade sending single men and women to Canada, and by the time he ran out of
money for the project had population of about 25,000, including children born there.
Please forgive me if I got the details wrong, and feel free to add or correct, those of
you who know. I don't have this text in front of me, and sometimes I fall asleep during
important bits. But I did think it was interesting, what this real Talon did, and that his
name was Talon. The book title refers to what Voltaire is supposed to have said to
Louis XV to soothe him after the news that France had lost Canada to Britain. It went
something like, "What does it matter -- it's only a few acres of snow!"
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