Lecture: Jacques Cartier and Canada

Born in Saint-Malo in 1491, a few months before Christopher Columbus revealed a new world to humanity, Jacques Cartier’s destiny had been sealed some forty years earlier. In 1453, two events marked history. At Castillon, in south-western France, the French and English armies signed an agreement bringing the Hundred Years’ War to an end. In the eastern Mediterranean, the fall of Constantinople brought trade between Europe and the East to a halt. Whilst the King of France now had a free hand to forge a French identity, the monarchs of Portugal and Spain set out to explore the world in search of spices from the far corners of the globe.

Lecture given by Dr Gilles Foucqueron.

A dinner will be held at the restaurant Les Longitudes following the lecture (booking required).

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