This delightful, scholarly study shows that French influence—piratical and occasionally priestly—began in 1528 and grew stronger during the heyday of the buccaneers. It became political and administrative during the reign of Charles II and cultural under the Bourbons, as Spain itself became “Frenchified.”
Venezuela, following her own genius, developed an anti-Rousseau, American political ideology. For this reason ideas of revolutionary France cannot be considered as one of the causes that produced Emancipación. French writers did influence the literary development of the early republic, and French printers did dominate the publishing field. During the romantic period, a series of French language textbooks published in Venezuela increased the circulation of French novels and periodicals. Many admired Victor Hugo and considered Dumas un gran corruptor de la patria; but at the same time the best writers maintained an even keel among the various schools: el clasicismo puro, neoclassicism, and French, Spanish, English, and German romanticism.
French influence was a flood tide from Guzmán (who was accused of selling Venezuela to the French) to the end of the Gómez regime. Caracas and other cities imitated the cultural and social life of Paris, and every student and person of importance in the cultural world felt impelled to go to Paris. Antigalcistas, using ridicule and satire, tried to destroy this French influence; but it was petroleum exploitation which finally caused it to ebb. Voyages to New York became more important than pilgrimages to Paris; and the works of German, English, Spanish, Russian, and Italian writers ultimately displaced those of French origin.
