FRENCH DESIGNS ON AMERICA A few months before France declared war upon England, February 1, 1793, Edmond Genet was appointed French Minister to the United States.

He landed at Charleston, April 8, and at once began activities so authoritative as to amount to an erection of French sovereignty in the United States.

The subsequent failure of his efforts and the abrupt ending of his diplomatic career have so reacted upon his reputation that associations of boastful arrogance and reckless incompetency cling to his name.

This estimate holds him too lightly and underrates the peril to which the United States was then exposed.

Genet was no casual rhetorician raised to important office by caprice of events, but a trained diplomatist of hereditary aptitude and of long experience.