However, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, did make one foray west of the drainage of the Mississippi, and General Charles Lallemand did lead a short-lived military colony into East Texas.

France, in the New World, was more interested in trade than settlement and was often distracted by continental European problems. The nation was neither equipped for colonial ventures nor had that much interest in the western Gulf of Mexico.

Nevertheless, in 1685 the young Sieur de La Salle landed at Matagorda Bay, Texas, some 600 miles west of his target: the Mississippi River. The few colonists he brought were to found a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, to which France did have a claim, and thus tie down France's claims that, for a time, stretched from Canada to the Gulf—in theory.

Encountering storms and perhaps suffering bad navigation, the ships found the Spanish coast. Navigation in those days could determine, with an exactness of perhaps 30 miles on a good day, position north and south. But the day was not good, and the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico stretches more east and west. In those days, east and west positions on a rotating globe were hard to determine.

Thus, scholars still argue whether the French landfall was a mistake or a deliberate measure to test Spain. In any case, Sieur de La Salle's group built a stockade named Fort St. Louis. In a short time, the fort was ransacked by natives and the colonists killed or dispersed. The effort, which Spain soon knew about, had the effect of drawing Spanish exploration and mission-founding efforts into the eastern parts of the province.

Giraud's French Gothic

More than a century later, in 1818, General Lallemand led a group of Emperor Napoleon's former officers and soldiers into Spanish lands near present Liberty. The area, nearly vacant then, seemed a likely place for the group. Baron Charles François Antoine Lallemand, general in the service of and friend to the emperor, could have made his motives clear but did not. The baron claimed the settlement was agricultural; rumor called it a military colony from which an effort could be launched to rescue Napoleon and reinstate his empire. But the skills of soldiers proved inadequate for a frontier, and the Spanish army threatened an assault. The group struck camp, never to return, but, as with La Salle, still roused Spain to secure the Texas borderland. In fact, the attention called to the area by the “colony”—called Champ d'Asile—resulted in the Sabine River being declared the border of Louisiana and Texas.

But the Republic of Texas, some years later, was faced with the problems of a population too small for a nation, so in 1841 laws were established allowing for colonization efforts. This was the empresario system, begun for Texas by Spain, under which a grant was made to an organizer, the empresario, who would bring in colonists for a large land bonus.

In 1842 Henri Castro was one of several who took advantage of the law. Castro was a fairly wealthy French banker who had a taste for adventure. In two years his efforts resulted in the founding of Castroville west of San Antonio, and in three years more than 2,000 French Alsatians had made it their home.

Castroville, unlike other French efforts, remains.

Also after 1841 French missionaries were directly responsible for the revitalization of the Catholic Church in Texas, which had been virtually rejected after the Texas Revolution as being simply a part of Mexican rule. This effort established schools and hospitals across the state.

A good number of French Acadians also made Texas their home but only after a couple of moves. A settlement of Canadian French, living in a Nova Scotia colony named Acadia, were expelled by the British in 1755. Many came to French Louisiana and became U.S. citizens when the young country bought Louisiana. They were known as Acadians, or “Cadians,” then “Cajuns.”

Generations later, especially during and between the two world wars of the 20th century, many came to Texas on the wave of wartime prosperity. The war years were, in general, boom years for Texas rice production, oil refining, explosives manufacturing, and ship building in the Houston-Golden Triangle part of the state.

In particular, the Golden Triangle (Orange, Port Arthur, and Beaumont) is a modern home for the Cajun language, a French-based creole laced with idioms from English, German, Spanish, American Indian, and black dialects and languages. Cajun cuisine is likewise extraordinary.

Today, Texas organizations such as the Alliance Française celebrate Bastille Day, preserve spoken French and French foods, and serve as reminders of the French influence in Texas as well.