I think you need to fast forward to World War I. The French fought bravely, and lost an entire generation.
We need to remind ourselves that many times—when American needed help France was there. We helped them but they helped up—France was our First Ally —we must remember that.
I don’t dispute that. But France’s decline began with their revolution, halted briefly with Napoleon’s imperialist dreams, then accelerated once he was deposed.
The radical egalitarian myth that painted the Place du Concorde red with innocent blood pretty much eradicated the last vestiges of French nobility — in more ways than one.