Before Mr. Lockman goes into transports over the undoubted U.S. debt to the French crown, I'd advise him to spend an additional 15 minutes on the Internet and look up the circumstances of the XYZ affair that followed the successful War of Independence. The very first country that Washington was worried would invade the fledgling United States was not Great Britain, it was France.
The XYZ Affair actually happened while John Adams was President, although Washington would have been in command if there had been open warfare. It was all about Talleyrand's "pay to play" method of diplomacy...a forerunner of the tactics of Gray Davis or the Clinton White House. The undeclared naval war with France which followed is sometimes called the Quasi War (no connection to Quasi Mfume).
The one thing France has done for us since 1781 is to give us the Statue of Liberty. I don't think France should get credit for selling us Louisiana--that was Napoleon's doing, and he was a Corsican, not a genuine Frenchman.