Forget Them Not: The Great Countryhumans Archive

Love Letters between Ancient Tahiti and France

This collection of letters was compiled after the French Republic reached out to the Countryhumans Research Archival Project in order to set the record straight on her relationship with the Countryhuman of Ancient Tahiti. France and Ancient Tahiti were lovers and despite the evidence proving that, many historians choose to describe them as "very good friends" because they are both women. France, annoyed by this, has given us photocopies of many of the letters exchanged, as well as an interview discussing the course of their relationship, so we can, in her words, "make those homophobic historians see what really happened."

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Recording of an Interview with France, 28 February 2022, Transcribed and Translated from French by Pierre Roux.

[Start recording]

Interviewer: Interview with the Countryhuman of France about her relationship with the Countryhuman of Ancient Tahiti. Good morning, France. I must thank you again for contacting us about wanting an interview.

France: Of course I did. If people are going to be idiots and assume that I am a straight woman who didn't spend the first twenty years of my life in a relationship with a woman, and a woman of color at that, I'm going to make sure no one pretends to be confused about the nature of our relationship anymore.

Interviewer: People could always just not listen to the interview. While we aren't as obscure as we used to be, people might not want to learn.

France: Ugh, of course, humans wouldn't. It's these kinds of circumstances that led to me castrating Napoleon back in...1812, I think it was?

Interviewer [shocked]: You did WHAT?

France [smugly]: They don't teach you that in your history classes, do they? Now, back to my Tahiti. Oh, that was a time. I was a new nation and eager to prove my worth. It didn't help that many people believed I should follow the example of the France before [Transcribers Note: Referring to the Kingdom of France] and be a country that stays at home and makes the government look all pretty. I would not do that. I was born of blood and struggle, and that is the life I wanted. After the War of the First Coalition, when I had proven myself as a republic and as a countryperson, my government wanted me to rapidly expand my knowledge of the world. The one before may have been a fool and a coward, but she had been more traveled and educated than me, and my government wanted to rectify that. Not to mention, they were getting a lot of hate for having a female nation on the front lines, and they wanted me out of the way.

Interviewer: Did they choose to send you to Tahiti?

France: They wanted me in Egypt, but I had heard stories of the Oceania isles, and I was curious, so I decided we would go there, and I could Go back to my land once I was tired and done there.

Interview: And by Go, you mean—

France: The teleportation, yes. When I first arrived in Tahiti in 1798...well, I should start by saying I was born when the Catholic church was banned in my land. So, while many of my people were Catholics, my government supported that stupid religion that had been invented, and I, in the chaos of that, would not practice anything. I started practicing Catholicism after Napoleon came into power. So...1800, 1801, perhaps. That is why, when I first saw my Tahiti, I did not feel my crush, and my love for her was a sin. That silly idea had not been taught to me.

Interviewer: So, you have always been comfortable with your queerness?

France [laughing]: Oh, Pierre, I have always been comfortable with myself. I know who I am, even if everyone else doesn't.

Interviewer: How did your relationship start?

France: Ah, poorly. I would love to paint myself as being suave and sexy in this, but I was a lovestruck fool, and I won't distort history to save face. Besides, you'll get my letters. I was...perhaps a little too desperate for her love. But my Tahiti had this grace about her, that confidence and power, and she was awe-inspiring. She was beautiful, too. Her people called her a goddess, and I believed it. She was more beautiful than Aphrodite, a goddess of beauty to make all others jealous. In my mind, then and now forever, she was the image of exquisite perfection.