Beginning around the latter half of the nineteenth century there was a boom in academic work on logic. However, if one looks at the important thinkers in logic from then up to the present, one sees very few French names. Instead, the important thinkers come largely from Germany, the UK, and---looking towards the twentieth century---the USA. Why is this? What, if anything, was going on in the intellectual culture of France at the time that caused so few French academics to do work on logic? France had a strong academic tradition and there were many French thinkers of the time who made important contributions to neighboring disciplines, so it seems that there must have been something going on to cause this disparity.