Hi, I'm not sure how to ask this. I noticed for some time now that French culture had a lot of influence during Imperial Brazil. A teacher of mine recently claimed that a lot of our education is based on the French education system, although I couldn't find many links to that claim, which are mostly linked to aerospace and mathematics, which is his field.
However, it's noticeable that there is some influence by the French. Alberto Santos-Dumont is a known brazilian who spent most of his life in Paris, for example. Works of literature from that time have some words in french. And I think the most obvious link to the french influence is the pão francês, literally "french bread" in portuguese.
Is there any reason for so much french influence during the Imperial times of Brazil? Why not Britain or Germany, for example?
Just to focus in explaining it to you, i will talk mostly about the 18/19 century. While Brazil was still a colony of Portugal, all the europeans states had explorers that came to scout and chart what were the fauna, flora and minerals native of the new world. Lots of French, danish, english, bavarians wrote diarys of their travel in the new world, even creating a literary genre (diarios de viagem). Despite the napolean occupation of portugal, and the subsequential fleeing of the portuguese court to brazil, the french were the dominant cultural potency, and the high portuguese class were educated in france, including those rich portuguese families that lived in brazil. After the independence of brazil in 1822, france was one of the first countries to acknowledge the new found country. With most of the upper class educated in the french academia, most of the brazilian first constitution was drafted in the likes of the french ones. Pedro II expanded significantly the educational structure in brazil, and imported a lot of professors and specialized cultural workers. He built museums and camps for explorers and academics, built universities and colleges, all in the french model, while the brazilian elite went to get the french higher education and comeback with french methodology.
SCHWARZ, Lilia. The emperor's beard. VASCONCELOS. Domestic Education in Nineteenth Century Brazil: Aspects of European Influence on the Performance of Tutors and Private Teachers