01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 18, 2006

BY PAUL GRIMALDI
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A pivotal moment in military history played out yesterday on the East Side and on the steps of the State House.

The pop of rifle fire and the boom of cannon could be heard throughout the day, whenever they weren't drowned out by the fife, the drum -- and the power chord from an electric guitar.

The military manuevering was the beginning of the end of two years of events marking French participation in the Revolutionary War.

History buffs gathered in the morning at a lecture hall on the Brown University campus to hear scholars explain the significance of events that unfolded across the state during the late 18th century.

This weekend, Brown University and the Rhode Island Rochambeau Commission hosted a symposium, "France and the American Revolution," and historical reenactments marking the 225th annivesary of General Count de Rochambeau's march to Yorktown, Va.

Rochambeau met with Gen. George Washington in Newport in 1780. Rochambeau's 5,300 French troops marched with Washington to Providence, and together, they marched more than 600 miles to Yorktown, where they defeated the British in a decisive battle.

The commemoration included a ceremony Friday at Providence Piers, marking the arrival of the French army in Providence, and yesterday's horse-led procession of Colonial and French historic military groups from the College Green to the Rhode Island State House.

Events conclude today in Coventry, where Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops from Rhode Island complete retracing the march route at the Connecticut border, where they will pass off a ceremonial baton and flag to other Scouts.

Scouts from throughout the Northeast will carry the symbols of Rochambeau's army along the march route to Yorktown in October, where the baton and flag will be used in a reenactment of the fighting.

French participation in the war wasn't certain until it was clear Washington's Continental Army could beat the British.

"This is a case of big powers using small wars to weaken their rivals," said Norman Fiering, director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. "The important thing is to realize how important the French were to the American victory."

Fiering spoke as a he walked with a crowd of about 100 people following the historical military groups that marched from Brown, where the French had kept a hospital, to the State House.

The procession paused along the way to let a band taking part in a gay pride event pass before it.

At the State House the marchers were met not by a Colonial official but by Governor Carcieri, who welcomed them and the French consul general inside.

In his remarks, Carcieri mentioned last year's events in Newport, where the two-year celebration began, once again noting the Battle of Yorktown's importance "as the seminal event that ended the war . . . and it all started here."

Francois Gauthier, the French consul general, said, "We celebrate today the story of an old country offering help to a young nation" and a "brotherhood of arms" that lasts to the present day.

"We, the children of Rochambeau and Washington . . . we celebrate our alliance as a treasure worth preserving."

pgrimald@projo.com / (401) 277-7356